Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698055908858.pdf (Papua New Guinea)
EIGHTH DAY Friday 19 July 2013 DRAFT HANSARD Subject; MOTION BY LEAVE SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS - REARRANGEMENTS OF BUSINESS DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND IMMIGRATION - TREATY DOCUMENT - PAPER AND STATEMENT - PAPER NOTED MOTION BY LEAVE T REATY DOCUMENT - MOTION TO WAIVE SECTION 117(3) OF THE CONSTITUTION CRIMINAL CODE (AMENDMENT) BILL 2013 TREASURY BILLS (AMENDMENT) BILL 2014 MESSAGE FROM THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL NATIONAL PAYMENTS SYSTEM (AMENDMENT) BILL 2013 ALTERATION OF DAY AND HOUR OF NEXT SITTING ...„.
QUESTIONS.

:.........;^:^...».............r.^...... " .1 •- -••- GRIEVANCE DEBATE MOTION BY LEAVE.... .> PERMANENT PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS, ACTS AND SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION - APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS Page No.

1 2 2 3 3 4 5 5 6 8 9 21 44 43 ADJOURNMENT ....43 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES CORRECTIONS TO DAILY DRAFT HANSARD The Draft Hansard is uncorrected.

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Sanrfa M. Haro Principal Parliamentary Reporter EIGHT DAY Friday 19 July 2013 The Speaker (Mr Theodore Zurenuoc) took the Chair at 10 a.m..
There being no quorum present, Mr Speaker stated that he would resume the Chair after the ringing of the bells.

Sitting suspended.

Mr Speaker again took the Chair at 10.30 a.m., and invited the Member for Nawae, Honorable Gisuwat Siniwin to say Prayers: 'In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Gracious God that we thank you for this morning.

We confess that we are sinners and we come before you, Lord.
Have mercy on us and be gracious to us and forgive our sins, accept as your leaders of this Nation.

Bless our hearts, our families and bless everyone one of us in this chamber, bless the Speakers, the Chair, our Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and all the Ministers.

Lord, we acknowledge you and we say thank you for making us to be leaders of this nation.

Whatever we do may we do it according to your plans and will.

Bless us this day and bless us at all times.

Lord accepts us and bless us.


We ask this in the name of our Lord and our coming King, in his name we pray.'

Amen!

MOTION BY LEAVE Mr JAMES MARABE (Tari- Minister for Finance) I ask leave of the Parliament to move a motion without notice.

Leave granted.

SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS - REARRANGEMENT OF BUSINESS Motion (by Mr James Marabe) agreed to.
That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent: (a) The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration presenting the Treaty document relating to the Framework Treaty on Technical and Development Corporation between the Government of the State of Israel and the Government of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea; and (b) Orders of the Days No 47, 78, 76 Government Business being called on forthwith.
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND IMMIGRATION - TREATY DOCUMENT - PAPER AND STATEMENT - PAPER NOTED Mr RIMBINK PATO (Wapenamanda - Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration) Pursuant to Statute, I present the follow Paper: Framework Treaty - Treaty on Technical and Development Cooperation between the Government of the State of Israel and the Government of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.

I ask leave of the Parliament to make a statement in relation to the Treaty document.

Leave granted.
Leave granted.

Mr Speaker, the relation between Israel and Papua New Guinea is very cordial and constructive and Israel is one of those countries in the world where their economy is substantially advanced and it has developed over the years in heaps and bounds to an extent that it's a country from which PNG stands to gain a lot.
Since the creation of diplomatic ties between Israel and PNG, our people having been looking at areas in which we can benefit from the experience and the skills of the Government and the people of Israel.

As a consequence when our former Foreign Minister visited the country of Israel they agreed that we should formally engage in an agreement for Technical Cooperation so that trade investment and private sector development between the two countries could be advanced.
02/08 As a consequence of the agreement that was then initialed a lot of Israeli companies have established businesses in PNG and there were discussions for further exchanges in the areas of technical cooperation and in particular the areas of Agriculture and Education.

So the agreement is basically a formalisation of the technical and development cooperation that the country will stand to gain substantial advantage moving forward.
That being the case, overall there's no downside for the Ratification of this Treaty by the Government of Papua New Guinea pursuant to Section 117 of the Constitution.

Those are the few comments I want to speak in support of the ratification of the Treaty between the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Government of Israel.

Motion - That the question be now put - agreed to.

Motion - That the Paper be noted - agreed to.


