The Australian budget wont focus significantly on our role in PNG and the South Pacific - that will take time

Our diplomats and foreign affairs officials deny that our approach to visa approvals is racist. It might not be racist but it is certainly discriminatory.

I had a personal experience of this some years ago when a respected church in Townsville sought my advice on the difficulties it was having getting women from PNG to attend a weeklong family life workshop in Townsville.

At the time only about 20 of the women who were selected to attend could get visas to travel to Australia.

On investigation it became clear that only women who identified themselves as being in employment were given visas.

The majority who described themselves as "housewives or having home duties only" were not given visas!

This attitude does nothing for our standing in PNG and the region.

It also flies in the face of clear evidence - Papua New Guineans who visit Australia don't breach visa rules by overstaying.

Some years ago I asked the then Consul General for PNG in Brisbane, Paul Nerau, to ascertain how many Papua New Guineans had overstayed visa conditions in the previous year. The number was fewer than 50.

On the other hand visitors from a number of European and Asian countries who broke visa conditions were in the thousands!

The government might productively help strengthen our people-to-people relations with our closest neighbour by introducing streamlined visa approval processes at our high commission in Port Moresby and our consulate in Lae.

We can reasonably request a streamlined visa approval process for Australians wanting to visit PNG as part of an enhanced people to people engagement.

This would also reflect a genuine maturing of the relationship between our countries and peoples.....something we should be encouraging as PNG celebrates independence in just under three years.