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A significant piece. Time is well overdue for available facts to be reported about health services and the treatment of women in PNG.

I was contemplating this since the AAC 2019. I guess Australia rivaling the growing influence of China in the Pacific with that Aid budget. A blessing for the Pacific but this is unfortunate for Asia.

That was a very precise comment on 'Women Political Representation at PNG National Parliament'. As a Papua New Guinean in terms of my understanding of political leadership, it must not be given but it has to be taken. The proposed bill for 22 reserved parliamentary seats for women was totally rubbish. I wish it could not have been proposed and I was happy that it was never passed by the parliament. This is because when it comes to political leadership and representation especially for women, it must not be given on a golden plate. If the Parliament had passed the bill, then PNG would obviously tell the world that women in PNG are not fit or capable of fighting for political leadership like men. Treating women in such a way would make them less effective to become political leaders. A fair political representation is something that both men and women must fight for it and that is Equal Participation. Giving leadership/decision making opportunities to women on a golden plate is totally unfair. If other countries including PNG neighboring countries can have female prime ministers and presidents, why not PNG? Thank you

From Peter D. Dwyer and Monica Minnegal Vailala. Once again, your emphasis is with the abstractions of the law while ours is with what people are actually doing on the ground. Now, however, you imply that you have access to special knowledge regarding the intentions of Total, Oil Search and ExxonMobil and the possibility that GoPNG will activate a draft regulation that has been languishing for fifteen years. If you want a response to your comment then you must either reference that knowledge so that we can access it and judge for ourselves or you must identify yourself so that we may assess your credentials. If you do not do at least one of these things then you are not engaging in open debate.

From Peter D. Dwyer and Monica Minnegal Thanks Trevor. Like Anura, you note that ‘the government does not have the capacity to perform [landowner identification] in a meaningful or timely manner’. At this juncture we do not want to abandon all hope in the PNG government. We do not want any international company to emerge as the de facto state. We are not asserting that senior politicians and bureaucrats fail with respect to competence. Some reports imply that they manage personal finances with great competence. We are asserting failures with respect to responsibility.

From Peter D. Dwyer and Monica Minnegal Thanks to Anura Widana for his comment on our article. Part of the reason that Anura’s view differs from ours concerns the title. The title we submitted was ‘Landowner identification in PNG: whose responsibility?’ In the editing process ‘Whose responsibility?’ transmogrified into ‘a job for Government’, and a subtlety we intended was lost. We wrote that ‘Only Papua New Guineans – the PNG government, courts, and the landowners themselves – can determine who owns the land in Papua New Guinea’ and, reflecting upon some recent statements by government ministers, we stated that ‘this responsibility should not be ceded to outsiders’. We did not, and would not, argue that developers should not contribute financially or practically to getting the job done. Anura asks ‘how does the government alone identify land owners when the impact zone is known only to the developer?’ With petroleum projects the impact zone is, in fact, determined by government. It is the land enclosed by the graticular blocks that are included within a state-awarded petroleum licence area and it the land enclosed by a buffer zone of fixed dimensions associated with any state-awarded pipeline right-of-way or other infrastructure essential to the project. Thus, in the PNG LNG project it is the government that establishes the impact area. Where, as often happens, beneficiary landowners are identified from outside this area the fault (if fault it is) is more often that of state agencies than it is that of the developer. If, in line with Anura’s question, there are other types of projects where the developer, but not the government, knows the impact zone then surely this points to incompetence on the part of those state agencies that authorized the project. Anura comments as well that the government ‘has capacity issues’ and ‘does not have incentives to start and work through the process’ so that ‘land owner identification becomes excessively delayed’ with deleterious effects ‘on the development work itself’. On these counts, it seems, he is arguing that government should not be ‘left with the responsibility to identify land owners’. The implication is that in Papua New Guinea, developers should assume the responsibilities of the state because the state is not up to the task. That is potentially dangerous, posing risks for the long term future of PNG. We think the capability exists and that it is time it was implemented by Papua New Guineans for Papua New Guineans. The Papua LNG gas agreement is scheduled to be finalised in early April and an agreement between the state and the P’nyang joint venture may be finalized soon after. There have been many promises from senior Papua New Guinea politicians and bureaucrats that, this time, they would get it right. That will be possible only if they assume, and act on, their responsibilities.

