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325 words (333) Australia did not always want to grant Papua New Guinea (PNG) its independence.

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325 words (333)
Australia did not always want to grant Papua New Guinea (PNG) its independence. Starting from the end of World War II and into the1950s, the Australian colony of Papua and the United Nations (UN) Trust Territory of New Guinea, merged in 1949, and appeared to lie securely with Australia. The Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, in 1951, thought that self-government in PNG was still about a century off. The Australian public, had little concern for PNG. But there were many security concerns for Australia about perceived communist expansion, in the political future of Papua New Guinea. These security concerns contributed to changing the Australian government attitudes to the region in the early 1960s. There was also …show more content…

In 1960, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Gough Whitlam, was calling for independence to be granted by 1970. These calls went unnoticed, and showed what a lack of interest Australian’s had in PNG. Whitlam repeated his call in 1965, this time it was noticed, with a poll showing 30 percent of Australians favouring rapid independence and 49 percent favouring delay. PNG independence was no longer seen as impossible, except by Charles Barnes, who in April 1968 estimated that independence was still twenty to thirty years off. Whitlam started to promoting change in PNG. Rather than keeping the issue out of the public debate and wasting another three years before Australians could be brought to face realities Whitlam placed Papua New Guinea on the political agenda with a widely-publicised tour of the territory in January 1970. The Australian government was already starting to have doubts about PNG. Events in the territory were demonstrating the difficulties involved in its governing. Gough Whitlam's visit to Papua New Guinea was a catalyst for change. Whitlam's public statements during the tour simply restated his previous intentions for early independence, with the date now set for 1976. Whitlam talked to Papua New Guinea's indigenous leaders. Once self-government had become a serious issue, constitutional development became a largely discussed topic in the Territory's political circles. Prime Minister Gorton made a trip to

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