The term ‘Kokoda’ has been hijacked to support Canberra’s Woke agenda for our Pacific neighbours.
Their campaign of stealth began under the Coalition government, who ignored Veterans’ Affairs and allocated responsibility for the Kokoda Trail to the Minister for Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts under a Joint Agreement with PNG in 2008.
‘Heritage’ was later removed from the title and responsibility for our most important second world war icon now rests with the Minister for Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.
In the meantime, the Kokoda Trail emerged as PNG’s most popular tourism destination.
The first hint of a ‘Kokoda hijack’ came in 2014 during Senate Estimates when it was revealed that significant funds were allocated to consultants for a Kokoda Initiative Gender Snapshot at the expense of a Military Heritage Master Plan.
The following year, under Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s watch, DFAT sought to replace ‘mateship’ with ‘friendship’ in their Joint Agreement for the Kokoda Initiative as it was seen to be more inclusive.
More recently, on August 7, 2024, the Australian newspaper revealed that DFAT policy for aid-funding in PNG now requires ‘taxpayer-funded foreign aid projects above $3 million to address gender inequality’ while ‘80 per cent will need to have climate change objectives’.
Enterprising PNG politicians quickly dumped their commitment to pilgrimage tourism and rolled over to seize opportunities in the new aid-funded revenue stream.
Outspoken Oro Provincial Governor, Gary Juffa MP, was the first to jump on their Climate Change gravy train at the 2024 Garma Festival in the Northern Territory. He had no trouble keeping a straight face as he warned the gathering that ‘the world is already at the precipice of Global Boiling’.
It’s not known what Juffa’s reaction is to the latest Garma gathering which coincided with the first snowfalls in more than a decade in tropical Queensland. He is yet to comment on this inconvenient climate phenomenon!
We assume the good Governor is now working on his policy positions relating to DFAT’s Gender Based Violence and Gender Equity programs for his people in Oro Province. Time will tell!
It’s now clear that DFAT’s Kokoda Initiative has been used as a Trojan horse for their Woke agenda in PNG for some time.
This is reflected in their 2019 Annual Review of the Papua New Guinea Australia Governance Partnership which is almost indecipherable to the layman due to its bureaucratic gobbledygook. The report advises that their ‘outcomes constitute adoption of a programmatic approach to gender equality seen in the level of activities and outputs that include women or address gender equality, rather than ultimate outcomes in the lives of women per se’.
Our shared military heritage across the Kokoda Trail doesn’t rate a mention.
Indeed, a review of DFAT’s Kokoda Initiative shows there are zero outcomes from their multi-million-dollar investment in the management of the Kokoda Trail since they took control of it 15 years ago. For example:
- There is no credible Military Heritage Master Plan
- No financial management plan
- No management database
- No campsite booking system
- No trek itinerary management plan
- No trail maintenance master plan
- No campsite development plan
- No audit system for campsite owners
- No integrity in the tour operator licensing system
- No safeguards for the welfare of PNG guides and carriers
- No system for village-based workshops
- No community development plan
Of more concern to the 65,000 Australians who have trekked across the Kokoda Trail over the past two decades is the fact that its potential as a world-class pilgrimage tourism destination for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities across it has been ignored.
They would be aghast at the possibility of any social engineering agenda which may see the words ‘Courage-Sacrifice-Mateship-Endurance’ carved in each of the four granite pillars at the Isurava Memorial replaced with ‘Gender-Equity-Social-Inclusion’.
Hon Charlie Lynn OAM OL (PNG)
