Fiji Streamlines Its

Legislation

From a Suva Correspondent The March session of FijVs Legislative Council was one of the busiest, yet one of the quietest, for some years. Not only did the Council get through 47 items on the order paper, passing 14 bills and a whole splurge of motions including one approving the introduction of a miniature social security scheme, but it did it in four days and with hardly a cross word.

rwas only the fourth meeting since the Member System came into operation last July, but those people keen to see Fiji move on to

the next promised phase—internal

self-government could probably take heart from the way the un official members inside and outside the Government handled their jobs.

By giving portfolios to some, and to others giving the job of “opposi tion”, there seems an end has been put to the interminably long speeches with which the Speaker and the House were regaled before the Member era.

There’s a different atmosphere now. The optimists say it is a sign of the coming-of-age of Fiji’s Legisla tive Council. The pessimists think it could be the calm before the storm.

But, if this meeting was that sort of uneasy calm, there were few of the windy round-the-compass puffs which usually presage a storm.

Passing Note

Obviously the job which is occupy ing most of the time and thoughts of the unofficial members these days is the method of crossing the con stitutional Rubicon in London in July and Legco business is business to get over and done with mean while.

The only slightly rasping note to creep in was a little brush between the two factions represented by the Indian members—the Federation Party and those not of the party.

A few cross words earlier between Mr. Speaker Maurice Scott and the European elected member for the northern constituency, Mr. Freddy Archibald, really didn’t count.

The Member for Social Services, Mr. A. D. Patel, who had a very successful meeting with few knotty problems and nothing like the embarrassments of recent meetings, crossed a sword with Mr. A. I. N.

Deoki and Mr. C. P. Singh, two un

officials, who are not members of Mr. Patel’s Federation Party.

During the debate on the motion approving the introduction of an

employees’ provident scheme, both Mr. Deoki and Mr. Singh harried Mr. Patel who, as Member for Social Services, was “fathering” the motion.

They quoted a 20-year-old Hansard report at him, in the hope of proving that a principle he was now father ing as legitimate was looked upon by him 20 years ago as a bastard, Mr. Patel was unperturbed. What ever he had said 20 years ago was on a par with what Gladstone said in 1851 and neither mattered now.

His only regret, he said, was that his opponents had not read the Ashford Report on social security in Fiji as well as they had read their Hansard.

And that was the end of that.

True, the Traffic Bill, which un snarled Fiji’s legal traffic jam and made sense of a lot of accumulated amendments, came in for a rough passage from tongues, but as an

amenable Government, surprisingly anxious to please, had accepted almost all the amendments presented to it, there was no real opposition.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the easy passage afforded the Police Bill. The bill’s aim, the enacting clause said pontifically, was at mak ing better provision for “the or ganisation, discipline, powers and duties of the police force and for matters incidental thereto”.

The Solicitor-General, Mr. Don McLoughlin, who cut his political teeth on it—this being his maiden speech—said a study had been made of police legislation in other terri tories. Where that legislation ap peared to be more suitable to present requirements of the Colony than the existing provisions of the Police Ordinance, those provisions had been adapted.

What he was probably saying was that the new ordinance was more in line with that of a self-governing country, for the Fiji Government has been streamlining all its major legislation with home rule apparently in mind. (The Legislative Council last year approved more bills than in any other year in its history.) Some members cavilled at what they thought were greater powers being given to the Commissioner of Police by the new bill, but they ap peared in the end to accept what Mr.

McLoughlin told them —that the bill in fact lessened the Police Com missioner’s powers.

Police Commissioner The bill went through after a two-hour debate with only a minor amendment or two, and the quoting by Mr. S. M. Koya, the Indian elected member for North Viti Levu, of a spot of gossip which has been going the rounds.

Mr. Koya expressed the hope that when the future appointment of a Police Commissioner was being con sidered the Government would pick someone who was already in the force. ‘There is talk in the Colony that a man who has resigned from the force will be the future Com missioner,” he said.

The Government kept mum, and Mr. Koya did not name any names.

But he was speaking about a former police officer, Mr. Harry Halstead, who is at present Commissioner of the Central Division.

The only other “big” bill to be dealt with was the Coconut Bill, which was designed to organise the coconut and copra industry in the same way as the Sugar Bill has or ganised the sugar industry.

The Sugar Bill has helped to

bring peace and prosperity to Fiji’s main economy, and the Coconut Bill is expected to do the same for Fiji’s third biggest export. Lord Silsoe is the real architect of both bills.

In all things coconut, there is hardly any politics played between the various races of Fiji. For one thing, coconuts are reckoned to be the prerogative of the Fijians and some Europeans, and if ever the Indian members intervene in a Council debate on some measure to do with the industry it is more in the nature of a helping hand.

Ratu K. K. T. Mara, the Member for Natural Resources, became almost poetic in introducing the bill.

He said it could “bring a rich vigorous harmony leading on to an improving and expanding industry .

Everyone agreed with him over that, and although several of the unofficials thought one or two clauses were not strong enough, their amendments fell by the wayside, The bill was passed without a division.

The result is that Fiji is to have a Coconut Board and a Coconut Advisory Board.