The Pukpuk Treaty: Sovereignty Signed Away in Canberra

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA

Read past the preamble of the Papua New Guinea–Australia Mutual Defence Treaty and a pattern emerges quickly. The word "sovereignty" appears more than a dozen times, yet almost every operative clause transfers something away from Port Moresby. This is not a partnership between equals. It is a basing agreement dressed in the language of mutual defence, and it is difficult to identify a single provision that makes an ordinary Papua New Guinean safer, wealthier, or freer.

Start with jurisdiction. Article 8(3) requires PNG to "concede jurisdiction" over Australian Defence Personnel, granting Australia the exclusive right to exercise criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction over its people on PNG soil. Their property, effects and private residences are declared "inviolable." If PNG police arrest an Australian soldier, they must "immediately notify" Canberra and "promptly transfer" that person to Australian custody. An Australian who harms a Papua New Guinean citizen in the course of duty answers to Australian authorities alone, with Australia itself deciding what counts as official duty. PNG fought for independence in 1975 precisely to end arrangements like this.

Then follow the money or rather, its absence. Under Annex B, Australian personnel and contractors enter free of visas, taxes, customs duties, port fees, landing charges, tolls and inspection. They use PNG's water and electricity "free of charge" in a country where much of the population lacks reliable access to either. PNG must furnish Agreed Facilities and Areas "without rental or similar costs." A state struggling with debt distress and a stretched health budget is subsidising the operations of an economy thirty times its size.

The facilities provisions are the treaty's real purpose. Annex C permits exclusive-use Australian areas that Australia alone controls entry to, where materiel can be pre-positioned under exclusive Australian control, supporting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights. Crucially, PNG cannot allow any third party to access these areas or even build near them, or invest in "critical infrastructure" deemed relevant without Australian consent. Article 5(4) goes further, barring agreements with third parties that would "compromise" the treaty. In plain terms: PNG's future economic and diplomatic options, particularly regarding China, now require Canberra's blessing. That is not interoperability; it is a veto over foreign policy.

Even the mutual defence core is thin. Article 4(3) commits each party only to "act to meet the common danger, in accordance with its constitutional processes" the same elastic ANZUS-style formula that guarantees consultation, not defence. PNG has surrendered concrete, immediate things jurisdiction, tax revenue, land, third-party autonomy for a contingent promise. And should a dispute arise, Article 10 forbids referral to any court or tribunal whatsoever, leaving the smaller party to "negotiate" with the larger one indefinitely.

Meanwhile, nothing in the text addresses what actually threatens Papua New Guineans: tribal violence, a police force in crisis, transnational drug flows, corruption, unemployment. Contractors need only "strive" to use local suppliers an obligation with no teeth. The treaty was even signed in Canberra, a fitting detail for a document whose benefits flow overwhelmingly north to south.

PNG's security problems are internal and developmental. This treaty solves Australia's strategic anxiety about Chinese presence in Melanesia. Those are not the same thing, and only one party is paying.