Observations similar to those in this section are made in Howlett, et al 1976:183 ff., where my contribution is acknowledged This highly summarized section is based upon a partial survey o f the

council records held at the Provincial Office, Kundiawa, the minutes o f councils and combined council conferences 1963-72, attendance at many council meetings 1972-80, and interviews with councillors, villagers and officials. There is correspondence with the generalized findings o f Waddell (1973) for the Mount Hagen and Sumgilbar Councils, and his useful summary article (1979), despite our different data bases.

their political arenas, which accorded with Australian colonial policy in the 1960s.3 Council wards (electorates) in Chimbu initially were based upon clans (or even sub­ clans) which had some political unity. In the first elections (1959-63) councillors were chosen by a process of 'pre-election', in which a consensus emerged in the clan as to the appropriate person to be councillor. Sometimes no-one opposed this choice when the

kiap's electoral patrol came to the rest houses, took nominees' names, and held the vote;

occasionally an opponent was put up as a formality to please the kiap. Voting was done

simply by lining up voters behind their candidate. After the first elections a preferential secret ballot was used. Non-literate people could whisper their choices to the poll clerk for marking on a ballot paper, often the 'whisper' was a shout of loyalty.

Villagers say they were encouraged by kiaps to choose Tokpisin speakers, thought

to be modernizers, but the earliest councillors were often former village officials. Most councillors had difficulty with alien meeting procedures and obtaining funding for projects, and with the concept of electoral accountability. iThe former officials mostly stood down in favour of/men who had been to the coast as labourers, or who had work experience as domestic servants for Europeans, or aidpost orderlies, interpreters and policemen for the government.

After the first elections more candidates were attracted to stand. Sometimes, by agreement, leaders of different sub-clans within a clan alternated as councillor. After the amalgamation of smaller councils based on a census division into one covering a sub­ district, council wards grew to include several smaller clans, which meant there were fewer councillors than previous village officials. Ward elections became competitions

between leaders representing clans which - despite the kiaps' good intentions - were not

always closely allied. Later still the rivalry within clans increased as younger and more confident men entered the arena, bringing new forms of status achieved in business and government, schools and the missions. By the late 1960s councillors were often business-oriented men in their thirties, who had grown up without more than a few years of formal education. While accepted for their skills in the new and wider context, they

Council areas were proclaimed as follows:

(a) Waiye 1958, joined by Dorn Census Division (CD) in 1960; Yonggamugl NLGC formed in 1961. These merged to form Kundiawa LGC in 1967;

(b) Koronigl NLGC 1961, was joined by Kup CD to form Kerowagi LGC 1967;

(c) Chuave NLGC 1961 was joined by Elimbari and Nambaiyufa CDs in 1965 to form Elimbari LGC;

(d) Gumine LGC 1965; (e) Mt Wilhelm LGC 1965;

(f) Sinasina LGC 1966; (g) Salt-Nomane LGC 1970; (h) Bomai-Mikaru 1973; and

(i) Siane LGC (Nambaiyufa CD) broke away from Elimbari in 1974 (Howlett et al., 1976:184).

were nonetheless still young; real authority on internal clan matters generally stayed with the ageing former village officials.

In Chimbu as elsewhere (Jinks 1968), councils were strongly 'sold' by Australian

kiaps. The official conceptions differed from the hopes of the Simbu, who at first saw

these new bodies as greatly hastening the economic development process. The officials intended councils to widen political consciousness and to provide an extension of administrative activities to villages. Councils were officially seen to be part of 'area adm inistration', using their tax base to provide basic infrastructure (such as building roads, schools and aidposts) and even paying for welfare workers. The first flush of enthusiasm for councils was short-lived. By 1964 people in the upper Chimbu were critical of the first council, Waiye, for its alleged ineffectiveness, and did not want a council because it would mean taxation (C riper 1965). The kiaps threatened tax collections for areas without a council, thereby overriding that objection, and the prestige o f having a council or being a councillor soon led leaders in other parts of Chimbu to follow Waiye and accept councils.

