Ladies and gentlemen, welcome very warmly to the Lowy Institute. My name is Michael Fulilove, I'm Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, and I'd like to welcome all of you here today, but especially our lecturer today in the Distinguished Speaker series, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, the Honourable Peter O'Neill. I must say I'm pleased to see such a terrific audience here, including from our corporate partners and supporters for what will be a very interesting discussion of matters of import in our region. We are very privileged indeed to welcome the PM to the Lowy Institute, and we're pleased also to welcome members of his delegation, including my friend, the Honourable Charles Abel MP, a fellow product of the Sunshine Coast, sort of, the Minister for Planning, the Honourable Robert Sandan Gunim MP, and the Honourable Geoffrey Comel MP. I would also like to acknowledge our very good friend, the P&G High Commissioner Charles Lopani, who has been a strong supporter of the Institute for many years, as well as the P&G Consul General in Sydney. Ladies and gentlemen, we at the Institute take a strong interest in the political, economic, development and social challenges facing Papua New Guinea, Australia's closest neighbour. We have a strong and innovative Melanesia program led by my colleague Jenny Hayward-Jones, whom I'll call on later. The program published research just last week, for example, by Danny O'Cave on the ICT Revolution underway in the Pacific and P&G. It was called Digital Islands, and it's available on the Lowy Institute website. And it's very interesting talking about all the positive implications of digital technologies in the Pacific, enabled by the spread of mobile phones. Alex Oliver, another colleague of mine here, undertook interviews recently with rising P&G leaders about their careers and their aspirations and their ambitions as part of our leadership mapping project. Last month, the Lowy Institute, as we were just telling the PM, hosted our annual New Voices event, which we've run for seven or eight years here in Australia for the first time. We ran it offshore and we decided to do it in Port Moresby and it provided a platform for over 120 of P&G's future leaders in the private sector, government and civil society. And it was very inspiring to have all these young people talking about the direction of the national economy, how the popularity of social media was shaping policy choices. And there was one very strong message out of the New Voices conference, which was very interesting. And that was that P&G's geostrategic focus is shifting in part to Asia. And that brings me to the subject of the Asian Century, which will also be the subject of the Prime Minister's address today. We were honoured to have another Prime Minister, Prime Minister Julia Gillard launch the Australia in the Asian Century white paper in this very room just three or four weeks ago. Let me say as Australia's leading think tank, we at the Lowy Institute certainly feel the ripples of the Asian Century. We know that it's upon us. Every report we issue, every event we host is touched in some way by Australia's interactions with Asia, the region in which so many of our challenges and opportunities lie. All of our research is marked by Asia's rise. The polarity of the world has shifted and the world senses it. And we certainly know it here at Bly Street. And that is why we are so pleased that the Prime Minister of our nearest neighbour has also chosen to speak to the Lowy Institute about the opportunities offered by the Asian Century. The Honourable Peter O'Neill was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea following the July national elections, having served as Prime Minister since August of last year. He is the leader of the People's National Congress Party and represents a Southern Highlands constituency. Prime Minister, I am personally delighted to welcome you to the Institute and we all look forward very much to your views on the challenges and opportunities that PNG sees in the Asian Century. Thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you, Michael, for that lovely introduction. Once again, I want to be, I'm very grateful that the Lowy Institute for including me in your distinguished series of speakers on the topic of Papua New Guinea in the Asian Century. I want to commend the interest of the Lowy Institute that the Lowy Institute shows in my country. I know at times you are critical and you have expressed some robust views on Australia's aid programme and other aspects of relationship with Papua New Guinea as well as performance in some of those key areas. I certainly have no problem with that. Sometimes we need and we need to encourage and help facilitate a robust and constructive scrutiny and debate on aid and other areas of development in my country. But before I address you today on the topic that you have asked me to speak, I just want to make a few observations on the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea. I can say without hesitation that our bilateral relationship is in very good shape. As I said in Canberra yesterday, because our relationship is in good shape, we must also not take it for granted. We need to always be looking at ways to add new dimensions to this relationship, to making sure that we continue to build bridges among the generation gap and we keep it relevant to the changing environments both here in Papua New Guinea and also in Australia and other Asia Pacific region. I am hopeful that we can negotiate a very significant change in the way Australia's development assistance to Papua New Guinea is developed and implemented. I want to see the aid programme that will strengthen the bilateral relationship. And to be widely supported by the Australian community and widely appreciated by my own country. As our government