Canberra, 24 October 1969
In your letter of 13th October 1969 you asked if I would consider making available two or more indigenes from Papua and New Guinea to attend the 1970 foreign service training course and for consequent training and service in the Department of External Affairs.1
When the Minister for External Territories considered a similar suggestion last year he felt that at the present stage of the Territory’s development and with the considerable shortage of suitable young educated Papuans and New Guineans for all essential services in the Territory such a move might be premature.2
The situation in the Territory has not changed markedly in this respect since then. The demands for tertiary training and employment of these people will exceed the supply for some time ahead and consistent with the Government’s policy of localisation of the Public Service will be the necessity to train and use those people available to the best advantage of the Territory.
At this stage, I can see no likelihood of our being in a position to provide a local officer with the sort of qualifications I think you would expect until about 1972/73 and even then there may well be tasks of more immediacy in the Territory for which those men will be required.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t be providing Territory people, both public servant and politician, with experience in international affairs and exposure to the peoples and problems of other parts of the world. We are already doing this and I’m hopeful that we can do more.3 Moreover, 1 agree with you that although we haven’t been able to pick up your suggestion in the past we should be doing something now towards training persons from the Territory for foreign service.
With a limited number of University graduates available, however, the only types of men we could now put forward are either those straight out of high school or the older chap around 30 years of age with limited formal education but quite literate and intelligent and with some working experience in the Administration. We could possibly pick out one or two from either group if there is a reasonable chance of achieving a worthwhile result. If we were to push this idea forward we would need to consult the Administrator’s Executive Council and the Minister and to sort out the large number of practicalities involved in devising what would probably be a specially tailored training programme. We would have to consider for example, the ways of moving people backward and forward between your Department, overseas posts and the Territory so that they don’t get too much out of touch with Territory realities.
If you think something could be done with people from either of the two categories concerned, I will be pleased to have someone talk with Mr Brennan, with a view to consulting the A.E.C. and the Minister on a reasonably developed proposal later this year. Whether we could have something going for 1970 would come out of these consultations.4
[NAA: A1838, 936/6/10 part 1]
1 Document 322.
2 See Document 225.
3 On 9 September, Freeth had suggested to Barnes that two indigenous advisers be sent to the UN General Assembly in 1969, as had been the practice in previous years. In a marginal note of 10 September, Barnes proposed Lue and Oala-Rarua (letter, Freeth to Barnes, 9 September 1969, NAA: A452, 1967/6093).
4 Plimsoll responded on 9 December: ‘Officers of our two Departments have since [your letter] had some informal discussion of some of the considerations involved. It is appreciated that there will be many competing claims for the first graduates of the University of Papua and New Guinea … Even so, I consider that it would be worthwhile in the meantime to select either schoolleavers or older men around 30 years for training. I suggest that discussions now proceed in greater detail between officers of our two Departments to explore the possible training programme and the terms and conditions under which trainees would come here early next year’ (NAA: A452, 1966/3850).