Port Moresby, 10 May 1966
Secret
The Public Service (Papua and New Guinea) Ordinance 1963: the reaction relating thereto
I. Aim
I. The aim of this paper is to assess those events and reactions which have resulted from the introduction of the Public Service (Papua and New Guinea) Ordinance 1963 and to assess future possible developments. The paper is not directed to determining the correctness of the legislation.
II. Introduction
2. Any discussions of the problems resulting from the salary differential question must take place in the perspective of the prevailing situation existing in the Territory. Expectations of some degree of national independence, a developing political and social consciousness, together with the increasingly significant role being played by Local (indigenous) Officers are the more important features of this situation. As can be expected, the atmosphere in such a situation is extremely emotional, and incidents which would normally be of little importance or significance can assume unreal proportions.
3. Since the introduction of the Public Service (Papua and New Guinea) Ordinance 1963 on September 10th, 1964, there have been frequent expressions of bitterness and discontent at the salary structure and conditions set down by the legislation, made by Local Officers of the Public Service and by the indigenous students.
4. Under the previous Public Service Legislation, the Public Service (Papua and New Guinea) Ordinance 1949, qualified Local Officers and graduate students were paid at the standard rates received by their Overseas (European) counterparts occupying identical positions. On the introduction of the 1963 Ordinance, their standard salaries, regardless of qualifications held, were reduced to 35% to 40% of those received by Overseas Officers carrying out identical duties.
5. Many Local Officers have expressed the opinion that, in paying them lower salaries, the Australian Government considers them to be second-class citizens capable only of low levels of ability and attainment. This has resulted in emotionally confused interpretations of the facts presented by Government to justify the salary differential. The issue now savours of racial discrimination, not only in the eyes of Local Officers but also in the opinion of some Overseas Officers.
6. In this atmosphere, the growth of racial prejudice and tension has been accelerated, and there exists the possibility of future racial conflict. These changed circumstances are claimed, by the Local Officers and students, to have been engendered by the salary differential.
7. The rapport which previously existed between Overseas and Local Officers has seriously deteriorated. Local Officers now appear to be reluctant to discuss their anxieties and problems without rancour, and some have openly expressed their distrust of Europeans and cite the salary differential as evidence to warrant this distrust.
8. Such developments provide grounds for concern in the Territory’s multi-racial society and constitute a threat to internal security. It is believed that the riotous activities of student movements in many under-developed countries, particularly those in Indonesia and South Vietnam, will demonstrate to local students the value of such action. This type of activity is not beyond the capabilities of local students.
9. The reaction is such that the Administration’s claim to rationalisation of the salary differential vis-a-vis the Territory economy has achieved nothing in justification of the differential itself or in dissipation of the damage to the self-respect and national pride of the Local Officers who feel that the Australian Government and the Administration do not think they are worthy of salary equality with Overseas Officers. This is especially true of those Local Officers who have read of or have seen the wealth and prosperity of Australia.
10. There are indications that Local Officers would have accepted a salary differential had they not been led to expect parity with Overseas Officers, e.g. the salaries provided for by the previous Public Service Ordinance. This parity has been propounded in Ministerial statement.
11. The attitude of Australian officers varies in relation to the question of salary differential; this variance of opinion creates doubts in the minds of Local Officers, placing the goodwill of Australia in doubt and raising suspicions of Australian intentions towards the Territory.
III. Reaction To The Ordinance
12. Because of the sociological structure of the indigenous society, almost all of those persons who will be intimately associated with the future development of the Territory are affected by the Ordinance. The reaction of these persons is of the utmost importance, as their attitude will determine the course of transitional development to independence, and also their future relationship with Australia.
(a) Students:
(i) Greatly affected by the legislation are indigenous students in institutions of higher learning, both in the Territory and overseas. The new salary range appears to them to remove any hope of achieving an expected relatively high standard of living; precludes a more equitable social relationship with Europeans; and removes the opportunity for advancement to the same status as Overseas Officers. At the Port Moresby Teachers’ Training College, the Principal has stated that there has been a cooling relationship between students and lecturers following the salary revision. It is the opinion of certain Territory educationalists that as a result of the introduction of this salary differential a good deal of goodwill towards Australia has been lost and a strained relationship now exists.
(ii) The first overt reaction to the introduction of the Ordinance was on the day it became effective. Approximately 130 students from the Port Moresby Teachers’ Training College marched to the office of the Public Service Commissioner at KONEDOBU, where they made known their objections to the new salary scales.