moves to significantly lift spending on key community services, services that will improve living standards and opportunities for our people, such as education and training, healthcare and the essential infrastructure, we need to build on the opportunities that are for our country and our people to participate in a growing economy. We would like to see Australian development assistance to closely align itself with our priorities that we have set out. In general, my view is that we are best served. And Australia is best served by your aid supporting and strengthening our own priorities, such as rebuilding our major IOS, expanding the roads and services to our rural majority. Only yesterday, the day before yesterday, we passed our budget, where we have now prioritised on spending on key medium-term social and human development priorities, particularly on health, education, law and order, by increasing about 50% of our expenditure in that area in just one year, from a five billion a month per year to 7.5 billion next year. The budget also indicated and committed very strongly to increase in spending of about 12 billion over the next five years for building the infrastructure that the country requires. That will enable us to repair the run-down roads, the sea ports and airports, and build new infrastructure we need if we are going to increase the growth of our economy, improve on the agricultural production, and maximise in our development of our vast resources in the mining and gas sector. I hope we can discuss with our Australian counterparts how we can make sure that the generous development assistance programme that Australia provides aligns itself and adds onto our priorities. As I said, I want the HEAD programme to have a two-way benefit. I wanted it to head to our own key programmes. Programmes we are now finding ourselves over the medium-term, not just the short-term, and I want to also be widely supported by the Australian community, and for it to be constructive contribution to making sure that we secure our future. A stable Papua New Guinea is in the best interest of Australia's national interest as well. Our relationship is again, as I said, is in good shape. We have strongly supported the Australia's successful bid for a seat at the United Nations Security Council. We work together to address regional issues such as the return of democracy in Fiji. We engage constructively in forums such as APEC, where we share the membership. But we are an independent nation. We differ from time to time, but that is healthy, and it shouldn't be a surprise. One final comment I wish to make about our relationship again is that we must never take it for granted. Now, this brings me to the central team of my speech today, that is Papua New Guinea in the new Asian century. The Australian government recently released a comprehensive white paper titled Australia in the Asian century. Interestingly, it made no mention of Papua New Guinea, although we are very close neighbors and the closest neighbor you've got. Even though Australia, like Australia, we are, by way of geography, a Pacific island nation, increasingly we are being drawn towards Asia, just as Australia and New Zealand is. For Papua New Guinea, our proximity to Asia and our strong and growing relations with countries of the region mean that we are very well placed to benefit widely from the growth occurring in the Asian region. The opportunities for Papua New Guinea clearly differs significantly from Australia can take advantage of. Australia is very well placed to benefit from the growth of the middle class in the region, especially China, in the areas such as tertiary education, professional services and so on. For Papua New Guinea, I see the opportunities being the extension of our relationship with the region, more so in trade and investment. But there are also new opportunities that will unfold as sections of our economy continues to develop, and we really need to be preparing our businesses and our economy generally for that. As you are very much aware, we will be the major exporter of LNG to the world, particularly to Asia. We have just approved the development of the second LNG project in Papua New Guinea, and there will be further development of our vast gas reserves and oil reserves in the medium term. Clearly, we are placed to help meet the growing demands of energy by the Asian region. But that is not going to be without significant challenges that I will outline in a minute. We are also witnessing a very significant expansion of our mining sector. The Yoramu Nickel project will soon be reaching its production next month. It is a significant joint venture between the Chinese company and an Australian entity. Within three or four years, I believe Papua New Guinea will be a significantly greater exporter of Nickel, as well as Golden Copper to the Asian region and beyond. So our potential to meet the energy and mineral needs brought by the Asian growth is considerable. In that regard, of course, we will be competitors to Australia in some ways, but I hope it is a friendly competition. The other real significant opportunity for Asia's growth and our proximity and our good relations with the growing economies of the region, August Papua New Guinea, a very interesting opportunity for food security. Food security is clearly one of the key needs of the Asian region. We are currently making little contribution to meeting that. We are struggling to meet even our own food needs. Papua New Guinea is a nation of 7 million people. 