MOTION BY LEAVE Mr JAMES MARABE (Tari - Minister for Finance) -1 ask leave of the Parliament to move a motion without notice.

Leave granted.
TREATY DOCUMENT - MOTION TO WAIVE SECTION 117(3) OF THE CONSTITUTION Motion (by Mr James Marabe) put - That in accordance with Section 117(5)(a) of the Constitution, this Parliament waives Section 117(3) of the Constitution which requires a Treaty Document to be presented to the Parliament for at least 10 sitting days before Papua New Guinea can be bound as a party to it insofar as that provision applies to the ratification of the Framework Treaty of Technical and Development Cooperation between the Government of the State of Israel and the Government of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
The motion requiring an absolute majority as required by the Constitution, the Speaker ordered that the bells be rung.

The Parliament voted the Speaker (Mr Theo Zurenuoc) in the Chair - AYES-65 NOES-0 Motion so agreed to.

03/08 CRIMINAL CODE (AMENDMENT) BILL 2013 Third Reading Debate resumed from 18 July 2013 (See page....) Mr SPEAKER - Honourable Members, we rescinded the vote on this yesterday so we will re-start that process again.

Motion - That the Bill be now read a third time - put.
The Bill requiring an absolute majority of 56 Members as required by the Constitution, Mr Speaker ordered that the bells be rung.

04/08 The Parliament voted the Speaker (Mr Theo Zurenuoc) in the Chair: AYES - 67 NOES-0 Motion so agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

TREASURY BILLS (AMENDMENT) BILL 2014 Second Reading Debate resumed from 17 July 2013 (See Page ...) Motion - That the question be now put - agreed to.

Motion - That the Bill be now read a second time - agreed to.

Bill read a second time.


- M E S S A GE FROM^HE GOVERNOR-GENERAL Message from His Excellency the Governor-General was announced, dated 19 July 2013 recommending the raising of loans and expenditure of public monies in accordance with Section 210 of the Constitution insofar as the Bill relates to and provides for such expenditure.

Third Reading Leave granted to move the third reading forthwith.

Mr DON POL YE (Kandep - Minister for Treasury) -1 move- That the Bill be now read a third time.
Motion (by Ms Loujaya Toni) agreed to - That the question be now put.

Motion - That the Bill be now read a third time — agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

05/08 NATIONAL PAYMENTS SYSTEM (AMENDMENT) BILL 2013 First Reading Bill presented by Mr Don Polye and read a first time.

Second Reading Leave granted to make the second Reading forthwith.

Mr DON POLYE (Kandep - Minister for Treasury) -1 move - That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill allows for the establishment of the Electronic National Payment System in Papua New Guinea.

The Bill will facilitate the important step for our country's transition to a 21st Century banking system using the latest technology.

The implementation of electronic inter-bank funds transfer and real time gross settlement is a major leap forward for our country, and this will also bring many advantages to all sectors of the economy.
The Bill will reduce systemic risks within the banking system and it will also streamline the funds transfer process making it more reliable and efficient.

By way of example; importers will soon be able to transfer payments to Customs in real and thereby be able to uplift their cargo from the wharves more quickly than is currently the case.

Mr Speaker, the Bill will allow tax payments electronically which will increase efficiency and reduce fraud.
The Bill will benefit government employees by being paid through a more streamline process by the Department of Finance.

Mr Speaker, the Bill will also accommodate a state of the art banking system, which is a fundamental step in facilitating Papua New Guinea's transition to modem efficient economy.
Through this initiative the Bank of PNG (BPNG) and the commercial banks will transform Papua New Guinea's banking system to the equivalent of that of already developed nations such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Mr Speaker, the Bill will facilitate greater use of electronic banking and reduce fraud and by improving electronic facilities there will be a reduction in the amount of time that people wait in queues in the banks.
Mr Speaker, the Bill - Mr SPEAKER - Let me interrupt you, Honourable Treasurer.

Minister for State Enterprises, it is against the Standing Orders for you to be moving out of your seat when Parliament is in progress.

You may go ahead Honourable Treasurer.

Mr DON POL YE - Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The Bill also makes reference to other related existing legislations and future legislations.
Mr Speaker, this Bill is to improve the financial sector in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness in serving our people whilst we expand and make financial services inclusive of all Papua New Guineans in the rural areas and corporate sector industry.

——MrSpeaker, I commend this Bill to The Parliament.

Motion - That the question be now put - agreed to.

Motion - That the Bill be now read a second time - agreed to.

