See who I met at Grand Papua Hotel - & some thoughts I had

Daniel and Keith with copy of Survivor and traditional Enga caps

By DANIEL KUMBON - PNG Attitude

PORT MORESBY – We had quite a lunch at the Grand Papua on Friday.

By ‘we’ I mean Keith Jackson AM, who wrote the Foreword to my latest book ‘Survivor’, his lovely wife Cr Ingrid Jackson, a councillor in the shire of Noosa on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, and their son Ben, a communications specialist working with the Australian aid program in Papua New Guinea.

After we finished, the Jackson family met Hon Wera Mori, commerce minister and member for Chuave in Simbu, where Keith had come as an 18-year old to teach - and has remained a friend of PNG ever since.

Wera and Keith exchanged contact details and spoke for many minutes.

(As it happened Wera had been a student at a school at which Keith’s close friend Murray Bladwell had been principal and Keith was able to put them in touch after 50 years.)

Daniel and political mover and shaker Bryan Kramer MP

Keith and I also met my ‘Facebook Warrior’, Hon Bryan Kramer. It was an honour to meet the fiery member for Madang who had made it possible for PNG’s new prime minister Hon James Marape to ascend to power just on Thursday.

At that very minute Marape was upstairs on the 15th Floor of the Grand Papua forming a caretaker government.

Another surprise for me was meeting my own Kandep MP, Hon Alfred Manase, as I was in the hotel lobby. The moment our eyes met he greeted me warmly and we took photos.

We are family, it was impossible to ignore. We are all linked one way or another, even to Don Polye’s Gini village in Kandep.

This thing called ‘politics’ must not be seen as a weapon to separate or attack people and turn them into enemies.

Argue only against policy issues which you don’t like.

And this must be borne in mind by supporters on both sides who abuse Facebook to launch personal attacks on behalf of our leaders.

They go to the extreme of swearing at each other while hiding behind fake names.

Remember, we will continue to use the Kandep-Mendi Highway which Don Polye built.

We will continue to take medicine at the Kandep Hospital that Alfred Manase has maintained and where an ambulance was delivered recently.

Kandepion people must drop their negative attitudes and learn to leave politics to the politicians.

You never know, they could be wining and dining somewhere when you continue to live with your hatred and resentment for the rest of your life with only your shadow following you around.

Go to this link for more: https://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2019/06/see-who-i-met-at-the-grand-papua-hotel-what-thoughts-i-had.html