Respect crucial as we move supplies and people to PNG

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. Picture Gary Ramage

Papua New Guinea, our nearest northern neighbour, is a resilient nation. Its people are some of the hardiest in the world.

Serving as a peace monitor in the province of Bougainville in the year 2000, in the aftermath of a 10-year civil war that had destroyed nearly all infrastructure, I marvelled at the capacity of Bougainville’s people to endure hardship and recover from adversity.

But with a COVID-19 outbreak under way, PNG faces one of its most significant challenges yet. The World Health Organisation has reported that PNG is facing large-scale community transmission events.

At last count 114 staff at Port Moresby General Hospital — PNG’s largest hospital — had tested positive for COVID-19. This is almost half of the entire hospital staff. In the first week of this month, fully 17 per cent of COVID-19 tests returned a positive result. While there have been only 2351 confirmed cases of COVID-19, low testing rates mean this figure vastly understates the reality.

Prime Minister James Marape has warned the true infection rate might be trending towards as high as one in three or one in four people. As Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, warned on Tuesday, all the signs point to a major epidemic of COVID-19 under way.

As Australians, we have both a moral obligation and a national imperative to respond to this emergency swiftly and generously. A special thread of kinship binds our countries. Australia will remain forever indebted for the support PNG’s people provided us as we fought for our national survival across its unforgiving terrain during World War II.

As the UN trustee after the war, Australia helped guide PNG towards independence in 1975, while a generation of Australians came to know PNG as teachers, engineers, doctors and “kiaps”, or district patrol officers.

Beyond this, Australia has deep national interests at stake. We share a border across the Torres Strait, where communities from both sides move and interact freely.

As by far the largest and most populous Pacific Island nation, PNG is central to the region’s stability. Facing a large-scale COVID-19 pandemic on our doorstep, Australia has a duty and an interest to respond to assist our nearest northern neighbour.

This is why Australia is sending 8000 AstraZeneca vaccines from our national stockpile immediately, to allow vaccination of frontline healthcare workers.

Beyond this, we have requested AstraZeneca and European authorities to release one million doses of Australia’s contracted vaccine supply for immediate gifting to PNG. The multilateral COVAX facility, to which Australia is contributing $80m, will see further vaccines rolled out to PNG in coming months.

Critical supplies such as personal protective equipment, hospital tent facilities, surgical masks, face shields, goggles, gowns and ventilators are on their way north from Australia.

We are deploying an Australian Medical Assistance Team to Port Moresby to conduct a critical-needs analysis, assist health authorities and advise on further Australian assistance and deployment of clinical care teams. Australia will seek assistance from our Quad partners — Japan, India and the US — to support the vaccine rollout in PNG.

We are also taking steps to protect the potentially vulnerable communities of the Torres Strait. The rollout of vaccines to Torres Strait communities in Queensland has already begun, and we are working with authorities to make vaccines available to the villages and communities on the other side of the Torres Strait.

To guard against the risks to Australia, flights have been suspended between Port Moresby and Cairns, while passenger capacity on flights between Port Moresby and Brisbane has been reduced. Pre-departure COVID testing and on-arrival quarantine arrangements are under review.

Through all this, it is important we respect PNG’s agency and sovereignty. We are there to support and assist, but they are in the lead.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison made sure in his discussions with counterpart Marape that Australia’s assistance met requirements, while Foreign Minister Marise Payne has been in regular contact with the country’s Health Minister.

The calls from some in the Labor Party to rush our response neglect the importance of meaningful consultation and partnership in Pacific culture. Such a unilateral approach would backfire on us and jeopardise our assistance, to our own detriment and that of our neighbour.

Australia will support PNG through this crisis, in response to its needs and requests, and in fulfilment of our obligations as a neighbour, friend and partner.

Dave Sharma is the Liberal member for Wentworth and was an Australian diplomat stationed in Papua New Guinea from 2000 to 2003.