Everyone's a winner if Gillard gives a leg-up to PNG JULIA Gillard will fly today to our closest neighbour, whose gross domestic product has been growing for seven years at an average lick above 7 per cent. This might surprise many Australians, but Papua New Guinea's sustained performance has not gone entirely unnoticed "down south," as it is known. Australians have invested more than $16 billion in the country, about the same as in China.