New Nauru Legco

Is Forum For

Independence

By NANCY VIV1ANI, recently on Nauru to collect material for a thesis on the island’s history.

I was a fortunate guest at the first business meeting of the new Nauru Legislative Council in February. All the VIPs who had attended the ceremonial

opening session had departed

and the celebrations were over. formal dignity of the council A did not disguise its partial futility, for although the Nauruan members have a council majority, in the Executive Council, which is a cabinet-type body, two Nauruans face two officials, with the Admini strator presiding with the casting vote.

The Legislative Council is effective only to a limited extent because it has no power to legislate on phosphate.

Apart from giving them additional political and administrative ex perience, the main use to the Nauruans of the Legislative Council may therefore be in its role as a forum for discussing independence.

Sighs Of Relief

The end of this first meeting of the Legislative Council brought sighs of relief from both elected and official members—for more reasons than one. It is to be hoped official members will equip the chamber with air-conditioning or else take the lead in dress reform and relieve all members from the torture of ties and long trousers!

Canberra took great pains to instruct the official members in the conduct of the council, and the relatively few procedural mistakes showed, in my view, that they had political sophistication enough to look after Nauru’s interests.

Rehabilitation of Nauru is now in the forefront of Nauruan thought, since plans to resettle elsewhere have failed. The rehabilitation committee’s report will remove at least one of the many uncertain factors in Nauru’s future.