The Kokoda Trail has an iconic place in Australian military history. The Trail is a muddy walking track ninety-four kilometres in length stretching across the Owen Stanley mountain range and connecting the western and eastern shores of Papua New Guinea.
During the second world war the Japanese invasion forces used it to try and capture the New Guinea capital, Port Moresby. Heavily outnumbered, Australian troops fought them to a standstill and untimately inflicted the first ground war defeat on the seemingly invincible Japanese Imperial army.
Today, there is a new battle brewing. An Australian company has discovered a huge deposit of copper, silver and gold adjacent to part of the Kokoda Trail. To establish a mine will result in about a mile of the trail having to be rerouted - and this has provoked strong opposition from both sides of politics.
It seems irrational to demand that an impoverished third world country like Papua New Guinea should forego the rewards that would flow from such a mine simply because it was part of the site of a battle over half a century ago. There is no particular battle event remembered at the spot where the trail would be rerouted and hence the opposition would seem specious.
The fact that the debate is occurring prior to a general election in this country would seem to have political overtones. Both sides of politics are desperate for votes and both hope that opposition to the project might swing veteran votes their way.
There has not been an outcry from the Returned Servicemens League ( RSL ) and in all probability once this election is over the whole thing will subside, the reroute will take place - and Papua New Guinea will receive a welcome flow of tax money that will enable them to improve the living conditions of their people !
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