Council Majority" in P-NG
p. 49 · Read in the full issue
Natives "Should Have Council Majority" in P-NG
A prominent European member of the Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council, in the June session of Legco in Port Moresby, urged reconstitu tion of the Council to give natives the majority. He is Mr. lan Downs, a New Guinea coffee grower and president of the Highlands Farmers and Settlers’ Association.
Mr. Downs said Papua - New Guinea needed “a national voice.”
“If 80 or 90 Papuans and New Guineans—a frightening figure— sat in this House it would become a real
parliament and what was decided here would be taken notice of,” he said.
The country would profit if the Council contained more people who were going to stay and fewer who were going to leave, “taking every thing with them in a suitcase.”
Mr. Downs said he would like to see a native member for every 20,000 natives. (Under the present consti tution 12 natives represent Papua- New Guinea’s 2,000,000 natives.
There are 12 Government members and 12 other Europeans nominated to the council or sitting as “nonr official” members).