Tropicalities

Crown Prince gets a job

With independence—or re-entry into the comity of nations, as the government prefers to call it—successfully in the bag, Tonga has now set about establishing a Foreign Affairs Department. The first hint of this development came from King Taufa’ahau when he officially opened the 1970 session of the Legislative Assembly in mid-June.

The king announced that an officer had been appointed to the newly created post of Special Assistant to the Premier for Foreign Affairs. It was interesting to learn later, and not at all a surprise, that the officer in question was none other than the king’s eldest son, the crown prince, Prince Tupoutoa.

The crown prince was educated in Switzerland and England before entering the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst, from which he gradu ated in December 1968. After leaving Sandhurst the prince went on to take a foreign service course in Oxford, and subsequently returned to Tonga in time for the independence celeb rations and his new post.

Initially the prince’s appointment met with some scepticism from those who thought back to his earlier ad ventures in the field of wine, women and song; although others were more prepared to see how the prince fared in his new post before hastening to any judgement.

Assistance in the establishment of a Foreign Affairs Department within the Premier’s Department has come from New Zealand. After a request from the Tonga Government, the NZ Government provided Mr. M.

Mansfield, who is Deputy High Commissioner for NZ in Western Samoa, to advise the Tongan Govern ment.

Mr. Mansfield has been in the

kingdom for a preliminary visit dur ing August and September and is expected to return later in the year.

At present Tonga’s only overseas representative is Baron Vaea of Houma who is the Tongan High Commissioner in London. Future moves in the field of overseas rep resentation are as yet unannounced, although UN membership and rep resentation in New York and Sydney have been suggested from time to time. During the king’s recent State visit to NZ it was rumoured that he might appoint an official Tongan representative there.

He wants human

rights for P-NG

Papua-New Guinea’s Percy Chat terton, MHA, has done it again.

He’s jumped the gun on the gov ernment by giving notice of a bill representing the first plank in a Constitution for New Guinea.

He’s announced the Human Rights Bill 1970 or, in long title, A Bill for an Ordinance to Declare and Provide for the Maintenance and Enforcement of certain Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and to entrench them in the Laws of Papua-New Guinea.

Percy Chatterton knows that the parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional Development won’t deal with Human Rights for some time, and knows that the Australian Government won’t incorporate a passage in the territory’s somewhat inadequate “constitution”, the Papua- New Guinea Act. Because it appears that there won’t be anything dealing with Human Rights and basic individual freedoms until the vague self-govemment/independence period.

he’s decided to do something about it himself.

Recent New Guinea legislation with “danger” elements—the Public Order Bill and Evidence by Affidavit Bill—helped him make up his mind.

He wants things nicely tied up now, so that the all-powerful central gov ernment will not submerge individual constitutional rights with a mass of potentially repressive legislation.

Percy won’t be seeking re-election in 1972, so the next 14 months of his remaining term in parliament are (as he sees it) crucial, if he’s to make any headway with Human Rights legislation.

She's the new

Miss Hibiscus

Extremely popular choice for Fiji’s Miss Hibiscus 1970 was beautiful Adi Talatoka Lalabalavu, a 21-year old schoolteacher from Savusavu. She was crowned at Albert Park, Suva, in September (see p. 92).

Soft-spoken and very poised, Adi Talatoka is the daughter of the late Tui Cakau, Ratu Josefa Lalabalavu.

She graduated from the Corpus Christi Teachers’ College in Suva six months ago and has been teaching at the Roman Catholic Mission at Savusavu.

Adi Talatoka, who was sponsored in the contest by the American Con sulate, gets as her main prize a trip to Tokyo by Qantas. She’s never been outside Fiji before.

Second to Miss Hibiscus was petite, pretty Dorothy Gibson, 18.

Third was Sina Williams, also 18, a student at the University of the South Pacific.

Although this year’s festivities followed much the same format as previous years, there was one major change. The weather stayed fine.

High praise

for All Black

A young Samoan, Bryan Williams, the first Rugby player from his ter ritory to be chosen to play for New Zealand’s famous All Blacks, earned high praise from critics during the recent tour of South Africa.

He played in all four tests against the Springboks, either as a wing or centre. Altogether he played in 13 matches, scoring 14 tries, converting four and kicking two penalty goals.

He was the second highest try scorer.

Meanwhile, Fijian chief, Ratu Penaia Ganilau, is building up a Rugby record of a different nature.

In recent months he has been pre occupied in making arrangements for Fiji’s independence celebrations. At the end of September, he went off

to England for the centenary congress of Rugby playing countries. Then there was a hurried trip back to Fiji for the celebrations. With those celebrations over he will be off back to the UK as manager of the Fijian Rugby team which is touring England.

Bull trouble

on safari

Papuan Safari 1970 rally winners, John and Ernie Lohberger, were hurtling along a 12 mile bush track near Port Moresby when they found a typically enormous Zebu bull block ing the way.

A quick excursion into the bush solved the bull problem, as the bull certainly wasn’t going to move, for them or for a rally marshall, Kell Nielsen, who came along on his motorcycle to try to help.

Each car had to do two circuits of this bush track, and the Lohbergers in their Isuzu Bellett GT consequently arrived back in the same spot to confront the stand-fast bull again.

As they passed, he lashed out with a rear leg and dented a panel.

The Zebu bull is a contributor to the territory’s infant (well, perhaps pre-school) cattle industry, just as the safari is becoming a useful publicity medium.

The South Pacific Motor Sports Club in Port Moresby this year was running its fifth Papuan Safari, and for the first time it had felt truly international. Next year, it will be on the international motor sport calendar as part of the Pan-Pacific Rally Championship series being run in and around the Pacific basin.

Among 16 starters, all of them serious, was Brian Culcheth, winner of the Scottish International Rally and second in the London-to-Mexico World Cup Rally this year. He drove a British Leyland Motor Corporation works team Morris 1500 in the safari.

The safari was run from noon on Saturday, September 12, to 3 p.m. on Monday, September 14—Papua-New Guinea’s first National Day. Heavy rain (in the dry season!) continued for two weeks right up to the day before the start, and the only thing left was to reset much of the rally and chop out 200 or 300 miles of the original 1,000.

On the first section of a few hours, Culcheth blew three tyres, Evan Green four. Culcheth solved his prob lems by rolling his car into a 15 ft culvert on the first night, and having to withdraw. His was the only car not to finish.

For Uzuzu, it’s been an impressive safari again. They’ve been winners three years in a row now, and they also filled the places last year.