Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea is a province of the Anglican Communion. It was created in 1976 when the Province of Papua New Guinea became independent from the Province of Queensland in the Church of England in Australia (officially renamed the Anglican Church of Australia in 1981) following Papua New Guinea's independence in 1975. The first Archbishop and Primate of Papua New Guinea was David Hand, the Bishop of Port Moresby. Succeeding Primates were also as a diocesan bishops until the consecration of Joseph Kopapa, who was Primate from 2010 to 2012.
Provinces of Papua New Guinea the PNG national parliament. The 22 provincial members are chosen from single-member electorates. Each provincial member becomes governor of their province unless they take a ministerial position, in which case the governorship passes to an open member of the province. Immediately before independence on 16 September 1975, Papua New Guinea was divided into nineteen provinces and the National Capital District. These provinces corresponded to the "Districts" of the pre-Independence administration of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It had been considered that an independent state with limited resources could ill afford the infrastructure of a two-level quasi-federal governmental structure.