Australia Awards Scholarships is calling online submission of 2020 intake applications for PNG students

By NIGEL KAUA | REVIEW (edited)

Papua New Guinea – Australia Relationships goes a long way, far more than mere bilateral ties and alliances. They are stories Australians tell about PNG with much passion and love. PNG on the other end has more stories too, when you hear how they first meet – its heart throbbing. In the jungles were mosquitoes are free and no grantee of protection over snake bites and touch climatic conditions did not scare away the sensational encounter between the two, they travelled miles to discover what is now Papua New Guinea.

Australia has been continuously giving support to PNG over the years. At times, PNG referred to Australia as its mother-country.

Today Australia is a close friend of PNG and its support continues. Australia has a heart to give and will continue to give amongst others to its closest and best friend – PNG.

Annually amongst 39 countries that Australia supports with its Australia Award Scholarships, PNG will send 90 students on Australia Award scholarship in 2020. The 90 students will be amongst the 3,000 that Australia gets from the 39 countries globally.

Every year, Australia Award Scholarship receives more than 1,300 applications from PNG students. It’s a competitive scholarship and screening process takes down to 200 for interview. Of the 200 students, they must provide NID card, a compulsory requirement to sit for English Language Competency Tests with provision of birth certificates and academic transcripts certified by a Commissioner of Oaths.

Strong applications have an easy connection between work experiences (a minimum of 2 years), PNG Government Medium Term Development Plan and the potential impact of the course in Papua New Guinea when completing.

For this year 2019 applicants for 2020 intake will apply online, unlike previous applications. The applications are to be submitted via the following OASIS website: https://oasis.dfat.gov.au

It is recommended that applicants must use the following internet browser; Internet Explorer or Firefox and are encouraged not to use Google Chrome.

Application are open on the 01st February, 2019 and closes on the 30th April, 2019. For more information about the Australia Award Scholarships, visit the following website: www.australiaawardspng.org or contact a team member via email at: scholarships@australiaawardspng.org or if you are in Port Moresby then make your way to their office located at Ground Floor , Stage 2, Westpac Building, Waigani Drive.

For the 2020 intake, there are six prioritized sectors and a range of study topics within each. For example, in the Agriculture Sector, a student can choose a study topic in Climate Change.

The six sectors are; agriculture, education, health, governance, law and justice and transport and infrastructure.

Information sessions are scheduled countrywide. Specific dates, venues and locations (provinces) are published in The National newspaper and Post Courier. Women and people living with disability are encouraged to apply. - Via Garamut News.

Australia supports blockchain startups in Papua New Guinea

By NIGEL KAUA I NEWS

THE Australian Government through the PNG-Australia Partnership is piloting a new approach to support small and growing enterprises in PNG. It is promoting the development of digital industry in PNG.

One of the first blockchain companies to participate in this pilot project is Coin-Sure, a PNG- based blockchain startup. Coin-Sure PNG is developing blockchain-based cryptocurrency insurance software that will underwrite cryptocurrency transactions and crypto-wallets.

The Coin-Sure concept has been developed by two (2) Papua New Guinean entrepreneurs, Rex Paura and Nou Vada.

Australia’s support to Coin-Sure paired the startup with Generative Solutions, a Melbourne-based technology business consultancy that partners with startups to help them leverage technology to deliver impact.

Through a series of intensive engagements in both Australia and PNG, and through virtual communication, Coin-Sure PNG and Generative Solutions Australia worked together to establish a product prototype, and undertook an intensive process of business building, testing and piloting, and adopting to establish a model to drive Coin-Sure’s sustainable growth.

Australia’s support for innovative enterprises like Coin-Sure is helping PNG businesses connect with international market places and readying them for the digital future.

Coin-Sure PNG also supports the pitching of four (4) new blockchain startup concepts developed by four (4) different secondary schools in Papua New Guinea.

Tano Network, a blockchain-based Land Titles Registry and Management System that will eliminate corruption by preventing duplication of titles and delay in processing, developed by Kilakila Secondary School students.

