“Government by Inspection”: Australian Rule in the “Forgotten West” of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1960–73

Abstract

Australian rule in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) was conducted in large part by a system of patrol officers, the “kiaps”. This article examines rule-by-kiap in the two remote, westernmost districts of the late-Territory (Western and West Sepik) between 1960 and 1973, drawing upon archival sources and interviews with former officers. Australian colonial rule in these districts should be understood as “government by inspection”. The extension of infrastructures of access and the conduct of the census were dominant preoccupations of the Administration, and demonstrations of force were routine. Rule-by-kiap was characteristic of much of TPNG across the years of Australian rule but persisted later in these remote districts, due to their late consolidation under the control of the colonial state. Accordingly, longstanding preoccupations such as the census became linked to new imperatives, such as the conduct of elections.