My Kokoda Credentials . . .
AUTHOR: The Hon. Major Charlie Lynn OAL OL psc
My Observations . . .
I have witnessed the rise and fall of Kokoda tourism since leading the first of my 101 treks across the Kokoda Trail 34 years ago, in 1991.
Prior to my first trek there was no management system in place, no trek permit fees were collected, and no income for subsistence village communities.
The rise started in 2004 when Sir Peter Barter responded to our call to establish a management authority and appointed a former Kiap, Warren Bartlett, as Chief Executive, with a part-time assistant to run it as a business under the auspices of the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (TPA).
Adventure Kokoda agreed to assist in funding the new organisation, the ‘Kokoda Track (Special Purpose) Authority’ (KTA), with an advance of $10,000 until some income from Trek Permit fees was generated.
This was necessary as no financial support was available from either Government as neither PNG nor ‘Kokoda’ were not on Australia’s radar at the time. There was also considerable pushback from eco-tour operators who had arrived to cash in on the opportunity and wanted to keep their costs down by not having to pay for permits.
Over the next 5 years, under PNG management, the Kokoda Trail emerged as PNGs most popular tourism destination with trekker numbers surging by a whopping 423% from 1071 in 2004, to 5621 in 2008.
The fall began the following year after Australia took control of the Kokoda Trail under a ‘Joint’ Agreement formulated in Canberra and signed in Madang in 2008.
Since then, trekker numbers have plummeted by 42% due to the dysfunctional bureaucratic management system they imposed – this led to chaos across the Trail and a cumulative loss of some $19 million (PNGK50 million) in foregone wages, campsite fees and local purchases for the village communities they were supposed to help under their ‘Kokoda Initiative’.
DFATs Bureaucratic Management Omelette
The management of the Kokoda Trail should be a relatively simple task – all it needs is a CEO, an office manager, an accountant, a Chief Ranger, a Field Ranger and a small support staff – it has the capacity to be self-funding and capable of delivering social and economic benefits to village communities.
This simple task has been converted into an international bureaucratic management omelette by Australian Climate Change, Environment,Energy and Water (DCCEEW), and DFAT officials with one eye on the lucrative international aid-funded industry, and the other for their own career advancement.
Let me explain!
DFAT works through a ‘Quality and Technical Assurance Group’ (QTAG) which provides ‘strategic, advisory, review, and quality assurance capability and services to support their objectives’for the delivery of Australian aid programs in PNG.
QATAG does not consult with key stakeholders, i.e., tour operators who generate income for Kokoda tourism, or traditional landowner communities.
After they took control of the Kokoda Trail, QTAG then commissioned a United States based conglomerate, Abt Global, which manages large-scale development programs in the Indo-Pacific region including the PNG Governance Facility on their behalf.
DFAT also engaged the United Kingdom based Oxford Policy Management (OPM) group to conduct a review of their ‘Kokoda Initiative’ and, according to AI, ‘provide quality assurance and technical expertise to the Australian Government’s aid program in PNG‘. They are involved in reviewing and assessing the effectiveness of development programs from their distant London offices.
We responded to a request from Oxford Policy Management on this link back in 2014:
We never received an acknowledgement or a response from OPM.
According to AI, ‘London based, Oxford Policy Management (OPM) and USA based, Abt Global have a linkage through their work with the Australian Government’s aid program, particularly in Papua New Guinea (PNG) – OPM Australia, provides quality assurance and technical expertise to the aid program’.
Their 2019 Annual Review of the ‘Kokoda Initiative Papua New Guinea–Australia Governance Partnership’ reveals that heir primary focus relates to Canberra’s social engineering strategies for PNG – it has no relation to the commercial management of pilgrimage tourism for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities!
The report is a betrayal of our shared Kokoda legacy!
It’s clear that DFAT funded officials and consultants in these areas have no idea of military heritage and the potential for the Kokoda Trail to be a world-class pilgrimage destination for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities.
Pilgrimage tourism across the Kokoda Trail, which provides the economic lifeblood for village communities and offers hope for a sustainable economic future, does not rate in their 2019 DFAT-Kokoda Initiative review which prioritises their concerns relating to World Heritage, Interim Protection Zones (IPZs), Protected Areas (PAs), Gender Based Violence (GBV), and Gender, Equity, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI).
Kokoda Trail Mismanagement
Canberra’s new arrivals were unfamiliar with the subtleties of the ‘Melanesian Way‘, and knew nothing about the business of pilgrimage tourism or the military heritage of the Kokoda campaign.
None had ever trekked it with a professional operator and they didn’t conduct any market research with past trekkers – it was as if they already knew everything!
A chronology of their failures from 2009-2019 is outlined on this link:
Their KTA Strategic Plan for the period 2012-2015 contained five key strategies and 33 objectives – the following link reveals that not one was achieved:
As a result of DFATs abject failure their plan was quietly shelved and has never been replaced – 10 years on there is still no Management Plan!
Some of their more spectacular failures include:
- a million-dollar ‘Village Livelihood Project’, developed without consultation with the PNG Department of Community Development; Kokoda tour operators; or traditional landowners which failed to generate a single dollar in income for villagers – the project was quietly shelved.
- Their funding of two massage parlours at Isurava and Efogi – they were quietly closed after two years ;
- a Campsite Accreditation System that never happened – it is still not possible to book a campsite anywhere across the Trail.
- Their engagement of an American anthropologist without any military history or service credentials as Australia’s ‘National Military Advisor in PNG’ without consultation with the Australian War Memorial or accredited military historians.
- Their Investment in a ‘Lost Battlefield’ which has never been ‘lost’ because it has never existed!
- Their failure to invest in a single military heritage site to enhance the value of pilgrimage for Australian taxpayers.
- Their failure to meet the most basic needs of trekkers – there is not a single hygienic toilet across the entire Trail.
- Their failure to protect village guides and porters from exploitation – as a result, the majority are overloaded, underpaid, underfed, and poorly equipped – one died while being required to carry a backpack which reportedly weighed more than 40 kg.
- Their failure to ever publish an Annual Financial Report.
