Comments

Julie Bishop is receiving a lot of praise in the media for her overall role as Foreign Minister. However, as Stephen's blog points out, hardly any of these (often glowing) assessments have taken into account - perhaps have not even noticed - the fact that Australian aid has fallen under her watch to the lowest level in Australia's history using the most common standard ODA / GNI measure. This is strange given that one of the main reasons for abolishing AusAID and making aid part of DFAT was to better align Australia's aid and diplomatic interests. Aid cannot - and should not - ever "buy" diplomatic friendship. But cutting aid so consistently and heavily over the years, including summarily cutting aid to most countries in Asia by 40% and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by 70% in the May 2015 budget (as reported <a href="https://devpolicy.org/the-same-the-bad-and-the-ugly-country-allocations-in-the-2015-16-budget/">here</a>) cannot help but undermine trust in Australia as a reliable partner in development. This is important because, given our geography, Australia has more to gain by being an active, trusted, partner in development than virtually any other OECD country in the world. It is possible that the aid program may increase, even in real terms, in future years. But it is likely to take longer to regain the critical mass of in-house professional and practical expertise about managing complex development programs that once was a characteristic of Australia's aid program, much of which was lost following the abolition of AusAID. And it may take even longer for countries in the region to regain lost trust in Australia as a reliable development partner given the severity and suddenness of aid cuts to country programs over recent years. Trust and reliability is surely a key part of a country's overall foreign relations. So, yes, as Stephen's blog points out and Ashlee and Bal's comments confirm, it is a mixed legacy when it comes to assessing Ms Bishop's stewardship of the aid program as Foreign Minister.

Thanks James for always sharing greater lights on the issues surrounding us. Very interested to read more from you.

While delivering a Keynote Speech at the Inauguration of Course 21 at the National Defence College, Abuja, Nigeria, Maj. Gen. Idris Inuwa argued that corruption be made an official policy of government, defining its limits and boundaries. He was very serious and unapologetic about it. Then i had sympathy for his views. But now, I hold a slightly different view because corruption is very broad and often misunderstood to be only bribe giving and bribe taking in monetary terms. If taken on its broad context, I think we'll be more circumspect to make a case to "bring back our corruption." For example, it would be unthinkable for a group to argue for the reinstatement of corruption if the group understand that when a Lecturer gives unmerited scores to a student after sleeping with her, or appoints someone into an office because of filial ties even though there are more qualified persons who applied for same job, or when Law enforcement officers (the police or Judges) compromise their duties to unduly favour a party to a dispute at the expense of the other regardless of the facts before them. In this regard, I recommend that the type of corruption that is beneficial to a country be clearly defined. I think it would be a good read. I will download and digest the full work.

Stephen, a fitting tribute to a respectable FM who graced her position with ease and intentionally promoted the Pacific. That is not to overlook some of her representations that were called into question at various points in her career but one understands she was part of a government with clear standing on certain issues. Overall, she had a positive impact on the Australia-Pacific relations. As Ashlee rightly pointed out, she was also an important inspiration to women folks in the Pacific region that are struggling for political leadership.

Thanks Stephen. While I do agree with all you have written above, on thinking a bit more I think she also deserves a bit of credit on some of the softer stuff, for example, like people-to-people links in the Pacific. Through the New Colombo Plan, but also through things like her own demeanour while in the region and her frequent trips, I think she has made more of a contribution to this than previous FMs. While people-to-people links may not lead to direct development outcomes, they will hopefully bode for a greater interest in the development of the region and more partnerships between Australia and the Pacific. Obviously there's still a lot more stepping up to do on the Pacific step-up, but JB has had more of a focus on this engagement it seems than past FMs. There's also just the powerful optics of a woman in a high-level position of power engaging in the region. While of course there could have been a lot more tough-talking with countries like PNG during her tenure, for example, it does send a message on women in leadership when there are very few in the region. Along with a focus on gender in the aid program, the commitment to the bipartisan trips to the region where you saw JB, CFW, Penny Wong and Claire Moore, for example, really did send this message that women leaders from Australia are highly capable and interested in the region (reality of Australians' own perceptions on women leaders perhaps sadly different, but don't get me started on that!). I also understand that she has encouraged some Liberal women, like Sen Linda Reynolds as one example, to become more interested in PNG and to observe elections etc. Again this kind of thing could help in the future. All this is more optics than policy perhaps, and policy speaks louder, but optics do play a part in how people think about the region, and think about Australia. I think it was always positive that she found time for the Pacific when there were so many other 'big' things happening i.e. at the UN, with US and China etc. When you think of the obsessions of past FMs, at least in recent years, I can't really think of any that had the same amount of time for the Pacific.

As a lecturer once said, some forms of corruption practices are good to keep the wheels of a country’s economy moving. It’s certainly not all about the involvement of politicians, elites nor the bearuacrats, but the participation of ordinary citizens. Thanks to Timipere and Tubodenyefa for shedding more lights on the corruption conundrum of Nigeria.

Thank you Dr. Grant. Like you noted, scholars and practitioners tend to dismiss any thoughts about corruption having a functional value. Ignoring how livelihoods of poor citizens may be depending on proceeds from elite corruption could send well-intended anti-anticorruption initiatives tumbling down the hill. For long we have assumed that elites are the only beneficiaries of political corruption. As it appears, the poor also benefit and could pose a danger to anti-corruption efforts that become a threat to their survival.

