Good Will Hunters

Welcome to Episode 73 of Good Will Hunters from the Development Policy Centre. Today’s guest is Shane McLeod. Shane is a Research Fellow working with the Lowy Institute’s Australia-PNG Network. Before joining the Institute, he was a senior editor at ABC News in roles where he managed its Sydney newsroom and the flagship radio programs AM, The World Today, and PM. He is a former foreign correspondent with postings in Japan and Papua New Guinea, as well as reporting assignments throughout the Asia-Pacific region. He has also worked as a journalist in regional Queensland, Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra. As we go to air today, PNG has two confirmed cases of COVID19. Whilst the first case was brought in by a foreigner who had recently arrived in the country, the second case is of a Papua New Guinean. In this episode, Shane and I discuss the relationship between Australia and PNG since independence in 1975, including whether Australia is in fact an “embarrassed" former colonialist. We also discuss, as we have