80 percent of the population live in rural and coastal communities where they engage in subsistence farming, or fishing, or cash crops for production. We have urbanized, but nowhere to the extent of Australia or the other Asian nations in the region. Sadly, agriculture production is most sexist in decline, since independence, exception of the palm oil industry in our country. But we have the human resources and the natural resources such as land to quickly tend that around. We can lift farm production and align our production with the food security needs of the Asian region. We can also develop our vast marine time resources in a sustainable way to help meet the food needs of Asian region, North America and Europe. Helping to meet both the energy needs and the food needs of the region, I believe strongly that Papua New Guinea has a very unique opportunity. And the opportunity that I believe I want to assure you that we will not pass up. That brings me to perhaps the greatest challenge that we face as a nation in focusing on these opportunities that Asian century offers. Papua New Guinea has never really focused on productivity and especially on government measures to improve productivity. We have been able to export our production to with relatively certainty under agreements we have with the developing countries and with the European Union in particular. We have also had stabilization funds that amounts to a subsidy for our farm sector in times of low-world commodity prices. We have been able to export the total quantum of our gold and copper production and our oil and gas production with the little ability to negotiate to secure long-term contracts. And this is largely due to the fact that many of the companies that are developing these resources were able to negotiate long-term contracts on our behalf. We have been what Australians might call relaxed and too comfortable when it comes to exporting our minerals and other resources such as forestry. Some may argue that we have been too complacent. What brought this matter really home to me was the revelation by the developers of our first LNG project where cost blowouts has been in the billions of kina with our partners ExxonMobil and oil search. While currency fluctuations have been a major factor in that there is no doubt that the actual construction cost has risen significantly. As a shareholder of that project the national government will meet its share of the additional cost. But what concerns me most is that we have been we have taken our eye of the main game when it comes to lifting productivity and addressing the rising cost factors impacting on the development sector of our resources. I believe that our resources sector, investors and developers have done so, so much as the government can do. As well as we are now paying the price for that cost escalating. Papua New Guinea is now entering a very exciting period. Exciting period where our GDP is projected to double by 2016. We have an average annual growth of the economy of well over 9.2 percent. But much of our LNG will be now exported to growing economies of Asia, notably China. But we will be exporting to Japan and Korea amongst other countries in the region. Our challenge is going to be the export of gas from our first project. All the contracts on this project has been finalized. The second challenge is for our second LNG project, currently managed by Intel. Finding markets for that will have numerous difficulties, but of course we are as government supporting that project to achieve its targeted production. We are also in the process of approving more than 70 applications for prospecting licenses in some of the domestic gas and gas industry. We are going to compete with other countries such as Australia, United States, Malaysia and countries in the Middle East on an increasingly crowded LNG market. That is going to require project developers and the national government to focus on cutting development costs, streamlining processes, making sure that our tax regime is competitive and stable and ensuring that there is no disruption during construction period. Much of the future demand for LNG and for mineral resources is going to come from Asia. We cannot expect nations importing LNG and minerals or any other products for that matter give us a favorite treatment. We will have to compete and compete in an increasingly competitive international environment. There is no question that the Asian century offers tremendous opportunities for Papua New Guinea. It has done so already. Asia's sustained growth and the thirst for energy in particular is underpinning the contracts of our LNG projects. It is also benefiting our mining sector and our forestry and fisheries. The question is how do we build on that? How do we maximize the opportunities and maximize returns for our people and our country? The budget that we have brought down last week makes a massive investment in two key sectors. As I have outlined, 50% of our expenditure increases in the spending on health and education and law and order. This will help lift living standards. It will expand the ability of our people to be better educated, better skilled, play a role in the growing and diversifying economy. It will also help to maintain social cohesion and community and national harmony. The second major increase in the lift in spending is in infrastructure. As I said, we have committed extra 12 billion. And in terms, let me put it in these contents. Over the next five years, we will spend the entire budget of Papua New Guinea in developing infrastructure. It is a massive commitment, one that has never been done in the history of our country. Why are we making such a commitment to what sort of achievements are we going to achieve by all these commitments? Firstly, rebuilding roads and highways and building new roads and making new ports will provide more efficiency, make it more accessible for our rural and coastal communities to markets that are not available to them at present. One of the reasons why agricultural production has been in decline and why our producers have seen the income fall in real terms is the state of our poor roads and poor ports. As a result, many of our