Media Release

FOLLOWING revelations that a Chinese company has put forward a multi-billion-dollar plan to build a new city on the Papua New Guinean (PNG) island of Daru, near the Australian border, Kennedy MP Bob Katter has called on the Foreign Minister to intervene.

“There must be immediate government-to-government meetings between Australia and PNG,” Mr Katter said.

“I will be using Question Time in the next sitting week of parliament to ask the Government what they are doing to protect a busy shipping route and a location of strategic importance to Australia and PNG, as sovereign nations.

“Australia pours millions of dollars into PNG every year and their Government needs to be reminded of that.”

Mr Katter said, anyone who thinks it is wise to bring in an insidious foreign country to ‘develop trade’ is not thinking straight.

“The PNG Government would be very well advised to have discussions with historians from the Indian subcontinent” he said.

“The nabobs brought in the British in to develop India. They brought in the British East India company to develop their trade. They were producing 25 percent of the world’s cloth and ended up becoming a net-importer of cloth.
“It did not end well – in one case 5 million people died during a drought while they were under the rule of a foreign corporate power.”

—ENDS—

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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/chinese-company-plans-to-build-city-on-png-island-near-australia/13123698