They have also turned a blind eye to the proliferation of illegal Australian tour companies who refuse to comply with the PNG Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) Act and therefore avoid paying tax on the millions they have earned in PNG over the years:
Any other organization with such a dismal record of failure would be placed under administration!
DFATs answer has been to fund the establishment of a replacement ‘Kokoda Track Management Authority’ (KTMA) which will result in PNG becoming the only country in the world to allow its most popular tourism destination to be managed as an environment park for the benefit of foreign aid-funded officials and consultants, rather than as a tourism enterprise for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities across the Trail. Following is an analysis of their proposal:
The most sensible solution to save the Kokoda Trail for pilgrimage tourism is to follow Prime Minister’s Marape’s mantra to ‘Take back PNG’ by having his Minister for Tourism Arts and Culture ‘Take back Kokoda‘ and use the provisions of the Lands Act to acquire the 138 Km Kokoda Trail between Owers Corner and Kokoda as a national tourism asset – it has aleady been gazetted by PNGs founding fathers during the lead-up to Independence in 1972.
The DFAT ‘Kokoda Initiative’ should then be rebadged as the ‘Owen Stanley Ranges Initiative’ to reflect Canberra’s wider socio- anvironment agenda.
A Bit of History
Subsistence villagers across the Kokoda Trail earned zero income from pilgrimage tourism until the 50th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 1992.
Our anecdotal research among the 7,000 Australians we have led indicates they were motivated by the military history of the Kokoda campaign and the physical challenge it presented.
They never expected to have a ‘cultural awakening’ or an ‘environmental levitation’ – they simply wanted to walk in the footsteps of our diggers, hear their stories, and experience some of the adversity they faced to stop a fanatical enemy on our doorstop in 1942.
Their cultural awakening with our closest neighbour, former territory, and wartime ally comes later.
After the war the men who fought in the campaign returned to their cities and towns to rebuild their lives – few had any desire to return to the battlefields and revisit the trauma they experienced.
For many it took an Anzac Day reunion to get them to even talk about it among their mates – but their stories slowly seeped out as baby boomers lined the streets each Anzac Day and later perched on tank-stands outside country mechanics halls around the country to eavesdrop on their stories.
Emergence of Kokoda Tourism
Publicity generated from the first group I led to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 1992 created an increase in public awarness and to more inquiries for another trek.
After leading more groups and learning more about the Trail, its people, and the campaign, I submitted a proposal in good faith in 1994 – unfortunately it was ignored and we were left to our own resources to overcome the challenges we faced in the early days:
At that early stage I was not aware that the series of tracks over which the Kokoda campaign was fought had already been officially gazetted by PNGs founding fathers as the ‘Kokoda Trail’ in the lead-up to Independence in 1972.
In 1996 I led a group of celebrities across the Trail for a Channel 9 Anzac Day special – the group included Angry Anderson, Daryl Brathwaite, Dermot Brereton, Collette Mann and Grant Kenney.
The screening of the program on Channel 9s ‘A Current Affair’ resulted in the highest ratings ever achieved by the show which reinforced my view that Australians want to know more about our wartime history and led to an increase in awareness of the pilgrimage:
Channel 9: Angry Anderson Kokoda Challenge Television Special
PNG Management: 1992-2008
The publicity we generated led to a surge in trekker numbers despite the fact that campsites did not have the capacity to meet the demand, there was no managment system in place, and no memorials at significant sites to interpret the story of the Kokoda campaign.
Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) Ministers and officials were difficult to engage and not interested in assisting PNG to develop it as a National Memorial Park as we had proposed – they also had no interest in assisting them to manage it as the following link shows:
However, to their credit they did fund the construction of a significant memorial on the Isurava battlesite which we had rediscovered six years earlier in 1996 – the memorial was officially opened by Prime Ministers’ John Howard and Sir Michael Somare on the 60th anniversary of the battle in 2002:
Unfortunately DVA saw it is the end of their commitment to the Kokoda Trail while we hoped it would be the beginning as the number of trekkers increased by a whopping 423% from 1,074 in 2003 to 5,621 in 2008.
The Kodu Goldmine
The discovery of an $4 billion (K10 billion) gold and copper deposit on Mt Bini adjacent to the Kokoda Trail in 2006 finally triggered Canberra to take an interest in it.
Frontier Resources claimed the economic benefits from the mine would provide more in taxes and royalties to the Papua New Guinea government than all Australian aid and provided the example of the expected royalties and taxes from Ok Tedi in 2007/08 (Media Release, 19 November 2007).
Newspaper reports estimated the return for landowners and the management authority over the estimated 10-year production of the mine would be in the vicinity of $100 million (K234 million) with half quarantined for the preservation of the Trail, and half for education for subsistence communities across the Trail.
Kokoda tour operators who were aware of survey pegs appearing up Engineers Ridge on the Magulie Range and the pristine waters of Ofi Creek turning black raised their concerns in the media and directly with Government.
Frontier Resources approval for the mine was then successfully challenged on a technicality by both governments. Nauro landowners reportedly received a generous compensation package from the PNG Government and have since mostly abandoned their village and moved to Port Moresby.
However, in view of the management debacle under Canberra’s watch since then, it would have been more advantageous for both landowners and pilgrimage trekkers if the $4 billion (PNGK10 billion) goldmine had been allowed to proceed with appropriate environmental protection back in 1997.
Whilst Canberra’s intervention was seen to have ‘saved’ the Kokoda Trail it has turned out to be counter-productive.
The mine, adjacent to the southern section of the Trail, would have delivered an estimated $100 million (K234 million) in community benefits over its projected 10-year life which would have expired in 2019.
With proper management this would have funded a Military Heritage Master Plan and interpretive memorials at every site across the Kokoda Trail along with schools and health centres to meet the immediate and future social and economic needs of village communities.
The Canberra Takeover – 2009
After Canberra sucessfully prevented the Kodu Goldmine from proceedingn they committed $16 million (K38 million) to assist PNG to secure a World Heritage listing via a ‘Joint’ Understanding signed in 2008. A major justification for the joint agreement was the need to protect the upper reaches of the Brown River as a potential water source for Port Moresby.
