Australia's neo-liberal PNG land agenda: exposed

27 June 2005

Media release

For comment, please contact Dr Mike Bourke, co-author (02)
6125 4345

Dr Clive Hamilton
02 6125 1270 or 0413 993 223

Privatising Land Wont Solve Pacific Problems: New report

Proposals to make Australian aid to Pacific nations contingent on
privatising customary land tenures could have disastrous consequences
according to a report by five leading experts published today by The
Australia Institute.

The report, Privatising Land in the Pacific: A defence of customary
tenures, is a response to a series of papers authored mainly by Helen
Hughes and published by the free-market think tank the Centre for
Independent Studies. Hughesargument that customary land tenures are the
principal cause of poverty in PNG, and that Australia should make its aid
contingent upon changes, is influential in Government circles.

Releasing the report, Institute Executive Director Dr Clive Hamilton said:
When people heard that land reforms along these lines were being proposed
in 2001, there were riots in Port Moresby and four people were killed.

The new report argues that this view is based on wholesale confusion about
the nature of land ownership in Pacific nations and reflects an ideological
free-market approach to development.

It shows that, far from being an obstacle to development, customary tenures
are the dynamic sector in PNG. Over recent decades, agricultural production
has expanded steadily under customary tenures, but has mostly declined
under registered titles, a fact that destroys the arguments of those who
claim land privatisation is necessary.

The report gives examples of highly successful local development built
around customary tenures in a number of countries and land types.

Editor of the report, Dr Jim Fingleton said: The push to individualise
customary tenures is an old approach dating from the 1950s; it has been
tried before and has failed comprehensively. It is neither desirable nor
feasible to cancel out group rights and responsibilities over customary land.

The radical free market reforms urged by Hughes and her co-authors would,
if implemented, be a major set-back to social and economic development in
the Pacific.

A summary of the paper may be read under Whats New on the Australia
Institutes website.