The changes in

a nutshell

The effect of the signing of the South Pacific Memorandum will be: • A de facto merger of the South Pacific Commission and the South Pacific Conference, and abolition of the session of Senior Commissioners of the participating governments; • All members of the new body, the eight participating governments and the other Island members, will have one vote each, abolishing plura lity of voting which has existed until now, when each metropolitan power had as many votes as it had depen dent territories; • Compilation of the works pro gramme and the budget will be the task of the Planning Committee which will meet a few months before the annual conference. Its deliberations and decisions will be vetted by the Committee of Representatives of the Participating Governments, which re places the session. That committee's decisions, however, will be subject to the will of all the members meet ing in the annual conference. • A name-finding competition will be organised in the region by the secretariat to find a new name for the South Pacific Commission and Conference.