Australia unveils plans to set up police training schools in the Pacific
- Senior Australian police executives will be sent to train officers in the Pacific as part of a broader effort to strengthen the rule of law and bolster Australian influence in the region
- Papua New Guinea’s police commissioner admitted this week that ill-discipline, brutality and corruption were rampant inside the force
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Australia has unveiled plans to develop a network of police training centres in the Pacific, stepping up efforts to boost law and order in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in the region.
Australian Federal Police said on Wednesday they were in talks with Pacific authorities to establish “training centres of excellence across the region”.
Regional police officers are sometimes poorly trained and struggle to fight crime on low budgets.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government has already announced a programme to bring senior Pacific police executives to Australia, but now looks to strengthen the focus on lower-ranked officers.
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The drive is part of a broader effort to strengthen the rule of law across the region and bolster Australian influence, as China woos Pacific nations with attractive loans and eye-catching infrastructure projects.
In countries like Papua New Guinea, the challenges are immense. Police Commissioner Gari Baki this week publicly admitted ill-discipline, brutality and corruption were rampant inside the force.
“As police commissioner I was very concerned about bad police behaviour. I was in fact embarrassed with the number of cases being reported in the media,” Baki said in a statement.
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Some members of Papua New Guinea’s police force are currently in prison for crimes ranging from indecent assault to grievous bodily harm to aiding prisoners’ escapes.
Late last year officers from the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary stormed parliament demanding pay.
Authorities in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, are now asking for help, with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill this week telling parliament that he would “hand over” a police training college for “the Australians to run it for us”.
Australian police confirmed they would be embedding advisers at the Bomana Police Training College outside the capital, adding that a police partnership with Papua New Guinea has now been extended to June 2022.
