That journey was to take 60 years and it would traverse the
modern history of PNG - from colonial trust territory, to
self-government and independence and beyond.
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It began with a teenage cadet patrol officer trekking through
the remote and untamed territory of New Guinea and ended with a
distinguished political career, a knighthood and the deep affection of a
generation of Papua New Guineans.
At each step, Barry Holloway made a special mark. He was,
probably more than any other Australian, instrumental in the making of
modern PNG, and his death closes a circle on Australia's engagement with
PNG's coming of age.
Holloway with the Queen in 1974.
He was one of the first expatriates to advocate independence
for the Australian trust territory in the 1960s. He helped found Pangu,
the country's first political party, and ran the numbers that saw a
brash young journalist named Michael Somare become its first leader. He
chaired the committee that drafted the constitution and, at independence
in 1975, he was one of the first white men to take citizenship of the
new nation, happily surrendering his Australian passport.
He became speaker of the first parliament after independence,
then a senior minister in several governments. He was a reformer, a
champion of the ordinary man and a campaigner against corruption, the
issue that many believe drove him to an early death.
After finishing secondary school, Holloway moved to Melbourne
and was working as a labourer when he saw a newspaper advertisement
seeking young men with ''initiative, imagination and courage'' to work
as patrol officers in the UN-mandated Territory of Papua and New Guinea.
Barry Holloway
Between 1949 and 1974, more than 2000 Australians aged between 18 and 24 were recruited as patrol officers, or
kiaps - pidgin for captain, from the German
kapitan - and sent to bring the rule of white law to the often lawless outer reaches of the territories.
After six weeks' basic training, Holloway arrived in Port
Moresby in April 1953, a lanky 18-year-old with a shock of curly red
hair who was ready for adventure. After an initial posting with an
experienced kiap on Bougainville island he was sent alone to a district
in Madang province. Suddenly he was at once police chief, magistrate,
medical chief, census officer and director of engineering for roads and
airstrips.
On one of his first patrols into an uncontrolled area he had
to defuse a clash between two warring tribes with the help of only a
handful of native policemen.
''After three weeks, the whole crowd of about 600 to 700
would be massing around,'' he told the ABC in 2009. ''We demonstrated
the power of the .303 by lining up about five shields, making a dum-dum
out of a bullet, and showing how it would come out with a great gap on
the other side. Because to these people these [rifles] were just sticks,
and had no meaning until we demonstrated their power.'' That was the
end of the tribal fight.
Holloway moved to the Eastern Highlands in 1958 and won
election to the territory's first House of Assembly in 1964. He had a
natural campaign advantage with his unruly red hair. Many of the tribes
believed the gods had red hair.
He also had a unconventional but effective campaigning style.
He would arrive at each village with a simple message: ''On election
day just go the polling station and chant, 'Ollo-way, Ollo-way,
Ollo-way'.'' And they did, in their thousands.
In Port Moresby, Holloway quickly befriended the first
indigenous MPs and openly championed the case for independence in a
parliament dominated by the colonial administration and conservative
white planters.
In 1976 he and Tony Voutas, another kiap turned MP, helped
found Pangu along with a clutch of others who would become legendary
figures in the emerging nation - Albert Maori Kiki, John Guise, Ebia
Olewale and Michael Somare.
In the struggle to choose a party leader, Holloway was
instrumental in securing the numbers for Somare to beat Guise, who later
became governor-general. As Somare noted in a tribute sent to the
Holloway family last week: ''I acknowledge his immense contribution and
great support for my early political aspirations … He was among a
handful of non-indigenous people who supported the principle that Papua
New Guineans should be able to determine their own future.''
Somare went on to become chief minister when Australia
granted self-government in late 1973 and the first prime minister at
independence two years later. After serving as speaker of the first
parliament, Holloway held a series of ministerial appointments, serving
as finance minister under Somare and Julius Chan, who led the
country's second government.
His love affair with PNG was both physical and spiritual.
Nine of his 12 children were born to Papua New Guinean mothers. Friends
say the unofficial count is 16.