A year later the PNG government announced plans for a Chinese funded $260 million (K640 million) 54 MW Edevu Hydro Power Project which included a dam on the Brown River to meet future water and power needs of their nation’s capital – it was completed and officially opened by Prime Minister Marape in 2024:
This effectively negated the justification for a World Heritage listing as the Edevu Hydro Power Project provided for the environmental protection of the Nauro swampland in the upper reaches of the Brown River catchment area – there were no fallback options for Canberra as ‘military heritage’ is not a factor for World Heritage nominations.
However, Canberra doubled down and continued to dispatch bureaucrats and consultant environmentalists, anthropologists, archaeologists, academics, and social engineers under the guise of their newly badged ‘Kokoda Initiative’.
The ‘invasion’ of the new arrivals was reminiscent of Keith Wiley’s observations in ‘Assignment New Guinea’ 53 years earlier:
‘In recent years the academics have discovered New Guinea. Grave, plump, portentous, they swarm north in their hundreds each winter, generally finishing somewhere near Goroka in the Eastern Highlands where at times they become so numerous that every bush and stone seems to conceal a lurking bureaucrat or anthropologist. After a few weeks or a few months they return home to prepare brisk solutions for all the problems which beset the land. Too often they see New Guinea coldly as an exercise in nation-building to be carried out as quickly as possible, with one eye on the taxpayer at home and the other on some ranting demagogue in the United Nations. ‘At times the maligned colonialists, who walked over the country and fought for it, seem to come nearer the heart of the matter. Stripped of slogans and self- interest, New Guinea emerges not as a ‘problem’; to be ‘solved’, or assessed, but simply as a land, wild and beautiful, worthy to be loved for its own sake; with a people, backward, kindly, and in need of help.
Assignment New Guinea. Keith Wiley. Jacaranda Press.1965 P. i
The new arrivals from Canberra’s Department of Environment, Water, Heritage, and the Arts (DEWHA) were just as unfamiliar with PNG and the Melanesian Way as their predecessors were in 1965!
Rather than join a professional Kokoda tour company to share the emotion of the pilgrimage with trekkers; to understand the impact of its historic significance; and to get a feel for the basic needs and expectations of local villagers; they invariably opted to trek in their own small aid-funded groups with a local guide who knew nothing about military strategy, jungle warfare tactics, or the battles across the Trail.
Some returned to Canberra as ‘experts’ while others were assigned to a ‘Kokoda Development Program’ within the Australian High Commission to work on AusAID projects unrelated to pilgrimage tourism.
Others were later embedded within the PNG Conservation Environment Protection Authority (CEPA) in their quest to justify a switch from ‘World Heritage’ to ‘Protected Area’ status.
They conveniently disregarded an earlier 2006 ‘Rapid Assessment and Prioritisation of Protected Area Management’ (RAPPAM) report for PNG which had been compiled by the Department of Environment and Conservation; the PNG Forestry Authority; the Research and Conservation Foundation; the Nature Conservancy; and the Village Development Trust; which concluded:
‘Many of the areas with high socio-economic importance are facing a relatively low degree of threat (Kokoda,Wiad, Pirung) . . . Areas like Lihir, Tonda, and Bagiai are exceptions to this rule and hence require more efforts to protect them from the variety of threats they are currently facing.’
The detailed findings of the this international environment body of experts can be read on this link:
Another group of DEWHA officials were assigned to the offices of the PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) and assumed responsibility for the management of the Kokoda Trail. None had any previous experience in commercial business management, pilgrimage tourism, or the reality of the ‘Melanesian Way’. None had trekked across the Trail, so they had no understanding of local Koiari and Orokaiva culture at the village level; the environment; military heritage sites; the adequacy of campsites; or the professionalism of village guides and porters.
They failed to conduct any village-based workshops to seek to understand local community needs and expectations – a fundamental necessity in ‘seeking to understand before being understood’ in Melanesian culture. They also ignored the template we had funded for the conduct of village-based workshops five years earlier:
‘Heritage’ was later removed from their title after it was rebadged as the Department of Sustainability Environment Water Population and Communities (DSEWPC), and later as the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water (DCCEEW)!
Their agenda was first exposed in their subtle redefinition of the ‘Kokoda Trail’ as a ‘Kokoda Corridor’ which included Sirinumu Dam in the south of Central Province through to the northern beachheads of Oro Province, and a large chunk of the Owen Stanley Ranges – this provided a smorgasboard of aid-funded opportunities for foreign environment officials, anthropologists, archaelogists, academics and social engineers.
Rather than define their role as an ‘Owen Stanley Ranges Initiative’ they chose the term ‘Kokoda’ due to its emotive resonance with Australian taxpayers – it also firewalled them from any criticism of their wider socio-environment agenda.
The extended focus also provided an alibi for Canberra to disregard the need for management systems to be introduced for the emerging pilgrimage tourism industry across the Kokoda Trail.
As a result no management systems or protocols have ever been introduced under their watch. No investment has ever been directed toward the identification, protection and interpretation of military heritage sites to enhance the value of the pilgrimage for trekkers. No investment has ever been directed towards ensuring campsites are adequate to meet the needs of trekkers. No initiatives have been introduced to assist subsistence village communities to earn money by providing goods and services to meet the needs of trekkers. And there is no evidence of any plan to identify the variety of magnificent 300 year-old rain trees; giant pandanus, palm and fern trees; giant staghorns; moss colonies and orchids – according to PNGs Foreign Minister and international orchid expert, Hon Justin Tkatchenko MP (who trekked with me in 1996), there are more varieties of orchids across the Kokoda Trail than anywhere else in the world. But today, after scores of environment officials and millions of dollars, there is not a single envirinment interpretation sign for the diverse range of flora an fauna across the entire 138 km Kokoda Trail.
The following links detail the achievements, or lack thereof, of the three key Kokoda Initiative officals from 2009 – 2024:
The rapid decline in trekker numbers since they took control of the Kokoda Trail in 2009 should be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.
An independent inquiry would most likely find the demise of pilgrimage tourism would be attributed to Canberra’s emphasis on managing the Kokoda Trail as an socia-environment bureaucracy to support a World Heritage listing instead of supporting a commercial tourism enterprise based on the military heritage of the Kokoda campaign for the economic benefit of subsistence village communities across it.
