AUSTRALIA: Standoff Peaks with PNG over Immunity to Police

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Mar 15 2004 (IPS) - Papua New Guinea’s refusal to grant legal immunity to 300 Australian police and government officials has led to a standoff between the two countries over the fate of a development cooperation agreement.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and Papua New Guinea Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration Sir Rabbie Namaliu met in Sydney Monday to discuss the issue.

However, Australian government attempts to persuade PNG to back down were rejected. "Well, we’re looking at how this can be handled in an overall sense, so I don’t want to go into that," Downer said at a media conference late Monday afternoon.

Australian government officials in PNG, as late as last week, were insisting to the Australian government that its personnel assigned to PNG – under an arrangement called Enhanced Cooperation Programme (ECP) to help the Pacific country’s government and administration – be granted indemnity from prosecution under PNG law.

"If an Australian deployed under the ECP has a legal case to answer, we want that person tried in Australia," DFAT spokesman in Port Moresby, Matt Anderson, told the ‘PNG Post Courier’ last week.

The Institute of National Affairs (INA), a Port Moresby think tank, has been a leading advocate in Australia advocating a more interventionist role in countries in the Pacific region.

Last year INA, along with the conservative Sydney based think tank, the Centre for Independent Studies, urged the Australian government to play a more direct role by intervening in the operation of key government agencies.

In late September 2003, Namiliu and Downer announced an ‘Enhanced Cooperation Programme’ between the two countries.

In one clause, the two announced "an agreement in principle to examine the placement of Australian officials in positions in departments and agencies". Key amongst the concerns was to identify "how Australia can assist in law and order, policing, justice issues and related governance concerns".

In mid-December, Australian officials announced that up to 230 Australian police personnel as well as up to 80 specialists had been appointed to non-policing roles in justice agencies. A further 36 officials were identified to be placed in economic, finance, planning and spending agencies.

"So it’s taking what we were doing in the past and strengthening it, making it much more focused than it’s been, having Australians personally involved but always respecting that Papua New Guinea is an independent country,” Downer said in December.

”It is a sovereign country, it has its sovereign rights and ultimately it’s the Government and the people of Papua New Guinea who are responsible for the destiny of the country, not us," he added.

While many in Papua New Guinea cautiously welcomed the agreement as offering the chance to deal with some of the problems within government agencies, the insistence that Australian staff be exempt from PNG law sparked an outcry.

The general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in PNG, Lawrence Stephens, wrote to a PNG newspaper that support for the deal was being jeopardised by Australia’s demand for legal immunity, which displayed "blatant disrespect for the constitution and laws of this country”.

However, INA’s director Mike Manning now believes that Australia’s insistence on immunity from prosecution for its personnel is counterproductive to what was touted as a cooperative mission.

"The idea that Australian personnel are in any way different from their PNG counterparts will immediately create a barrier between the Australian officers and their PNG counterparts," he wrote on Monday in the ‘Australian Financial Review’.

A campaigner with the Sydney-based non-government watchdog group Aidwatch, Tim O’Connor, is amazed at Manning’s turnaround. "It is a very good indication of the depth of opposition to the bid for immunity. People in PNG believe that their legal system has stood up even though it has had resource problems and getting enough judges, but there is broad opposition to this," he said.

Downer insists that the immunity arrangement aims to protect Australian officials from spurious claims. "We’ve explained the practical considerations that we need to address in terms of the protection of Australians from vexatious claims, so we’re working that through," he said.

But to O’Connor, Australia’s insistence on legal immunity smacks of paternalism. "Why do they want it? Is it because they think they expect to get a different legal treatment, a different hearing if something does go wrong and they are charged? Is it that they are saying they would get a fairer hearing in Australia?” he asked.

”It sends a very negative message to the legal system in PNG and the broader community in PNG that Australia thinks something is not okay there,” he added.

Downer too acknowledges the issue has become very controversial in PNG. "This has taken on a political life of its own within Papua New Guinea," he said.

In the wake of the rebuff, Downer is now understood to be pinning his hopes on negotiating a compromise under which Australian personnel would be jointly subject to both Papua New Guinean and Australian laws.

The ‘Enhanced Cooperation Programme is projected to cost 592 million U.S. dollars over five years. "It will be expensive, but it’s our view that that will make a decisive difference to the law and justice, law and order situation in Papua New Guinea," Downer said in December.

However, how much of the scheme will be paid for from the current 244 million U.S. dollars annual aid budget from Australia, which would otherwise fund health, education and other development programsme, is unknown. "It is very hard to get to the bottom of it. AusAid won’t give us a clear answer," O’Connor said.