Barry Holloway

Sir Barry Blyth Holloway, KBE (26 September 1934 – 16 January 2013) was an Australian-born Papua New Guinean politician.

Sir Barry, a sixth generation Tasmanian, was born in Kimberley, Tasmania on 26 Sep 1934, to Betty (née Blyth) and Arch Holloway, in the homestead "Armitstead", the same house where his mother was born. He was educated in Kimberley, Lanuceston Church Grammar School and Hobart High School.

In 1953 aged 18 he went to Papua New Guinea as a 'Kiap' (Patrol Officer), fell in love with the place, has made PNG his home ever since, and even relinquished his Australian citizenship to become a PNG citizen in 1975 when PNG gained independence from Australia (PNG do not allow dual citizenship). He spent most of his life in Port Moresby and in the Eastern Highlands (Kainantu and Goroka).

His first posting, or one of his early postings was over in Bougainville, where he experienced some of the sort of the challenges and the rigours of being a Kiap, being combination of policeman, judge, jury, social worker and development official.

In a recent interview with ABC, the late Sir Barry said: “We started a six-week orientation course. We were given basic multi-functional activities to do, such as learning how to map, how to handle government stores and all sorts of clerical work which really dampened our spirits somewhat, because we were coming up for high adventure,” he said. After two years with a senior patrol officer on the island of Bougainville, he was sent off on his own to man a remote outpost in Madang Province.

In 1960, Sir Barry worked as a Patrol Officer with Graham Pople as well as the District Officer at Kainantu. There was one Land Rover allocated to all officers and often the District Officer would use the vehicle. Mr. Pople states;

In 1968, Papua New Guinea having begun a transition towards self-government, he was (along with Albert Maori Kiki, Michael Somare and Tony Voutas) a founding member the Pangu Pati, "the first real political party in Papua New Guinea", which went on to become one of the country's main political parties. In the 1968 general election, he was elected to the House of Assembly as MP for Kainantu.

...
Wikipedia