Seminar Series: Abstract

A GRAND SHEMOZZLE - THE GOVERNANCE OF GAS PROJECT NEGOTIATIONS IN PNG
Colin Filer

In a previous seminar in this series, I looked at the way in which the ‘Umbrella Benefit-Sharing Agreement’ for PNG’s proposed Liquid Natural Gas Project was negotiated in April and May this year, with specific attention to the way in which ‘project area landowners’ were represented in this process, the nature of the demands which they made of the national government, and the major stumbling blocks to a negotiated settlement. In this seminar, I propose to examine the way in which political machinations around the management of negotiations between ‘the government’, the project proponents and the ‘project area landowners’ have intersected with the broader set of political machinations around the maintenance of the governing coalition led by the current Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare. In particular, I focus on the tensions which have emerged between the National Alliance and one of its coalition partners, the United Resources Party, and the extent to which this has framed the political representation of ‘landowner interests’ in the negotiation of the LNG Project.