Fallacy of World Heritage
In 2014 Canberra amalgamated the AusAID Kokoda Development Program (KDP) with the DFAT ‘Kokoda Initiative’ within the PNG Conservation Environment Protection Authority (CEPA).
The amalgamation coincided with an expert report by Dr Peter Hitchcock, Dr Jennifer Gabriel, and Dr Matthew Leavesley which found the Kokoda Trail did not meet the criteria for a World Heritage listing as detailed in the following link:
DFAT environment officials then scrambled to refocus their strategy towards the next level down by seeking ‘protected area (PA)’ status’ for an ‘Interim Protection Zone (IPZ)’ and sought to maintain their control over it via a clandestine attempt to establish a new environment park under the auspices of a ‘Kokoda Track Management Authority’ responsible to the Minister of Environment, Conservation and Climate Change as opposed to the Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culutre. The clandestine strategy has been exposed on this link:
Once again, Canberra officials failed to consult with the two key stakeholders in the drafting process, i.e., Kokoda tour operators who generate the income for pilgrimage tourism, and subsistence villagers who own the land sacred to our shared military heritage.
They also continued to ignore the findings of the 2006 ‘Rapid Assessment and Prioritisation of Protected Area Management’ report which should have seen them divert their resources to areas that have already been identified as high-risk environment threats further afield in PNG.
Dubious Engagement of Australia’s ‘National Military Heritage Advisor’ for PNG
Our repeated calls for a Military Heritage Master Plan for the Kokoda Trail had fallen on deaf ears for many years, however the exposure of the World Heritage fallacy finally led to a ‘Yes Minister’ strategy from DFAT in PNG.
Abt Associates, a London based, Canberra-funded global development consulting firm, posted the following information in an advertisement for a National Military Heritage Advisor at the PNG National Museum and Art Gallery (NMAG):
‘The PNG National Museum and Art Gallery (the Museum) is a core member of the Kokoda Initiative, being legislatively responsible for the preservation of all WWII war remains and artefacts. With most trekkers on the Kokoda Track being attracted by the military history of the Kokoda Campaign and its associated heritage, the preservation of the remaining evidence of the military presence on the Track is essential. The PNG Kokoda Initiative Master Plan envisages the development of a Kokoda Track Management Plan which will be made up of several elements including the strategic management of the military heritage on the Track[ii].
‘This plan will itself make up a critical element of the Environmentally Sustainable Development Master Plan being developed by CEPA for effective management of all values in the Brown River/Owen Stanley Range/Kokoda catchment[iii].’
The PNG NMAG is responsible to the Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture – it’s a cultural museum which has no expertise in military heritage and which has been subject to allegations of corruption which are detailed on the followingt link:
According to Mr Tom Battams, Third Secretary (Kokoda) at the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby:
‘The position was advertised on the Abt Associates (Australia) website and LinkedIn page from Abt Associates which is the Australian Government’s lead contractor engaged in the delivery of KI. The advertisement was shared proactively with universities, the Army Museum of WA[iv], Darwin Military Museum[v], Army Museum of NSW[vi], Army Museum of South Australia[vii], and through local and international networks by NMAG, KTA, CEPA and Kokoda Initiative staff.’
Mr Battams also advised:
‘The Australian Government is strongly encouraging NMAG to quickly establish an advisory body of military heritage experts and tour operators to ensure the views and interests of operators are reflected in the final Military Heritage Strategy. We urge trekking operators to contribute constructively to this body to give it every chance to succeed.’
This statement regarding the need to act ‘quickly’ was misleading!
The Abt document was dated 15 July 2016, however the advertisement for the position was inexplicably delayed until the peak of the Christmas holiday season between 19 December 2016 and 8 January 2017!
The military museums mentioned were closed during this period and none of the Kokoda trek operators listed on the KTA website were advised of the position.
The tender process could best be described as dodgy as it was not distributed to the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), the Australian War Memorial (AWM), or to accredited Australian military historians with expert knowledge of the Kokoda campaign!
The DFAT Strategic Advisor in CEPA, Mr Mark Nizette MBE, was well aware of the credentials of a military historian and Kokoda trek leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Rowan Tracey, who would have applied for the position if he had been aware of it. Colonel Tracey, a recipient of the Sword of Honour from the Royal Military College, Duntroon – he served with the PNGDF at a senior level and is fluent in Tok Pisin. He first trekked across the Trail 40 years ago, and many times since. He is the author of the official history of the 2nd Australian Infantry Division and was invited to address an international conference on the Kokoda campaign at the Australian War Memorial. He is Australia’s foremost historical expert on the Kokoda campaign – he was not contacted by Mark Nizette!
Nizette was also aware of Captain Reg Yates, author of the Australian Army Adventure Guide for PNG, who has visited and reported on every major campaign area throughout Papua New Guinea over a period of 40 years – he was not contacted either.
The successful candidate was an American anthropologist, Dr Andrew Connelly, whose thesis for his master’s degree in Anthropology was ‘Counting Coconuts: Patrol Reports from the Trobriand Islands. Part 1: 1907-1934’.His thesis for his doctorate was‘ Ambivalent Empire” Indigenous and Colonial Historicities in the Trobriand Islands, 1832-1941’.
Dr Connelly, who does not have any qualifications relating to military heritage or any previous military service was obviously preferred due to his association with the DFAT ‘Insiders Club’ in Port Moresby and his relationship with Mark Nizette.
The statement by Mr Battams is indicative of a carefully crafted strategy within the ‘Port Moresby DFAT ‘clique’ to bypass the Australian War Memorial, the official custodian of Australia’s military heritage, and DVA.
The recruiting process would certainly not have escaped the attention of relevant watchdog agencies if it had occurred in Australia!
If the ‘Kokoda Initiative’ was relevant to the protection, development, and interpretation of battlesites across traditional land between Sogeri and Kokoda, the following two criteria should be applied to the expenditure of any taxpayer funds:
- Will the investment add value to the pilgrimage across it for Australian taxpayers?
