Up Front

with the Editor

They're thrashing out New Guinea's future

Predicting political developments is a risky business anyway but the political horse-trading that is going on in Papua New Guinea as I write this at the end of March makes the exact position there especially un certain. The state of the parties after the general elections is not yet clear.

But in the long term the signs are clear enough. The form of gov ernment that Papua New Guinea is to have is in the melting pot, irrespec tive of whether in the next few weeks a coalition gives the territory some semblance of political cohesion.

It always seems to me it is not sufficiently understood that it is dangerous to judge the PNG political scene on the kind of parliamentary procedures that Australians and New Zealanders are accustomed to.

The fact that the present PNG system leans towards Westminster is certainly no guarantee that it will go that way. It is more likely to go towards a presidential system, or a combination of Westminster and presidential, or something unique or at any rate different, such as the “committee” system now being tried out in the Solomons.

The South Seas is a great place for political experimentation—just look at the variety of approaches adopted by the Republic of Nauru, the Inde pendent State of Western Samoa, the Kingdom of Tonga, the Cook Islands.

And now the Dominion of Fiji is not sure it likes what it’s got, and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara has some interest ing thoughts on what might be a more suitable constitution (reported in this issue).

One of Ratu Mara’s observations on practical Island politics applies just as much to Papua New Guinea at this time: He says the problem of communication in a multi-racial society is exacerbated because “as there are different races there have to be different interpretations of certain policies, and interpretation can create suspicion, whereas, in Euro pean countries, where there is only one race and one language, the policy can be put across without confusion or fear of wrong interpretation.”

Ratu Mara believes that a coalition

of parties might be the answer in Fiji; certainly in New Guinea we have been given no reason to believe that any one party is capable of having support enough to govern.

Having not merely parliamentary support, mind you, but popular support by an electorate that is prepared to accept party government once it understands it. But why should the electorate even bother to understand it? There is no tradition of parliamentary government in Papua New Guinea. The present system there is not parliamentary government as Australia knows it anyway.

The new House of Assembly has 100 elected members, plus four officials and possibly three nominated

members. Most of its membership will be black. The elected members were elected on a common roll of 1,600,000 names of people aged 18 and over. Voting was not compulsory, and I don’t yet know what the voting percentage was (in the 1968 elections it was 63 per cent.), The major parties fighting the elections were the conservative United Party, which is in no hurry for self-government for the territory; the middle-of-the-road People s Pro gress Party; and the so-called radical (I don’t believe it is) Pangu Party, which wants self-government now.

The radical Mataungan Association, which doesn’t call itself a party, went after four seats in the Gazelle

and triumphantly won three of them.

The Mataungan and the other three parties—but particularly United and Pangu, which have the lion’s share of the votes—are the groups that now have to thrash out a workable system.

In New Guinea the leader of the majority party—or the man who is finally selected to lead the Assembly, whoever he may be, has no right to select his ministers. These are selected by a ministerial nominations com mittee set up by the House, and thus the membership of that committee is pretty important. Horse-trading is therefore far more the order of the day than in Australia, where the leader of the majority party auto matically forms a government and appoints his own ministers.

But Papua New Guinea in the next few weeks not only has to select ministers, and a Speaker of the House, but also a leader of the House, who will be an embryo Prime Minister.

A number of people have their eye on the big new house that’s abuilding on the hill for that top man, but no one person can at the moment claim he’s entitled to it. The man who gets it will probably have to win it by out manoeuvering the other fellows.

And it’s because of this lack of clear guidelines, and because of the whole melting pot that is New Guinea politics at the moment, that the trends which start to emerge in the next few weeks will be of ex citing interest.

PERCY CHATTERTON once com plained that I cheated in my column on one occasion by quoting somebody at length instead of writing original material. I am now about to cheat again, by quoting in full the address that Percy Chatterton made to the University of Papua and New Guinea in March in accepting an honorary Doctorate of Laws that that institution bestowed on him for a lifetime of toil in Papua. I commend it for its brevity and for the clarity of thought and the humanity that are so typical of the man himself: “There are three reasons why the honour which you have conferred on me tonight gives me very special satisfaction.

“The first is that it is of this country, and, although I cannot claim to be either black or beautiful, I like to think of myself as of this country, and I hope to end my days here.

“The second is that it is of this university, and I believe in this uni versity. I believe it has a value for this country not to be measured in terms of dollars spent on it or even of degrees granted by it. It is my earnest hope that from this university will emerge leaders who are not only knowledgeable and highly skilled, but

also wise, tolerant and humane.

“The third is that it is of the Faculty of Law. I am sceptical about the value to this country of some of the alleged blessings of civilisation which we of the west have brought to it. But I have no doubt at all that we have done Papua New Guinea a very great service by establishing in it a system of justice designed to ensure not only that the guilty are punished but also that the innocent are set free. I have no sympathy with those of my fellow parliamen tarians who, if I understand them cor rectly, want to sweep this system away and replace it by some kind of instant justice-on-the-spot jurisdic tion presided over by policemen.

“I must confess that as a parlia mentarian I have sometimes been critical of the jargonisation of the English language by lawyers. They are not the only offenders, of course, but they are among the worst, and I would like to see established within the Faculty of Law of this university a lectureship in English Usage, dedi cated to restoring, in this field which so intimately affects the lives of ordinary people, the simplicity, brevity and clarity which were once the glory of the English tongue.

“For these three reasons, there fore, the honour which you have conferred upon me gives me great satisfaction. Whether, in spite of the very kind things said about me by the Vice-Chancellor, I deserve it, is another matter.

“I would find it difficult now to recapture the mood and motives which brought my wife and myself to this country in 1924. But I can tell you, and I would like to tell you, why we have stayed here for almost half a century.

“We cannot, I am afraid, lay claim to a share of the splendid altruism of those who from time to time remind you that they are here at great per sonal inconvenience simply and solely in order to guide and assist the people of this country in their onward march towards nationhood, prosperity and the Australian Way of Life.

“The reason we have stayed here for so long is a very simple and I am afraid a rather selfish one. We have stayed here because we like it here. We like the place, we like the people, and for some reason which I have never been able to understand, many of them seem to like us. The happiness which we have found among the people of this land has been, in itself, ample reward for any thing which we may have been able to do for them.

“You have very generously added to that happiness and that reward, and I thank you most sincerely.”