Will Albanese be the latest PM to botch a Kokoda visit?

Dawn breaks over the Bomana War Cemetery in Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby. Picture: AAP

Anthony Albanese is the latest Australian prime minister after Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Scott Morrison to link himself with Kokoda.

Keating used the occasion to link his visit to his republican cause. Rudd and Morrison used it as a link to their prime ministerial ambitions, and it is likely that Albanese is about to use it to divert attention from the backlash against Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s recent call for a Palestinian state.

Keating’s historic visit to Kokoda on the 50th anniversary of the campaign in 1992 was widely acclaimed. While his speeches and gestures were wrapped in his republican cloth, he stirred a patriotic fervour that elevated Kokoda in our national consciousness.

Unfortunately he was let down by his Canberra advisers, who displayed a poor understanding of the Kokoda campaign, the Kokoda track and, more important, the “Melanesian way” in Papua New Guinea.

Prime Minister Paul Keating kisses the memorial to Australia's soldiers during his visit to Kokoda in 1992.

The opportunity to use the occasion to initiate a military heritage master plan to identify, protect, honour and interpret significant sites that had long since been reclaimed by the jungle was lost. The new air terminal built at Kokoda in anticipation of Keating’s visit was burnt down just before he was due to open it – a sign that his advisers might have negotiated with the wrong landowners.

The Kokoda Memorial Hospital, built in partnership with Rotary Australia, was well-intentioned but ill-conceived. It had only one doctor for a short period and consistently has been short of medical supplies to meet local demands for the past 30 years. The toilets at the hospital are so putrid they are unusable.

In hindsight it would have been more practical to build a health centre at Kokoda, upgrade the provincial hospital at Popondetta, and fund an ambulance service to meet the needs of villagers along the 90km road between Kokoda and Popondetta.

For reasons known only to those Canberra advisers, they ignored the historical significance of the Kokoda plateau apart from refurbishing a small building with some military ordnance and rebadging it as a museum.

The historical ambience of the plateau recently has been lost, with the construction of a large local government administration building now dominating it. There is nothing to attract pilgrimage tourists to the area.

60th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign

Howard committed to a multimillion-dollar memorial at the Isurava battle site that I rediscovered in 1996. It officially was opened by Howard and his PNG counterpart, Sir Michael Somare, on the 60th anniversary of the battle with a spectacular Orokaiva cultural ceremony.

Then-prime minister John Howard and PNG leader Michael Somare during the unveiling of the memorial at Isurava in 2002. Picture: Peter Ward

Since then the Isurava Memorial has taken on the aura of a cathedral for Australian trekkers, who pay their respects at impromptu commemorative services before they move on. The memorial has generated significant income for the landowner communities that relocated back to the site from the village of Isurava, about an hour further down towards Kokoda.

To complement the memorial, the Department of Veterans Affairs built a trekkers hut at considerable expense. However, the department failed to consult tour operators (a common Canberra trait) and the hut is rarely used because it is a metal building with no ventilation – the latter a basic necessity in the tropics. The contract for the toilets the department built obviously was awarded to the lowest bidder and they are not fit for purpose. For reasons known only to the DVA there are no discrete ablution facilities for female trekkers and no provision for cooking and dining facilities.

70th anniversary

Julia Gillard’s government funded a crude “Fuzzy Wuzzy Therapies” massage hut adjacent to the Isurava Memorial.

The Isurava massage parlour on the Kokoda Track. Picture: Supplied

It did not attract a single customer in the following two years and quietly was dismantled by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade-funded Kokoda Initiative. No funds were directed towards restoration of any military heritage sites across the track.

75th anniversary

We were hopeful prime minister Malcolm Turnbull would match the precedent of Bob Hawke, who for the 75th anniversary of Gallipoli allocated $10m to lead a group of 52 veterans and their carers back to Anzac Cove to commemorate that campaign.

Turnbull chose not to attend the Anzac dawn service at Bomana War Cemetery and did not make any provision to support veterans who wished to return to pay a final tribute to the mates they left behind. No funds were committed towards any form of military heritage project anywhere across the track.

80th anniversary

Morrison did not commit any funds towards any form of military heritage projects anywhere across the track until the dying stages of his term. The $10m he allocated for the commemoration was diverted to a project in the PNG National Memorial and Art Gallery in Port Moresby, which already had received $25m from Tony Abbott’s government in 2015. Nothing was allocated to any commemorative projects across the track.

82nd anniversary

Under normal circumstances an 82nd anniversary would be unremarkable, unless it was for a wedding. To allay any cynics who might think Albanese would use Kokoda as a ploy to bolster his political stocks or divert attention from his hapless Foreign Minister, I recommend he attend the official Anzac dawn service at Bomana War Cemetery.

Each year up to 3000 Australian and Papua New Guineans attend this service to commemorate the sacrifice of 3826 servicemen who now rest in a tranquil cemetery beneath majestic rain trees on the outskirts of Port Moresby. Their marble headstones, neatly spaced in endless regimental rows, are marked with tropical flowers surrounded by manicured lawns.

It is the biggest Australian war cemetery in the world.

The current plan, as reported, has the Prime Minister and his media entourage taking a short trek somewhere on the track and attending an Anzac dawn service at the Isurava Memorial. Immediately after the service they will return to Port Moresby and board their plane directly back to Canberra.

This is reminiscent of the reported attempt by the Seven Network’s Sunrise host, David Koch, to conduct a fake Anzac dawn service with Rudd at the Long Tan Cross in Vietnam in 2007.

The stunt was cancelled after The Australian published a story headlined “The long trek to Sunrise’s darkest hour”. Koch had form in this area. The previous year he attracted considerable flak from Joe Public after staging a fake Anzac dawn service at Isurava.

An ABC report, “Seven’s Kokoda Sunrise” on May 1, 2006, captured some of the feedback:

“I want to give a brickbat to Seven Sunrise for having corporate T-shirts with large 7 logos en masse, degrading the broadcast of the Kokoda dawn service … I personally would have preferred Joe Hockey topless!!”

“Channel 7’s Sunrise coverage of the Kokoda Anzac Day service was commercialism at its grossest, and a desecration of Australia’s remembrance of those who served and died …”

“T-shirts shamelessly displaying the Channel Seven logo … Cashing in on this special day … What idiots!”

Attendance at the official Anzac dawn service at Bomana War Cemetery this year does not preclude the Prime Minister from doing a short two-hour trek from Alola village to the Isurava Memorial to salute the gallant stand by the bravest of the brave against all the odds at a critical stage of the war in the Pacific, and paying tribute at the spot where Private Bruce Kingsbury fell.

However, if Albanese proceeds with his plan to draw the media away from the official Anzac dawn service at Bomana it will be akin to calling artillery in on himself or throwing the pin instead of the grenade. When discussing his visit with his minders he would be well advised therefore to heed the counsel of US general George S. Patton that “No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair”.

And if Albanese wants to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat he could announce:

● A wee $10m commemorative grant to develop a military heritage interpretative centre at Owers Corner, which soon would become the most popular tourism attraction in PNG because of its road link with the national capital.

● Sign a joint agreement with PNG to commemorate our shared wartime heritage.

● Proclaim Kokoda Day as a national day of commemoration in Australia.

These actions would be a dinkum legacy worthy of national acclaim.

Former Australian Army major Charlie Lynn is the founder of Adventure Kokoda. He has received an Order of Australia and PNG’s Order of Logohu for his development of the Kokoda track and his contribution to bilateral relations between the two countries. He has led more than 100 expeditions across the track. He was a Liberal Party member of the NSW Legislative Council from 1995 to 2015.