- Will it provide an opportunity for traditional landowner communities to earn additional income?
There are no known aid-funded projects that meet this criteria since Canberra took control of the Kokoda Trail in 2009!
The DFAT Kokoda Track Military Heritage Management Plan
A PNG ‘Kokoda Track Military Heritage Management Plan’ was co-authored by Dr. Connolly; Mark Nizette; and Mr Greg Bablis, Principal Curator for Modern History at the museum. None have any qualification in military heritage or pilgrimage tourism – this is reflected in their description of the Kokoda campaign as an ‘event’!
Mark Nizette MBE is regarded as the primary influencer of all things to do with the Canberra-funded Kokoda Initiative aid-funding due to his long-term engagement as their DFAT Strategic Advisor; his fluency in Tok Pisin; his position as Secretary of the influential PNG Ministerial Kokoda Initiative Committee (KIC) within CEPA; his authority within the KTA office where he has relocated himself after been banned from it by the former KTA CEO, Mr. James Enage for four years; and his co-authorship of the NMAG Kokoda Track Military Heritage Management Plan. The following link details Nizette’s long-term influence over the Kokoda Trail:
Extracts:
The Vision developed by the co-authors is meaningless:
‘That the military heritage of the Kokoda Track remains safe, authentic and accessible for residents and visitors for generations to come.’
A more appropriate vision statement would reflect the potential of the Kokoda Trail to be a world-class pilgrimage tourism destination for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities across it!
The document is more akin to a self-serving job description in support of their own socio-environment agenda through a ‘Kokoda’ lens for relevance – it’s a paltry 16 pages (with liberal use of graphics to achieve this), is broad in scope, simplistic in detail, and littered with bureaucratic speak of non-measurable platitudes such as ‘acknowledging’, ‘sharing’, ‘recognising’, ‘engaging’, ‘working with’ etc. It has little relevance to the reality of managing Kokoda tourism as evident by the following extracts:
- The Plan will also recognise the prominent roles of Japan and the USA in PNG’s war history, as well as the place of other nations, including the UK, India, Fiji, China, Korea, Taiwan, etc.
Our response:
Japan certainly played a prominent role in the Kokoda campaign – they started it!
The United States also had a prominent role as our major ally – however the UK, India, Fiji, China, Korea, and Taiwan were not involved.
When this was pointed out to Dr. Connolly he went off into an academic diatribe about their nebulous connections to the War in the Pacific. - The NMAG recognises the need for gender awareness in interpretive design and content, and the value of gendered renditions of oral history and other historical material.
Our response:
The need for ‘gender awareness’ in interpretive design and content’ should not be too difficult to implement – all soldiers involved in the Kokoda campaign were men!
- The Plan acknowledges that gendered relations and issues of social inclusion influence the implementation of community projects. The NMAG recognises the importance of taking gender and social inclusion into account at all phases of planning, consultation and implementation, and will do so explicitly in each element of the Plan.
Our response:
The plan’s recognition of ‘gender and social inclusion’ is more reflective of their own woke ideals than any form of reality across the Trail today where village communities live according to the spiritual dictates of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
- The NMAG finds that the terms ‘Kokoda Track’ and ‘Kokoda Trail’ are both historically valid appellations for the system of footpaths between Owers Corner and Kokoda. For consistency, the NMAG will use ‘Kokoda Track’ throughout this and related documents. However, this does not indicate a judgment upon historical validity, and the NMAG neither proscribes nor discourages the use of ‘Kokoda Trail’ by others.
Our response:
The term ‘Kokoda Trail’ is the official term gazetted by the PNG Government and the official name of the Battle Honour awarded to their Papuan Infantry Battalion. Canberra’s insistence on using their politically correct term ‘Kokoda Track’ is a patronising insult to PNGs sovereign right to name their own geographic features – one can only imagine the outcry if Papua New Guineans insisted in referring to ‘Uluru’ as ‘Ayers Rock’!
The plan comprises over-arching statements around site and artefact preservation but no detail on what will be done at which locations regarding preservation and interpretation, which should be the essence of a legitimate master plan.
The ‘actions and tasks’ section also lacks any specifics and contains no timeframes for any works to be completed, which should also be a key element of any such plan.
It provides no detail on key sites, including but not limited to, Isurava, Brigade Hill, Ioribaiwa, Eora Creek, Templeton’s Crossing, Imita Ridge, Deniki, Myola etc; what is required at each location; and when it will be done. In fact, most of these locations do not rate a mention.
Since then Dr. Connolly who, according to his signature block, now has a PhD in Pacific History, has gone off on a tangent far from the boundaries of the Kokoda campaign.
He has advised that:
‘all major decisions by the NMAG, including policy decisions regarding the NMAG’s work as a PNG member institution of the Kokoda Initiative are undertaken by NMAG leadership. NMAG staff and leadership make their own decisions, often without any outside input, which is of course a perfectly natural and desirable state of affairs.’
Dr Connolly has inadvertently ‘belled the cat‘ with his reference to their ‘NMAG leadership’ being the final arbiters on their own aid-funded agenda without any form of accountability – it is more akin to an open Australian taxpayer-funded chequebook to pursue their own woke socio-environment agenda.
Any credible Military Heritage Management Plan for the Kokoda Trail would have input from the Australian War Memorial, Australian military historians, and experienced Kokoda tour leaders who have been trekking across it for more than 30 years.
It would also reflect that the Kokoda campaign was not an ‘event’ as stated in their plan – it was actually a series of battles fought across the Kokoda Trail between Owers Corner and Kokoda from 28 July to 3 November 1942.
The following link provides a detailed response to each section of the plan:
DFATs Kokoda ‘Follies‘
Under Mark Nizette’s watch the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative seems to have carefully avoided investing in the identification, preservation, and interpretation of any significant military heritage site across the Kokoda Trail.
Owers Corner
Owers Corner is the gateway to the Kokoda Trail and the magnificent Owen Stanley Ranges – it is connected by road to the nation’s capital, Port Moresby it has the postential to be the most popular tourism destination in PNG but has been treated with contempt by the DFAT Kokoda Initiative to the extent itis now an unplanned heritage tourism junkyard.
