To celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence in Papua New Guinea, for the month of September Australian Policy and History is publishing policy briefs written by students studying at Honours, Masters or Doctoral levels who attended a June 2025 intensive workshop on Papua New Guinea and Australia, sponsored by DFAT and run by Deakin’s Centre for Contemporary Histories, at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

 

Attention:

Tony Burk, Minister for the Arts, Labour Party

Penny Wong, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Labour Party

Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Senator for NSW

Linda Thorpe, Independent Senator for VIC

 

Executive Summary

The PNG National Museum is deteriorating, which impacts national cohesion, regional security, and the PNG-Australia bilateral relationship. Australia’s current lack of support regarding PNG museum initiatives contrasts sharply to the $3.2 million funding provided by China and investment by the US. Australian investment in the Pasifika Tauhi pilot project—a collaboration between the U.S. Embassy, the Australian Museum and Pacific partners—offers an opportunity to help reverse the deterioration of the PNG National Museum, reinvigorating the celebration of PNG’s Indigenous cultural expressions and bolstering Australia’s regional standing, including with other regional powers (Patience 2024).

 

The Problem

Developing and protecting cultural heritage in PNG is integral to its nation-building strategies, cohesion, security in the region, and a foundation for building bilateral relationships. PNG national leaders believe that respect and recognition for Indigenous cultural expression during the lead-up to Independence played an essential part in national identity building in PNG (Busse 2010). Today, however, the PNG National Museum is in a deteriorating condition. China’s $3.2M museum funding in PNG contrasts with Australia’s underfunded commitments and slow repatriation, undermining regional trust (Underhill 2024).

 

Systemic Challenges

Underfunding, staffing gaps, and a lack of climate-adaptive infrastructure hinder PNG’s national museum preservation efforts. Due to infrastructure failure, 200,000+ artifacts in the PNG’s National Museum have been significantly exposed to heat, humidity, and pests, endangering wooden objects, wet specimens and impacting staff health (ABC News 2025). PNG’s infrastructural issues are further exacerbated by the disproportionate vulnerability caused by climate change, which PNG faces despite its minimal contribution to global emissions. On July 26th, 2024, the ICJ ruled ‘States have a larger responsibility beyond existing Paris targets to adopt additional measures to meaningfully prevent climate harm’ (Kama 2025). Supporting the PNG Museum as a part of the Pasifika Tauhi pilot project provides an opportunity for Australia to assist in developing climate resilience and community-led preservation goals in PNG.

 

Colonial-era acquisitions

Remains and artifacts were often looted or obtained without consent for racial science and private collections (Fforde 2004). In 1977, just after Independence, the PNG Prime Minister and President of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, Michael Somare, stated the following: the museum isn’t ‘just to preserve the traditional past…what matters is that we have a culture that reflects our life, our aspirations, [and] our feelings…’ (cited in Busse 2010, p. 12).

 

Legal gaps

PNG’s National Cultural Property Act 1965 lacks enforcement mechanisms (Post-Courier 2023). The National Gallery of Australia’s 2023 repatriation of 30 artifacts to PNG set a precedent but excluded human remains (NGA 2023).

 

Diplomatic and Community Pressures

Australia’s lack of support regarding PNG museum initiatives compared to China and the U.S. is a missed opportunity to strengthen our relationships in the region. PNG leaders, including Julian Melpa, a researcher at PNGNRI, demand stronger protections for cultural heritage (Post-Courier 2023). Additionally, Stanford Tokoya, another PNG leader, calls to strengthen PNG’s cultural protection laws, highlighting the urgency of addressing this issue (Post-Courier 2023). PNG’s weak National Cultural Property Act (1965) and Australia’s RICP program’s Pacific exclusions hinder PNG’s cultural heritage processes (Post-Courier 2023).

 

Policy Options

  1. Status Quo: Minimal support provided to the PNG National Museum.

Pros: Low immediate cost.

Cons: Australia’s underfunded commitments in comparison to China undermine regional trust.

 

  1. Bilateral Agreement as part of the Pasifika Tauhi pilot project 

Pros: Aligns gallery/repatriation with UNDRIP Article 12; builds trust and counters China’s soft power influence.

Cons: Requires longer-term funding.

 

  1. Regional Framework: Pacific-wide policy via the Pacific Island Forum

Pros: Can address broader colonial legacies.

Cons: Politically complex due to a variety of different cultural needs across the region, and slower to implement.