Apparently, the PNG government can get away with this poor growth performance. When is the urban population facing unaffordable housing and monopoly prices going to react? When is the largely rural and mostly uneducated population going to connect the dots?

Fair point, and I agree there are no winners. PNGUoT and UPNG are big ships, and they take time to turn. Trust me that I pushed hard from the management for transparency in financial administation and restructuring of personnel. For the former, I was somewhat successful, achieving an unqualified audit in 2017 for the 2015. For the latter, not so much. Each turn of the road, we found senior staff not collaborating, and since 2017 Council not supporting management.

Thank you. I will move on, but very sad I can never come back to PNG without putting my life at risk. I feel sorry for the students who will continue to get a 3rd rate or lower education. I also feel sorry for PNG citizens having to live with such abuse of Ministerial authority, policy powers, and violence. From the outside, however, there is little we can do about all this now.

Although without the required regulation, the government used its powers under the Higher Education Act 2014 to appoint new Chancellor and Council at the University of Goroka and the University of Natural Resource and Environment. Sir Nagora Bogan had been appointed as Chancellor of the PNGUoT in 2007, and then again in November 2012. At the PNG University of Technology I was the last "real" Vice Chancellor duly and lawfully appointed by Council, as the Sevua Investigation concluded in 2013. Prof. Burton mentions the UoG administration before 2015. All I know was that the former Chancellor was mentioned in the Panama papers, and the former Vice Chancellor was involved in shady dealings with the Chinese and regarding university procurement. Maybe it is a case of swapping one set with another set of dishonest and ineffective administrators? Prof. Howes correctly points about the reputational damage to the PNG universities with the last incidents is tremendous, and will be felt over the coming years. Sites like glassdoor.com and the international press coverage will make applicants think twice. What the national press writes is not so relevant. The Chancellors have now effectively achieved an end to any international recruitment of qualified academics or competent administrators. The current crisis raises the question whether the universities in their current state can be helped from the outside through any type of aid or support. They seem content being credential machines whose average graduates "only look good on paper" but have few real competences. I am quoting an industry partner here. Another one once asked "Vice Chancellor why is it that your graduates are unable to do anything? ". The other 2 parts of the mission, research and transfer, are barely developed at all. Apart from employable graduates, universities in order to stay relevant are supposed to produce active citizens and future leaders. With the elimination of the voice of the students at UPNG, UoG and PNGUoT the students are now expected to "shut up and get your degree", while for the large majority of them little opportunity is offered to develop leadership skills in the curriculum or outside it. Real reform of their governance is long overdue, driving a transformation allowing them to deliver a modern, competence based curriculum. In order to stay relevant Universities must contribute to a sustainable employment situation, and currently over 60% of graduates are still unemployed 6 months after graduation. The basic conditions for any learning to take place are not in place. Apart from the governance and focus on the mission, in my view the main urgent challenges for PNG universities are the financial administration, ICT and restructuring. At the PNGUoT we were able to sort out the finances in 3 years, make good head way with ICT, but we barely started the scratch the surface regarding the restructuring. Indeed PNG universities are funded badly, with less than half of the government benchmark of K30,000 per student per year. There is however also a lot of wasteful spending, and a lack of administrative and financial controls. Just by reducing the financial mandate of the heads of departments in 2017 at the PNGUoT, for example, we were able to save over K2M in unnecessary expenses. It did not make us very popular. At the PNGUoT the strategy was to get the house in order first financially, and then approach industry for support. The state is rather penniless and in the 10 year business planning was not expected to fund much more than the salaries. Achieving an unqualified audit in 2017 for all the 2015 accounts was a major step forward. The PNGUoT was the only university to do so, and it had not been achieved in over 2 decades. Since 2014, several large companies had been strongly supporting accreditation of engineering programs, and eventually assured me would have funded the refurbishment of the laboratories. Currently, hardly any of the laboratories have usable equipment, and there is no environment where scientist or engineers can be taught. The second leg of the strategy was to use "digital" to overcome some of the obstacles (e.g. no library) by improving the IT infrastructure. This was partially achieved, mainly because of deficient management, and failure to restructure the university's IT department which counted 40+ staff members, where 4 would have sufficed. Finally, there is a need for restructuring of all university personnel, but there is no willingness or capacity to execute a concrete plan. The academics to staff ratio in industrialized countries is 1 to 1, and even in Fiji it is only 1 to 2. In PNG public universities it is 1 to 4. I remember at one strategy meeting, I asked a head of department whether he would be willing to restructure and downsize some of his administrative staff. He agreed this staff was no longer necessary, but he said he could not support downsizing because of the long relationship they had in the department, and unwillingness to upset the social balance. Let me end with a quote: "Oh what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive." (Sir Walter Scott (1808) in the poem Marmion)

If I may put in a plug, and just to follow up on Amanda's comment, Colin Wiltshire and I will be providing an update on our research into constituency development funds in Solomon Islands at this year's State of the Pacific Conference (10-12 September at ANU). We'll also be hearing from Tony Hiriasia from the School of Government, Development and International Affairs at USP on his own research into CDFs in Solomons, and from Angela Nelson, Women’s Representative on the Milne Bay Provincial Assembly and Alotau District Development Authority, Papua New Guinea. Registration is open here: http://dpa.bellschool.anu.edu.au/news-events/events/6346/state-pacific-2018