(iii) The demonstration was noteworthy for the orderly manner in which it was carried out and for the mildness of the expressions of dissatisfaction used by the delegates. The rally received no overt support from the general body of Local Officers.
(iv) From the outset the salary re-organisation assumed an emotional aspect at the expense of an objective analysis of its causes and its justifications. The reaction of students to the salary issue has now deepened to the degree where they are actively planning overt and direct action against the Government in the event of their demands for increased salaries not being met. Reports of student meetings reveal that in educational establishments in PORT MORESBY, student action committees are being set up to consider means of implementing anti-Government demonstrations, walk-outs, strikes, picketing and protest marches.
(b) Local Officers:
(i) Opinion among many Local Officers is that in paying them lower salaries the Australian Government considers them to be second-class citizens. They hope that the result of the present Arbitration proceedings will be considerable increases in their salaries. They expect that any increase in salary automatically means extra money in the hand each pay day. However, considerable numbers of officers receiving portion of their salary by way of non-reduction allowance1 may have any Arbitration increase absorbed by that allowance even though in some cases the amount of the increase is considerable. Thus, their expectations of cash in the hand may well prove fruitless.
(ii) Indigenous members of the Public Service are becoming increasingly restive over what they consider to be undue delays in the Arbitration hearings enquiring into Public Service salary rates. Some indigenous officers are overtly advocating direct action and others have stated that the inquiry is being deliberately prolonged because the Administration does not desire to see any increase in indigenous salary rates.
(c) Public Service Association:
(i) The Public Service Association of Papua and New Guinea is made up of some 3,000 European and approximately the same number of Local Members. The present Executive Committee is multi-racial in composition and has indicated its attitude towards the pay rates by institution of procedures before the Public Service Arbitrator.
(d) Overseas Officers:
(i) Following the introduction of the Ordinance grave doubts as to the outcome of the lower salary scales offered to Local Officers were voiced by experienced senior Overseas Officers of the Administration. Later, when the situation as postulated by them had developed to its present serious proportions, the same Officers expressed the view that even though Arbitration should result in substantial increases in salaries, Australia would never regain the same measure of trust and respect from the majority of indigenous Public Servants.
(ii) At their annual conference in PORT MORESBY in August, 1964, the District Commissioners were given a preview of the 1963 Public Service Ordinance. Arising from their study of this legislation, a resolution, part of which is quoted below, was passed unanimously—
‘The Conference feels impelled to express grave apprehension regarding the social, political and other implications contained therein. Although many of the present indigenous officers will at least overtly accept the much lower salary paid them, this acceptance will soon disappear, especially among the more highly educated officers.
The Conference recommends that the minimum entry salaries of graduates and similarly qualified Local Officers be raised so that students will have adequate incentive to study and remain after graduation in the Territory.’
(iv) Social Problems
13. The ramifications of the Ordinance are so extensive that they involve almost every aspect of the Local Officer’s life. Of major concern to these Officers are the social problems which are associated with the legislation. A number of these Officers consider that they are providing, and will increasingly do so, the administrative and political leadership of the country. One of the expected rewards for their higher abilities and attainments is the social status which they believe accompanies an official position, believing that this status is equated with a high salary.
14. Whilst the salary differential is designed to cater for the economy of the future, many Local Officers consider that its immediate social effects are to destroy the necessary status which they believe future administrative officials will require if they are to successfully discharge their role in an emerging country. Many of them feel that once such privileges are removed, difficulty will be experienced in regaining them later in an orderly and regulated manner.
(a) The struggle for equality:
(i) Many indigenes, particularly those employed by the Administration, have always aspired to a comparable status with Overseas Officers. The status symbols of these officers are, to indigenes, the more obvious indicators of achievement. They believed the attainment of such status symbols was possible until the introduction of the new Ordinance.
(ii) One reaction, typical of many, is the observation by an influential native leader on the inability of the better educated indigenes to take their place on equal terms with Europeans because of the salary differential. This Officer, one of the first two indigenes to join the Port Moresby Junior Chamber of Commerce, claimed he could not continue his membership because, as he stated—
‘I could not meet the expenses. I left without telling them why.’
He has also said that the wages differential has made New Guinea into a ‘White Man’s Paradise’ and he warned that differences, such as those of salaries, ‘could lead to racial violence of black against white. Australia’s policy of peacefully handing over Government may not be fulfilled. The dissatisfied, discontented elite minority of present New Guinea youths could well be fertile ground for the implantation of Communist propaganda.’