After 17 years the DFAT Kokoda Initiative has failed to engage an accredited military heritage architect to develop a site plan for Owers Corner which should include a Visitors Centre; a replica traditional Koiari tree-house village; a sheltered assembly areas for trek groups; a signposted day-walk to the Goldie River along with an overnight trek via the original wartime track to Imita Ridge and return.
It’s worth noting that the 3-day Three Capes Trek in Tasmania, developed to complement the Port Arthur Heritage site, attracts 11,000 trekkers – while more than than 300,000 visit Port Arthur each year. The project manager for the design and development of the site was Michael Pender of HPA Projects – the same heritage architect that designed and built the historic Isurava Memorial on the Kokoda Trail to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 2002.
For reasons unknown the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative refused to consult with Michael Pender, or the Australian War Memorial, to advise on the installation of their proposed ‘information panels’ at Owers Corner. The tender for the project was awarded to ‘The Interpretative Design Company’ based in Coffs Harbour.
According to their website the contract was:
‘for the provision of interpretive services to the Australian Government Kokoda Initiative Taskforce’.
There is no record of this company having any previous experience or empathy with Papua New Guinea which is evident in their opening statement[i]:
‘With our first trip to PNG set for November 2015 and a deadline of ANZAC Day 2016 we had to hit the ground running.
‘Port Moresby is a confronting city and rated as one of the most violent places on the planet. It accosts the senses with its obvious social inequity. When the security agency describes recent events of rape and brutal assaults you cannot help but experience fear.’
Such a patronising insult to their host country reflected an appalling level of ignorance about the progressive advancement of Port Moresby in recent years.
It also indicated they had no knowledge of military heritage interpretation:
‘Researching and writing for this project was both stimulating and challenging. As there was no clear objective, other than some signage at Owers’ Corner that would portray the WWII experiences of the people of PNG, we had to start from scratch in workshops and engaging with the local communities.’
If there was ‘no clear objective’ in the tender document, ‘other than some signage at Owers Corner’ then surely the bureaucrats who developed and approved the tender should have been held accountable.
The statement that ‘we had to start from scratch in workshops with engaging the local communities’ beggars belief. The Australian War Memorial is the custodian of Australia’s wartime history. They should have been consulted to provide the research material required to ensure that any such work was completed in accordance with Principles of Commemoration and factual historical information re the Kokoda campaign.
The local community was not involved in the process. When I completed my Anzac trek at Owers Corner on 24 April 2016 I was approached by a local landowner who had a query about ‘somebody from the Kokoda Initiative coming to build something’ the following week’. He was never consulted and knew nothing about it. I was unable to provide him with any information as we were also unaware of it.
It was no surprise that they missed their deadline of Anzac Day, 2016.
A review of the information on the panels revealed that they had expunged the word ‘mateship’ and replaced it with ‘friendship’. The panels had to be removed and redesigned when this became publicly known. The information regarding the PNG ‘fuzzy-wuzzy angels’ is pure patronising drivel and historically incorrect.
Blamey’s Gardens
In 2016 Archaelogical & Heritage Management Solutions (AHMS) were engaged by the DFAT Kokoda Initiative via the PNG Conservation Evironment Protection to develop a ‘Cultural Management Plan’ for an area known as Blamey’s Garden at Hombrum Bluff.
The garden area was first conceived by General Sir Thomas Blamey as a respite centre for troops in 1942 but it was never completed – the site is in a remote isolated area and has no relevance to the Kokoda Trail.
The consultants engaged by the DFAT Kokoda Initiative were pursuing a spurious claim that it was the site of Blamey’s early 1942 headquarters which had been established by General Rowell. This headquarters was actually located off the old Sogeri Road a few kilometres north of the airport (which was later named ‘Jacksons Airport). Lieutenant Colonel Rowan Tracey, Australia’s most competent military historian regarding the Kokoda campaign, attempted to explain the futility of the project to the DFAT Stragtegic Advisor, Mark Nizette, but was ignored.
The “Blamey’s Garden” area was not by any measure an appropriate military site for a headquarters and in any case “Blamey’s Garden” was not started by the zoologist Captain A. J. Marshall until later in the War. It was subsequently abandoned by the civil administration to the invading bush in 1948.
Although not finished, “Blamey’s Garden” had reached a considerable level of development around the perched lake by the end of the War.
The engagement of a consultant archaeologist to develop a ‘Cultural Management Plan’ for Blamey’s Gardens at Hombrum Bluff was therefore a waste of Australian taxpayer funds as it is far removed from the Kokoda Trail; has no tourism potential; and absolutely no relevance to pilgrimage tourism across the Kokoda Trail.
According to KTA records, more than 65,000 Australians, attracted by the wartime heritage of the Kokoda campaign, have trekked across the Kokoda Trail. Not a single dollar had been invested to interpret and honour any significant significant battlesite since the DFAT Kokoda Initiative took control of it in 2009.
The DFAT-Kokoda Initiative should be required to provide a copy of the cost-benefit analysis regarding the impact their ‘Blamey’s Gardens’ project was anticipated to have on pilgrimagte tourism across the Kokoda Trail.
Lost Battlefield of ‘Etoa‘
In 2010 Brian Freeman claimed to have discovered a ‘Lost Battlefield’ at Eora Creek. Freeman, a former commando and partner of a trekking company, Executive Excellence, generated national publicity for himself and his company. Freeman was also the founder of a charity ‘Walking Wounded’ to support Afghanistan veterans – he was later found to have defrauded it of $1.3 million.
The DFAT Kokoda Initiative took the bait and engaged Archaeological & Heritage Management Solution (later rebadged as Extent Heritage) to undertake a heritage management and interpretation plan for the site from 2011 – 2015.
The archaeologist in charge of the project, Dr Matthew Kelly, admitted to identifying place as a ‘Lost Batlefield’ because it was a ‘catchy term‘.
Dr. Andrew Moutu, Director of the National Museum and Art Gallery and close associate of Mark Nizette, jumped on the aid-funded bandwagon and rebadged it as the ‘Etoa Battlefield’. This was the first time military historians had ever heard of the term ‘ETOA’ but this did not deter Dr. Moutu who is known to have a keen nose for any aid-funded income stream.