 

Policy Recommendations

Bilateral Agreement with PNG as part of the Pasifika Tauhi pilot project:

The Pasifika Tauhi pilot project is a collaboration between the U.S. Embassy, the Australian Museum and Pacific partners, addressing the critical deterioration of cultural heritage in the Pacific region due to resource shortage and climate change. The PNG museum requires Australian financing to meet the outlined needs identified by the Pasifika Tauhi Project’s climate resilience and community-led preservation goals (Mathieson 2025; Australian Museum 2021). A bilateral agreement under the Pasifika Tauhi Project, modelled on New Zealand’s Karanga Aotearoa Program, offers a framework to upgrade the PNG National Gallery with climate-adaptive infrastructure.

This policy recommendation involves a formal agreement and government-funded program where Australia assists PNG in repatriating cultural heritage items, upgrading the PNG National Museum with climate-adaptive infrastructure as a part of the Pasifika Tauhi pilot project.

Key features include:

  • Cultural and Provenance research and trainingfor PNG museum staff and collaborative work with PNG historians (e.g. oral history projects) (Aus-PNG Network 2024).
  • PNG Museum Staff Training: Capacity-building for repatriation and climate-resilient curation.
  • Technical Support:Partner with the Australian Institute for Conservation to assist PNG in the preservation and repatriation of sacred objects and provide support to assess the identified gaps in the museum infrastructure.
  • Digital Cataloguing: Hardware/software for climate-controlled digital archives. Training for PNG staff to manage systems, based on the Fiji Museum’s 2022 digitisation project (Fiji Times 2022).
  • Community Consultations: For the co-curation grassroots model to be applied to the PNG Museum.
  • Legal & Diplomatic Action: Appoint a Special Envoy for Pacific Heritage to coordinate with PNG’s National Museum and Pasifika Tauhi (DFAT 2023). Develop system support for PNG’s cultural law reform (Post-Courier 2023).

 

Contact: Karuna Santosa

Student – Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Deakin University

email: kosantosa@deakin.edu.au

 

Sources Consulted

ABC News (7 Jan 2025) ‘Artefacts from Pacific museums being put at risk’, 7:30 Report ABC News, accessed 10 July

Aus-PNG Network (7 March 2024) ‘Spotlight on Stanford Tokoya’, Facebook, accessed 10 July 2025.

Australian Museum (2021) ‘New Pasifika Gallery Survey Results’, Australian Museum, accessed 15 July 2025.

Busse, M. (2010) ‘Short history of the Papua New Guinea National Museum’. In Craig, B. (ed.) Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes: The Masterpieces Exhibition: Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 5-14)

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) (2023) ‘2022-2023 Pacific Regional Development Program Progress Report’, DFAT, accessed 10 July 2024.

Fiji Times (2022) ‘Fiji Museum launches $2.3m digitisation project to preserve cultural heritage’, Fiji Times, accessed 15 July 2025.

Kama, B. (30th July 2025) ‘The pane of the International Court of Justice’, Post-Courier, accessed 30th of July 2025.

Mathieson, A. (13 Jan 2025) ‘Australian Museum, US Embassy and Pasifika partners work to save cultural relics and artefacts’, National Indigenous Times, accessed 15 July 2025.

Patience C. (2024) ‘Australian Museum, U.S. Embassy and Pacific partners Embark on cultural Conservation Project’,  Australian Museum, accessed 10 July 2024.

Norton Rose Fulbright (2023) ‘A beginner’s guide to the repatriation of stolen or looted art and cultural material’, Norton Rose Fulbright, accessed 10 July 2024.

Post-Courier (1 March 2023) ‘Laws must be strengthened to protect PNG artifacts’, Post-Courier, accessed 10 July 2024.

Te Herekiekie, T. (2022) ‘Karanga Aotearoa Annual Report 2021/22’, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, accessed 15 July 2025.

Turnbull, P. (2017) Science, museums and collecting the Indigenous dead in colonial Australia, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51874-9.

Underhill, B. (2024) Preparing a nation: the New Deal on the ground in the villages of Papua New Guinea, Canberra: ANU Press, doi.org/10.22459/PN.2024

US National Science Foundation (10 July 2025) ‘Indirect Cost Rate Proposal Submission Procedures’, US National Science Foundation, accessed 10 July 2024.

 

Karuna Santosa

Karuna Santosa is a Golden-Key Honours Student (Top 15%) studying a Bachelor of Arts – Advanced (Honours). She was awarded a $20,000 scholarship over four years to study at Deakin University. She is a former student leader of the year at two universities and is an award-winning peer support worker. She is interested in interdisciplinary practices related to historical and contemporary anthropology of crime and violence, legal, cognitive, and medical anthropology.