Port Moresby, 15 November 1968
Confidential
The Minister might like to know that I have had discussions in the last few days on the Melanesian Independence Party with Mr. Ashton1 and Mr. Toliman, both of whom have recently been in Rabaul.
Both regard the new Party as potentially a force to be reckoned with and certainly one that should not be treated lightly.
According to Mr. Ashton, the leading lights are Mr. Simpson, a Rabaul businessman, and Tomot,2 the Assistant Executive Officer to the Gazelle Peninsula Local Government Council. The latter had at one stage trained as a medical officer but had been eliminated from the course on the grounds of instability. He had a fixation about the Tolais not getting their fair share of Government money. He and persons like him amongst the Tolais were, therefore, very receptive to the kind of proposals which Simpson had been putting forward for his own purposes. He felt it essential for the Government to state its policy quite clearly on unity being the essential basis of economic planning and the Australian Government’s continued financial assistance to the Territory. He also advised that we quickly get out some factual statement on what the Administration in fact has done for the Gazelle as against what the Gazelle in fact contributes, through taxation and other means, to the central revenue. He said there was a kind of cargo cult attitude towards Government assistance which derived from a feeling that the Government had unlimited resources and it was only a question of the right means of getting at them. If one did not have the means, then this was due to Europeans keeping it from them. Mr. Ashton intends to look further into the basis of the support for the Party. He is attending a meeting to be held in Rabaul on 12th November, at which it is expected that the new Party’s full platform will be revealed.
Mr. Toliman said that the dissatisfaction which led to the formation of the Melanesian Independence Party was based on the following feelings:
(a) That revenue from the Rabaul area goes to other parts of the Territory to bolster them up and did not return in the form of Government aid to the Gazelle.
(b) That the Tolais have helped the Government for nearly 80 years and do not get a fair return for what they have done.
(c) That the new political party is as much a means for expressing the feeling of dissatisfaction as an indication of a true intention to separate from the rest of the Territory.
Mr. Toliman said that the influence of the Party was spreading. Active steps were being taken to this end by the means of village meetings.
He also said that there was an anti-European and anti-Chinese element involved in the formation of the new Party. Tolais who did not succeed in business compared their lot to that of Europeans and Chinese who did succeed. This led them to believe that they were being victimized.
To remedy the situation, Mr. Toliman thought that the Administration should, without delay, inform people as to what was really involved in independence, so that they would think about the financial resources that would be needed to supply such things as a defence force, customs, and so on. The lesson needed to be brought home that these things could only be provided if there was payment of higher taxes. They could not simply come from an inexhaustible supply possessed by the Government.
Amongst other particular suggestions from Mr. Toliman were that certain concrete things should be done to help the Tolais. For example, a water supply should be expedited for the town. The Development Bank should be more forthcoming in its attitude towards applications by indigenes for loans. A resettlement area closer to the Gazelle than the west coast of New Britain should be developed. For example, the forestry development area at Vudal should have some fertile parts excised from it and made over to resettlement. More land ought to be made available for industry near Rabaul. Furthermore, private enterprise in the area should encourage Tolai shareholders at a level that they could afford.
Speaking on the Development Bank, Mr. Toliman said that the indigenous Tolais tended to compare the tardiness and caution of the Development Bank with the readiness with which agents for Japanese cars would offer easy terms and would adjust them when buyers found some particular difficulty in meeting their payments. He asked why the Bank could not be equally flexible.
It is expected that we shall find out more about the Melanesian Independence Party as a result of the meeting which is to beheld on 12th November.
[NAA: A452, 1968/5429]
1 O.I. Ashton.
2 Melchior Tomot.