Before I Sleep (17 page)

There was a problem in staffing the Force. Many of the young men entering the Force could now read and speak English, unlike their older colleagues. This meant that only the younger members were able to read the instructions and other memoranda from headquarters. Because of this, the older men were losing the respect habitually given to age by their juniors. On the other hand, when a police patrol was sent out on its own into the bush, it was the older members who were experienced in bush craft and who were respected by any villagers they came across.

I was concerned by an earlier statement by the Territory's crown solicitor who reported that “the present system of administration of justice did not grow from below to satisfy a popular demand, but was imposed from without, and was contrary to popular practice”. This seemed to me to negate the very heart of English style democratic policing but, as far as I knew, the solicitor's views were based only on anecdotal evidence. If the police were to operate with the consent of the community, then it was clear to me that we ought to find out more about any conflict or confusion this “imposition” of foreign values actually caused. I later picked up a reference by the anthropologist Peter Lawrence, a recognised authority on this region, who said “the New Guinea process of social control rests on principles diametrically opposed to those underlying our own legal system”. Lawrence concluded that attempts to impose Australian law on TPNG societies invited one of two reactions: rejection, or change of social structure.

I noted that in TPNG there were many differences of opinion on the relative seriousness of particular offences. Members of the judiciary were Australian, with only a few assistant magistrates recruited from the local population. In the police force, all the constables were locals, but the senior officers were almost all white Australians. The principal body of law defining criminal offences in Papua at the time was the 1899 Criminal Code of Queensland, but the principal part of the legal system in regular contact with Papuans and New Guineans was the Native Regulations. Some activities, such as adultery and sorcery, were not crimes under the Code, but were crimes under the Regulations. In the allocation of penalties, the judiciary were required to consider the sense of resentment and outrage on the part of those injured and of the public. No one else seemed interested in exploring the way cultural differences affected the perception of crime, so I sought approval from the ANU to undertake a survey of views on the seriousness of common crimes as part of my Master's thesis. As informants, I selected some three hundred young English-speakers of both sexes in the TPNG — 75 at the Administrative Staff College, 106 new recruits at the Police College, 31 second year students at the university, 46 students at the Teachers College and 98 serving soldiers of the Pacific Island Regiment. For the Australian sample, I selected 30 recruits at the Queensland Police Depot, 101 male cadets at the South Australian Police Academy, 100 RAAF servicemen and 66 psychology students at the University of Queensland. The results were interesting. There was a good deal of agreement on the degrees of seriousness, with some of the groups showing a similarity by occupation as much as by nationality. Those subjects with some tertiary education, for example, viewed civil disorder more tolerantly than others. The Queensland psychology students differed from all other groups in their view of the seriousness of homosexuality. Violent crime was considered less serious by the TPNG participants, while Australians regarded offences by juveniles as less serious. The TPNG replies showed that they viewed stealing more seriously than the Australians, but both university groups were more tolerant than their countrymen.

While these group differences were interesting, I found on probing TPNG individuals that these totals disguised even deeper disagreements. For example, I asked my TPNG informants why they regarded “burning the Australian flag” as nearly as serious as a murder, when the Australians considered it a very minor misbehaviour. The TPNG people explained that the Queen's spirit resided in the flag and that burning it was akin to killing the Queen. I asked why non-payment of council rates was regarded in TPNG as being as serious as stealing, when Australians considered it a very minor offence. My informants explained: “If we don't pay our rates we can't pay for a road to our village. We all use the road. Those who don't pay their rates are stealing from us.” The ANU examiners accepted my thesis. My survey was carried out thirty years ago, and I do not know how the large social changes which have occurred in the TPNG since then have affected local assessments of the relative seriousness of crimes. As far as I know there has been no replication of my study. I recently discovered that Professor Brian Inglis thought highly of it.

During my varied career, I've met a number of public figures — some impressive, and some not so impressive. The most impressive person I met in TPNG was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port Moresby, Dr Virgil Copas. Virgil and I met quite accidentally one afternoon and I was taken by the very pleasant and concerned manner in which he talked to me about the problems of New Guinea. He was an old hand: he had been archbishop for almost ten years, and before that he had been a navy chaplain and then a priest in Darwin. He was a man of about my own age, sparsely built with a very pleasant, unassuming face. When he entered a room, he did so without any ostentation — nobody paid him any particular attention or homage, even the members of his own church. But when Virgil talked to you, he immediately focused on what you were saying and was very soon on your wavelength, picking up all the nuances and feelings behind your statements. He gave me a lot of good advice about the ways of the people, both black and white, in TPNG. On the odd occasion when I felt a bit fed up, Virgil lent a sympathetic ear. We didn't meet all that frequently; Virgil came to our house for the occasional meal with Mavis and me and a couple of times he asked me down to the archbishop's “palace” next to the cathedral.

The cathedral was a fairly humble affair and Virgil had set about raising funds to make it a bit more like a major place of Christian worship. But he had wanted this done in the native style rather than the normal Roman fashion, full of statuary. Virgil had given instructions to the architect to incorporate local New Guinean features into the renovations. So the front of the building had been given an imposing, decorated facade in the Sepik style. Sepik men are known as excellent wood carvers and house designers.

I wasn't at the unveiling of the front of the cathedral, although I wish I had been because it soon became apparent to the onlookers that the designer had incorporated a number of Sepik totems that had very erotic meanings in the local culture. These were typical of the Sepik buildings, but Virgil had to quickly engage in some diplomatic maneuvering to get them disguised in a way that made them acceptable to the European Christian community.

