for departing Tuvaluans

Gilbertese fond farewell for departing Tuvaluans

Members of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands House of Assembly had plenty of local issues to get their teeth into in the May session, which extended over several days.

It was a historic session in one respect—it was the last meeting at tended by Ellice Islands members.

The Chief Minister, Mr Naboua Ratieta, at the close of the session, said that from October 1, as Tuvalu, the Ellice Islanders would have their own government, all Gilbertese mem bers would wish them well.

Replying to a question about the future of employees and students of Ellice nationality when the separation became effective, the Deputy Governor, Mr Tom Layng, said government officers would have the option of transferring to the Tuvalu civil service, remaining in the Gil berts, or retiring. Ellice Islanders in other employment would be allowed to continue in their jobs, but it was government policy to encourage employers in future to give priority to Gilbertese.

Ellice students in the Gilberts would be allowed to complete their courses if they wished.

The Minister of State, Mr Ibeata Tonganibeia, speaking of the problem of repatriating GEIC people working in the New Hebrides, said they had not shown any wish to go home be cause they were doing well where they were. They could not be ordered to return home.

Mr Teatao Teannaki (Abaiang) asked if the government could make arrangements, similar to those which applied to GEIC men working on Nauru and Ocean Island, for wives to join their husbands in the New Hebrides. Mr Tonganibeia promised to looked into the matter.

Mrs Russell asked what steps the government and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Authority took to en sure that civil servants and govern ment employees were legally married before they were granted full matri monial benefits.

Mr Layng said the government did not take any formal steps. All mar riages could not be supported by documentary proof. However, minis tries and divisions, such as GEIDA, knew if their employees were married.

When Mrs Russell asked if that meant that single persons could get

marital benefits, Mr Layng said that was not the case, and added there were customary marriages, which were recognised, but outside the Marriages Ordinance.

There were three types of marriage —civil marriage performed by the Registrar of Marriages, religious marriage by churches, and customary marriages, accepted locally, and which the government, being kind and liberal, honoured, in whichever form they were, as distinct from the imported type of marriage.

The house approved a bill to ex tend licensed bar trading times by two hours. Mrs Tekarei Russell op posed the move, saying the extra two hours would endanger people because they might drive their cars or motor cycles without knowing what they were doing.

Mr Ratieta said Mrs Russell had rightly warned of the dangers of excessive drinking, but statistics showed that it was not longer drink ing hours which caused drunkenness.

Shorter hours were responsible for most drunkenness as people tended to drink faster before the bars closed.

Another bill approved by the house removed the differentiation between doctors who had qualifications from metropolitan countries, and those who graduated from the Fiji School of Medicine. It also gave local doctors the right to go into private practice.

It was a controversial measure, with most members speaking.

Previously the law allowed expatri ate doctors, who qualified in Austra lia or New Zealand to set up in private practice, but it barred those who qualified at the Fiji School of Medicine, where the GEIC sent its medical students. Mr Ratieta said it was crucial to stop the discrimination.

The Fiji standards were quite high; anyone who undertook medical studies had to have a university entrance certificate to the University of the South Pacific.

Some members took advantage of the bill to air grievances about lack of medical services in some areas.

Mr Maheu Naniseni, one of the “antis” said he felt local doctors practising the art of healing with their local medicines should be allowed to set up their own practices.

He, for one, could stop stomach-ache in one second, and had, in fact, done that for a member while on the way from Bairiki to Tarawa by launch.