Signing Ceremony Remarks
18 November 2018
Thank you very much, it’s a great privilege to be here. Prime Minister O’Neill, I commend you strongly on leading this initiative and for inviting us to join and be part of what will be a great achievement for PNG. It’s time to power up PNG right across the country.
This underpins our commitment to be here, having always been here and we will always be here to support the people of PNG and to see their economic development. The hosting of this APEC conference here is further testament to the incredible journey and the progress that PNG has been on, particularly over the last generation. Access to electricity is a challenge given Papua New Guinea’s geography and Australian and Papua New Guinea engineers have worked hand-in-hand to establish much of the existing grid. Here we will be together again, working together again to establish together the new grid of the future. I have sat in remote villages in Papua New Guinea where there is no power in schools, in homes and have some understanding of what that has been like as a challenge for Papua New Guineans. This opportunity, to bring the light, to bring the electricity, to bring the connectedness, to connect them to the digital economy of the future will usher in a new era of prosperity for Papua New Guineans which I know will also be very important for Deputy Prime Minister Abel who is here with us today. I commend you on this wonderful partnership, the Australian infrastructure financing facility and other initiatives that we will be bringing to the table for this and I’m looking particularly forward to working with Japan, the United States and New Zealand in bringing this project to fruition.