The same can be said for New Zealand's trade with Australia and its shift to China. Since the first China-Pacific Islands Economic Cooperation Forum, attended by then Premier Wen Jiabao held in Fiji in 2006, there has been a steady growth in China-Pacific Islands relations, economic development and cooperation. The second China-Pacific Islands Economic Cooperation Forum was held in 2013, in Guangzhou. Following the second forum, President Xi Jinping's first meeting with Pacific Island leaders was held in Fiji in 2014. The Port Moresby meeting was the second meeting following on from the meeting in Nadi.

I basically agree with Peter and Monica regarding the responsibility for landowner identification being the responsibility of the Government. However, the government does not have the capacity to perform this activity in a meaningful or timely manner. While the initial SMLI is performed by the Developer, the Government is required by teh Gas Act to perform its verification of the data submitted by the Developer before Ministerial Determination. However, the government must perform their verification activity in a thorough and vigilant manner even if they require logistic support from the Developer

Anura is so correct. There are many examples of perpetual grief for landowners across PNG where SMLI has not been thorough and complete. Think of Bougainville Copper, Ramu Nickel and more recently the Hides region in relation to PNG LNG. Government is so poorly resourced it is unable to perform such detailed activities on the ground in remote area. The Developers simply have little choice but to lead the government otherwise face an even more painful and costly project implementation due to disenfranchised landowners and other opportunist.

Thank you for a very informative and insightful discussion paper. The message is clear. PNG needs to prepare for these projects well in advance because our plentiful Oil & Gas resources means that there are more development projects in this industry beyond Papua LNG. Oil & Gas Industry construction projects are different to many other extractive industries. They are not only have very high up-front investment costs but are short-lived and very labour intensive and technologically complex. Due to the comparatively very high up-front level of investment required for construction, it requires a long period after production commences to return a profit. While I do believe Oil & Gas Industry Developers have a high level of responsibility to maximise their employment of local workers and local businesses, it is not their sole responsibility to train and develop them. • The short timeframe of Oil & Gas construction projects makes it unrealistic for them to train large numbers of skilled workers to replace those usually imported from overseas at these times. In fairness to PNG LNG, they did an incredible amount of training in a short time. They also trained over 300 highly skilled PNG operator and maintenance technicians who now make up around 70% of the workforce supporting the production and export of LNG. • Why should it be the responsibility of the Oil and Gas Project Developer to organise ongoing employment for short-term workers after the construction programs is executed? The Government of PNG has the power to space the different construction projects so they do not coincide and render the PNG workforce incapable of meeting exceptional demand. • The PNG Government knew that PNG LNG was pending over 10 years before it began. They have known since before PNG LNG went into production that Papua LNG would begin construction. However, at no stage have the Departments of National Planning, Labour and Industrial Relations, or Education (TVET) make any realistic attempt to align and fund the technical education and training in PNG to develop a workforce to meet the projected demands. • The PNG Government, on behalf of the people, get 22.5% share in all Oil & Gas projects with zero up-front investment risk. A realistic amount of this considerable revenue win needs to be re-invested in educating and training our PNG workforce so that it is ready for future projects and is able to be employed overseas during periods of low activity at home. • It is time for the PNG government and its donor partners to stop bashing industry, cease doing endless expensive studies and writing white papers. It is time to put some real scores on the board in regard to developing our own people rather than just collecting profit. End Note: I recently had the privilege of flying to many parts of Gulf Province. It struck me how undeveloped this Province remains almost 20 years into the 21st Century. Rimbunan Hijou and their many subsidiaries have during the past 30-40 years logged over 60% of the Province, yet there is almost nil tangible evidence of health, education and transport infrastructure anywhere in that Province to represent the billions of Kina paid to the Provincial and National Government over this time.

This is a very useful and interesting analysis, Richard, and one that has considerable relevance for New Zealand's much smaller migration programmes for skilled and semi-skilled workers in the construction and fishing industries. Thanks for sharing the experiences of skilled and semi-skilled Pacific workers recruited as part of the Northern Territory's first Designated Area Migration Agreement between August 2014 and December 2018.

Hi Chris, thank you for your comment and I’m glad you found the post interesting. Regarding your question on the 2018 values, that figure isn’t only funds spent in 2018 on CDD projects- it’s the overall value of active projects in 2018, including many that began years before 2018 and many that will finish years after 2018. Most of these projects have at least a five year timeframe, and some may include 10 (or more) years worth of funding. I hope that’s clearer now.