New York, 5 October 1968
Restricted
Papua and New Guinea annual reports
Reference is made to your memorandum No. 488, dated 4th September … on the above subject.2
2. Your memorandum gave a further examination of the question of combining in future the two reports at present presented separately to the General Assembly on the Territory of Papua and the Trust Territory of New Guinea.
3. You have reviewed our advice given in our telegram No. 1210, that the arguments for the more economical preparation and presentation in one report of the voluminous material which we submit were outweighed by the fact that the combining of the two reports would be a departure from 20 year-old practice, and would play into the hands of the members of the Committee of Twenty-four who are ill-disposed towards us. 3
4. We are glad to see that taking our comments into account you have decided that at least for the next year the Department of External Territories will continue to submit two reports.
5. We understand, of course, the great amount of work involved, and the time-consuming burden it must be to officers of the Administration of the Territory and officers of the Department of External Territories to have to produce two reports. The initial reason for doing so was, of course, that we wanted to keep consideration of the two Territories separate in the United Nations.
6. At present we are inclined to think that you are too optimistic in the comments you make in the penultimate paragraph of your memorandum. Our feeling is that it would be a mistake to make a change in the Secretariat’s present arrangements for formally dealing with our reports by amalgamating them. We will keep what you have said under review, and we will report again after the Committee of Twenty–four has finished its work this year and after the Fourth Committee has discussed New Guinea, which we expect will not be until December. We will also discuss the matter further with the very few officers in the Department of Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories whom we can regard as well-disposed towards us. It is a dwindling number. We will also discuss the matter with Mr. Galvin of the Department of External Territories when he comes to New York.
7. For some time now I have had it in mind to send a memorandum to the Department about the internal workings of the Department of Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories. I could take the easy way out and say that it is in a mess, but what I wanted to do was to give a good description of how the two divisions and the various sections of the Department are operating. What has held me back is that what I was getting ready to say on this subject earlier this year has undergone radical change. This is due to the fact that there are in the Department bureaucratic fights for power which lead to constant shifts in the relative influence of senior and other officers in the Department. Also the general level of competence has dropped alarmingly in the past eight years.
8. I do not say this lightly. I regard it as deplorable, and have to bear it constantly in mind when discussing New Guinea with the Secretariat. Among the factors which come into the picture is the fact that Djermakoye4 for all that he is a pleasant and amiable person, is a very poor administrator and does not really know what is happening in his own department. He tried to increase the influence of the French-speaking Africans there during the last twelve months by the appointment of French-speaking Africans to P-IV and P-V positions. Unfortunately for his objectives the persons appointed were singularly incompetent, and incapable of doing the things that Djermakoye hoped they would. Furthermore, Djermakoye’s own position is under challenge from the extremist Africans, including the Ambassador of Guinea, Achkar Marof, who, from our point of view, is a dangerous and mischievous racial bigot. Marof’s professional life has been a success story. Less than five years ago he was a guitar player and, I think, manager of the ‘Ballets Africains’. (You remember that this company came to Canberra in September or October, 1965.) He is now an Ambassador, which is pretty good going, but he has got his eye on a senior position in the Secretariat. I think he also had his sights on the Secretary-Generalship of the Organization of African Unity, but that objective did not come off and the present incumbent has just been reappointed. He is now floating the idea of the creation of a new position of Under-Secretary General to deal with African Affairs. This would cut down Djermakoye’s position considerably, and would amalgamate under Marof all African questions, Southern Rhodesia, Portuguese Territories, South West Africa, Apartheid, and possibly some of the essentially propaganda items which the Soviet Union and Tanzania have introduced into the Committee of Twenty-four, such as Foreign Economic Interests in Dependent Territories and Military Activities in Dependent Territories. As a first step towards this desirable objective, Marof is trying to get himself appointed as first Permanent Commissioner for Namibia (South West Africa). I do not think that Marof is going to succeed in his ultimate objective, but it shows the sort of ‘swinging’ atmosphere which prevails among the extremist Africans.5
