Port Moresby, 5 December 1969
10073. Confidential Immediate
Your 11416 Gazelle.1 Assume you will also have seen my confidential 975.2 So far as individual points raised by you are concerned, Williamson3 will have more information when he returns from Rabaul today. Interim comments are as follows:
(a) Next meeting between parties concerned is seen by the Administration as an opening for agreement to be reached basically on lines stated in Johnson statement in the House of Assembly. Probably Mataungans will wish to confine meeting to two council proposal. Both we ourselves and the Council regard it as important that this does not happen. Whilst Council wishes meeting to be held in Kavieng on 10th repeat 10th December, Mataungan Association is pressing for it to be held at district headquarters Rabaul. Present indication is that meeting will be held in Kavieng on 10th December.
(b) Details of agenda will be sent as soon as known but it is likely that Mataungan Association as well as Council will wish to present an agenda and if this eventuates the initial meeting will mainly be taken up with settling on the items to be included in a common agenda.
(c) We had intended (see paragraph 3 of our 975) to start court cases on tax defaulters early next week. We will let this run over now until after the meeting.
(d) The Council is likely to put up initially at the conference its original set of propositions agreed on in Port Moresby which did not include willingness to accept an earlier election but did include willingness to consider ward boundaries, ward committees etc.
(e) Council will listen to Mataungan Association proposals and will presumably reject them. If no other suggestions emerge then one must conclude that the meeting will break down.
(f) In such event, the Administration and the Council would:
(i) institute prosecutions of a small group, ensuring that the first case involves a non-Mataungan tax defaulter, to test validity of Council:
(ii) selectively issue summons against tax defaulters from all main groups in small numbers, with the object of bring[ing] steadily increasing pressure to bear upon tax defaulters, especially those who are not convinced Mataungan supporters, to pay their tax:
(iii) continue the process of consultation and discussion with and between the three main groups particularly with a view to exploiting any division that may become apparent among the Mataungan leadership:
(iv) work through the non-Mataungan members of the House of Assembly to seek an acceptable compromise solution particularly through involving ‘neutral’ villagers in discussions in the villages:
(v) should the above-mentioned lines of action succeed in persuading waverers to support the Council, but not the leadership of the Mataungan Association, the ‘hard core’ of the Mataungan Association will have been revealed. What steps to isolate it and contain it, especially if it should prove to comprise mainly the Matupit-Malaguna people, can then be considered and implemented.4
[NAA: A452, 1969/4001]
1 Following failure of the Port Moresby meetings between the MRC and MA (for background, see Document 333), the groups had agreed to meet at a neutral location (Kavieng) on 16 December (submission, Ballard to Barnes, 5 December 1969, NAA: A452, 1969/5256). Warwick Smith telexed Hay urgently requesting further information for the purpose of finalising the Gazelle plan of action (see Document 336). He asked how the MRC and the Administration were approaching the Kavieng meeting in regard to ‘(i) agenda (ii) any prior action by Administration (tax follow ups suspended?) (iii) what proposals will Council put at the conference (iv) what will Council do if not accepted by MA (v) what will Administration do after the conference if not successful’ (telex 11416, 3 December 1969, NAA: A452, 1969/5256).
2 1 December, to Warwick Smith. Inter alia, it argued that the proposals in sub-paragraphs (a)(1)–(a)(3) of Document 336 were ‘attractions to be used by ourselves and the Council in attempts to bring at least some of the M.A …. into the Council on terms acceptable to the Council and ourselves. If these attempts fail, then the proposals could be confirmed publicly as the views of the Government; but I would strongly suggest that whether they are proceeded with, and when, be a matter for later discussion with the Council’. On the question of summons to tax defaulters, Hay said that the Council was prepared to wait until after 16 December—and that Tammur was pressing for a moratorium—but the Administration believed it needed to demonstrate ‘without delay our intention to collect tax and also to demonstrate by test cases that there is no escape through an attack on the validity of the ordinance’ (NAA: M1868, 3).
3 K.R. Williamson, Assistant Director, Local Government, Division of District Administration, Administrator’s Department.
4 A TIC assessment of 6 December read as follows: ‘1 …. it is unlikely that the [Kavieng] meeting will result in any significant agreement between the two groups. 2. There are indications of lack of cohesion among MA leaders which could cause the movement to lose some momentum. 3. There is evidence that some MA supporters are becoming disenchanted with the Association due to failure to produce any results and the adverse effects the dispute is having on the Gazelle economy. 4. The newfound determination of the M[R]C has already led to some strengthening of the Council’s position to the disadvantage of the MA. If the Council’s effort is sustained its position seems likely to improve further. 5. The MA however remains formidable and it would be misleading to assume that it had as yet suffered a serious loss of influence’ (telex 1231, Hayes to Parkinson, 6 December 1969, NAA: A452, 1969/4001).