In 2021 the DFAT Kokoda Initiative funded a 45 minute documentary on the topic which can be viewed on this link:
Mark Nizette chose the following two ‘military historians’ from his ‘inner-circle’ to add an element of credibility to their ‘discovery:
Neither had any military history credentials – if they has they would have realised that the area they were investigating would not have been the ‘Ground of Tactical Importance’ for the Japanese defensive position at Eora Creek!
Freeman’s scam was finally exposed with the ‘discovery’ of a human skull found wrapped in a plastic bag beneath a helmet which Dr. Kelly’s team unearthed – according to local villagers It had been relocated from a hut in nearby Alola, along with other rusted weaponry, but the landowner apparently forgot to remove the skull from the plastic bag!
The DFAT Kokoda Initiative should be called upon to reveal the costs of this four-year archaelogical folly – and explain why significant sites such as Brigade Hill, Mission Ridge, Templeton’s Crossing, Eora Creek, Deniki and the Kokoda Plateau have been ignored.
Our investigation into the scam can be read on this link:
Kokoda Track Museums
There is no evidence of any form of ‘cost-benefit analysis’, or consultation with tour operators before taxpayer funds were committed to DFAT-Kokoda Inuitiative ‘Kokoda Track Museums and Trade Centre’ projects which now sit as white elephants in villages as trekkers have little interest in them and local villagers have never used them.
The establishment of village community museums at Efogi and Alola seem to be the product of a well-intentioned but misguided ‘thought-bubble’ by the National Military Heritage Advisory Group. There was no consultation with local landowners (despite claims to the contrary on the NMAG website) and no consultation with trek operators to evaluate the potential acceptance of such a concept amongst the paying customers i.e. trekkers. No consideration was obviously given to a cost-benefit assessment of the project and no retail training has been provided to the villagers.
Neither site has any wartime significance as both villages were relocated to their current sites post-1945.
I have led three treks across the trail since April – neither of the ‘museums’ were open when we arrived; there were no items for sale; and trekkers did not express any interest in wanting to visit them – at Alola villagers sit where they have always sat to sell fruit, drinks and bilums over the previous 33 years.
Trekkers are interested in viewing military artefacts insitu where they have been undisturbed – the mortar position at Eora Creek is a good example. But once they have seen these mortars, grenades and old boots insitu they are not interested in seeing them again in a hut during the remainder of their trek. They are also tired when they arrive at these locations and are therefore more interested in having a meal or preparing their campsite.
These misguided developments illustrate the need for a Master Heritage Plan designed to meet the needs of paying customers, i.e. trekkers and local village communities.
Money spent on the construction of these two museums would have funded the establishment of hygienic toilets and Koiari tree houses at campsites across the trail. This would be a much better investment because it would meet the needs of trekkers and inevitably lead to an increase in the value of the pilgrimage.
The approval process for these community museums would also have difficulty passing any credible governance test in Australia!
Agulogo Log Bridge
A delegation of 8 officials, led by Mark Nizette, chartered a helicopter to officially open a ‘bridge’ comprising a couple of logs trussed together across Agulogo Creek in the Nauro swamp area.
The bridge was obviously built without any form of cost-benefit analysis or consultation with tour operators – trekkers have crossed this creek without incident for 30 years.
If the cost of the helicopter had been allocated to the owners of the nearby Agulogo campsite it would have been sufficient for them to maintain a bridge across if for the next 20 years as they have been building bridges like this out of ‘bush-materials’ for generations – however it would not have featured as well in the glossy media release for the opening of their aid-funded ‘project’!
If they were serious in minimizing risk for trekkers they would engage landowners to build and maintain a safer bridge across the nearby Brown River which is named after the explorer who was washed away as he tried to cross it in the early 1920s!
Isurava Primary School
According to the KTA Livelihoods Project Scoping Study Final Report commissioned by the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative and conducted by Pacific Islands Projects, Isurava village was established in the 1950s and in 2014 it had a total population of aournd 35 (Page 38).
If the DFAT- Kokoda Initiative had consultated with tour companies who had been trekking through the village over the previous 22 years they would have learned the population had been declining since the Isurava memorial was opened in the original village site in 2002 – this resulted in many of them relocating to the memorial which is about an hour’s trek further up the ridge.
It is therefore difficult to understand how the DFAT Kokoda Initiative could justify building a modern school with a capacity for 50 students when the livelihoods report they commissioned revealed the village only had a population of around 35!
If the report that a delegation of 8 officials, led by Mark Nizette, chartered a helicopter to fly in for an ‘official opening’ at Australian taxpayers’ expense it can only be concluded that it was part of Nizette’s agenda to increase his influence in Oro Province and in Canberra.
In 2019 the school had a total of 13 kindergarten students aged 3 – 6 years and the best ratio of toilets per student across the entire Kokoda Trail with one modern toilet per 4 elementary students – some needed help to get up onto the seat!
By 2023 the school had closed due to the lack of a teacher which could not be justified due to a lack of primary students!
The DFAT-Kokoda Initiative should be called upon to justify how they could justify using taxpayers funds to build a school for 50 students in a village with a total population of 25.
The Kokoda Galleries
DFATs recent funding of the ‘Kokoda Galleries’ at the National Museum and Art Gallery was the latest ploy of their ‘Kokoda Initiative’ to avoid investing in the military heritage of the Kokoda Trail which has now been crossed by 65,000 Australians.
The PNG National Museum has a history of serial corruption as exposed on this link:
National Museum operatives had not expressed any interest in the Kokoda Trail until the opportunity for a DFAT funded position (National Military Heritage Advisor) presented itself along with the potential for an aid-funded income stream.
The only visitation figures available advise that there are 1400 visitors a month to the museum – anecdotal evidence suggests these figures are inflated however, even if they are true, this amounts to an average of just 45 visitors a day!
These visitation figures – even at their inflated rate – do not justify any investment in any form of ‘Military Heritage Annex’ at the museum – research would indicate that visitors to the site are motivated by the diverse historical and cultural intrigue of the ‘land of a thousand cultures’.
