A time of opportunity seemed to lie ahead in 1975, but has PNG and its leaders lived up to that promise?

In the early 1970s, Dame Meg Taylor remembers a sense of immense optimism as Papua New Guinea stood on the brink of independence. At that time she joined the staff of Sir Michael Somare, who would later become the country’s first prime minister.

“There was a lot of hope,” said Taylor, diplomat and former secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum.