The Press Is On The Outer

The new Legislative Council Chambers in Port Moresby have got about everything that opens and shuts, including air conditioning, d amplification, and simultaneous translation service.

But in some departments it hasn’t got a lot —and one of these le so-called Press gallery.

This is a table to seat four persons, right at the back of the mber, at floor level, and right behind the Hansard girls who are inually coming and going, in about 10-minutes shifts.

For years, there has been at least five representatives of the Press ,egco meetings, and this will tend to increase. At the October on there were at times about 10 people who tried to sit behind table and use the four sets of headphones provided—and 10 into just doesn’t go.

The Press representatives actually were better off at the old Red s Hall, where they sat behind the President on a sort of platform, where the speeches of those native members who spoke Pidgin translated later by one of the European members. However, in new set up, when members speak in Pidgin—or as John Vuia did, lanche Bay dialect —it was completely above the heads of most smen who couldn’t get at a set of headphones.—JT