The second startup is Birdwing Network, a blockchain-based National Identity Registration and Management System developed by Kopkop College students.

The third is Diwai Network, a blockchain-based global carbon emissions trading platform to combat climate change by creating an economy for the preservation of forest stocks via a compensation mechanism is developed by Don Bosco Technical Secondary School students.

And the fourth is Doa Network, a blockchain-based digital currency (cryptocurrency) that is fully subject to existing PNG Monetary Policy and can be deployed to sectors that cash is either risky or problematic to utilize, is developed by Port Moresby International School students.

These four junior startups are sponsored by PNG-Australia Partnership under the Department of Australian Foreign Affairs and Trade. – Via Garamut News.

APEC Minister Hon. Justin Tkatchenko announcing his official support for Blockchain Pasifik as an event and initiative that compliments the APEC 2018 Theme: Harnessing Inclusive Opportunities, Embracing the Digital Future.

PHOTO: Blockchain Pasifik Team Leader Rex Paura, Counsellor-Economics Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Chakriya Bowman, Minister APEC Hon. Justin Tkatchenko, NCD Governor Hon. Powes Parkop, Ambassador APEC H.E Ivan Pomaleu and Blockchain Pasifik Strategic Advisor Nou Vada at the International Convention Centre.

Australia uses ‘feed them lollies” approach to PNG in the quest of grabbing coal mine projects

Extracted from RADIO NEW ZEALAND (RNZI) | EDITED

Questions have been raised in Papua New Guinea over the visit by Australian rugby league stars to promote coal development in the country. 

The Australian company Mayur Resources has an environmental permit to mine coal in PNG’s Gulf Province, and is proposing a coal-fired power plant in Lae.

It’s recently deployed a second former league star, Sam Thaiday, to PNG in a promotional capacity.

Former Australian captain Darren Lockyer is Mayur’s head of Business Affairs.

Christian Lohberger of Nogat Coal PNG, which opposes Mayur’s plans, said the league stars, and Lockyer in particular, is idolized in PNG.

“Even though they’re just footballers, when they talk and say stuff, people listen. So I guess it’s a smart move by Mayur to bring them on board. But I don’t know if it’s really ethical that they should be using Papua New Guineans’ love of rugby league to promote something that’s not really connected.”

Mr Lohberger said that the proposed plant would create significant pollution and cause harm and death to local communities.

However, PNG’s Minister for Energy Sam Basil is supporting the coal project, saying it would open up access to cheaper energy that has long been lacking in the country.

Mr Basil has voiced concern that the current power plant in Lae uses imported heavy fuel oil and is cost inefficient.

He said that PNG should explore as many local energy options as possible, given the country’s range of natural resources.

However the plant backers have not secured a local customer or off-taker for the power produced at the plant.

The main power supplier in the country, PNG Power, has been reluctant to buy electricity from coal sources.

Mr Lohberger said he understood PNG Power was waiting on a pending World Bank report on a comprehensive electricity generation cost strategy, which could affect a decision on linking up with Mayur’s plant. 

Sam touring Goroka town.

“I would say with the way global trends are going, the surge in renewable energy, and the fall in prices of solar and wind and hydro, that any report that takes a look at power prices is not going to be favourable to coal,” he explained.

But global shifts away from investment in fossil fuels, due to pressing climate change issues, are not deterring the minister who has cited PNG’s neighbours’ energy policies.

Mr Basil said that with both Australia and Indonesia heavily reliant on coal power, PNG should not deprive itself of a home-grown asset.

Australia has failed miserable in addressing climate change adaption and mitigation initiatives in the Pacific.

Scott Morrison is yet to deliver a comprehensive plan after his tour to the Pacific including PNG what plans it has to address climate change.

PNG can produce alternative sources of energy than coal. Stop Australia to push, trying to feed PNG lollies to rush a coal mine plan. Rugby League and Coal Mine does not agree. -Via Garamut News.

The Australian-PNG Relationship - Its more than just a bilateral arrangements and alliances

Paul Barker with Geraldine Paul and Daisy Taylor at Loloata Island Resort. Image: Paul Barker.