Bill read a second time.


06/08 Third Reading Leave granted to move the Third Reading forthwith Mr DON POL YE (Kandep - Minister for Treasury) -1 move - That the Bill be now read a third time.

Motion - That the question be now put - agreed to Motion - That the Bill be now read a third time - put The Bill requiring an absolute majority of 56 Members as required by the Constitution, Mr Speaker ordered that the bells be rung.
The Parliament voted (The Speaker, Mr Theo Zurenouc) in the Chair:- AYES - 66 NOES -0 Motion so agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

07/08 ALTERATION OF DAY AND HOUR OF NEXT SITTING Motion (by Mr James Marape) agreed to - That the Parliament at it's rising, adjourn until Tuesday 10 September 2013 at 2 o'clock p.m..

QUESTIONS Mr LABI AMAIU - Thank you Mr Speaker.

I direct my questions to the Minister for Justice and Attorney General.

Before I ask my questions I would like to make a short remark.
Since our.

Declaration after wining the Elections in July we have been receiving court petitions.

There are still a good number of Bills and Legislations that requires numbers in order to be passed on the floor of Parliament.

Mr Speaker, according to media reports these court petitions will only take six months to be dealt with but that is not happening.

The courts process is very prolonging.


My questions are: (1) Does the Attorney General have any plans in place to set timeframes for the Judges to deal with these matters?

(2) Can the Minister also put in place a law to protect the petitioned MPs?

This is because the petitioners and their supporters are coming in truck loads with hidden weapons to the Court House.
08/08 Mr KERENGA KUA - Mr Speaker, yes that is a good question that is affecting all the parties to the petitions and most of our Members are faced until sued.

Some of these petitions need to be resolved expeditiously so that leaders can focus on their duties.

This is not a new concern.

It has been the concern of previous elections.


Mr Speaker, based on all those concerns in previous elections they expressed these same concerns, the_Chief Justice and the judges have introduced some rules to regulate and fast track election petitions so that it can be streamlined right through to its conclusion.

Mr Speaker, I contacted the Chief Justice and he assured me that all the election petitions will be fasttracked for the very same reason the Member for Moresby-North East expressed.
I have already reported the response of the Chief Justice in Parliament that judges will be dedicated to completing and attending to those petitions by the end of May.

I am pleased to report that the outcome has been substantially achieved and the majority of all the petitions in the trial stages have been completed.

There are only a few that have yet to be sorted out.
The reasons for the few petitions that have not gone to substantive trial is because the parties involved are filing too many different applications which is delaying the petition to go to a substantive trial.

Another contributing factor is appealing against an interim ruling the courts make, the parties involved go and appeal and are granted a "stay order".

In as far as the development of rules is concerned, it is already being streamlined and it has worked very well so far.
I am convinced that at this stage there is no need to amend the rules.

The only mischief is the delay in which are caused by the parties themselves.

If the parties involved commit their resources to go to substantive trial there won't be any problems, but when they are filing different interim applications, that causes the delay.

I want to encourage the parties to keep focused on the substantive and get on with the matter to avoid such delays.
Mr Speaker, as far as I am concerned the courts and judges are taking steps within the limits of their resources and their powers to addressing the security issue.

If a matter is before the courts, we have to allow the courts to make the decision and our people must not take the law into their hands and go about destroying each other.

Why did we come to court at the first place?


Our people must respect the court process for better or worse whatever decision courts make we must learn to accept that because that is the law.

That is the legal procedure that you have submitted to.

If we are not satisfied, there is the appeal court procedure we can go to for submissions.
The court system is doing what it can to protect the integrity of this country but our people must change their attitudes because it results in too many unwanted outcomes.

09/08 Supplementary Question Mr BOB DADAE - My supplementary questions to the Minister for Justice and Attorney General is in relation to the delay experienced in the court houses throughout the country.
In this country, individuals and business houses are faced with back log of cases in the court system, a lot of cases are incomplete while many are waiting for decisions to be 10 handed down.

And this is causing financial, emotional and personal hardships for those who are waiting for the court to act.

My questions are: (1) Is this delay caused because of a great shortage of Judges and Magistrates or are the Judges and Magistrates not doing enough?
I have been informed that this Cabinet has approved extra position for Judges and recently you have announced the appointment of five acting Judges.

(2) How soon are you and your Committee intending to make permanent appointments?

MR SPEAKER - Member for Kabwurn your question is really not a supplementary question and it does not relate to election petition matters.