His first wife Elizabeth, whom he met and married in Tasmania
while on leave from PNG, moved back to Australia to raise their twin
sons and daughter. The boys returned in 1975 to spend independence year
at school in PNG.
Son Daniel recalls: ''He took Damien and me up to Goroka on
one occasion. When we got there, one day he drove to his office and
asked us to wait outside on the footpath. A little while later he came
back with a skinny little boy and said to us, 'Meet Joe. He's your
brother.' I think it was as much of a surprise to Joe as it was for
us.''
Many other children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren
were to follow. ''None of us quite knew when he was going to stop,''
Daniel says. ''It was a bit of a running joke. Each time another child
was born, we told him, 'You can stop now'.''
Holloway married Ikini Yaboyang, a feisty young journalist,
in 1974. He is survived by his last wife, Dr Fua Uyassi (Lady Holloway).
Says Daniel: ''He cared very much for all his children … and despite
his marriages unfortunately not working out, he also cared for his wives
to the end.''
His large and unconventional family was just one of the ways
in which his life matched that of many traditional ''big men'' in PNG
society. His homes in Port Moresby and Kainantu were open houses to
friends and colleagues, his vehicles were freely available and what
money he had was shared with those in need. ''If he only had a dollar in
his pocket and someone asked him for some money he would give it to
them,'' Daniel says.
A lifetime of such generosity and a series of business
ventures, including starting his own micro-finance scheme for villagers,
left him with little at the end of his life.
''He was flat broke,'' said Ernie Lohberger, a fellow
Tasmanian and long-time PNG resident. ''In the end he was living on a
friend's boat because he couldn't afford the rents they charge in Port
Moresby these days.''
Unlike many Australians who stayed after independence - and
many more of the Papua New Guineans who succeeded them in positions of
power - Holloway did not set out to enrich himself. He was appalled by
those who did and, ultimately, it probably hastened his death.
Disturbed by a trend that now ranks PNG among the worst on
Transparency International's global corruption index, Holloway decided
to make a political comeback in last year's elections, standing for
governor of Eastern Highlands Province.
Two weeks before campaigning was due to begin in the midyear
poll, he suffered a stroke that temporarily blinded him, according to a
close friend. He refused to go to hospital because his opponents had
argued that, at 78, he was too old for politics and he feared they would
use the news to wreck his campaign.
Despite the pleas of family and friends, he threw himself
into the campaign, travelling by road and air and often on foot to visit
as many of the scattered and remote villages in the province as he
could. In the end, he lost, but only by a few hundred votes.
''He got more than 100,000 votes. It was testament to the
strength of his following and his standing in the Eastern Highlands,''
Peter Donigi, a long-time friend and PNG's former ambassador to the
United Nations told the mourners in Kimberley.
Supporters wanted Holloway to call for a recount, which they
believed would see the result overturned, but he refused. Instead, he
was one of the first to send a message of congratulation to the new
provincial governor.
Some say he never recovered from the exhausting campaign, his health issues compounded by prostate cancer.
''Barry never saw himself as merely a catalyst for change,''
says Tony Voutas, who left PNG on the eve of independence. ''For him, it
was his country. He was one of the few in those colonial days who
looked at Papua New Guineans as equal human beings. The planters called
them bush kanakas and some right-wingers regarded them as a different
evolutionary stream.
''But Barry was one of those people who did not see race. And
the Papua New Guineans regarded him as one of them. And once you are
accepted into their society it is as if you were born into their
society.''
After his death at a Brisbane hospital on January 16, the
leaders of Kainantu wanted him brought back to be buried there, but
Barry Holloway's last wish was to be laid to rest beside his mother and
father in the church yard at Kimberley.
As men wept and women wailed on Saturday afternoon, a
daughter stepped forward and sprinkled a sachet of his favourite Goroka
coffee into the red clay of the grave. For a moment the aroma of the New
Guinea highlands mingled with the scents of the Tasmanian bush.
''They will never see anything like this in Kimberley again,'' said Geoff Pedley, an old schoolmate.
They won't. We won't.
Mark Baker is editor-at-large. He is a former PNG correspondent for Fairfax.
source. theage.com.au