citizens have given up in agricultural production, simply not growing enough food to export or to sell in markets, only enough for the provision for the needs of their own families. By making such a massive commitment to roads in particular, we will help farmers grow more and grow and market it more efficiently and target in the Asian market in particular. This will leave productivity. The second reason why we are making massive investment in infrastructure is to grow our resource sector and give maximum possible benefits so that we can take advantage of the growth in Asia. One of the factors that contributed to the blowout of the first LNG construction is because of the poor state of our infrastructure, particularly the Highlands Highway. You simply cannot grow an economy in a first rate way with a third rate infrastructure. That is why we are trying to invest in infrastructure as one of our key priorities. We will be making contribution to improving competitiveness in our resource sector by providing that infrastructure. By investing in people, we are laying the foundation of higher living standards and greater opportunity for people to participate in the economy by investing in these projects and helping and making sure that we remain competitive within the region. So those are the first contributions our government is committed to making so our nation can take advantage of the Asian century. As I have stressed today, we cannot expect a free ride and we won't get one. If we are to supply energy food, energy and food and other needs for the Asian region in particular, we must lift our productivity and reliability. I am confident that the national government, our investors, our business community are going to live up to the challenge. We will make sure we work together in achieving that. This brings me to the final point I would like to make today. Our engagement with the Asian region predates our independence. But since independence, it has been a priority of every Prime Minister of our country to try and engage with the Asian community. We share a common land border with Indonesia. So our relationships with Indonesia has always been an highest priority. They are based on mutual trust and respect. We respect Indonesia's territorial integrity and Indonesia respects ours. We have strong relationship with Singapore and Malaysia founded on trade and investment and good people-to-people link. Our relationship with Philippines are also strong, dates back to independence. Japan has been a major trade and investment partner. We have benefited from many concessional loans and grants and it has a strong presence in our economy, including the LNG sector. We also have very good links with South Korea, again through trade and investment. But our fastest growing relationship is with the People's Republic of China. People's Republic of China is today is destined to become the second major trading partner other than Australia. And it is a growing one. There is also a bigger increase in investment by China in our resource sector and in our construction sector. As I said, next month Ramoon Ikul, a partnership between an Australian company and a Chinese company, will now take full productions next month. We also benefit from donor and concessional funding from China and I make no apology for encouraging that. We are negotiating substantial concessional loans at present. One of the benefits of that project will be the highlands rebuilding of the Highlands Highway and other run-down infrastructures in the country. We have a very strong relationship with China, only based on trade and investment. We are aware of the competing interests that is coming from our partners, traditional partners, particularly the United States, increased interest in the Pacific region. We have continued to build that relationship on security, trust and investment over many, many years. But we feel that the security issues that has been expressed by many of our partners, traditional partners, is unnecessary. We are following the same path that Australia and New Zealand are taking by increasing our relationship with China on trading investment. We are also now developing our links with India and Russia as part of our comprehensive regional and international engagement. Papua New Guinea is enormously well-placed to achieving a strong, long-term GDP growth. It's sharing that benefit with our people and our communities is a priority to our development. As I have stated earlier, a stable, developing grow in Papua New Guinea is in the best national interest of Australia. I believe strongly that Papua New Guinea with a very growing, fastest growing population in the region, it is very important that we all play a role in making sure that we have a stable environment in Papua New Guinea. I am excited to say that we are privileged to be in government at this present, where we can be able to maximise the opportunities that the Asian century is providing to Papua New Guinea. We must also maintain political stability and we will do so. I want to also inform this honourable gathering that only two days ago, both sides of parliament passed a legislation where we will now have some label first reading of a legislation where we will have stability in the governments for at least an extended period of two and a half years without any threats of instability through a world of no confidence. Where governments can be able to deliver on the programs and priorities they set out for the country. We must deliver investor certainty and competitive taxation regimes that will give confidence to the investors. We must maintain social cohesion and ensure that our people continue to enjoy a higher standard of living, better quality of services and greater opportunity to participate in a growing economy. And finally, as I have stressed today, we must lift our national and industry