Manus Island landowners delay naval base work

A landowner dispute has caused fresh delays on Australia’s $175m upgrade of the Lombrum Naval Base on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.

PNG patrol boats at the Lombrum Naval Base. Picture: Gary Ramage

A landowner dispute has caused fresh delays on Australia’s $175m upgrade of the Lombrum Naval Base on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, amid an unprecedented Chinese push to forge security agreements with Pacific Island countries.

Manus landowners have blocked access by Australian contractor Clough to a key quarry site, preventing it from obtaining vital construction aggregate to build the joint PNG-Australian-US facility.

The matter is now before Manus’s Local Land Court. Clan leader Rex Paura said neither the contractor nor the Australian government had engaged properly with the landowners, who blocked access to the quarry on April 1.

The dispute comes as the state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company prepares to commence work on a 140m wharf and cannery about 80km from the Lombrum Base.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who visits PNG on Thursday, is expected to unveil a fresh economic agreement with Prime Minister James Marape, and a donation of helmets and body armour to help keep the peace during the country’s national election this month.

The joint Lombrum Base redevelopment, first revealed by The Australian nearly four years ago, has been beset by delays and criticism over its lack of scale and ambition.

Mr Paura said his clan had banned Clough from using the quarry, leaving it without aggregate for concrete or construction foundations.

“They have access to the (Lombrum) site but they cannot get aggregate to work on it,” he told The Australian. “The quarry is within my customary lands. They have not been paying the landowners. None of them are talking to me, and that’s why all their work has stopped.”

Defence confirmed the ban, but said ownership of the quarry was contested.

“Disputes between PNG local community groups about the ownership of Pereli Quarry are ongoing and yet to be resolved,” a Defence spokesman said.

He said the PNG Chief of Defence Force had appointed a military liaison officer to engage with the Manus community on project matters.

“The liaison officer, with the support of the landowners, enabled continued access to the quarry while the initial dispute was being resolved.

“On April 1, 2022, the Local Land Court issued an instruction for quarry operations to cease immediately. As the matter is before the court, it would not be appropriate for Defence to comment further.”

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull gained agreement in mid-2018 for Australia to upgrade Lombrum as a joint facility, with the US later joining the partnership.

The base currently has a 125m wharf and an 80m wharf – long enough to accommodate PNG’s Australian-donated Guardian-class patrol boats, but not Australia’s Hobart-class air warfare destroyers, or the planned Hunter-class frigates.

The upgrade includes new accommodation, fuel and ammunition storage, new headquarters facilities and information technology upgrades.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute defence program director Michael Shoebridge said Australia needed to work more closely with local landowners to avoid further delays.

He said Australia had also made the “fundamental strategic error” in simply upgrading the base rather than expanding it, as “we have seen China’s overt security ambitions in the South Pacific, in Solomon Islands”.