Australia Ups Spending on PNG Military Engagement to $35 Million
Udumbara
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Australia is to increase its spending on military engagement with Papua New Guinea (PNG), building new barracks, providing aircrew training, and supplying 3,500 rifles.
These initiatives bring the total spend to $35 million (US$22.8 million) over the next four years.
Defence Minister Richard Marles announced the establishment of a task force that will manage the recruitment of PNG citizens directly into the Australian Defence Force (ADF), with the aim of having Papua New Guineans who are permanent residents in Australia able to sign up from Jan. 1 next year.
Marles also announced a $7.7 million commitment to establish a 200-bed facility at Goldie River Barracks in PNG.
“This will enable an additional 200 soldiers to be trained each and every year into the PNG Defence Force,” he said.
“We'll also be announcing a $2.2 million commitment to design barracks in Hela, for the 3rd Brigade of the PNG Army.”
The ministers had, Marles said, been discussing the development of PNG’s air wing for some time. Spartan aircraft from Australia currently rotate through PNG, and some limited training takes place.
But from next year, Australia will train six pilots plus an unspecified number of engineers and other aircrew.
More Money for Economic Development and Disaster Relief
Foreign Minister Penny Wong quoted PNG Prime Minister James Marape, who described the Treaty as “being one big fence, securing two houses.”“And we bring that unprecedented level of strategic trust to every aspect of our relationship,” she said, working closely on joint operational capability.
“But it is also about bringing that level of strategic trust and closeness to development, to economic and infrastructure partnerships, to education partnerships, to the way in which we look at the NRL, to the way in which we look at telecommunications. All aspects of our relationship are defined now and imbued with that character of the alliance, a unique level of strategic trust,” she said.
Wong announced a new education and skills package worth over $150 million “to support Papua New Guinea’s productivity, economic growth and human development” and a $25 million humanitarian and disaster relief package to build capacity within PNG’s emergency monitoring and response.
That will include new humanitarian warehouses and capacity-building efforts between Australia’s National Emergency Management Agency and the PNG National Disaster Centre.
Marles refused to comment on the fact that Australia has had to loan PNG around 1.5 billion Kina (AU$543 million) as budget support for the past five years.
“We’re not making an announcement now in respect of that. But we want to be the best partner we can be to PNG, and however that is most practically done is how we will do it,” he said.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, John Rosso, has recently visited Beijing and was asked by a journalist what the reaction had been to the Pukpuk Treaty.
“It’s not really an issue. Yes, we did discuss it. They raised it. But clearly our plan, and they respect our sovereignty,” he said.
“China has always been a big partner of ours, too, similar to Australia. They’ve been a great partner. We have a relationship with them in trade, investment, and that has grown and strengthened from strength to strength ... we [explained] the relationship that we had with Australia, the traditional relationship, and China respects that, and they’re quite happy with the explanation and discussions.”
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