A liberal ‘respect for small property’: Paul Hasluck and the ‘landless proletariat’ in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1951–63

Abstract

The official records of the Australian state in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) now open to academic scrutiny are sufficient to warrant a comprehensive revision of the former Territory's late‐colonial history. As a contribution toward this revision, I examine the developmental legacy of long‐serving Liberal Minister for Territories, Sir Paul Hasluck. It is argued that insofar as government policy for TPNG came to articulate a coherent policy, it was in a definition of ‘indigenous community’ as synonymous with village agriculture. For Hasluck, the aim of development policy was ‘to maintain village life and the attachment of the native to his land’. Beginning with a discussion of Hasluck's ‘intellectual universe’, the ameliorative tradition according this coherence to government policy is demonstrated with reference to indigenous land and labour.