Comments

Great insight, well articulated article.

Thank you, BI PNG team, for this report, as highlighted in your second last paragraph there is more to be done to decrease the mortality rate of maternal and newborn child. However, the population is increasing every time, and the available services are not adequate to cater for every needs. People in authorities need to do something.

Thanks for the aid news. My specific comment is on Australian Aid and particularly in the Pacific is recently seen as reactive aid approach to China growing strategic and economic focus in the Pacific. This will continue into the next decade, while the impact of Australian aid is seen and felt by the Pacific nations over many years, they now turn to see and feel something different from China. However, it would be seen as a strategic threat to Australia geopolitics in the Pacific.

Thank you for the reference. I had seen the article some time ago but it is helpful to have a reminder. I recall seeing the finding that unintended pregnancies were more prevalent amongst educated women. That seemed counterintuitive and I wondered if there was some causal mechanism or third factor contributing to the correlation.

I am in a Rohingya refugee camp. I want to go to Australia because my brother lives in Australia.

Reply to Sue Funnell: I agree that family planning is very important for maternal and child health and something we did address in Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies. We have previously published the findings from our studies of unplanned pregnancies and family planning - Peach E, et al, Scientific Reports 2021 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79103-6 In brief, we found that just over half women had pregnancies that were unintended or unplanned. Very few women reported ever using a modern method of family planning and over half of women felt they had insufficient knowledge about family or how to access it.

Healthy mothers healthy babies: I’m surprised that you didn’t mention the importance of access to modern contraceptives and family planning - being able to choose when to have children, how many children to have, spacing them and reducing adolescent pregnancies is important not only for child and maternal health but has so many other benefits as well for individuals, their families and communities. Amongst these are increased capacity of girls and women to continue their education, reduced drain on limited resources arising from smaller families, gender equity in decision making and so on. Context: I manage the grants program for a small philanthropy that funds Australian registered NGOs such as Australian Doctors International to deliver improved access to family planning in PNG ( and other Asia Pacific countries). The projects we fund include not just delivery of contraceptives as part of the work of outreach teams but also working with and enhancing capacity of Provincial Health Authorities and volunteer health workers as well as community education related to family planning. Typically they operate in difficult to reach communities in remote regions rather than in cities. I appreciate that increasingly some family planning work is occurring post partum but additional focus on family planning for the wider population before pregnancy would also be helpful. Has this been part of the HMHB program and if not what opportunities are there to place a greater focus on Family Planning for the wider population of PNG?

Are you content with Australia using our citizens as labourers to pick their fruits and vegetables in their farms and now announcing this pathetic news to use our citizens as human shields to defend their border against their enemies, it is impossible for a non-citizen to be employed in any country's Defence Force, our citizens we have to first and foremost acquire citizenship for that country. Our Government's responsibility is to create employment for its citizens, we are a democracy county and we gave our MPs that responsibility, they have failed us. Do not forget how the conflict in Bougainville turned out when we involved our Defence Force. As for the tribal conflict, this is a matter for our Police Force to deal with, identity those perpetrators and prosecute them under the relevant laws.

Is there an urgent need for both Governments to sign a Treaty. With regard to our Defence Force the GoPNG's international obligation to another country is only for active service, if that county is at war. "Active Service" is defined as service in the field against an enemy, combat activities. Does the GoPNG have an international obligation to deploy our Defence Force troops for active service in Australia? Clearly not, my layman opinion is that this Treaty does not comply with section 202 (b) and section 205 of our Constitution. We the ordinary citizens of PNG require the intervention of the Supreme Court to interpret this Treaty and determine whether this Treaty is unconstitutional or not. Our Government must not deceive its citizens to believe that this Treaty will create employment opportunity for PNG citizens into the Australian Defence Force. The relevant authority to make the Supreme Court application owe it to the ordinary PNG citizens to make a court application, PNG is a democratic county, we have three arms of Government, we must not allow our Government Ministers to patronise us, by doing anything and everything which is not in our national interest, and does not comply with our Constitution. We are a pacific nation, peace loving people, our government's policy for the last 50 years has always been friends to all and enemies to none.

So good, my dear.

I agree with the alternatives suggested in this article. Just to highlight on the last point on mercenaries here. It is a lucrative income generating activity for someone who bets his life to serve the interest of others. Many of the actual fights currently are orchestrated or implemented by this hire group. It will be a very effective measure if hire men or mercenaries are targeted to lay down arms with other lucrative opportunities. And it is not a job young men would like to engage but because of the economic situations they engage in such activities. Generally tribal conflicts will only deescalate when many indigenous peacebuilding activities or alternatives are initiated at the local level by the local leaders within the tribal communities.

Thank you.