It's a new question but Attorney General, you can answer those questions.

Mr KERENGA KUA - Thank you Mr Speaker, for those new questions.
Mr Speaker, the court system is inherently slow and it is so because all kinds of protection are designed and written into the rules to protect both sides as they filter their dispute through to identify the real issues in question, identify the relevant facts and law.

So that process does lead to some delay so it is by its very nature a slow process.

So once we submit to it we have to accept also that it will take a bit of time to come to finality.
The previous question that I answered from the Member for North-East, honorable Labi Amaiu, was in relation to the delays in petition.

But this question is into cases generally and to answer his question we need to look at it in three parts; we have got the village court system right at the base level which is the fastest of all the three tiers of courts.

You file your complaint on Friday and get your judgment on Monday, no question about it and everybody is happy and they go away.
The second tier of court system we have is the district court system.

The district court system is meant to be a summary jurisdiction, meaning you short cut the processes and get to the point quickly.

But that's not usually the case with the district courts.

The district court sometimes takes a meandering route to get to the other side and it takes time to get there.
Mr Speaker, that point has been noted and I want to take this opportunity to advise this Parliament that I have already on our behalf instructed the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission to amend the District Courts Act so that the proceedings there must be 11 concluded within 90 days, both civil and criminal.

Any matter that is not prosecuted at the end of the 90 days must stand dismissed or are deemed to be dismissed by operation of law.
So if the parties or the police personnel or whoever has an interest in the proceeding and if they want to reactivate must re-file afresh but there will be a time line.

So the matter gets push past 90 days.

You get to the end of the road with the district court proceedings in 90 days.

And the reason being that with respect to criminal proceedings or summary offences in the district court, we needed to connect the penalties to their offence in real time.
If there is a wide gap between the penalty and the offence date of the commission of the offence, people don't connect the two together and they don't realize that, that penalty is meant to deter them from committing offence ten months ago.

So there is never any connection and the deterrent effect doesn't kick it at all.
So we have to bring the penalty and the commission of the offence as close as possible so that when the penalty comes down people know its in connection with this offence, therefore they must not recommit again.

So there is a very important reason why with the overall reform of the criminal law system of this country, I feel that the district court criminal processes must be shortened so that you get to the penalty point if you are guilty very quickly.
So you know that you don't do that sort of thing again.

10/08 So, that is being attended to already and we will together with the other reforms I have been talking about previously, we will bring these reforms to Parliament as and when they are ready and of course, I will be expecting-all the Members to support them.

We will begin to reform the legal procedures and landscape up there to make it more efficient and effective.

The third level you have is the National and Supreme Court.
As I said, they are the tier of court system that has the most cumbersome set of rules.

The National Court rules was about this thick until they added the election petition rules so it became a bit thicker because we asked for it.
It is now thicker than what we have started with but there are rules and procedures that you have to follow and there are time lines between each step; seven days, 14 days etcetera that you have to comply with so all those things inherently add to delay in arriving at the final conclusion.

Some of those that I have mentioned earlier relate to the election petition that delays the courts by the parties themselves.

Sometimes, they deliberately file all kinds of application simply to delay it.
As a result, you get stuck in this preliminary application and you don't get 12 to the substantive.

The other party does not want to delay but the other party does want to delay so they cause the delay.

So some of these delays are not attributed to the rules and the judges but they are attributed to the parties' behaviour in the course of the proceedings.

And then, you have delays in judgments or you conclude the trial but sometimes the delivery of the judgments themselves are delayed.
But I want to say this in defense of the Judiciary at least at the National and Supreme Court level that the fault is not theirs.

We need more judges.

Simply put, of the three arms of government, I think with the Judiciary, in the National and Supreme Court level are the most overworked.

So, we need to support them with more judges, more courtroom spaces and more money in our budgetary processes so that they can begin to address these issues.
But if you are talking about performance, they are the hardest working group of people.

They got so many cases to deal with from the commercial tracks, appeal court tracks, criminal tracks, civil tracks and many others.

They have many cases that come in so I don't know, there's probably up to 10 000 cases that have been dealt with throughout the country by only 27 judges.

So you can begin to see the difficult workload they have on their shoulders.
Mr Speaker, fortunately, the Cabinet has increased the ceiling of the judges from where it was at 27 to 40 recently in June.

