Securing a Prosperous Future: Papua New Guinea

Since 2011, the Alfred Deakin Research Institute at Deakin University has held a series of annual symposia that have brought together scholars, observers and practitioners, all concerned with the fragile yet resilient powerhouse that is Papua New Guinea. This book draws on the presentations that were made to the second in this annual series, the 2012 conference, the theme of which focused on the subject of how PNG’s future – however defined – could most effectively be guaranteed. The conference involved more than eighty presentations, by academics from PNG and Australia, government officials, businesses and non-government organisations. The Australian Government through its International Seminar Support Scheme enabled several speakers from PNG to take part, and ExxonMobil – a prominent participant in PNG’s mammoth LNG project – provided further support that fostered the spirit of collaboration that has characterized both the 2012 and indeed, all of the series. The presentations that were finally selected for this publication represent a cross-section of the issues that were canvassed at the symposium. Relevant in 2012, they remain of pressing interest and importance in 2014. Among the subjects covered at the symposium, and addressed in this book, are such matters as: the Special Agricultural Business Leases, discussed by two Monash University researchers, Deirdre O’Neill and Valarie Sands; the factors associated with the development of resource industries such as fisheries, addressed by Victoria Stead; the ever-increasing complexity of urbanization, given an insider’s perspective by Max Kep, of PNG’s Office of Urbanisation; and the fragile ecology of peoples such as the Kasua as they encounter the arrival of major resource industries, reported on by the French anthropologist Florence Brunois. These, and the other papers in the book bring different perspectives to the factors that have contributed to – and will continue to affect – the structure of the Papua New Guinean state. The book presents a picture of a complex and multi-layered nation, deeply influenced by tradition and custom, and confronted by a host of challenges as it seeks to secure its future of prosperity.