Images and speeches from the exhibition of Michael Molony's paintings for Jacob and the Cassowary, the popular fatidic short story by Gipson Suu about the West Papuans David-and-Goliath struggle against the Indonesian colonial occupation. The exhibition was introduced by Dr Olivia Ball from the Melbourne City Council, and shown in the downstairs performance space of Bard's Apothecary, an Irish bar in Melbourne, on 22 April 2026. An unexpected highlight of the event was the letter from Pope Leo XIV to Gipson, thanking him for the copy of Jacob and the Casssowary delivered to him at the Vatican by two Victorian members of the Focolare Institute.
Department of Foreign Affairs Immigration and Trade
West Papua Open Day, 15 March 2026, Jacob and the Cassowary
Celebrating the publication of Jacob and the Cassowary, the fatidic short story about the West Papuans David-and-Goliath struggle against the Indonesian occupation. This post includes
WP Open Day: Sun 16 Nov 2025
Speeches, Images, and Information relevant to the visit of two activists from the Netherlands, one Dutch and the other Papuan, who were the key note speakers for the West Papua Open Day on 16 November 2025. Endie van Binsbergen is well-known for her work in Indonesia and was a UN Observer of the referendum in East Timor in 1999. Sampari Korwa is the son of Eddy Korwa, whose English version of his memoir 'The Stowaway' was published by the West Papua Women's Office in August 2025. During the event there were Memorials for Eddy as well as Daniel Randongkir and Max Binur from West Papua, and Mesake Koroi from Fiji.
West Papua 101
'West Papua 101' is 30 x A4 slides (50% image, 50% text) for those needing or seeking an 'overview' of the West Papuans, their land, their ecology, their troubles, their vision for a future free of Indonesian colonialism, and their plans for how to get there. Prepared by Louise Byrne from the West Papua Office in Docklands, who has been studying and writing about Australia's nearest neighbour for a quarter of a century. Can also be bought from the Docklands Office in book form.
Biography: PM Edison Waromi, WP Transitional Government
A comprehensive biography of Edison Waromi, Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of West Papua (2011--) that can be equally viewed as the biography of a Melanesian nation-state. It was prepared by Louise Byrne for her presentation to the 2013 Australian Anthropological Society Conference at the Australian National University in Canberra. Louise' speech at the conference has been transcribed, and the 25 slides have been constructed in video form (for youtube).
WP Open Day, 31 Aug 2025: launching ‘The Stowaway’
This post Includes documents associated with 'The Stowaway, From Sorong to Rotterdam' by Eddy Korwa and Endie van Binsbergen, which the West Papua Women's Office-Docklands published in 2025. Eddy was a young Melanesian from Biak Island who fled for his life on a Dutch freighter in 1964, two years after the United Nations passed the administration of the Non-Self-Governing Territory from the Netherlands to Indonesia. Co-writer Endie van Binsbergen is a Dutch activist, well-known for working with women in Indonesia and East Timor (she was an official observer of the nation's referendum in 1999) and for human rights in West Papua. The post also includes the slides and PDF of Jacob Rumbiak's important address 'West Papua is ready to run its own state', and the Memorial slides for OPM Commander Mathias Wenda and Australian anthropologist Dr Nonie Sharp.
Ruby Eyed Coucal: In conversation with Bruce Pascoe
Award winning author Bruce Pascoe discusses his political thriller 'Ruby-eyed Coucal' at the Australian Catholic University Art Gallery on Saturday 5 December 2015. Bruce is an Australian indigenous author, and his novel is premised on long-standing cultural relations between the indigenous peoples of Australia and West Papua.
WP Open Day, Sun 30 March 2025
Documents and research associated with David Sornig's 2018 'Blue Lake, Finding Dudley Flats and the West Melbourne Swamp', launched by West Papua Women's Office during Open Day on 30 March 2025.
Goodbye Mark Stevens, Thanks
Louise Byrne
Posted in Australian Politics, Campaigns, Culture, Documentaries, Events, Featured, History, Memorial, Music
Between 2000 and 2010, Mark Stevens was the West Papua Consul in Melbourne and his two-story Georgian home in the grounds of All Saints Anglican Church in East St Kilda was the West Papua Consulate. Mark first learned about West Papua—the cultures, the music, the politics, the war zone—via a young pig called Yabon owned by Jacob Rumbiak, the West Papuan independence leader who lived around the corner in Wellington Street. He learned more from the six Papuan students who arrived in 2003; and the 43 asylum seekers who landed in 2006 loved meeting up and relaxing in what Mark let them believe was their own space. Mark also contributed to liberation struggle by digitising great swathes of Papuan history from old well-worn analogue tapes.
West Papua: Pilgrimage to Canberra, March 2024
A delegation from the West Papua Office in Docklands (Victoria) visited Canberra for Greens Senator Janet Rice's Valedictory (farewell) Speech in Parliament House on 26 March 2024, and to host a Remembrance Ceremony at the Netherlands Australian War Memorial on 27 March 2024 for Dutch, West Papuans and Australians who worked together in West Papua during World War Two. In the post is a link to Senator Janet Rice's full valedictory speech (22') and also to the debate 'Is Australia doing enough for West Papua' (Janet was the 3rd speaker on the 'no' team) in the Melbourne City Council's prestigious Yarra Room in October 2023.
UN accepts Hammarskjöld-West Papua Memorials, 14 April 2024
Louise Byrne
Posted in Events, Featured, International Relations, Memorial, Open Days, United Nations, West Papuan Government
Documents, videos, and electronic links relevant to the miraculous delivery of a USB of political documents and videos of the 61 living memorials (tree-planting ceremonies around the world) for West Papua and UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld organised by the West Papua Women's Office. Also Jacob Rumbiak's address, primarily about how West Papua's resistance and nation-making might, or might not, be affected by the Melanesian Spearhead Group's rejection of its kin's application for membership, and the election of Suharto-era general and war criminal, Prabowo Subianto, as the next Indonesian president.
Tribute to Kevin Buzzacott from West Papua
Kevin Buzzacott (b 1947), Aboriginal elder of the Arabunna nation and a highly valued supporter of West Papua's independence, died on 29 November 2023, and was buried in Alice Springs on 22nd December 2023. This entry (8 slides) is a record of his moral support and activism for what he insisted was Australia's 'responsibility to care for our brothers and sisters from across the water.'
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