Virgil was a very learned man. He had a doctorate in divinity from Rome and was well-read in most philosophies. He was able to suggest reading to me that helped me understand some of the local customs and cults — especially the cargo cult belief system which was still prevalent in some parts of New Guinea. Virgil's assistant was an Irishman who had formerly been a Macquarie Street eye surgeon. He became a priest and had come up to TPNG to work with Virgil and to provide free eye treatment for the natives of the region. The two men worked well together; they were committed people who really had the good of their fellow men at heart. They understood the region far better than many of the civil administrators who still saw TPNG as a sort of de facto Australian colony. I liked the Irishman; he and I got on well together even though we didn't meet all that often. I think he had gladly sacrificed all the privileges of his Australian practice, but what he did miss, it seemed to me, was a drop of Irish whisky. And since he couldn't afford whisky on his priest's pay, this was a longing not often satisfied. About once a quarter I gave a small afternoon tea party to the other departmental heads in Port Moresby at which both tea and grog were served. I always ensured that the whisky bottle was spirited away by Manassa while it still had a fair amount left in it. The next day Manassa would drive down to the “palace” with the bottle wrapped up in brown paper and marked “medical supplies”. And whenever I saw the Irish doctor he always said, with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eye: “That medicine was well applied.”

When Virgil had served ten years in Port Moresby, he retired to Kerema on the south coast of Papua, a place even less pleasant than Port Moresby. He spent most of his remaining years there until ill-health caused him to move to a small unit on the Gold Coast of Queensland. I understand he died a short time ago.

In my working life, both as a policeman and an air force officer, I have been the subject of regular reports on my performance and personality and I suppose that these have all been stored away somewhere. But one report that I have always regarded with a great sense of pleasure was an unexpected tribute by a stranger who described me in a letter he wrote. His name is Kev Roberts and this is what he said:

At about the time of the moon landing, I was one of a handful of Europeans (whites) working in a remote location on the island of Bougainville. Initially, it was my job to wire up a very small diesel generator to light the first half dozen portable accommodation blocks on a coconut plantation called Loloho. Soon, the small workforce was the vanguard for the many hundreds of specialists to follow, where eventually, the quiet little bay would be transformed into a busy shipping port, and the immediate hinterland would be carved into another shape by huge bulldozers. Even small hills were flattened and pushed out over the white sandy beach until the magnificent coral reef that fined the bay was completely and forever covered in debris from the land.

Understandably, despite being forewarned by government that this was to happen, most of the natives were appalled at what was going on. Up until this moment in their lifetime, they were very simple people, not far removed from what we would describe as stoneage, and to see their fishing grounds and other locations destroyed before their very eyes, was unfathomable. Their worst enemy during the previous thousand years would not do such a thing to them, as their land is a common entity that provides life to all. Naturally, they were incited to riot. They had no idea or understanding of the white man's definition of progress …

This civil unrest attracted attention from many areas, the media included. I happened to be standing near the beach one morning as a bulldozer began the task of flattening a small hill. Angry natives came from everywhere and began shouting at the huge machine to stop its destruction. In desperation, a native woman then broke rank and placed her infant child in the path of the bulldozer in a final attempt at saving the situation. This action was captured by a cameraman and the dramatic photo was published worldwide. It was then that the police force was called upon to be on special alert and the riot squad was flown in from Port Moresby.

At this early stage, a wet canteen had been built on the beach that extended out over the water. From this magnificent position, the yet-undamaged section of the reef could be viewed in all its glory. I happened to be in this little canteen when a very tired and drawn man entered with a few others. I had no idea who they were and assumed them to be media representatives who had just bounced their way up the goat track that stretched all the way along the coastline from the grass airport at Kieta.

One particular man among the newly arrived visitors seemed to be the point of focus of everyone present and they bombarded him with a multitude of questions. From this I deduced that he was probably a politician of sorts as I can't recall that he was dressed in uniform. He answered each question in a very cool and calm manner, yet at the same time, any fool could see that he needed to rest.

After some time spent watching him converse with the mob, and feeling slightly sorry for him, I approached him and asked him over to the corner of the room on some pretext, probably to view the reef. He immediately accepted as it was an excellent opportunity to rid himself of the henpeckers.

I forget the exact conversation, which lasted for only a few minutes, but I spoke of diving and exploring the immediate area, the size of the crays that I had eaten, and the general beauty of the area. I ensured that the contents of the conversation did not include one snippet of controversy. He immediately relaxed. Within those minutes, I knew that I was speaking to a very genuine human being. A very caring person who seemed to have the empathy of a mother. It was with great surprise when I later learned that he was Papua New Guinea's Commissioner of Police. His job was not to mould the policy of the new country, his j ob was to police that policy, no matter what the politicians had decided.

Many months afterwards, when I had returned to the big smoke of Port Moresby, I happened to be waiting at an intersection when a large black vehicle pulled up beside my grubby little utility. I noticed that it was a government limo with heavily tinted windows. Suddenly, the rear window wound down to reveal the familiar face of a person who was now dressed in the uniform of the Commissioner of Police. He flashed a huge smile and tipped his cap at me. In surprised recognition, I gave a silly nod in response and seconds later, we parted. In retrospect, after such a brief meeting, many months earlier, only a gentleman would bother to do that. Ray Whitrod was such a gentleman.

A few years later, it transpired that he was far too human and genuine to survive in the corrupt and sordid world of Queensland politics. As a flower soon dies when the earth is fouled, he was cut, packaged and trashed before many Queenslanders could ever get to know him.