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- 26 October 2004
Death of Mr Steven Lila Soru Death of Mr Kobe Charlie
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Page: 11938
The Hon. CHARLIE LYNN [10.06 p.m.]: Tonight I mourn the tragic deaths of two young Papua New Guinean boys whom I have come to know during my involvement with the Kokoda Track Foundation. Steven Lila Soru was one of 30 students from villages across the Kokoda Track sponsored by the Kokoda Track Foundation to study at Sogeri National High School, Ioawari Secondary School and Popondetta Provincial High School as a boarding student. He was 17 years of age and came from Alola Village, which is about five hours trekking time, for us anyway, from Kokoda up into the Owen Stanley Ranges. He was a grade 9 student. On the night of 22 July Steven was in his dormitory around 5.00 a.m. when he was taken ill. He rushed to the doorway of the dormitory to be sick. He lost his balance and fell onto rocks beneath the stair landing. He was seriously injured and was carried back to his bed by his fellow students.
The next morning they realised Steven was seriously injured and reported to the Deputy Principal, Mr Avosa Kave, who arranged urgent transport of Steven to the Port Moresby General Hospital, which is about 20 kilometres away. The fall had impacted Steven's head into his body, broke his neck in two places and twisted his spinal cord. He was paralysed from the neck down. Steven's mother, Mrs Fagaisa Lila Soru, and his brothers and sisters were called to his bedside and remained with him until he passed away two days later. The tragedy of Steven's death is that it was a preventable accident. The school had recently performed some maintenance on the landing of the stairs and the stairway but had not installed a simple handrail. If it had, Steven would be alive today. I have visited Ioawari High School on a number of occasions in my role as Chairman of the Kokoda Track Foundation to discuss their needs and to see what help we might be able to provide.
Their needs are great but the state of the dormitory accommodation for boarding students is an area that needs urgent attention. In fact, the conditions are so bad that they would be condemned anywhere in Australia. Notwithstanding the conditions, the spirit and the morale of the teachers and students were noteworthy. They realise that the key to their individual and collective future is education and they feel privileged that at least they have an opportunity to learn. I have discussed the needs of these schools with Mr Bede Long and Mr John Sim of Lions International in Sydney. They have been instrumental in establishing our New South Wales Parliamentary Lions Club and have agreed to enlist the support of Lions International to plan and co-ordinate a building refurbishment program in these schools. I hope that Steven's death was not in vain and that it will act as a reminder of the assistance we can and must provide to our brothers in Papua New Guinea.
A week after Steven died we suffered another tragic loss when one of my recent guides, Kobe Charlie, also of Alola village, was murdered south of his village on the Kokoda Track at Eora Creek. The Kokoda Track is used by people from the Highlands, who travel via Popondetta and Kokoda to trek across the Owen Stanley Ranges to Port Moresby and vice-versa. The local people suspect it was one of these groups of about five people who were sighted in the area at the time. Kobe had also recently accompanied an awareness patrol from the newly formed Kokoda Track Authority across the track. Their purpose was to discuss the outcomes of a workshop that the Kokoda Track Foundation had conducted amongst clan leaders and landowners in Efogi village as part of the process of developing a strategic plan for the area.
The aim of the Kokoda Track Foundation is to have the Kokoda Track proclaimed as a national memorial park, with a view to establishing a self-sustaining eco-trekking industry for the Koiari and Orokaiva people who live along the track. The process is being led by Kelvin Templeton, former chief executive officer of the Sydney Swans and now with Templeton Galt, and facilitated by Dr Stephen Wearing of the University of Technology, Sydney, and Mr Paul Chatterton of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Madang. All are providing their services on a voluntary basis and I commend them for that. The Kokoda Track Special Purpose Authority has been established by the Papua New Guinea Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs and comprises representatives of the landowners along the track, provincial governments from Central and Oro Province, the Papua New Guinea National Cultural Commission, the Papua New Guinea Tourism Authority and stakeholder representatives, representing tour operators, the RSL and Rotary.
It is a unique organisation in Papua New Guinea, as it has its own income stream, independent of government and aid agencies. During the workshop in Efogi they developed their own slogan, which was "working together for good tourism". According to Paul Chatterton of the World Wide Fund for Nature, this is the best ecotourism model being developed in Papua New Guinea because it has brought different clans, landowner groups, local level government authorities and provincial governments together to work for common goals with shared benefits. Steven Soru and Kobe Charlie were to have been part of this exciting future for the Koiari and Orokaiva people along the Kokoda Track, but they have been tragically taken from us. I would like to think that their deaths will not have been in vain and I will be looking at ways to commemorate their memory, which I feel will be in the form of a scholarship of some kind in their names.
I live in hope that one day soon we will engage our brothers in Papua New Guinea in a sincere, empathetic way. I look forward to the time when we acknowledge that we are brothers and remove the barriers that currently exist for Papua New Guinean citizens to work and live in Australia. I look forward to the welcome mat being extended to young Papua New Guinea people to come here as backpackers on temporary visas to do seasonal work. As one prominent PNG Minister told me recently, we currently treat them as lepers! This attitude has to change and it will only happen when we remove the barriers and extend a genuine hand to help them. In the meantime, the untimely deaths of two young people with so much potential and so much to offer will not be in vain. It will in fact act as a reminder that we have much to do, and we will do it in their memory. [Time expired.]
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