Documents on Australian Foreign Policy
Australia and Papua New Guinea, The Push to Independence, 1972–1975
This is the second DFAT volume on PNG’s independence. The first volume, Documents on Australian Foreign Policy: Australia and Papua New Guinea, 1970–1972: The transition to self-government, was published by UNSW Press in December 2020.
This era saw monumental change in the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea as PNG went from a territory firmly controlled by Canberra to self-government in 1975. The change of government in Australia in early December 1972 brought to power a prime minister with an intense interest in the future of Papua New Guinea, and a commitment to rapid change. Gough Whitlam, supported by his External Territories Minister, Bill Morrison, pushed hard to complete Papua New Guinea’s transition to full self-government and to accelerate its accession to independence. The latter took place in September 1975—later than Whitlam would have preferred, but earlier than most people in both Australia and Papua New Guinea would have thought possible only a few years before. There were tensions and sharp words along the way, but overall, the transition was achieved with good will. Taken together, the 525 documents in the volume illuminate the development of Australian policies concerning Papua New Guinea during the push to independence.
The late Bruce Hunt was a Research Fellow in the School of History, College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He had a BA (Hons) from Sydney University and a PhD from the University of New England. He was an officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) from 1974 to 2011. In addition to Port Moresby, he served overseas in Bonn, Harare and Tel Aviv and as High Commissioner to the Kingdom of Tonga. He was Director of the PNG Section in DFAT from 1990–1994 and from 2000–2003. He was a Fellow of the Australian Defence College, having attended the College in 1996, and was the senior civilian official in the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville on a three month rotation in 1999. In 2000 he was an adviser to the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group set up to examine the challenges faced by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force. He is the author of Australia’s Northern Shield? Papua New Guinea and the Defence of Australia since 1880 (Monash University Publishing, 2017) and co-editor of Documents on Australian Foreign Policy: Australia and Papua New Guinea, 1970–1972: The transition to self-government (UNSW Press, December 2020).
Stephen Henningham is a specialist historian in the Historical Research Section in DFAT. He has a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU). He served in Noumea as a policy officer, in Port Moresby as Deputy High Commissioner, in Ho Chi Minh City as Consul General, and in Samoa as High Commissioner. He was a South Pacific specialist at the Office of National Assessments in 1987–1988 and worked on South Pacific politics and history at the ANU from 1988 to 1995. He was Director of the Pacific Bilateral Section in DFAT from 1995–1999, the senior civilian official in the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville in late 2000 and early 2001, and Director of the PNG Strongim Gavman [Strengthen Governance] Section from 2005–2009. Among other publications he is the author of France and the South Pacific: A Contemporary History (Allen & Unwin and University of Hawaii Press, 1992), The Pacific Island States: Security and Sovereignty in the Post-Cold War World (Macmillan and St Martin’s Press, 1995) and co-editor of Documents on Australian Foreign Policy: Australia and Papua New Guinea, 1970–1972: The transition to self-government (UNSW Press, December 2020).
