Bougainville Waits as PNG Stalls on Independence Vote

In September, Kokoda constituency in Bougainville declared itself "independence ready," and Ishmael Toroama, president of the Autonomous Bougainville Government, pledged funding for a hospital and a police station at the ceremony. Similar ceremonies are playing out across the region. The people holding them have already said what they want. In 2019, 97.7 percent of Bougainvilleans voted for independence. Seven years on, they're still waiting for Papua New Guinea's parliament to act.

The referendum wasn't binding. Parliament in Port Moresby has the final say, and its decision remains pending.

A Vote That Keeps Slipping

Prime Minister James Marape proposed a vote for August 30 this year. Parliament formally received the result on August 27, then adjourned without voting. Peter Tsiamalili Jr, Bougainville's regional MP and the leader of government business, has announced a two-day debate for October 20-21. Whether parliament will actually vote, or what happens if it adjourns again, remains unclear.

Opposition leader James Nomane pressed the point in August, telling parliament the government should "not kick the can down the road" and asking it to say when MPs would vote.

The agreements make delay easy. The 2001 Bougainville peace agreement, signed 25 years ago, required a referendum within 10 to 15 years after the election of Bougainville's first autonomous government. It gave PNG's parliament authority over the final decision but set no deadline for acting. The 2022 Era Kone Covenant, now four years old, set 2027 as the outer limit for implementing independence or another settlement. It didn't set a date for a parliamentary vote. Its interim deadline to table the result by the end of 2023 was missed by almost three years.

Without a deadline, Port Moresby can postpone a politically difficult decision. Bougainville's leaders, meanwhile, must persuade their supporters to accept the delay.

Trust Under Strain

Many who sustained the peace are former combatants who staked their credibility on a political resolution. Toroama was himself a rebel commander. He has warned that trust is under strain while urging Bougainvilleans to stay patient. Each postponement makes that appeal harder.

"Trust is the foundation of every agreement," Toroama said in June. "Where agreed processes have been departed from, concerns have naturally arisen." He added that "recent events violating these existing understandings cannot be ignored or downplayed," even as he urged Bougainvilleans to "remain patient."

The voting rules are contested, too. In June, parliament set a ratification threshold of a three-quarters majority, or 89 of 118 members. Bougainville's leaders dispute both the threshold and how parliament adopted the rule. Marape's government considers the referendum part of PNG's constitutional process. A rushed vote under contested procedures could deepen mistrust, but an open-ended timetable risks pushing the decision past the election and into conflict with Toroama's own schedule.

That election is coming. Under the provisional timetable, voting runs from June 26 to July 9 of next year. If parliament doesn't vote beforehand, a new parliament inherits the decision and may first weigh how much of its predecessor's work to accept. Bougainville's leaders have set September 1, 2027, as the "firm timetable" for a further stage of self-government. The new PNG parliament would be barely a month old by then.

Australia's Stake

Australia has kept a careful distance. In 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said Canberra's job was to "support Papua New Guinea." Bougainville's leadership read that as a retreat from neutrality, and Canberra clarified that it would support whatever the two sides agreed.

But Canberra has a direct interest in preventing a new rift. It witnessed the 2001 agreement and led the Peace Monitoring Group that helped hold the ceasefire. Under the Pukpuk Treaty, which entered into force in July, Australia and PNG are formal allies and must consult on threats to either country's sovereignty, peace or stability. If Bougainville acts on its own timetable in 2027 and Port Moresby sees a challenge to its sovereignty, Canberra could be asked to consult as an ally. Port Moresby may also view Australian questions about parliamentary scheduling as pressure.

The Diplomat article from which these details are drawn argues that Australia should use existing ministerial talks to seek a vote date and a timetable for resolving the disputed voting rules, without shaping the outcome. Both governments, it says, should publicly explain why a deadline slips, who must act next and when parliament will return to the issue. If a pre-election vote proves impossible, a joint record of what's been agreed, what remains contested and when talks resume could help preserve the handover to the next parliament. Australia, already a backer of the transfer of powers, could help maintain that record with both sides' consent.

Why This Matters:

Bougainville's people voted overwhelmingly, but the process built to honor that vote has no clock attached to it. That gap lets a political commitment lapse into indefinite waiting. The stakes are concrete: former fighters who backed the peace are being asked to keep trusting a process that has already missed one deadline by almost three years. Hospitals and police stations pledged at ceremonies like Kokoda's depend on a settled political future. Clear dates, public explanations and a shared written record would give Bougainvilleans what any community is owed by the institutions that decide its future: an honest account of what comes next. Without that, the 2027 outer limit risks arriving with the central question still open.