The first m ajor problem for the new councillors lay in their lim ited powers, especially the lack of an acknowledged dispute settlement role. They had no powers of arrest, and police did not support them. Villlage officials had been actively encouraged to hear disputes in their groups, and villagers needed this service, but now police and kiap

support for councillors' unofficial courts vacillated (compare A.M. Strathem 1972a). Against the arguments of senior local government official, David Fenbury, and many other

kiaps, the Australian M inister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, followed the advice of

Professor David Derham (1960) and declined to give councillors any formal judicial role (Hasluck 1976; Fenbury 1978; Downs 1980; B.J. Brown (ed.) 1969). Nonetheless councillors informally filled quasi-judicial roles. Also following the recommendations of Derham, the kiaps' own police and magisterial roles were reduced in the late 1960s as an indigenous magistracy was hastily trained, which led to a serious gap in dispute-settlement services for rural people.

Councils were not models of local democracy. Councillors tended to see their role as one o f command of their people, rather than o f representation, which remains an alien concept. They rarely reported back to their constituencies as a whole, and some rarely to their own sub-clans. Tensions with other sub-clans whose candidates have been defeated can cause this reluctance by poorly-paid part-time officials to put in m igh effort. There is also a desire to monopolize knowledge and hence power, but ^ o u I d Jalsohave come from sheer incomprehension of many agenda items. Government officials often sought to use

councillors as a channel to spread their own messages, and only the most astute councillors obtained government action within their electorates.

Councillors, like their predecessor officials, sought to use their positions to obtain individual gain from the state. The issues most frequently raised in council meetings were councillors' own perquisites: monthly allowances, use of council vehicles and 'educational' trips to Port Moresby and Australia at official expense. The Australian administration clearly used these prizes as a reward for political compliance, thereby establishing a tradition which continues, but councillors and officials struggled constantly over the remuneration and privileges of office. For the most part Australian officials kept a brake on these until 1973.

Councils were in the 1960s effectively subordinate to the administration officers and the relationship of most councils to the administration was one of deference. It was only an exceptionally strong councillor, such as Siwi Kurondo, the President of Kerowagi LGC, who could dress down senior officers publicly (Jack Baker, interview 1977).

Indigenous council clerks were young, inexperienced and poorly trained, and so the kiaps

acted as Administrative Advisers to councils (either full- or part-time). In Chimbu kiaps

sometimes dominated council discussions. In Gumine in 1972 I witnessed a kiap take

over the president's role as chairman and use the gavel to restore order and redirect a council meeting.

Councils had a limited political role. Local issues which concerned them, apart from standardized rules on pig trespass and village hygiene provided from Port Moresby (which were rarely enforced), were social matters such as repeated attempts to limit bridewealth presentations ('bride price'). Councillors themselves often broke their bridewealth rules in seeking prestige by demanding (and getting) high sums at the marriage of their daughters, or by paying them for their sons. From the 1960s they also sought to control out­ migration of young men, and of women as well in the 1970s, so as to retain their taxes as well as their labour and votes.

Wider political concerns only interested the more dynamic councillors who had mastered procedure and dominated the meetings, and whose wards got the bulk of project funds. These were the men who brought these issues forward to the Annual District Councils Conferences, held with the District Officer (1963-65) and the District Commissioner (1966-72). These conferences, the forerunners of the Area Authority (1972-76), which is discussed in Chapter VI, did not mobilize a Chimbu public, but did help create a Chimbu elite.

Delegates at district councils conferences often expressed concern at the coffee marketing system and sought higher prices. The one political issue councillors took up largely on their own was the demand for more land. They wanted land for resettlement in the Ramu Valley area of the Madang District to the north of Chimbu and several councils even started contributing funds for a road between the upper Chimbu and Bundi areas. Later their concern shifted to resettlem ent proposals in the Karim ui-Bom ai areas in southern Chimbu. Other recurrent issues were the desire for more schools, roads and developm ent in general, which they saw as com ing from Australia. As talk of self- government and independence rose in the late 1960s, they passed resolutions calling for Australia and Australians to stay, and self-government be delayed.