productivity and our government is committed in doing so. Thank you once again for the privilege of addressing the low-wit institute and thank you for your continued interest in Papua New Guinea, not only today but tomorrow as well. Thank you. Thank you, PM, for a very interesting beginning to this discussion, if I can put it that way. And you ended on the by, I guess, describing a strategic triangle, if you like, that is formed between the United States and China and Papua New Guinea. And many of the countries in our part of the world are seeing this strategic triangle. It's changing the diplomatic geometry of the region. China's rise, our ties to China, are thickening just as our ties persist with the United States. And of course, as you say, it's not just China, it's also India and Indonesia and Japan and other countries you mentioned. Can I ask you, can I, the PM has agreed to take some questions and I will take the Chair's prerogative and ask the first one, if I can, PM, and ask you what all this means for the Australia P&G relationship. As I said, we had this terrific event in Port Moresby. And one of the interesting conclusions was that a lot of the young Papua New Guineans were interested in Papua New Guinea. I don't know about pivoting away from Australia towards Asia, but they were very interested in Asia and seizing the Asian opportunities. And we have a very strong relationship and you've counseled us not to take it for granted. But at the same time, Asian countries are very interested in investing in Papua New Guinea. The Asian development experience in some ways is relevant to Papua New Guinea. So I guess my question to you is, do you think the next generation of P&G leaders will be looking north or west more than they look south? Thank you, Michael. And let me assure you and the rest of the Australian communities that Papua New Guinea's generational change in leadership has taken place. And the new leadership of our country continues to respect the relations that we have fought with Australia for many, many years. We understand that can never be replaced by any other country or any other person in the region. We continue to appreciate the assistance that we continue to receive from Australia. But as Australia, we must develop our economy to sustain itself and provide opportunities for our people. As Australia is looking towards China and India and other people in the region to also develop their resource sector, we are doing the same thing. We have no strategic relationship with China or anyone else on defense and security. We have that arrangement with China, with the United States and Australia only. And we will continue to maintain the traditional arrangements. But for the economic opportunities, Australia continues to become our biggest investor. Many of the resource development that is taking place in Papua New Guinea is owned by Australian companies. And we are exporting to the same markets. So it is a competition that is very friendly. And I hope that we will continue to maintain that relationship in the future. But I have no doubt whatsoever that the relationship with Australia and Papua New Guinea will continue to grow. In fact, we are encouraging one of the examples is about trying to re-engage Australians back into Papua New Guinea in the employment sector in health and education. We've got, I think, on record more than about 15,000 Australians now working and living in Papua New Guinea. They call that as a home. And we are now trying to expand those numbers by encouraging Australians, particularly in education, as I said, where we're trying to encourage English as a subject of compulsory subject in schools throughout the country. Rather than the young Australians taking the gap here and going to Europe, hopefully they'll come to Papua New Guinea and go to some school and teach English as an opportunity for a year or so. So those are sort of initiatives that we are taking now, lifting the band on foreign employment in some of those areas so that we give an opportunity so our people-to-people relationship can be built and strengthened further. Thank you, PM. Questions from the floor? One gentleman over here and then at the front. If you could wait until the microphone comes and if you could say your name before you ask a question. Keith Jackson, Mr. Reynolds. This really complements Michael's question about himself and where North is about to be missed. I'm wondering what role do you see in the future for the Malaysian Steering Group and whether this might be some indication of greater unification between the states of Malaysia? Thank you, Keith. And thank you, Keith. I do enjoy reading your social media network and your comments on our country and thank you again for all the support that you've extended to us. But I want to assure you that Papua New Guinea is now starting to take a leading role in the Pacific, not only in the Malaysian Steering Group but across the Pacific as well. We feel that we have a role to play. We find that we have an increasing growth in our economy that cannot sustain itself without the skilled labour force. And we understand that apart from Australia, many countries like Fiji and Tongan, some more have got very good skilled workforce. So we are in the process of lifting up our work restriction legislation to allow Pacific Islanders to come in and work in Papua New Guinea without visas and on our work permit visas that are expected of them. So increasingly, we are also encouraging trade and investment in those areas. I was just advising Michael and Stephanie that we are investing quite a substantial investment in Solomon Islands and Fiji, Tongan and some more. So Papua New Guinea will continue to play an increasing role in the Pacific region. Also last week we hosted a meeting of the Pacific ACP Nations meeting where 14 leaders of the Pacific region were hosted in