Charles Lepani

Charles Lepani discusses his high school education at Charters Towers, Queensland, which he completed in 1966, and becoming part of the second intake in 1967 into the University of Papua New Guinea where he met good friends Rabbie Namaliu, Tony Siaguru, and Mekere Morauta. He discusses the group's growing awareness regarding Independence and well as the sense of political awareness in the first generation of political leaders including Michael Somare, John Guise and his father Lepani Watson.

Charles Lepani relates how he was invited to be a participant in a television debate run by the ABC between Charlie Barnes (Minister for External Territories) and Gough Whitlam on PNG Independence at New England University in Armidale. He relates how on returning to PNG he was involved as a trade union activist in the Port Moresby urban minimum wage case and succeeded in increasing the minimum wage from $8 to $13.50 heard by Arbitration Commissioner Len Matthews.

Charles Lepani describes his involvement in the Bougainville Copper Mine strike, and ongoing discussions with Bougainville in the lead up to Independence.

Charles Lepani relates how he left the union movement to join the National Planning Office in 1974 and became head of that organisation one year later with a group of expatriate staff from Canada, Australia, and USA. He states that the office planned and developed policies for new expenditure and new priorities.

Charles Lepani discusses mining issues in relation to Ok Tedi and Bougainville and his travel to Germany to look at investment. He discusses the formation of the National Investment and Development Authority in 1976-77 and the role of Treasury in investment, finance and borrowing issues prior to independence.

Charles Lepani relates how Josephine Abaijah and a group of women stormed Michael Somare's office protesting about the cost of living in Port Moresby.

Charles Lepani reflects on the changes in the public sector capacity and the shift of resources to politicians resulting in the disengagment of the public sector, together with the impact of restructuring required by the World Bank.

Charles Lepani discusses the role of the central planning document Papua New Guinea Vision 2050 (Government of PNG, 2009), and the process for setting priorities when he was head of National Planning Office. He discusses the importance of key issues: subsistence sector production, relevance to tradition in business activities, co-operatives and community-based organisations, and decentralisation. He states that the Little Red Book predicted population growth requiring a Population Policy which attracted criticism from the Catholic church. He discusses the development of the compromise child spacing policy and the development of the Nutrition policy to fortify basic foodstuffs.

Charles Lepani reflects that the national development strategy has become too ambitious  ̶  5, 10 and now 50 years  ̶  when based on revenue flow, and refers to the previous 3-year cycle of commodities that allowed him to plan new spending in the budget matched with revenues.

Charles Lepani discusses the role of expatriates and local Papua New Guineans in the National Planning Office and the efforts to recruit economists and political science graduates to the Office. He relates how they developed policy as a team, but that it was he who took the policies to Cabinet. He discusses the case of Air Niugini planning to buy new jets that needed airports that could accommodate them when his priority was to maintain existing airports and build feeder roads. He describes his fight with Air Niugini chair Bart Philemon and Lepani later admitting that he had been wrong as the jets became the workhorses of the country.

Charles Lepani reflects on the mood and general sense of optimism and enthusiasm in the country at Independence. He describes borrowing a Malayasian model of a national coordination centre for planning with Cabinet and the level of cooperation between Cabinet, politicians and bureaucrats, that he claims has not been the case since.

Charles Lepani discusses the time between when he was appointed to the National Planning Office and when he returned from further study at Harvard as bookends to an era. He relates how he resigned from his position as head of the Office, but not from the public service when he went to Harvard in 1980 to study for a Masters at the Kennedy School of Government and that on return he was informed by Julius Chan that he was no longer required. He states that he established a consultancy firm for 8 years followed by time at the Pacific Islands Development Program at the University of Hawaii.

Charles Lepani reflects on his 40 year contribution to public life, now as High Commissioner to Australia and the importance of his historical knowledge of policy development in his role as ambassador.