(iii) There are indications that not all Papuans and New Guineans wish to emulate the Australian way of life. Many prefer to eat different food and organise their homes differently; they have wider family responsibilities. The feelings of certain officers on this point are exemplified by the remarks of (1) an influential indigenous lecturer…2
‘Most educated Papuans and New Guineans, like educated Australians, want a multi-racial society in this country. Most of us are ashamed to invite Australians to our homes and we feel that we should at least be able to afford a reasonable home, furnished in an Australian or local way so that we could invite our Australian friends’,
and (2) the Editor of the Primary ‘T’ School Teachers’ Bulletin …
‘It is very upsetting to Local Officers who have senior positions to walk home or queue up for irregular bus services, while base grade European clerks get into their cars and drive to their Clubs, which we are not able to attend and in which we could not afford to buy our friends a drink anyway. I am not bitter about this, but I do know some of my fellow Local Officers are becoming bitter and think all their hard work is a waste of time.’
(b) Necessity of financial resources:
(i) It has already been mentioned that the professional and trained indigenes are the people that the Territory will depend upon for leadership in future political, social and cultural life. Consequently, Public Service stability in the future may well depend to a large degree on whether or not leaders have the necessary personal financial resources to carry out, inter alia, their social responsibilities of leadership. In many instances, professional Local Officers feel frustrated because they consider they have the capacity to enter new roles, but do not have the financial resources to do so.
(ii) By the environment provided in training institutions, the Administration is encouraging young people to aspire to higher standards of living and acceptance of European type social responsibility in addition to their own. A hazard arising out of lack of financial resources could be the appearance of corruption in the Public Service although there is no significant evidence of this at present. In this regard, the Council of Social Services states:
‘Their (Local Officers) salaries on graduation do not enable them to live up to the standards to which they have been trained or to fulfill their social responsibilities. There is a grave risk of corruption and it is inevitable in a seriously underpaid service. A general lack of integrity in the Public Service, apart from anything else, would either bring the machinery of Government into disrepute or cause graft and corruption to be regarded throughout the whole community as a normal and not improper incidence (sic) of life’.
(c) Effect on race relations:
(i) In recent years racial tension has been perceptively3 increasing. Whilst this trend is not due to any one common factor, continual frustration over the salary differential could well prove the focal point of serious aggravation of the overall problem. In this respect, a prominent leader’s remarks on racial relations as affected by the salary differential are relevant. He said that Australia—
‘…. is losing much of the gratitude it has earned by its health and education policies so fast that instead of our two countries being close friends, movements will arise in Papua and New Guinea which will probably take us closer to the underdeveloped, and often unstable, countries of Asia and make us anti-white’.
(v) CONCLUSIONS AND ASSESSMENT
15. We believe that:
(a) the reaction of Local Officers to the salary differential problem has attained serious proportions and there are indications that the situation will further deteriorate.
(b) coupled with what may have been inadequate preparation for the acceptance by those concerned of the salary revision, the differential has resulted in a wide-spread attitude among Local Officers that they are not in the eyes of their employer equal in ability to their Overseas colleagues.
(c) damaged self-respect and disillusionment have impaired the ability of the more enlightened Local Officers to study the salary differential problem objectively.
(d) the issue has now assumed an unfavourable racial connotation which may be extremely difficult to eradicate.
(e) Local Officers and students have not accepted the explanations put forward by the Administration.
(f) a high degree of emotion has been engendered and rationalisation is not effective.
(g) the attitude of Local Officers to the salary structure has hardened since its introduction and is exemplified by the developing pattern of student reaction.
16. We further believe that:
(a) far more important and potentially dangerous elements are the tertiary students’ organisations.
(b) because of the lack of disciplinary provisions relating to their attendance at the colleges, they are more likely to be militant in their approach.
(c) they are considering militant, overt demonstrations in the event of their financial expectations not being met.
17. We finally believe that:—
the state of unrest among students and Local Public Servants could lead to incidents of civil disorder and that these could well assume major proportions. The degree to which these would constitute a major or minor threat to the internal security of the Territory may well depend on the reliance which can be placed on the Police and Army, both of whom are disaffected to some extent over pay and conditions.
[NAA: A452, 1966/842]
1 See footnote 7, Document 40.
2 Ellipses in this document are in the original.
3 Apparently, this should read ‘perceptibly’.