Capital: Port Moresby
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Introduction Papua New Guinea is by far the largest and the most populated country in the Pacific. There are more than 700 local languages, although Tok Pisin has become the national language.
Issues
History The first inhabitants of the island of New Guinea are thought to have migrated from South East Asia 50,000 years ago. They were followed by other waves of migrants bringing cultivated plants such as yam and taro. Each community was self-contained and had little contact with other groups, leading to the huge number of languages in PNG. The first European contact occurred in 1526 when the Portuguese navigator Jorge de Meneses landed on the north-west coast and named the island Ilhas dos Papuas (from a Malay word for 'frizzy haired'). The island was named New Guinea in 1545 by another navigator, the Spaniard Ortiz Retes, because the people reminded him of the inhabitants of the Guinea coast of Africa. Numerous visitors followed. Among them Le Maire and Schouten, Tasman, Cook and Bougainville who gave his name to an island east of New Guinea. Several English explorers took possession of the island for Great Britain, but no action was taken by the British government. It was only under pressure from the Australian colonies, and after Germany annexed the north-eastern section of New Guinea, that Britain proclaimed a protectorate on the south-east coast and the islands to the east. In 1906, the protectorate of British New Guinea was put under Australian administration under the name Territory of Papua. By 1910, the German colony in the south seas included the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, the Marianas, Bougainville and Nauru. At the beginning of World War I, an Australian expeditionary force captured Kokopo and after Germany's defeat, Australia took control of German New Guinea. In 1920, the League of Nations placed the territory under Australian trusteeship. The Japanese invaded in early 1942. Allied troops stopped the Japanese advance in September 1942. After World War II, the Territory of New Guinea and the Territory of Papua were reunited and continued to be administered by Australia. Papua New Guinea became independent on 16 September 1975. A nine-year secessionist revolt on the island of Bougainville ended in 1997, after claiming about 20,000 lives. A peace deal was signed in 2001 and the first president of the autonomous government in Bougainville was elected in 2005. In recent years thousands of people have fled to Papua New Guinea from the neighbouring Indonesian province of Papua, where a separatist struggle is ongoing. Many of the refugees live in jungle camps near the border. In 2004 Papua New Guinea entered into a package of enhanced cooperation with Australia to help PNG address its key challenges. The $A800 million Enhanced Cooperation Package provided for Australian police and public servants to go to PNG. However, the project was dramatically scaled back after a provision which made Australian police immune from prosecution under PNG law was successfully challenged in the PNG courts in 2005. Government Papua New Guinea is a parliamentary democracy with the British monarch as head of state. The Queen is represented locally by a governor-general, who is appointed for six years. The governor-general is nominated by the members of parliament in a secret ballot. The national parliament has one house or chamber with 109 members. All are elected by universal vote for a five-year term. Twenty members represent provincial electorates; 89 represent open constituencies. The prime minister is chosen by a majority in parliament and officially appointed by the head of state represented by the governor general. The prime minister appoints his ministers within a National Executive Council. Because of the large number of political parties and independent MPs, and the constant shifts of allegiance from the members of parliament, no government has been able to run its full five-year term since independence in 1975. The country is divided into 20 provinces each with an assembly and a government. The premier of each province is chosen from the national MPs representing the province in parliament. The Bougainville Peace Agreement signed in August 2001 has put an end to a secessionist conflict lasting since 1988 by providing a government with a high degree of autonomy for the island. Former secessionist leader, Joseph Kabui, was elected as Bougainville's first president in 2005. Australia currently provides more than $A300 million in development assistance to PNG each year. Economy Papua New Guinea has a dual economy: the formal sector includes the mining, manufacturing, the public service and service industries; and the informal sector refers to traditional agriculture. Eighty-five per cent of the population live a subsistence lifestyle in rural areas. They depend on traditional agriculture and fishing for their livelihoods. Migration to the bigger cities in the past decade has contributed to urban unemployment and attendant social problems. Mining and oil production are the main sources of revenue for Papua New Guinea, accounting for 60 per cent of export earnings and 20 per cent of government revenue. The main mining projects are the Porgera Mine (gold and silver), Ok Tedi (copper and gold), Mt Kare (gold) and Lihir (gold), as well as the large oil and gas deposits of Kutubu and Hides. Mining activity has been adversely affected over the years by environmental problems and opposition from local landowners. Agricultural crops are still one of the main sources of revenue for Papua New Guinea, in particular copra (PNG is the biggest producer in the South Pacific), coffee, palm oil and cocoa. Export of forestry products, once among the country's main sources of revenue, has declined in recent years after the government suspended the generous tax concessions enjoyed by the logging companies. |
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