The Cabinet has increased the judges from 27 to 30 and allowed to recruit additional 13 but because there was no budget made for the 13 judges in this year's budget last year, we will now making a submission to the Treasurer that in order to fill this 13 positions, we will need financial support.
Now, once he does that, next year and onwards, we will fill those 13 positions but as you can see already from the workload, 40 judges are not enough.

We will still need more judges if we are to deliver justice in real time which is what the people of this country want to see.

It is a question of resource and as soon as we are able, we will move to that point.

Mr Noah Kool - Mr Speaker, I direct my question to the Minister for Communication and Information Technology.
And I want the Ministers for Public Enterprise, Treasury and National Planning respectively to take note.

My question is in relation to the Rural Communication Project funded by the World Bank, Project No.

PI07782 and it cost US$15 million.

The project was approved by the Board on 22 July 2010, and the effectiveness of the project dated 7 March 2011, and expected closing date is 31 August 2013.
13 11/08 Mr Speaker, the objective of the project is to improve access to telecommunication infrastructure and services in rural and remote areas from which the World Bank has nominated two demonstration projects that are to test the funds management aspect as well as the governance, selection approval, monitoring and evaluation system.

The two demonstration projects' locations are East Sepik and Chimbu Province.
Mr Speaker, I believe the Sepik component is already rolled out and my province is still waiting for the much needed vital service to be installed.

Therefore my Government has budgeted a counterpart funding for the project to the tune for a Kl million.

Nevertheless, on the 27 May to 13 June 2013,1 have learnt from the daily newspapers that the project has been put on tender and the scoping was changed.
Therefore, my questions are as follows: (1) Can the Minister inform this Parliament for the people of Chimbu to know the status of the World Bank funded Rural Communication Project for Chimbu when the DCI and NICTA were put through the CSTB for the Chimbu component?

(2) Why is it that the Department of ICT and NICTA failed to implement the demonstrated project for the only applicable provinces such as Chimbu and East Sepik as stated by the World Bank?
(3) Having learnt from the media about this tender, can the Minister then inform the people of Chimbu on this Floor of Parliament how the people of Chimbu are going to benefit from this project?

(4) What would be the best alternative for the Chimbu Provincial Government to access the World Bank funds through the DCI and NICTA?
: (5)'If the Ministerris then gbiffg^h^ad^wim"m¥^o^ramme, can we therTnbminate our specific areas of needs so that it impacts our province as far as communication in Chimbu is concerned?

(6) If that may not be the case, can we then be involved in the scoping of the rollout programme for Chimbu?

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr JIM MIRINGTORO - Thank you, Mr Speaker, I thank the Governor for Chimbu for his important questions.
14 The main reason why the World Bank is getting itself involved in pushing for the development of communication in the rural areas is because the present service providers are only concentrating on the areas where the population is large.

This marginalisation by the service providers of our most remote areas has prompted the World Bank along with DCI to look at incentives that will allow our people living in our remote rural areas can also benefit from communication services.
At present, the World Bank had chosen two sites for trials for this project.

When the World Bank and DCI held their meetings and decided that it would be fair to distribute this service on a regional basis.

For this reason the scoping plan for trials for the communication programme in the rural areas for the four regions was developed.

This was decided upon out of fairness of service delivery.
Regarding the Governor's question about the tendering of the project, I myself am not aware what the due processes are and will find out to answer the Governor's question whether Ihe programme for Sepik was rollout.

Nevertheless, I would like to say here that, at this point in time and as stated in the media that there is a tendering programme in place.

The World Bank with DCI is putting this as one package in order to have the project components implemented at one time.
12/08 Mr Speaker, it is difficult to carry those task at the same time within four (4) regions therefore, we are taking one at a time until there is found available.

In regard to his last question, I think I have answered it since it almost links with other questions.

On his second question regarding Simbu in relation to how the World Bank would have access to funds in Simbu.
Mr Speaker, this is only a trial and if this pilot project is successful, the World Bank will commit some more money but it depends on this Government to allocate some counterpart fundings for this project for a second round.

Supplementary Question 15 Mr CAMILLUS DANGIMA - Mr Speaker, I prefer the Minister to come clear on what he is responding especially when he is telling this Parliament that it is a trial project.

This trial or pilot project is specifically meant for Simbu and East Sepik.
Why should it go to other provinces?

It is ear marked for these provinces.

Can the Minister tell this Parliament what is meant for Simbu and Sepik must be given to them respectively?

Mr JIM MININGTORO - Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for his supplementary question, but I would say that I was appointed as a Minister after they have made the decision already.
However, I would investigate to check why this scope has change to cover all other different regions within the country rather than Sepik and Simbu only.

