Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue

Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue Outcomes Statement 

26 November 2013

The Lowy Institute hosted 22 emerging leaders from Papua New Guinea and Australia for the inaugural Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue on 26 November 2013. The Dialogue was convened with the support of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and was an initiative that arose from the 2012 Papua New Guinea-Australia Ministerial Forum. It was agreed at the Forum that Australia would host an annual Emerging Leaders Dialogue to enhance and promote people-to-people links in a new generation of Australians and Papua New Guineans.

The Dialogue identified many commonalities between Australia and Papua New Guinea and proposed a range of new ways to build on and expand people-to-people links.  Such links deliver benefits at a community, business and personal level and can also act as a ballast to sustain the official bilateral relationship through difficult times. Links should be built on cooperation and knowledge-sharing, with equality and partnership as the guiding dynamic.

The Dialogue was structured around four key themes:

Growing the economy and attracting investment in the Asian Century;
Politics and accountability – new expectations;
National infrastructure challenges – new approaches; and
Reform and innovations in the delivery of health and education services.

The wide-ranging and vibrant discussion revealed many common challenges faced by Australia and Papua New Guinea. These ranged from slowing growth in the resources sector, to infrastructural bottlenecks, the increasing economic and social burden imposed by the effects of climate change, the need to support investment and growth through improved data collection, and more stable regulatory and fiscal frameworks. Both countries face ongoing challenges in rural service delivery as well as rising public health bills from non-communicable diseases.  Australia and Papua New Guinea both needed to do more to encourage young people to engage with the political system.  These commonalities highlighted opportunities for Australians and Papua New Guineans to work together on shared challenges.

The Australia-Papua New Guinea relationship must move into a new era and be based on principles of equal partnership and camaraderie. Participants believed pervasive negative Australian perceptions of Papua New Guinea could be turned around.  The use of creative media such as film, television and literature and the establishment of new two-way opportunities for young people to travel and work in Australia and Papua New Guinea would assist in increasing awareness about Papua New Guinea in Australia. More professional exchange programs, including programs in journalism, were important and building university partnerships would provide long-term benefits.

The nature of political participation is changing in both countries, but disengagement with political parties is not necessarily translating to political apathy more broadly. In Australia, while party membership is declining, engagement with political issues via other forums was vibrant.  The rise of social media and increasing connectivity was an opportunity to enable citizen journalism and promote the political participation of youth in both countries.  In Papua New Guinea, however, care must be taken to ensure that modern forms of communication support rather than supplant traditional cultures.

Accountability was a mutual concern for Australia and Papua New Guinea.  Participants suggested that failures in accountability stemmed from a lack of political responsiveness, and disengagement arose from groups and individuals feeling marginalised or ignored. The emerging leaders from Papua New Guinea shared further concern about the weakness of Papua New Guinea’s five member opposition and the ability of the current government to implement policies without adequate analysis of the consequences.  Greater diversity and inclusiveness in politics was identified as a road to broader political engagement in Australia, Papua New Guinea and countries throughout the Pacific.  

An important focus of discussion was the way in which Papua New Guinea and Australia could attract investment from the rising economies of Asia. Both regulatory inconsistencies and popular resistance to Chinese investment, in particular, are key barriers here. As both countries were facing a growth plateau in their previously booming resources sector, it is critical that new sources of sustainable growth are identified and embraced. Participants noted that Australia, much like Papua New Guinea, had failed to realise the full potential of its mineral resources boom, and that public revenues from the sector could have been invested more productively and efficiently in both cases.

Rural and remote communities needed to see more of the benefits of national economic growth, and resources sector-driven growth in particular. The immense gap between indigenous and non-indigenous health outcomes underlined the need for Australia to consider itself as facing a common challenge with Papua New Guinea. Both were tasked with developing more effective and more culturally-tailored remote service delivery with greater local buy-in for rural and indigenous communities in particular; bilateral consultation could prove beneficial.

Both Australia and Papua New Guinea could benefit from learning from other countries’ experience with regard to policy and infrastructure that is developed from a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to the rise in natural disasters and the environmental impacts of climate change.

There were already a number of good people-to-people links between Australia and Papua New Guinea and participants agreed it was important not to duplicate existing efforts in developing new links.  A mechanism that linked the various existing people-to-people and leadership initiatives would assist in improving the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea and preventing duplication.

Participants agreed to establish an online forum to continue to exchange ideas and look at establishing new individual cooperative endeavours.  It is hoped that the Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue will convene on an annual basis.

Jenny Hayward-Jones and Serena Sumanop, Co-Chairs

(This statement is downloable in PDF format. Please see PDF in left hand column)