9. I have not put these colourful details into this memorandum for comic relief. I mention them as examples of the background to the discussion of colonial matters in the United Nations these days, and as the sort of thing that we have to bear very carefully in mind if we are thinking of any change in the formal presentation of reports on the administration of the Australian Territories.6
[NAA: A452, 1968/2838]
The Minister and the Administrator: the problem of the constitutional relationship
In the latter half of I968, there was growing agitation in DOET over what were seen as indications that Hay had an improper view of the Administrator’s constitutional position. Warwick Smith was particularly irked by instances where Hay had written that he could not agree to certain edicts from Canberra. Excerpts from four examples were included in a note on the Secretary’s personal files: ‘I must ask that this matter be placed urgently before the Minister and that he be advised why I cannot agree to the recruitment ceiling figure from the budget being raised’; ‘I am not prepared to accept a decision to have a Committee recommend on acting departmental heads’; ‘Should my approach in this regard be not accepted I would be grateful if advice thereon could be sought from the Attorney-General’s Department’; and ‘I am afraid the Minister’s letter … in no sense meets the situation’.1 Warwick Smith had earlier instructed Ballard to draft a communication to the Solicitor-General seeking advice on whether ‘as a matter of constitutional law the Minister may intervene in any matter where he thinks this is necessary in the interests of justice’—and he asked Ballard if he thought ‘the GovernorGeneral’s instructions would over-ride a Territory Ordinance that puts certain power in the hands of the Administrator’.2 A later paper on file suggested the ‘need to know whether the Solicitor-General has any objection to a formal instruction by the Governor-General to the Administrator on the following lines:- “Except in respect of matters for which approval of the Governor-General is required by statute and except for appointments where decisions are required by the Governor-General by statute the Administrator … is hereby instructed that in carrying out the day to day business of the administration of the Territory he shall conform with such instructions as may be issued to him from time to time by the Minister consistently [with the laws of the Territory]”’.3 An accompanying paper entitled ‘Relationships’ reads in part:
Not all legal experts would agree that [the PNG Act] in fact enables specific instructions to be issued to the Administrator by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister.
The Attorney-Generals Department’s official view however is that such instructions may in fact be issued. These instructions may be of two kinds—they may be legislative in that they may lay down a general rule (such as requiring the Administrator to conform with whatever directions the Minister may issue from time to time) or they may be particular in relation to specific matters.
The fact is and this view is endorsed by the Commonwealth Attorney-General that the relationships between a Minister and the Crown and the Administrator … are not in essence susceptible to legal interpretation or of definition according to legal principles or doctrines.
The Administrator is installed in his post in order to carry out the Government’s policy—in the words of the Act ‘administering the Government of the Territory on behalf of the Commonwealth’.
The Administrator is appointed to his post in the expectation that he will do his best to carry out the Government’s policies in the Territory and that he will be responsive in the words of the Minister’s letter of July 19664 to the Government’s policy intentions whether broad or specific and assiduous in applying them in the spirit as well as the letter.
It is the Government’s expectation that the Administrator will respond to the Minister’s wishes in all circumstances as a little instrument of the Government. It does not expect the Administrator’s attitude to be governed in terms of whether the Minister is legally competent to give a direction in a specific case. Outside any question of legal interpretation or one statute or another there is the broader political situation that as the instrument or agent of the Commonwealth Government in the Territory the Administrator must be willing to make the system work. If not it is incumbent upon the Government in order to ensure that it is in a position to get its wishes carried out to appoint an Administrator who shares its view on the necessity for the Government to be able to govern according to its policies general or specific.5
The paper concluded that a formal instruction from the Governor-General that the Administrator conform to ministerial instructions would be ‘an undesirable oversimplification but essentially the situation must be in political terms that the Government can procure through the Administrator whatever action in the executive area it desires in pursuance of its policies’.
