Papua New Guinea Essay

325 words

(333)

Australia did not always want to grant Papua New Guinea (PNG) its independence. Starting from the end of World War II and into the1950s, the Australian colony of Papua and the United Nations (UN) Trust Territory of New Guinea, merged in 1949, and appeared to lie securely with Australia. The Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, in 1951, thought that self-government in PNG was still about a century off. The Australian public, had little concern for PNG. But there were many security concerns for Australia about perceived communist expansion, in the political future of Papua New Guinea. These security concerns contributed to changing the Australian government attitudes to the region in the early 1960s. There was also concern with international criticism of Australia's 'procrastination' in Papua New Guinea; this criticism came from Africa, Asia, Britain, Canada and the U.S. The Prime Minister of Australia, at the time, Robert Menzies thought that granting independence in Papua New Guinea, should be exercised sooner than later. However, this awakening to the need for change in Papua New Guinea was accompanied by little constitutional development. In 1960 there were some alterations to the territory's Legislative Council, but of the 37 members of the Council, only 6 were indigenous to PNG yet they were representing 98 percent of the population. The majority of power lied with the public service, which was largely independent of the legislature; it was only effectively controlled by the Australian Department of External Territories. Australians were still uncertain what to do with the colony. An example of this uncertainty can be shown in the proposal for making Papua New Guinea a seventh Australian state. This pr...

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...inciples. Instead, over eleven weeks of debate, it considered each chapter in turn, and moved that it be accepted, subject to government amendments. The drafting of the constitution started in the new year. A date for independence still had not been set. Feeling frustration over the continual delays, the Whitlam government transferred full sovereign rights over defence and foreign relations to the territory. Two more surprising changes were made by the government: the Queen was adopted as Head of State, to provide post-independence stability and continuity; and an entire section detailing a system of provincial governments was scrapped. By the end of June, Somare had announced the independence day to be September 16th;Australia quickly passed the necessary legislation for independence, and Papua New Guinea became an independent state on Tuesday September 16th 1975.