People suggesting that a NRL team should not be present in PNG because there are "better ways to spend money there" are not looking at the bigger picture.
PNG is beset by a myriad of problems. Living standards and health are obviously huge ones, but social problems, education/literacy and crime are enormous problems too. All three of the latter are not problems that can be solved by just throwing money at them. You can build schools but how do you get kids to attend them or even better, to actively engage in learning? You can hire more police but how do you stem corruption from within the force and solve the unhappiness that can contribute (Note I said contribute? There are obviously a myriad of factors) to crime?
Many of the problems that can be solved by throwing money at them, will start getting solved with increased foreign investment and the resources boom. To think that RL cannot play a role in solving the "soft" problems PNG has (probably is already helping solve tbh) just isn't looking at the bigger picture.
And as others have mentioned, it's a bit patronising to be suggesting that Australians or the NRL should be telling PNG how to best solve their countries problems. I don't see how patronising them helps anybody really.
