Source: ABC Radio Australia

The Director of Papua New Guinea's National Research Institute says controversial land leases that have been proved to be faudulent, should be revoked.

Last week, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill told parliament that of 42 Special Agricultural and business leases examined by a Commission of Enquiry, only four had the consent of landowners.

The leases are part of a wider land scandal which has resulted in more than 5 million hectares of land, 11 per cent of PNG's total land mass, being alientated from traditional land owners.

WEBSTER: From the Institute we were concerned that those things were happening and without the concerns of the landowners, and we raised those concerns. The Institute has been working on the PNG land reforms since 2005, and we've developed a model that will allow customary landowners to register their land and be able to lease it to developers and the legislation was approved in 2009 and signed off last year, so we're just into implementing this new legislation that allows for customary landowners to register. And we raised concern about the SABL, saying that there was unprecedented issues where landowners were not consulted and that these deals were being cooked or these agreements were being cooked up outside of the landowner areas without their consent in hotels and in places like Port Moresby, without people from the local communities being involved and then at the same time, they were not benefiting or they're not going to benefit from the benefits of the use of their land.

GARRETT: NGOs say that the fraudulent Special Agriculture and Business leases should be revoked. What's your view?

WEBSTER: I think the fraudulent ones exactly they should be revoked, and then the good ones should proceed throughout them. But I think going forward, the new legislation provides for landowners to register their land and then release it or lease it to developers, plantation developers, urban development estates, estate developments and so forth and so we should use the new legislation for registration of customary land and enable customary landowners to benefit from the use of their land.

GARRETT: Prime Minister O'Neill promised in his speech to Parliament to establish a new legislative framework for customary land conversion. Is this what he's talking about or is he talking about something else again?

WEBSTER: I would have to discuss that, but I have a feeling he's referring to that legislation that's been approved and we're in the middle. There's a whole government team that's involved in how to implement it. And this year now, we're working with communities and we're also taking assistance and processes within the government agencies to enable or to facilitate the registration of customary landowning goods and then also the registration of the land over which they hold interest in.

GARRETT: How does that new system protect landowners from being conned?

WEBSTER: There are two mechanisms. One, there is a landowner registration process, where the landowners have to come together and set up the association and that the Landowner Incorporate Land Group has to have a general meeting every year and that the minutes have to be sent to the registrar of the companies, so they comply with the register of the companies act. And any decisions that make has to be recorded.

GARRETT: One of the problems with the Special Agriculture and Business leases was that leases were taken out over extremely large areas of land. Does your legislation have a maximum land size for leasing to logging or business interests?

WEBSTER: It works it in two ways. It doesn't set a limit, but it recognises that there must be some land left for customary land use in terms of subsistence agriculture and so forth. And so what it does is it allows for the landowners lease the land that they're not going to use for any commercial purposes, but register only portions of the land that is going to be used for commercial purposes, for instance, a plantation estate or a residential estate. So they still have their own communal land which would be used under, which would come down and be administered under customary law and the registry land is now administered under the land administration legislation, physical planning land administration and so forth. Owners should remain with the customary landowner.

GARRETT: Getting back to the Special Agriculture and Business leases. Just how hard will it be for the government to revoke these leases?

WEBSTER: I suspect it maybe difficult, but we'll just have to work through it. I am not aware of the extent of the leases and what development has happened and so I can't sort of say exactly how difficult. But where there has been work that's gone on and there would be sort of areas where people will be, those developers will want compensation. Each case would need to be treated differently and examined in its own context and dealt with so.