there is no doubt that Austrlia's position in the region is an aparthied...maintaining the position of a privileged racial group in the region... an antipodean settler community... that can only be over come by learning to trust the rest of the region... but thats hard when Australians are badly served by their own leadership and media.

The media and leadership fails to tell Australians that Moti's release was probably paid for by the Taiwanese... K20,000 to each of the pilots and load master, K90,000 to the defence force for fuel K150,000 all up there and

the there would have to be a major pay-off to the political lesdership but no mention of any of this in the media... the names of who paid the money are known to the media

the problem here in PNG is corruption, just like it was in the 80s in Queensland..

Forget all the other debates this evokes: it's true, and it's true that it's hard to keep in mind how many people over here (the insular Pacific) recall these things as part of their experience of Australia. And a lot of them are still in power, not least almost the whole PNG governing class.

Of course it matters that Somare, he of the sensitive feet, grew up with this stuff. Downer & Howard may see things on a sort of post-1980s horizon, if even that far back, mostly because politics in Aussie moves pretty quickly. It's a dynamic democracy. In PNG politicians leave the picture when they die. So the whole crew over there, their picture is continuous from the 1970s...

Thank-you Ron for the anecdotes to keep in mind while watching Somare et al. I don't think any better of them, but I better understand them. (And bring on the next generation...yeah, I know, like Bill Skate and the unspeakable Sogavare...)

PNG's many problems resulted from both, Australia's and PNG's, past policies until now. The blame cannot be entirely Australia’s.

Most of what Ron said is true, but that’s not a reason for PNG to blame Australia, Australia can blame itself. PNG should learn from that and move forward.

PNG’s leaders have been running this resource-rich nation in-effectively, making PNG so aid-dependent and aid-expectant year-in-year-out; making our leaders incapable of thinking outside the box.

All people are prejudiced towards certain people or issues. Australians are not an exception; even PNGeans have ethnical issues against each other.

That’s the case way back with Australia as Ron wrote, its the case today but in a different form, my opinion AusAid funding is one of those things keeping us back. Australian taxpayers money is not helping at all with its good intensions and the aid-package-dictating approach used by Australia is not working.

Remove all aid bit-by-bit or at once, PNG will suffer initially but can build up on that, if a tiny nation like Cuba, sanctioned by US is still around, why not PNG, they have nothing resource wise, unlike us.

PNG needs a better leadership management and a committed civil service. May be cutting aid will open the eyes of our leaders of how dependent we are, so that PNG may come up with better alternatives than relying too much on Australia.

I’m not against Australians; hey we are all neighbors for safety's sake. But am against those who come up with policies etc. knowingly or ignorantly without proper consultations/feasibility studies etc. that have always kept us on the back foot.

I’m also angry at PNG politicians/bureaucrats for not learning anything from our past. For being corrupt and making in-effective decisions and miss-managing resources.

PNG people should also be responsible; they knowingly or ignorantly keep on voting politicians in time and time again, even though we've seen their true colors.

I love my country PNG and am sick of seeing it going down the drain. There’re many young like-minded PNGeans and changes needs to start taking place for a better future