How PNG celebrates Christmas provides a guide to our development assistance approach in the year ahead

Christmas in Papua New Guinea has a few similarities with Australia, but with significant differences.

The main difference is that Christmas is less commercial and very much more a Christian occasion.

The population of 12 million plus are almost 100% Christian.

As my friend Rowan Callick has reminded me it used to be customary for families living in urban areas to return to their home village for Christmas, usually by air. But the cost of air travel and declining living standards and incomes has significantly reduced family reunions each Christmas.

What families will now do is make sure they attend church no matter where they are. Many will walk miles to get to their local village or urban church. But it's a sacrifice the whole family will make.

Of course, there will be a level of lawlessness and drunken behaviour but in most communities the celebrations will be peaceful. The giving of gifts happens but on a far less commercial scale than we experience.

The way PNG experiences Christmas really offers a way ahead for the Albanese Government as it reviews our development assistance in PNG and across the region.

The reality of life in PNG might be uncomfortable for some bureaucrats in Canberra. It is based around Christianity and the work of churches across the country, especially in rural and remote villages.

Without the work of the churches - much of it undertaken by volunteers - the living standards of the people would be even worse than they are today.

Despite this reality, Australia has given only minimal direct financial assistance to faith-based groups to meet the escalating education, basic health care and family life support a growing population deserves.

Sadly, the PNG Government gives only token financial support to church-run services. A bloated and expensive bureaucracy provides little room to do otherwise.

Anthony Albanese will now travel to PNG around 12 January to meet his PNG counterpart James Marape and senior ministers.

Before he does so he should invite the leaders of the Catholic, Lutheran, Uniting, Anglican, SDA and relevant Pentecostal churches in Australia to meet him and answer one simple question - if the government provided funding what support could they give to counterpart PNG churches?

We cannot "force" the PNG Government to give greater support to faith-based organisations and services, but we could set a good example hopefully the PNG Government might follow!

Now this proposal requires a radical chance in our approach to development assistance, not just in PNG but in all our island neighbours.

I have spoken to a number of opinion makers in our churches and faith-based organisations.

There is a willingness, if not enthusiastic interest, to participate but almost all have limited financial resources to do so.

But they have an abundance of people of goodwill and commitment.

This proposal will inevitably attract the fierce resistance of the well-organised and committed "aid lobby". But they cannot match what the churches offer, and reducing their role would reduce the influence of "boomerang aid" which annoys ministers and officials in PNG. By "boomerang aid" I mean Australian funding which is entirely spent in Australia on consultants, reports etc.

The sad reality is that, for many aid projects, boomerang funding can amount to half the total allocation.

The Prime Minister has a unique opportunity to make a change for the better - one that will serve the Australian national interest and really deliver better outcomes for our neighbours.

This can be his "Christmas gift" to our region, and our closest neighbour in particular!