Potmosby where we discussed about re-engagement with Fiji. So Papua New Guinea has taken a leadership role in that because we believe strongly that we must stay engaged with Fiji so that they commit, continue to commit themselves to the time frame that they have set where they will go to the elections in September 2014. I know very well that the Pacific way of doing things is that if you do not engage continuously with them, of course, they change their minds along the way. So we're trying to have that sort of approach being discouraged and I'm pleased to say that I'm pleased to note that the Australian and New Zealand government are now re-engaging it in an official level and that is very encouraging. We all must work together in making sure that Fiji stays on target so that a democratically elected government can be in place by 2014. Thank you, PM, Anne. Prime Minister, Anne Sherry from Carnal Australia. Thank you again for coming. I'm interested in the role to play both in terms of Papua New Guinea facing Asia, but obviously with Australia as well. And the infrastructure you're pulling in place, obviously, is of interest to me as well as I bring ships to PNG. But the opportunity to increase person to person engagement and also to get benefits to perhaps more remote regions where there's not so much mineral wealth or gas wealth. Could you talk a little about that and the sort of thinking the government has in that sphere? Thank you. Thank you once again. It was a pleasure meeting you in Port Mosby and I'm pleased to see the advertisements of the ships coming into PNG. Once again, thank you for helping us build our tourism potential in our country. PNG has got a huge tourism market that we can opportunity that we can develop. Unfortunately, some level of bad publicity has been undermining that particular industry. So as I stated in the National Press Club yesterday, some of the commentaries that people have made are unwarranted, the fairly limited knowledge of what is happening in Papua New Guinea. But for a country as diverse as ours, well over 1,000 different tribes, 800 different languages, very mixed ethnic groupings, we are able to all a very democratic country together for 37 years as an independent nation. No other country in the world has got such diversity. So we are able to do so. So at the same time, we have got a lot of cultural opportunities that our people can develop so that the tourism market becomes more mature. Our government is interested in developing that. We are now providing tax incentives for companies to operate in remote areas where tourism is in potential. We are also building infrastructure in many of those areas, improving on the ports and the facilities that a large ships can come in and dock. And we are improving on the migration and immigration officials to be present in those areas so it makes it easier for clearance of the tourists. So our government is committed. We know the potential of tourism. It's capable of employing thousands of our people and we are certainly focused on that. And I want to assure you that we will give it our best in making sure that we facilitate for you. Thank you. I call on Jenny Hayward-Jones, who's the director of the Myra on Asia program here at the Institute. Thanks Prime Minister. I just wanted to ask you about the United States. The Asia Pacific of the Obama administration has been interpreted in many ways in many countries throughout the Asia Pacific. And the focus tends to be more on Asia but there is definitely a specific part of that that has been acknowledged by the administration. I was wondering how you see government be capitalising on that interest particularly in the Exxon investment and perhaps the ability on that. And secondly, you've mentioned that you have substantial interest from Asia. Do you perceive that there's a balancing act required to manage the interest from both the US and the president of China in relation to that? Our relationship with apart from with United States apart from trading investment is also in security. We understand we have a historical link especially after the Second World War. We maintain that relationship. But with China, as I've stated, we have no security arrangements. We are engaging with them like everyone else in the world trading investment. We also have a huge appreciation of the United States and Australian government. In their national accounts, they have made a substantial investment. Each government has never made in their history. United States provided well over three billion US dollars in their national account to invest in the LNG project in Papua New Guinea Australian government over 500 million dollars for that particular project also. This is the highest that each government has ever invested in any country. So we appreciate the commitments that they are making in trade to our country. But as we said, we appreciate that. But we must also on our own develop our trade relations with the others in the region. And that is precisely what we are doing. I mean, the PM makes a good point about Australia also turning towards Asia. I had an American a conversation with an American friend a week ago and he told me that that some people in Washington, including in the administration were perturbed by the idea of the Asian Century white paper in Australia turning to Asia. I said, but President Obama is pivoting to Asia. So, you know, what do you expect? And he said, yes, but but we thought you pivot more to us as we pivot to Asia. So I guess we're all watching each other PM to see which direction we go. There was a gentleman in the middle who caught my eye earlier. Patrick, as you've been back in track now, I should promise that we see the NGO's role in your new approach to trying to move Australian aid into the areas you think are most important in PLG. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. And thank you again for the invitation to the Cogoda Foundation Dinner here in Sydney not so long ago. I understand the work Cogoda Track and other foundations in our country and NGOs are doing. We appreciate that. Our government is trying to work with them, but we must work together in priorities that the government is setting out rather than working individually and even parallel schemes where it'll be too costly and we are spending limited resources without proper planning and priority. So government's commitment to foundations like yours is that we will work together. We will help where you can deliver best. We will help fund it so that you can use our resources also to delivering the service that you are doing. We are pleased with the work that Cogoda Track is doing, Foundation is doing on the track where they are attending to schools and health facilities along the track. Our government has already made a commitment to assist you to fund it because we believe that your foundation is in a better place to deliver them than government can. Likewise, we are doing similar arrangements with the other NGOs. This year, we have also increased the ability for us to work with the churches throughout the country. For the first time, we are funding direct, funding to the health and education programs in the churches. Well over 100 million kina for those. So government is fully committed in making sure that we leave the standards of both education and health and other services that the government cannot provide in some areas of our country. Lady down there on the edge. Yes. And then, Springstone really is a high continuity plan that is working with the energy for various organizations. One of the most limiting factors I give for people actually including my own work there is the safety of Port Moresby. It may lead to the question of the labor of tourism. I don't know what you would refer to with that simplicity and all that. So what degree is that part of your strategic plan to address that or how will that be addressed? Thank you. That is a very important question because our governments, one of the priorities, we focus on five areas. One is to make sure that health and education standards are lifted in the country. We are focusing on improving health and making sure that rather than funding all the hospitals, we will continue to fund them with drugs and provision of medical staff and so forth. But rebuilding the infrastructure, we're trying to build one and making sure that that runs properly. So we're starting with the biggest one in Port Moresby, that is Port Moresby General Oswald, where it serves over a million people every year. So the approach that we are doing now is to try and making sure that we rebuild some of the infrastructures. On low and order particularly, despite the 11 years of continuous growth, over the last 10 years, we have not recruited one new single placement, we have not recruited one new, we have not trained one new placement. Only last year, when we, in 2011, when we got into government, we invested heavily into rebuilding what we call the Bumana Police Training College with the assistance of the Australian Oswald Program. And we invested into getting the first 200 placement graduating from that particular training. Now we are increasing that to almost triple that every year. So we are now building the second training facility down in Lae and improving on the facilities in Port Moresby to increase the numbers. So within 2017, we are hoping to put at least another 2,000 to 3,000 placement on the street. So when you have an increasing population and you have a ratio of population of 3,000 to 4,000 to one placement, it's not one that you cannot control the loan or the issues in the country. So we are investing not only in training on the placement, but we are encouraging to the aid program and funding with the Australian government and other development partners getting some of our placement to be seconded to other parts of the world where they can learn better discipline and ethical way of conducting themselves when they return. So we are talking to the Commonwealth nations with similar jurisdictions as ours to get more training and more of the officers to go out there to manage the police force. So hopefully over the next two or three years, we can see an increase in the number of placement on the ground. At the same time, we are now, this year, putting an extended amount of funding into the defense force because we are now utilizing defense force also to now maintain law and order in the country. I'll give you an example that we had to, during the elections, we had to call out the defense force to go and provide security. As a result, the elections was trouble free. So we also called them out to go and provide security on the LNG project where landowners were continuously disrupting the work that was going on. So those things are now happening and I think a law and order situation will improve dramatically over the next few years. And Port Mosby is going to be estimated to become the fifth largest city within the region apart from Sydney and Melbourne and Auckland and Brisbane. Port Mosby will be the next with the population of over a million people by 2020. So with that kind of pressure, we need to make sure that we have a highly trained law and order agencies that will maintain law and order within those communities. Yeah, the lady in the red top. I'm very happy to answer that. Kelly, of course, we need national commentary on that issue. There's also some of the answers to that for us. I'm also happy to hear about the increase in nursing in the LNG community. I was just wondering if that would include specific language for support in the terms of sexual and family-based violence in the hospitals that we work with throughout the year. Do you think that's a real need in terms