Australian Aid to PNG - AusAID

and higher wage premiums and security costs for imported skilled labour. It hasalso limited personal development opportunities because of travel constraintsand restricted hours of educational institutions. Armed hold ups, theft andtribal fighting have restricted the growth of the coffee industry in particular,and tourism has been unable to develop to a scale that could have had a highlybeneficial impact.Riots, violent demonstrations, attacks on parliament, violence at elections andcurfews have also been features of the law and order problem. Reilly (2002,p. 139) notes that the 2002 elections were widely condemned as the worst ever,with over 30 people killed in ethno-political electoral disputes, violentdisruptions in the Highlands and polling abandoned in six seats, as well asmajor electoral fraud and administrative problems. In addition the Bougainvilleconflict had a duration of more than 10 years starting in 1989 and was one ofthe major disturbances in the region since the Second World War.Papua New Guinea’s Institute of National Affairs has undertaken severalsurveys of impediments to growth in the private sector in the past 20 years.Law and order was at the top of the list in 1982, 1989, 1996 and 1999(Economic Insights 1999, p. 26). The crime problem extends beyond violentcrimes to corruption, which has been a long standing problem. In 1985 MichaelSomare, in reviewing the ten-year period since independence, considered thatcrime including both street crime and corruption constituted the greatest threatto the country.There are signs however of improvements as reflected in a reduction in thetotal number of offences by 23% between 1999 and 2001. In the same period,robberies (which are a key indicator of serious crime) also declined by 20%.However one cannot be confident in these statistics because many crimes arenot reported and there are likely to be many inaccuracies in reported figures.2.8 Access to LandAlthough there is ample land in a physical sense, land is restricted in aneconomic sense. Only about 3% of land was alienated by the colonialadministration and this proportion has not changed since independence. Inaddition much of the alienated land is under-utilised and complex requirementsfor the transfer, mortgage or lease of this land are generally considered torepresent a significant business constraint.Access to customary land remains a matter for local negotiation in accordancewith customary arrangements and traditions. Successful land mobilisation canoften only be achieved at a very large and ongoing cost and can only beafforded by very large and profitable enterprises, as demonstrated for example12 The Contribution of Australian Aid to Papua New Guinea’s Development 1975–2000