Of more concern is the fact that most of the estimated 3300 Australian taxpayers who trek across the Kokoda Trail each year do not get to visit the museum because their travel-trek itineraries simply do not allow for it.
Those who do squeeze a visit into their itineraries will spend their restricted time in the existing cultural museum and art gallery which is now a first-class facility due to the recent $25 million (PNGK68 million) refurbishment funded by the former Abbott Government in 2014.
The development of a proposed Interpretive Walkway at Bomana War Cemetery as part of a $10 million (PNGK27,000) budget allocation by the Minister for Veterans Affairs in the lead-up to the 80th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 2022 was foiled by operatives within the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative.
The aim of the Minister’s project was to tell the story of the campaign from Bomana War Cemetery in Port Moresby, across the Kokoda Trail. and onto the Northern Beachheads at Buna and Gona.
It was designed to ensure the maximum benefit for the maximum number of visitors to our largest war cemetery in the Pacific!
However it’s now apparent that the DAFT-Kokoda Initiative used the cover of COVID to redirect the allocated funding towards the ‘Kokoda Galleries’ under the auspices of Dr Connolly and Mark Nizette, co-authors of the seriously flawed ‘NMAG Military Heritage Management Plan’
The Chairman and Director of the orignial project, Brigadier Paul Nothard – Director of Australian War Graves in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Military Heritage Architect, Michael Pender of HPA Projects, both resigned from the Project due to their difficulties in dealing with DFAT officials.
The Deputy Chairman of the Tourism Promotion Authority, Andrew Abel ML CSM, was effectively sidelined from the project team along with two of the most experienced Kokoda military historians who have crossed the Trail around 150 times over a 40-year period, Lieutenant Colonel Rowan Tracey and Major Chad Sherrin MM. All had been recruited by Michael Pender as part of his Project Reference Group.
It seems Dr Connolly and Mark Nizette engaged the following Kokoda tour operators from the disgraced Australian Kokoda Tour Operators Association, who had reinvented themselves as ‘Kokoda experts’:
Neither Howell nor O’Malley has served in the regular army or had any previous interest in veterans until they each saw an opportunity to cash in on Kokoda tourism. Both operate illegally in PNG and have been able to dodge their taxation liabilities due to the lack of compliance enforcement by PNG authorities. They are both close to Mark Nizette who uses them as his ‘useful idiots’ to defend themselves against any external criticism and to support their aid-funded ‘thought bubbles’ across Kokoda.
Kokoda tour operators who pioneered pilgrimage tourism and specialize in the military history of the Kokoda campaign were not consulted nor invited to the official opening of the ‘Kokoda Galleries’.
International Kokoda Forum Junkets
The latest Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) International Kokoda Tour Operators Forum held in a 5-Star Brisbane Hotel in November 2023 demonstrated their complete disregard for accountability and a disturbing detachment from reality.
The forum saw 10 Australian and PNG officials fly from Port Moresby to brief just 5 Australian Kokoda tour operators.
According to their agenda the forum could easily have been conducted as a zoom meeting!
The most interesting revelation was that the KTA now spends 100% of the income it receives from trek permit fees administering itself – nothing reaches village communities! We do not know the extent of their incompetence as they have never published an annual financial report.
The past failures of KTA forums have been documented on these links:
Joint Agreement for a Military Heritage Partnership between Australia and PNG
If Canberra can develop a ‘Joint Agreement for the environmental preservation of the Kokoda Track and Owen Stanley Ranges’ as it did in 2008 surely it can develop a similar agreement to commemorate our shared wartime heritage as proposed on this link:
Conclusion
The mine would have delivered an estimated $100 million (K234 million) over its projected 10-year life which would have expired in 2019. \
With proper management this would have funded a Military Heritage Master Plan and interpretive memorials at every site across the Trail along with schools and health centres to meet the immediate needs of village communities – the economic future of traditional landowner communities based on pilgrimage tourism would have been assured.
Unfortunately the term ‘Kokoda’ has been effectively hijacked by Canberra environment officials to give relevance to a socio-environmental agenda that would otherwise be unremarkable!
As a result their socio-environment priorities have seen Kokoda tourism numbers plummet by 42 per cent under their watch since 2009.
Poor management has resulted in the desecration of military heritage sites; a degradation of the environment in vulnerable areas; the denial of a tourism based economic future for the custodians of the land sacred to our shared military heritage; and a contemptuous disregard for the needs of taxpayers who invest in the pilgrimage.
A forensic audit of the KTA from the time Canberra assumed responsibility for it would reveal a disturbing depth of incompetence and corruption which now pervades every aspect of the organization.
The solution is for PNG to reclaim ownership of the Kokoda Trail from Canberra to work towards a vision of realizing its potential as a world-class pilgrimage tourism destination for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities.
So What Needs to be Done?
It is essential for PNG to reclaim ownership of their Kokoda Trail and insulate it from the influence of foreign influencers who are not associated with military heritage or pilgrimage tourism – they must also protect it from their own ‘opportunistic’ officials at the local and provincial Government level.
The must also seek to build on the goodwill that exists among the 65,000 Australians who have already trekked across it – these include wealthy and influential individuals who have been ignored by Canberrra officials over the past two decades.
The following action steps are therefore recommended:
- Wind-up the current Kokoda Track (Special Purpose) Authority;
- Appoint an Administrator responsible to the Prime Minister’s office for a 5-year period;
- Appoint former Deputy Chairman of TPA, Mr Andy Abel, to conduct a review of the management of pilgrimage tourism across the Kokoda Trail;
- Use the provisions of the Lands Act to acquire the gazetted area of the Kokoda Trail as a National Heritage Park;
- Include Kokoda Tourism as a State Owned Enterprise within the charter of Kumul Consolidated Holdings (KCH);
- Seek support from the Australian Government to establish a ‘Joint Agreement for the commemoration of our shared wartime Heritage between Australia and PNG’; and
- Proclaim ‘Kokoda Day’ as a national day of commemoration.
Relevant Links for further reading:
Burial party on Brigade Hill – September 1942
Lest We Forget
