1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

2 Australia from the northern most part. Queensland has had a very strong history with Papua New Guinea, most of it in the early days has not been very pleasant involving trading with human bodies to work the Queensland plantations, that is sugar cane, but in more recent times we have had very pleasant and very good working relations with Queensland through educational institutions and it is in this area that we will co-operate most in the coming years. I have been most grateful to have been invited to take part here when I came and look at the list of participants I realised that I was a lonely animal here being the only politician, but I was told by Susan Cochrane that actually all of you are politicians being artists, so we are all colleagues. Ladies and Gentlemen, the subject of art is a very ancient one. It is part of human life, human creation and it involves identity, involves recognition of selfhood and sovereignty in a way which transcends sovereignty in political and legal terms. I was very interested to hear of the aboriginal perception of art and selfhood, I was also very interested to read about the Thai’s reinterpretation of how the forests have been destroyed and they are trying to save some forest through the arts and when I was listening to my friends from Malaysia I was wondering whether Asia might be the new colonial masters in the Pacific involved in the same conflict and struggle that the Europeans were involved in, in earlier days, in destroying the environment and in destroying the natural resources. So I think as I am standing here and talking I’m basically involved in theory, in trying to understand what people are doing, and writing it, that’s my contribution towards art in terms of writing poems, writing books and plays and so on. In a serious way, but also interpreting the changing culture. As I’m talking here I believe Mr Keating is talking with Her Majesty the Queen and of course his struggle is to move the Australia on the edge into the Asian economic mainstream and I’m actually wondering whether this move will move us from Papua New Guinea perspective, CASUALAARTGALL.TPl 24 May 1994