My personal view towards Diplomatic and Bilateral Relationships between nations has always been a cynical one. 

Yet, looking back from the 1980s to the present, there are numerous instances where I have been proven correct in my misgivings and doubts about Bilateral and Aid Donor / Recipient relationships, especially the long standing one between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

From Independence to the present, Australia (from AIDAB to AUSAID to DFAT has “spent” millions upon millions of Australian money in its bilateral programs with regard to Papua New Guinea. 

Yet after 43 years of bilateral efforts between the two nations, there is very little tangible outcome to show for the Australian taxpayers loss.

So Perhaps we should consider several fundamental and inherent myths and flaws of Bilateral Relationships especially now as highlighted by our globalized arena as evidenced by the spectacular failure of APEC Port Moresby. 

We now see how the Pacific especially Papua New Guinea itself became the proving battleground of the unmasked, ultimate economical intentions of the global imperial powers among which, Australia is but a minnow with little or no industrial might to have any impact on the unfolding globalized economic scenario:


1. “Aid is Economic Assistance”

This is misplaced trust. We should rather see Aid as a common diplomatic tool for influencing domestic policy in the recipient country. 

And any recipient country should carefully negotiate conditions of aid application so that domestic development strategies are able to benefit from the extra funding. 

Papua New Guinea seems to have failed miserably in this area because it was looking at bilateral relationships through the wrong lenses.

Numerous high level and middle level management Papua New Guineans failed their mother country because they did not accurately read bilateral arrangements.

So following that, they could only be diligent in pursuing bilateral arrangements as a passive compassionate concept of relationship between giver and taker, superior and inferior arrangement.

In that kind of bilateral cultural arrangement, perhaps the major beneficiary was the successive Australian Departments of Foreign Affairs who seem over the decades to have been able to dictate Australian Foreign Policy to an open mouthed Papua New Guinea.

 We could masticate on “Boomerang Aid” forever, and we might forget about the vast financial resources and opportunities that Papua New Guinea squandered in a bilateral aid donouring system that has in 43 years left no tangible impact on the administrative systems and structure of Papua New Guinea.

Now China is the new aid donour and a powerful one indeed. But the PNG government has already proven that just like it did with Australian Aid, that it would also squander this opportunity.

 But this is a new playing field and the price of failure is perhaps more deleterious. So our legislators may now be playing in a field of gunpowder.


2. “Development Assistance” vs “Trade and Investment”

At the end of 2018 which seems to be a year in which we see the stock markets fluctuate around the economic relationships between China and the USA, what does this really mean?

 Where is Australia in that picture and what does it have to trade with Papua New Guinea and in what area of commerce might it now decide to invest?

 What Australian enterprise would in this day and age, affect the socioeconomic and political (corrupt) state of Papua New Guinea? 

If Papua New Guinea has been advancing in a blinkered state, blind to international economic realities for 43 years how might it now benefit from a shift in Australian Bilateral partnership?

 How could Australian economic trade and investment in 2019 reverse the state of a country that is crumbling into a chaotic basket case?


3. “Human Rights” vs “Corporate Intention”

Is human rights a real concern today? Was it ever a concern when looking back at the history of slavery and labour? 

Look again at the history of Australian colonialism and look at the failing systems of Papua New Guinea since the relationship started.

 Look at the numerous cultures and systems of survival that have crumbled in Papua New Guinea.

 Compare the pre-independence economical culture to our post independence economic culture and look how much wealth and dignity ordinary Papua New Guineans have lost to systems that seemed to have been pretending to care for basic human needs but instead were focused on corporate profit. 

Look at Bougainvillie and Misima.

 Look at the Ok Tedi and the destruction of the Fly River eco systems. 

Look at the Forestry and the Fisheries sectors. 

Look at all the Government Departments of Papua New Guinea? 

What drives them? 

Human rights or corporate profiteering?

Look again at the condition of humanity on the planet and the wars and the refugees that we justify in the finely embroidered language of bilateral arrangements and alliances.

Wishing us all a conscientious 2019.

Source: Paul Barker.