The Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters (CILM) established the policies at independence. Its recommendations proposed clear guidelines for management of customary land that should have guided the nation for the next twenty-five years and beyond (see CILM 1973). The government’s response to the CILM was stated:
The Department [of Lands Surveys and Mines] has…created a new Division responsible for Policy and Research to ensure implementation of the recommendations and to review lands policy in the light of changing circumstances. Land tenure systems are important not only in the obvious economic sense but socially in Papua New Guinea. The Department controls all land registration but is trying to replace the existing highly complex and legalistic systems with simplified administrative procedures and to ensure greater decision-making authority at the local level.
The Department exercises its powers over the granting of land and the sale of land to ensure a greater role for Papua New Guinean people in the economy…. (PNG 1974, 73).