The Man Behind The Bill

THE MAN behind the media bill, Communications Minister Gabriel Ramoi, is referred to as a “Papua New Guinean communist” because of his time as a firebrand student politician and his radical views.

It was he who burned the nation’s con stitution outside the old parliament build ing in Port Moresby during a student strike and then dared lawyers to find the rele vant section in it that barred him from doing so.

A lawyer, he entered politics in 1982 and is now leader of Government business and one of the most convincing speakers in Parliament.

He told Pacific Islands Monthly that there was no such thing as left wing or right wing in PNG politics. He said Mr Wingti, the Public Service Minister Utula Sa mana and himself all former student leaders were nationalists who see “lin kage to the Soviet Union, China and Ja pan as very important”.

“Foreign policy must be conducted in such a way that it secures and protects

PNG’s national interest. While we have been debating this, Australia, for example, has been sending businessmen to the So viet Union.

“To suggest that what we are doing is socialist is wrong, because, for us, there is now no such thing as socialism. For us the aim is to go back to strengthen smaller in stitutions clans and tribes and that is not socialism. It’s strengthening our democratic process.”

On his proposed mass media control bill, he said: “Newspapers have set the agenda for debate wrongly. The issue for debate is whether or not foreigners should control the mass media in PNG. The ar gument that the Government is trying to control the press is a red herring in this in stance because the Government intends to establish a tribunal that will be very independent.

“We have asked proprietors to own not more than 17 per cent of PNG newspa pers, radio and television. By the year 2000 Papua New Guineans would own this powerful medium,” he said. □