1 K.H. Rogers, Minister, UNNY.
2 The memorandum noted that separate reports would be prepared for 1967/68 and the year following, but emphasised the preference of Territories and DEA for a single report. It was argued that ‘while only the report on New Guinea is submitted to the Trusteeship Council, both reports are reviewed by the Committee of Twenty-four’. Further, DOET believed that ‘the two reports involve a great deal of duplication’; that ‘a consolidated report would receive the priority currently given to the New Guinea report’; and that ‘the idea of a common identity would be helped by publishing a common report on the union’. For its part, External Affairs recognised that ‘adoption of a single report would add weight to the views of those in New York who may want to combine the [Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories] sections [of the Secretariat]’, yet it was ‘presume [d] that they could work separately from a combined report’. DEA also ‘wonder[ed] if we are really helping to preserve the Trusteeship Council by publishing separate reports … Our defence both at present, and in the future, will have to rest on the constitutional position of the Council, and indications that we are not prepared to give the Committee the same attention … or facilities … as the Council’ (memorandum, DEA (McDonald) to UNNY, 4 September 1968, NAA: A1838, 936/3/3 part II).
3 The cable noted that the report on Papua was dealt with by the Non-Self-Governing Section of the UN Secretariat’s Department of Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories—while the report on New Guinea was handled by the Trusteeship Section. It was argued that ‘This division of work accords with our insistence on the unique nature of Trust Territories and our interest in maintaining the position of the Trusteeship Council’. The Mission continued: ‘There is a further point. If we submitted a joint report we could scarcely object to members of the Trusteeship Council wanting to discuss Papua too, even though this would be strictly outside the Council’s terms of reference. But the submission of a joint report would make it really impossible for them to leave consideration of Papua out of their statements and observations. We think that such a development would simply invite the Russians and others to point out that there were two bodies, the Trusteeship Council and the Committee of Twenty-four doing the same work in respect of the Territory of Papua–New Guinea and that clearly one of them was no longer necessary. It would also encourage elements in the Secretariat, and they are quite strong, who think this way … We will consider this matter further and keep it under review but we think that this formal argument is a very strong one’ (cablegram UN 1210, UNNY to Canberra, 19 July 1968, NAA: A452, 1968/2838).
4 I.S. Djermakoye, UN Under Secretary in charge of Trusteeship Affairs.
5 In an epilogue of December, Rogers wrote: ‘We did not know when drafting the memorandum that fate had already caught up with Marof. He was intriguing at a great rate in order to get himself made Commissioner for South-West Africa and then move to something more solid, permanent and pecuniary in the Secretariat. It was fairly general knowledge around the United Nations that Marof was trying to do this, but unfortunately for himself he did not confide his ambitions to his President, Sekou Toure. Apparently Sekou Toure heard of what Marof was up to from another, unfavourable, source and recalled him home. Marof actually left New York a day or two after our memorandum was written. We have subsequently seen a report from one of our African posts that he may have been arrested on his arrival back in Guinea’. Rogers also responded to a DEA query on the possibility of the creation of a senior position for African affairs within the UN Secretariat. He felt that ‘In principle there might be some attraction in lumping all African problems together so that more sane counsels might prevail in the discussion of other dependent territories’, but that this was currently impractical due to acute administrative inefficiency in the Secretariat (memorandum, UNNY (Rogers) to DEA, 3 December 1968, NAA: A1838, 936/3/3 part II).
6 DEA and Territories concurred with Rogers’ advice and suspended consideration of the matter pending further advice from New York (see memorandum, DEA (McDonald) to UNNY, 29 October 1968, ibid., and memorandum, DOET (Warwick Smith) to Administration, undated, NAA: A452, 1968/2838).
1 Undated and anonymous note, NAA: NA 1983/239, 48/2.
2 Note, Warwick Smith to Ballard, 25 July 1968, ibid.
3 Parenthesis in original. Anonymous paper, 16 September 1969, ibid.
4 Document 53.
5 Anonymous paper, 16 September 1968, NAA: NA 1983/239, 48/2.