of the safety of the system as well? Yes, thank you. And of course, domestic violence is an issue. Papua Niggini is a very traditional society still. And unfortunately, these things are happening more frequently than what we want. The government is concerned about that. We are strengthening the laws to making sure that we punish those who are causing those offenses. And at the same time, the support that we are trying to provide through community development. Unfortunately, the community development has been in battle in a court case between the leadership of the department itself, which is frustrating the work that we are trying to do. But once that is sorted out, we have put considerable amount of funding through the community development program. And I'm hoping that they will work with some of the NGOs, particularly those like Ausruth, which provides psychological support for victims of the violence. We hope that we will expand that across the country. But for the first time in many, many years, we have got a health plan, a 10-year health plan, which has been fully costed now, where we are now spending an average of 1.4 billion quina every year, which is almost 20% of the entire budget of the country. So we are making substantial investments into the health sector. And I'm hoping that we will make a real difference in that. I know, in fact, my wife is a patron of one of those organizations, and we are pushing for more investment in that area, and government is committed in doing so. By the time for a couple more questions, there was a gentleman right behind the lady who just asked the question. Yes, sir. Thank you. Prime Minister, Australia and Papua New Guinea and others do not invest for business and investment. There's a steady southward flow of cases of populations facing pressure on governments, including Australia and our own. And we are leading to the establishment of a certain center on the numbers. Beyond establishing asylum centers, idea talks with Australia and New Zealand and others is there a bigger plan to stand the steady flow of cases facing pressure on our own population in Papua New Guinea? I know the asylum-seeker issue is an utterly debated item here in Australia, and of course it is similarly debated in my own country. We have allowed Australia to establish the asylum-seekers processing center in Manus because of the commitments we have made earlier. The former government signed an agreement with the Australian government then to allow the Australian government to establish that center. We simply had to honor that commitment. And we support that it is not only the issue for Australian government and the Australian people to handle. We have similarly illegal immigrants coming into our country. And my condition to the Australian government was that we establish a permanent processing center for all illegal immigrants coming through the region, not only in Papua New Guinea but other countries, smaller countries who do not have the capacity to manage their borders and manage their immigration issues within those smaller island countries. So, Australian government has agreed to that. In fact, we are now looking for a permanent spot in Manus Island where we will establish a permanent processing center. And hopefully we will develop that into a regional processing center in the coming years. I take one more question from the gentleman over there. Thank you. Thank you very much, Prime Minister. Today, we are from the William Nye Observatory and the Institute of New South Wales. You mentioned your plans to trade. And of course, the sort of trade you're mentioning, you're really dealing with these center maritime activities. And that leads us into ports and port security. Any thoughts or much work being done on the ports and maritime security around the PNG because they are very important when you get into LNG and marine storage. Thank you. We are, in fact, increasing our presence of security on the ports, including bringing in new equipment that will scan the containers that are coming into the two main ports, especially when we're starting with Port Mosby and Ley. In Ley, we have expanded the port facilities. We've just invested close to 700 million kina in expanding that facility in view of the increase in trade and also because of the increase in the volume of traffic between those two ports. We are increasing those investments. We are looking at a new port development in Port Mosby, relocating the one we have because of capacity issues. But security has been improved in all ports throughout the country. And we are now trying to get marine time and immigration people to also be present around the port facilities so we can strengthen the work of port management in our country. All right, Prime Minister. Prime Minister, can I thank you very much for your speech? You were very interested. We're very grateful not only that you came but that you consented to continue the conversation here at the Institute on the Asian Century and what it means for all of us. You have very interesting things to say on that. But my mind keeps going back to the comment you made at the beginning on Australia's relationship with P&G, that it's in good shape but that we shouldn't take it for granted. We at the Institute don't take it for granted. We continue to work on it and to contribute to it. And I know you do too. And I was particularly struck by that little example of trying to encourage more Australians instead of taking their gap year in the flesh pots of London, going to Papua New Guinea and teaching for a year and getting to know a country that's very close to us and very important to us. So we might tweet that from the Lowy Institute account in the next day or two to see if we can stir up a bit of interest. So thank you, PM, very much for coming and can I ask everybody to thank the Honourable Peter O'Connor.