Australian police may return to PNG: govt


More Australian police could be sent to Papua New Guinea, under a plan to boost the country's underfunded and undisciplined police force.

Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Richard Marles, told reporters in Port Moresby on Friday PNG had raised the issue of policing during last week's ministerial forum between the two nation's in Canberra last week.

Australia currently has 14 Australian Federal Police (AFP) members in PNG working with the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) in a mentoring and support role, as well as one AFP liaison at the High Commission.

"The sense of the need to have more police on the ground, more federal police, is certainly an issue that was raised on the PNG side, and it's certainly one we take very seriously and we're keen to assist," Mr Marles said.

"We have undertaken with the government here to have a very short review into the needs of policing, which we will have a response to."

"But no decision will be made until that review is done."

He said the review was expected to be completed by the end of the year.

"After that, we do plan to do what we can to assist PNG with improving its law and order situation."

Australia's last law and order mission to PNG ended in mid 2005, when 150 Australian police were withdrawn when their legal immunity was ruled invalid by the PNG Supreme Court.

Following the ministerial forum last week, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia will provide a range of training and support services to improve the capabilities of the PNG police.

Ms Gillard and her PNG counterpart Peter O'Neill also agreed on a plan to place AFP members with the RPNGC.

"These positions will be subject to PNG needs and officers will work in senior, strategic roles. They will not undertake front-line policing," a statement on Ms Gillard's website says.

"Final details will be determined in discussions with Papua New Guinea."

Police discipline issues and corruption are big problems in PNG.

UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Manfred Nowak reported in February this year "a general atmosphere of violence" in PNG's prisons.

The report also found that while in police detention "women are extremely vulnerable to sexual abuse from police officers or other detainees".

"Owing to insufficient human and financial resources, a high level of corruption and a lack of professionalism, the (RPNGC) is unable to provide security and prevent and investigate crime throughout the country, particularly in rural areas," Mr Nowak wrote in his report to the UN General Assembly.

"As a result, private security companies have taken over much of the ordinary police work."

Former police commissioner Anthony Wagambie, who in late September was dismissed by the government, had made discipline his personal crusade, with local media frequently publishing full page ads featuring the commissioner demanding higher standards from officers.

AAP

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