Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Papua New Guinea

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Paying for stopping the boats

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 29 April 2016
    9 Comments

    This week we learnt that the human rights protection for asylum seekers in our former colony Papua New Guinea are more protected by the PNG constitution than they would be in Australia. The PNG government has quickly moved not to change the law and constitution, but to make arrangements to close the centre and ask Australia to take back the asylum seekers. Already PNG lawyers are talking about claims for compensation for the unlawful detention, and rightly so.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Cheque book solution on asylum is unconstitutional

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 April 2016
    33 Comments

    A bench of five justices of the Supreme Court of Justice, the highest court in Papua New Guinea, has unanimously ruled that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island is unconstitutional. Yet again, Australia has been complicit in its Pacific neighbours (PNG and Nauru) prostituting their Constitutions and undermining the rule of law in exchange for a fistful of dollars, with hapless asylum seekers, most of whom are ultimately proved to be refugees, being left to languish.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Time for Labor to disown PNG solution

    • Tony Kevin
    • 28 February 2014
    22 Comments

    Over the past week of Parliament, we have seen the strange and distressing spectacle of Labor timidly criticising the Government's handling of the events on Manus Island. If it were brave enough, Labor could use these events as a trigger for policy change. To call for the Manus centre to close, and for detention and processing centres in Australia to reopen, would be the moral policy for Labor at this point.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Julie Bishop's opportunity to press PNG on death penalty

    • Michael Mullins
    • 16 September 2013
    6 Comments

    PNG prime minister Peter O'Neill has resolved to see the death penalty handed to the murderers of two porters killed during last Tuesday's attack on a group of Australian and New Zealand trekkers. Australia's incoming foreign minister Julie Bishop needs to remind PNG that Australia opposes the death penalty, and that it will curry no favour with Australia by executing criminals who harmed Australians. 

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australia complicit in PNG's Bougainville blight

    • Ellena Savage
    • 02 August 2013
    1 Comment

    Even more disturbing than PNG's poverty and gender-based violence is its military and police human rights record. Evidence of abuses in the form of a military blockade, massacres, rape and torture during the Bougainville Crisis of the 1990s are well-documented. The history of this crisis reveals PNG as incapable of caring for its most vulnerable citizens due to systemic corruption.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Eddie Mabo's legacy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 July 2013
    4 Comments

    'If my mob were to arrive by boat today uninvited, they would be sent to Papua New Guinea. 150 years ago, the traditional owners helped my ancestors and their fellow passengers to find safe anchorage so that they might settle here permanently calling Australia home.' Frank Brennan speaks on 'Eddie Mabo's legacy of equality, non-discrimination and agreement', Mabo Oration Response at the Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, 21 July 2013 

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Contraception not the answer to maternal mortality

    • Eugene Hurley
    • 18 July 2012
    67 Comments

    More than 350,000 women die every year from difficulties related to pregnancy or childbirth, many on our own doorstep in East Timor and Papua New Guinea. Senator Bob Carr's announcement of a doubling in AusAID funding for family planning targets pregnancy itself as the problem, rather than the lack of good basic health services.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Feminism in Bougainville

    • Ellena Savage
    • 22 February 2012
    3 Comments

    'Women in Bougainville have no choice but to be political,' I was told by a community leader. From housekeepers to businesswomen, they all seem to be pretty fierce feminists. Even random women I meet at cafes and pubs tell me about the work women do in their communities.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Disaster capitalism on Manus Island

    • Michael Mullins
    • 15 August 2011
    6 Comments

    'Disaster capitalism' entails profiting from the misery of others. Papua New Guinea's motives for agreeing to the reopening of the Manus detention centre are economic. By proceeding with the plan Australia would be complicit in the exploitation of asylum seekers for financial gain.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Welcome workers from 'bipolar' Pacific

    • Jonathan Ritchie
    • 29 August 2008
    5 Comments

    Papua New Guineans have an abiding regard for Australia, and know far more about Australia than we do about their country. The introduction of the guest worker scheme sends a message to the Pacific of trust and respect.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Catastrophe on Australia's doorstep (Best articles of 2006 special edition)

    • Peter Cronau
    • 24 December 2006
    1 Comment

    Barely reported by Australia's media, Papua New Guinea's AIDS crisis is on track to cause the collapse of the country's economy, with AusAID forcasting a 37.5% decline in the labour force by 2020. From 3 October 2006.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    PNG needs Channel 7 publicity machine

    • Michael Mullins
    • 16 October 2006

    The bizarre mission of TV host Naomi Robson to West Papua, to "rescue" a young boy from cannibalism, achieved nothing but publicity for Channel 7. If the station really cared about the plight of young people in the region, it would have given priority to coverage of Papua New Guinea's AIDS crisis.

    READ MORE