Obituaries

Julius Chan: the death of an important figure in both Papua New Guinean and Australian history

Julius Chan: the death of an important figure in both Papua New Guinean and Australian history

The death of Sir Julius Chan, in the 50th year since the independence of Papua New Guinea, sent the nation into a week of mourning. One of the last of the founding generation, Chan was the inaugural Papua New Guinean finance minister in the parliament that led the nation to independence, then prime minister twice.  His life demonstrates how the great world events of the twentieth century, immigration, world wars, colonialism and decolonisation, played out in the Australian territories of New Guinea and Papua.

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