Partner of Choice: Australian Foreign Policy Outcomes in Infrastructure Development Programs in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This thesis investigates the role of Australian national interest in infrastructure development programs in Papua New Guinea (PNG) from 2018 to 2023, focusing on the Transport Sector Support Program and the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific. These programs and the reporting they produce are overlooked and provide insight into how foreign policy narratives such as ‘partner of choice’ dialogue and responses to geopolitics manifest in practice. To investigate this, the thesis employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of program reporting, drawn from an overlooked set of grey literature, supplemented by interviews with practitioners and experts from the Australia-PNG infrastructure development sector. This thesis has four main findings. Firstly, Australia’s position as a partner of choice in infrastructure development in PNG is assumed as truth in formal policy. There is little interrogation of how Australia is perceived, despite aiming to take a partnership approach to the region. Secondly, the way reporting speaks about geopolitics is implicit, and the way partnerships are referred to is explicit. Yet, external media and the aid community outside the formal bureaucracy are quick to link geopolitics and aid. Thirdly, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) speaks between the lines on geopolitics in aid, leaving the aid community to interpret political objectives and determine the extent to which they are applied on programs. This is complicated by the public-private dynamic of managing contractors and the way influence is built programs by individual advisers in PNG government departments. Finally, financing matters, and the shift from grants to loans is indicative of Australia’s changing approach. It has shifted the discourse around the development relationship between PNG and Australia. Overall, ambiguity in policy narratives and the deliberate, systemic opacity of national interest in aid has resulted in inconsistencies in translating well-intentioned policy to practice. Show more