Way For New

P-Ng Legco Makes

House Of Assembly

The Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council did not end its life in Sep tember, as expected—there will be another meeting, commencing in Port Moresby on November 11 — but the recent session was able to legislatively clear the way for the big, new-look election scheduled to take place in early 1964.

THE Electoral Bill, 1963, and sub sidiary Bills—Electoral (Open Electorates) Bill, 1963; Parliamentary Allowances Bill, 1963; Parliamentary Under-Secretaries Bill, 1963—were all passed by the P-NG Legislative Coun cil at its September meeting.

Some of the Bills were introduced to the Council in August and held over so that members could study them; however, they then went through with only minor amendments irrespective of what non-government members felt about them.

The complex of legislation provides the machinery for the elections for the new House of Assembly which, in 1964, will replace the Legislative Council of P-NG, in existence since 1951. The appointment of Under secretaries from the non-government side of the House is also provided for; as are salaries and allowances for members of the House.

Heatedly Debated

The most heatedly debated section of the legislation was Clause 38 of the Electoral Bill, which sets out the qualifications for voters and those who nominate as candidates for election.

Mr. B. E. Fairfax-Ross, a nomin ated member for Papua, proposed an amendment which would have reduced residential qualifications for either voter or candidate to 12 months’ residence anywhere in the Territory.

But the official majority pushed through a much more elaborate formula that requires both voters and candidates to have lived in an elec torate for 12 months or have a home there. It was stated that residential restriction to an electorate (and not the Territory as a whole), was to ensure that an electorate was repre sented in the House by someone who had his interests in that electorate.

The Parliamentary Under-Secre taries Bill, described by some mem bers as the most delightfully vague piece of legislation to come before the

Council, provides for non-official members of the new House to be appointed as Under-Secretaries. It was introduced by the Assistant Ad ministrator (Services), Dr. John Gunther, who said that the Under secretaries’ job would be to under study Heads of Departments and probably represent, in the House, De partments that did not have official members there. They would be thus engaged full-time and would have offices in the House of Assembly building. 15 Under Secretaries The original legislation did not specify how many Under-Secretaries there would be. Unofficial members saw in this the prospect of the Ad ministration, which will have only 10 official members in the new House, attracting support to itself in a way that was never intended.

It was assumed by most that the Under-Secretaries would be native members (although Dr. Gunther said that they would not necessarily be so), and no one could see any Under secretary, attached so closely to the Administration by power and perks, coming into the House and voting against it.

This arbitrary choosing of any elected member to be, in effect, a servant of a Department, is not likely to best please electors who had put him there as their independent repre sentative, but unofficial members of the Council were unable to get around this.

Non-official protests did, however, get an amendment accepted which limits the number of Under-Secre taries to 15—although even this num ber seems to leave a fair amount of room for official manoeuvring.

Salaries for Members In the matter of Parliamentary salaries, non-official members were as “delightfully vague” as they had alleged the Administration to be on the subject of Under-Secretaries. The whole question was treated like a politically hot potato, members who spoke to it skirting round the subject without committing themselves. Most felt that members of the new House shouldn’t be “disadvantaged,” but at the same time hoped that the salary wouldn’t b© so large as to encourage a class of professional politicians. As the legislation, as passed, stands, the matter of Parliamentary and Under secretaries’ salaries is left for the Min ister to determine—and for once in their lives all members seemed pro foundly glad to leave it in his hands, although some fantastic suggestions as to what would be desirable are being made. (See pages 7-9).

The Open Electorates Bill makes

minor alterations to the delineation of the 44 open electorates and gives them geographical names instead of the letters by which they were known in the early drafts. The 44 open electorates are part of the 10 re served electorates, the delineation of which has also been cleaned up.

The House of Assembly will con sist of 10 official members; 44 mem bers elected from open electorates; and 10 members from reserved elec torates. Only non-natives may stand for the reserved electorates; but any one may stand for the open elec torates—and some Europeans have signified their intention of doing so. (See page 23). Some Europeans as

well as natives don’t understand this and are assuming that the open elec torates must return native members.

At the polls every voter will vote in both an open electorate and a re served electorate. Therefore, in order to succeed at a poll, a reserved elec torate candidate must attract to him self not only the votes of non-natives but those of natives as well and this most certainly will be a determining factor.

The reverse proposition—that is, the non-native vote in open electorates —will not be so significant unless the vote is evenly split between two native factions, in which case the non-native vote could carry the day.