The 1972 event and the generally accepted conclusion that too many people were fed for too long had a number of repercussions for policies dealing with natural disasters. Partly in response to the revealed ignorance of food production systems, the first Papua New Guinea National Food Crop Conference was held in 1975 (Willson and Bourke 1976). Prior to 1972 it would have been impossible to find the resources to mount such a conference. Waddell’s argument that food relief undermines local coping was widely accepted by concerned expatriates, but not by Papua New Guinea politicians. A pattern was established in which policy, thought to be sound and sensible, was made by expatriate experts and administrations, often supported by Papua New Guinea public servants, but was not supported by political leaders and their expatriate advisers, some of whom went out of their way to subvert what were supposed to be their own policies.

Decisions were increasingly influenced by those who stood to benefit most from having a ‘disaster’. Thus in 1980 when food shortages were reported from many parts of the Southern Highlands, at the time heavily staffed by foreign agricultural, health and nutritional experts under a World Bank rural development project, the foreigners and senior Papua New Guinea public servants argued, against the urgings of local government councillors and provincial politicians, that food aid would cause a breakdown in ‘local coping mechanisms’ and that it was not warranted in the particular circumstances. The politicians won the day, however, and the National Executive Council approved the spending of K500,000 for ‘relief operations to drought frost affected areas’ (sic). This decision was recommended by the Papua New Guinea National Emergency Services (PNGNES) and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF). The PNGDF, which was tasked by PNGNES to distribute the food, was involved in flying national politicians in chartered helicopters on brief visits to affected areas before the decision was made. Very small amounts of food were distributed directly to some local areas and not to others. Provincial public servants were by-passed by the operation which was directed by local politicians. Clansmen who had not received food aid because they were of a different tribal allegiance to the local member of parliament took out their anger by joining a stone throwing mob in Mendi or by blocking roads and robbing trucks carrying relief supplies in Enga.

In February 1981 the public service was successful in blocking attempts to create a ‘disaster’. The Pacific representative of the UN World Food Programme (UNWFP), an American based in Fiji, made his first ever visit to Papua New Guinea. At Mount Hagen provincial politicians took him to Tambul and showed him frost-affected sweet potato gardens and told him people were about to starve. As a result he placed a request directly with the UNWFP in Rome for food aid for 39,597 Papua New Guinea villagers ‘totally deprived of subsistence food’. The request was sent back from Rome to Papua New Guinea for confirmation. In Port Moresby, the receipt of this request was the first that the national government knew of the situation. Phil Ainsworth, a retired Australian Army officer working in the National Planning Office (NPO) Coordination Section, pre-empted the director of PNGNES, a New Zealand-born Papua New Guinea citizen Leith Anderson, by establishing an inter-departmental committee known as the National Disaster and Relief Committee. The committee continued to be chaired by Anderson, but comprised senior public servants from Treasury, Finance, National Planning, Provincial and Local Government Affairs, the PNGDF and the police. In a report written by Ainsworth, the committee said that it found itself ‘confronted by conflicting information’ and noted that ‘no objective survey’ had been made. A ‘technical appraisal team’ was formed. It was led by Paul Wohlt, an American anthropologist who had spent 1972 in the field at Kandep, following migrating groups to the lower valleys and back again, and comprised a geographer, a nutritionist and a Papua New Guinean graduate working for the Simbu Land Use Project.

Before the appraisal team had reported, the PNGNES director leaked the details of the UNWFP offer to the press and implied that its acceptance was being held up by uncaring bureaucrats. Senior national politicians, including Paul Torato, then minister for Justice, lambasted the committee in the press, accusing it of ignoring ‘my starving people’ and stating that ‘150,000 are starving’ and need food for six months. However the appraisal team found that the food aid was not required and the Papua New Guinea Department of Foreign Affairs formally declined the UNWFP offer, the first country ever to do so. The appraisal team’s report contained evidence of senior national ministers having food delivered by helicopter and truck to communities in their electorates that had not requested assistance and did not need it. In the Rigo mountains, food received had been carefully stored in villages because people believed some mistake had been made and that it would have to be returned (Wohlt et al. 1982). A national election was to be held in 1982.

The only semblance of ‘policy’ at this time comprised public requests by vested interests, mainly politicians from affected areas, the military and the emergency services staff, that food should be distributed after almost every minor frost or alleged food shortage. Senior public servants and expatriate experts at the national and provincial level, who wanted objective assessments carried out first, opposed these requests. The ability of one side or the other to get their way was influenced to some extent by economic conditions in the country. In 1982, a relatively severe ENSO event that resulted in widespread frosts across the highlands, and a drought that stranded barges on the Fly River, coincided with a collapse in export commodity prices and a doubling of the price of oil. After the experiences of 1980 and 1981, a national ministerial ‘assessment committee’ was established and the national government refused to release funds until provinces had set up their own assessment teams and produced evidence of need. Provincial public servants, then smarting at levels of political interference that are now accepted as normal, made statements in newspapers that, at the urgings of provincial political leaders, villagers were exaggerating their needs and were hiding food from assessment teams in order to attract relief supplies.

By the end of 1982, a widespread climate of cynicism had developed in which villagers were portrayed as far from helpless in the face of natural disaster. They were viewed as clever and cunning and not only capable of coping, but of tricking supplies of rice and fish out of the government. In addition, the disinterested role of the military and emergency services was openly questioned. The PNGDF had produced a clearly inadequate report on the frosts which was again leaked to the press. This report recommended that the PNGDF be given K1.1 million with which to mount a relief program. This proposal was publicly mocked and rejected by senior Treasury officials. The sad irony was that many people probably suffered severe food shortages for some months in 1982.