Senior colonial officials quietly lobbied the dominant councillors before meetings, when they judged that Chimbu interests would benefit if they were articulated by local leaders. Thus resolutions would be pushed through councils and conferences, which local officials used to pressure the central A dm inistration with no overt signs of kiap

manipulation. One such case was the councils' pressure for full-time kiap supervisory staff for their councils (Doolan interview, May 1978). Other cases concerned the creation of the coffee co-operative (see below) and the establishment of Radio Chimbu in January

1973.

Council revenue bases were quite limited. Up to 60 per cent of council revenues came from the central government in direct or indirect subsidy. The most financially successful activities were unglamorous contracts providing cleaning, nightsoil and garbage collection services on government stations and townships for the Administration. A small but steady income came to councils from issuing trade stores with 'Licences to Trade with Natives' costing $6 each (in 1972 some 2,072 such licences were issued in Chimbu).

Collections o f the major indigenous revenue source, personal ('head') tax, were usually well below the nominal potential. Depending on the income from coffee in the council area, head taxes went from $1 to a peak o f $12 for men, and from nil to $5 for women in the 1970s. The visiting tax patrol comprized a clerk and perhaps a kiap, and a few councillors who formed a tax review committee. The latter often gave exemptions as personal favours, especially to older people, even those with considerable incomes from coffee, while denying them to younger men with low cash incomes. In the 1960s, tax defaulters were prosecuted. In the 1970s, police were instructed not to handle council matters, including tax summonses and prosecutions, which reinforced the perception of the councils as weak bodies. Avoiding tax merely meant being away when the tax patrol arrived. In the 1974/75 financial year tax collections for Kundiawa Council were only K35,000 o f the budgeted K60,000, and the following year a considerable shortfall was expected. The senior clerk wrote that the problem was 'endemic' to all councils in

Chimbu and the whole Highlands area; the stage was rapidly approaching where costs made head tax collections uneconomic. He proposed a levy on coffee sales so as to equitably spread the burden of local government programmes,4 thereby foreshadowing a later struggle over control of this potentially valuable revenue source. By the end of the 1970s, not surprisingly, councils' tax collections were negligible, their works

programmes had declined markedly and councillors lacked real power and even

prestige. Kundiawa council became effectively brankrupt and was suspended from 1976, its affairs run by an administrator.

Councils repeatedly sought to enter business ventures, intending to raise revenues.

Although properly based in law in the Local Government Ordinance, and often desired by

the council kiaps, such activities were strongly discouraged by local government

supervisors at district level. Repeated attempts by councils to combine to build a hostel and/or buy the hotel in Kundiawa foundered, perhaps to the relief of officials. Substantial business activities were permitted, when they provided services required by government officials, missionaries and business people alike. At least three timber mills were started by councils in Chimbu, only to fail. There were also pig, cattle and chicken breeding projects, wholesaling and blanket-weaving enterprises and, later, vehicle-hire and wholesale service for village trade stores. All such activities were opened with great ceremony and a feast which served to boost the proprietors' prestige.5 Advisers played up this desire for a prestige show in order to boost their own pet projects. Not unreasonably, officials were concerned about management. Few people were employed, but nepotism was commonly alleged and officials often claimed that councillors themselves consumed potential profits.

Council financial impropriety had become publicly accepted by the 1970s. Councillors themselves often avoided paying tax (as they sheepishly or brazenly admitted when publicly challenged on this by advisers), and there were a number of proven cases in the mid-1970s of councillors and tax clerks failing to pass on monies collected. The moral indignation displayed by other councillors when such cases were raised at public meetings was minimal. One notoriously dishonest council clerk was convicted by district supervisors, others resigned or even continued their work with the protection of councillors. Two stood for parliament, one successfully. Nominally subordinate to the council executive committee (comprised of the president and a few leading councillors),