At 5.15 p.m. on 15 September 1975, the Australian flag was finally lowered in Papua New Guinea. Sir John Guise, the inaugural Governor-General, a former Burns Philp delivery boy and police-sergeant, who in his youth had been gaoled twice, not for political dissidence, but for stealing a bowl of rice and for illegal drinking, declared: It is important that the people of Papua New Guinea and the rest of the world realise the spirit in which we are lowering the flag of our colonies. We are lowering it not tearing it down.