In 1952 a Native Land Registration Ordinance was enacted, but it was repealed eleven years later. In 1963–1964 four acts were passed: the Land Act, the Land Titles Commission Ordinance, the Land Registration (Communally Owned Land) Ordinance and the Land (Tenure Conversion) Ordinance. In 1969, as a result of a report by S. Rowton Simpson, the 1963 legislation was reviewed and two years later new legislation was presented to the House of Assembly, comprising: the Registered Land Bill, Customary Land Adjudication Bill, Land Control Bill, and Land Titles Commission (Papua New Guinea) Bill:
There was strong local opposition to an attempt to legislate on such a sensitive subject [land registration], so close to Independence, and the authorities threw in the towel, leaving it to an incoming Papua New Guinea government to handle. So, after self-government, the CILM [Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters] was set up by Somare in 1973, to recommend on land policies across the board (personal communication, J.S. Fingleton 2001).
One can see from the nature of these legislative initiatives, especially registration and tenure conversion, that the main drive in the colonial period was to free up land from customary tenure in order to pursue ‘development’. Papua New Guineans resisted this trend.