Community & Business
14 March, 2025
Goombungee’s knight - Sir Arthur Jones
Goombungee’s Arthur Jones was knighted in Windsor Castle last year for services to Papua New Guinea (PNG). He shares the story of his knighthood and the country with which he has such an affinity.
I grew up in Toowoomba - my father and grandfather were dentists - and went to school at Toowoomba Grammar.
After school, I moved to Brisbane and then Sydney where I was more interested in playing cricket and rugby.
In Sydney, I lived in a wonderful old house - there were 14 in it and we were the scourge of the neighbourhood.
I had friends, with connections in the Solomon Islands and PNG and one of them had a pilot’s licence.
One day, some of us went down to Jack Brabham Aviation at the Bankstown Airport and we hired a plane to Honiara (capital of the Solomon Islands) and Papua New Guinea. We nearly got ourselves killed.
After answering an ad, I got a job with ANGCO (PNG’s largest coffee exporter) run by Bob Oatley - one of Australia’s first billionaires. His family now owns Hamilton Island.
I was sent to Goroka smack bang in the middle of the Highlands - which was then the head of the coffee industry and the aviation industry, in 1972.
ANGCO was the second largest export earner in the country after Bougainville Copper.
I moved up the ladder in Bob’s company and later ended up owning it.
I enjoyed the travel and the trading and was sent to New York to learn about the futures market and Hamburg to learn about the coffee industry.
Throughout my time in PNG, I had many friends and many adventures.
I had a proximity to the country’s leaders and the interactions with people.
I was given an OBE for services to agriculture in the 1990s. That was done by Prince Charles. We had a two minutes chat about PNG.
Last July I was given a knighthood at Windsor Castle, in a much smaller ceremony with Anne, Princess Royal.
I found her to be absolutely wonderful, with a magnetic, strong personality. She knew a bit about PNG.
My wife, Jan, was a Brisbane schoolteacher, and we married in PNG prior to independence (1975).
She has been very supportive with our current business and creative in exporting coffee.
Together, we have a little four acre property at Goombungee.
Goombungee is quiet. We like the wide open spaces and the proximity to Toowoomba.
Today, we run ANGCO coffee at Highfields.
We have lots of different coffees - some are PNG and some aren’t. I have some connections in Central America and East Africa.
Australia prides itself on having a good coffee culture which is partially true, but all the machines are turned off at 3pm.
I still go to PNG for business, to promote tourism - particularly adventure tourism with the mountains and wetlands.
PNG cops a bad rap. A lot of that stuff you’ll hear about it is not correct.
It can be dangerous - the main street of Oakey can be dangerous, too!
I kybosh all this talk about PNG getting close to China - the Chinese are doing business there and it’s largely transactional.
New Guineans are opportunists - they have a hard work ethic which we Australians taught them.
