There might be something profound about the way the world has turned when a top flight retailer is passing off the real thing as fake. Next authorities will raid Hong Kong's Ladies' Market to drag away a stall holder guilty of stocking genuine Louis Vuitton handbags.

Michael Pascoe

Michael Pascoe

And it's not just Neiman Marcus being a little strange. The Herald Tribune reported two other retailers were selling genuine fakes, so to speak. Perhaps the most pleasing sentence in the story is: “The FTC also charged that The Neiman Marcus Group Inc. claimed that a rabbit fur product had mink fur, and failed to disclose where the fur came from for three fur products.”
I'm no furrier, but I'd guess the fur came from rabbits.
However, the world turning upside down is not confined to rabbits dressed as mink and non-faux faux fur. Earlier this month, The Sydney Morning Herald reported university deans more or less claiming they don't run dud faculties with low standards. As Mandy Rice Davies might suggest, they would say that, wouldn't they?
The key sentence this time was: “According to government figures, only 20 per cent of those starting undergraduate teacher training courses each year had ATARs of less than 60.”
Note that it's not “20 per cent managed an ATAR of 60” – it's 20 per cent scored 59 and lower. Well that's a relief – only one in five teacher training freshers was apparently incapable of doing much more than putting their name on the top of their HSC papers. How, therefore, could anyone doubt the high standards demanded by our august tertiary institutions, heavily subsidised as they are by taxpayers?
But then it gets serious. While the Australian government was auditioning on Thursday for a minor job with Ashton's Circus (they were turned down), real news was breaking to our north: Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister reportedly announced his government would seize control of the $1.4 billion sustainable development fund set up by BHP in 2002 as a gift to the Papuan New Guinea people with a structure designed to try to pre-vent it being seized by the politicians of a country rated by Transparency International as one of the world's most corrupt – ranked 150th out of 176.
This is the latest act in a saga of both tragedy and generosity. The Papua New Guinea Sustainable Development Program represents by far the biggest act of corporate philanthropy in Australian history. It was the compromise worked out by Paul Anderson when he was running BHP between the need to end the downriver pollution caused by Ok Tedi and the PNG government's determination to keep the mine operating.
When Anderson personally reviewed the studies commissioned by his predecessors of the Ok Tedi mine's impact, he found it morally impossible to continue to operate the mine. The initial plan was to effectively fill the hole in, a scheme that would allow mining to continue for a little longer without polluting the river, giving PNG time to adjust.
But with Ok Tedi being the government's biggest source of revenue, Port Moresby would have none of it. The mine would continue to operate as long as it was profitable. Anderson nonetheless believed BHP could not ethically keep mining, so its majority stake was gifted to the people of PNG through the PNGSDP structure, a Singapore-based corporation with PNG government representation on its board, but not dominance.
New PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill last year began his push to take control of PNGSDP. Steadily rising tensions broke surface when PNGSDP chairman Professor Ross Garnaut was banned from entering PNG after he very gently stated the obvious about the country, that it was “tempting for political figures to think of better ways of using it right now rather than putting it into long-term development”.
Thursday's development - O'Neill announcing that Ok Tedi's lease would not be renewed upon its expiry next year, that the PNG government would own and operate the mine and that “we will restructure the PNGSDP with our own people managing it, not by strange people who live beyond and do not know our needs” – would be a sorry conclusion to a magnificent effort to ameliorate an environ-mental disaster.
There was hope that O'Neill becoming Prime Minister would help lift PNG and much of the new government's rhetoric has been encouraging about removing some of the infrastructure bottlenecks holding this complex country back. Certainly a good government could indeed put the PNGSDP funds to good usage, but good government to the benefit of all the people have not been the rule in PNG. Despite fabulous natural resources, delivery of services in many areas has gone backwards.
Giving O'Neill the benefit of the doubt, the tragedy here might not be what his administration might do with the money, but whatever crew takes over from him. It's a tough job standing between a politician and a bag of money the world over, including Australia.
When the PNGSDP was set up, it was envisaged that it would ultimately be controlled by the PNG government. The timing and attempted safeguards could not be ensured a decade ago. The structure has at least preserved a large proportion of Ok Tedi's wealth for the people. In the end, it is indeed theirs to deal with.
To have the structure end in rancour and high dudgeon though, bodes ill. Australia's nearest neighbour and major destination of Australian aid funds has a great many problems as well as potential.
And where's the Australian government been as this unfolded? Somewhat busy working up a circus act. Standby for some sort of reassurance from Canberra about maintaining faux fur standards and that the future of education here is in good hands.