Mr TOBIAS KULANG - Mr Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for Treasury concerning the Budget paper and my region, if, the Minister could confirm.
Mr Speaker, in the Budget paper, NCD roads were allocated K100 million and in the daily newspapers, there is another figure of K800,000 and during the Parliament Sitting last week the Minister for Finance also said that he frontloaded those funds.

(1) Can the Treasurer confirm that if these funds are expanded during this budgetary period if there is a budget overrun?

(2) I am a new Member of Parliament and what happens when a Government spends or borrows outside of the Appropriation Bill.
What can the Parliament do to scrutinise the management of the Budget by the Executive Government?

Mr DON POL YE - Mr Speaker, if I heard it correctly, the Member said that the NCD roads was allocated KLOO million and another K800 000 I want the Member to clarify orfephraseyour question.

~"i'""~ Mr TOBIAS KULANG - Mr Speaker, my point is on the Budget paper I see an appropriation of K100 million and on the Newspaper I read about K800 million.

So, my region is K700 million.


Is it correct to say that there is a budget overrun and how do you reconcile that?

Mr DON POL YE - Mr Speaker, thank you for clarify this confusion.

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding, miss concluded facts and miss perception about all these scenarios.

I believe it is good I have to inform Parliament and the public about this issue too.
16 Mr Speaker, I wish to express and caution that the media got to really report the facts clearly based on the Budget and the Government decisions.

Thus, in regard to this K100 million, yes, and the budget is K100 million budgeted for the NCD roads.

13/08 The Government cannot spend outside of its Budget Framework as it is the O'Neill- Dion Government's fiscal policy.

The Parliament is the only authority and has legislated this appropriation.
Therefore, every time a Budget is passed it becomes law and thus, the law can only allow spending within the appropriation.

Mr Speaker, we cannot allocate funding outside of the appropriations when Members of Parliament ask the Departments of Treasury, Finance or especially, the National Planning Department which is responsible for most of the expenditures of development capital funds for more funding.
This is because under section 209 of the Constitution, as of yesterday and this morning, we have just completed the process of the Treasury Bills Act in terms of loans and where the Government can seek alternative means to get money.

This Bill that we have passed this morning from yesterday's commencement gives more weight to what I am saying here, and that is, any funds expended must be within the Parliamentary Budget Appropriation which is a Bill in itself and a law.
Secondly, the Government can project into the future for instance in the next 5 to 10 years.

The government can also make policy statements and say that we are starting with a K100 million for a particular project, and in this case it is the NCDC Roads project.

The Government then can say that in the next 5 to 10 years it will continue to put the same amount of money or and increased amount for the same projects to continue.

This is what a responsible Executive Government of any country will do.
The Prime Minister is the only authority to make such announcements and we, the Ministers will then take queue from that.

Therefore, if the Prime Minister has announced that there will be an K800 million Budget Appropriation - I am not familiar with the figures reported by the media but assuming that was the figure announced then the Prime Minister has just postulated the next medium term amount of money.
Therefore, if the Prime Minister announced funding of K100 million for this year and another K100 million for next year then that is how you will see the budgeting turn out with regards to the NCDC roads.

This is what I would like to clarify here.

17 This year you will have K100 million ^worth of works done and that work will continue into the years to come.
You cannot complete everything this year so we will have to work into the next 2, 3 or 4 years or whenever the construction period takes to complete the job.

Regarding if the Government can borrow outside of the Appropriation, I must say here that the Government cannot borrow outside of the appropriation for this year for projects that are not reflected in the budget appropriations.

Nevertheless, the Government can make plans to borrow outside of the current budget in preparation for the coming year.
Therefore, the Government with its fiscal policy in terms of current projects can say that since we have so much resources now, and if the Government has to fund projects over the next 5 years at the cost of K800 million then the Government will look at how much it can borrow outside of the normal financing systems of revenue base of the country.
The Government will then inform the country that it is going to borrow this much and identify where it will borrow from for the budget that it will hand down this year for next year.

That is how our system works and how the fiscal policy of the O'Neill-Dion Government was established.
Therefore, we should not misinterpret facts when the Prime Minister and or the Government make fiscal announcements in order to mislead ourselves and the people to make it look like the Government is breaching its own fiscal policy.

That is an irresponsible thing to do and I would like to make it clear that the Government can make policy statements informing the country and business community about what it is doing for the next 5 to 10 years.

That is what the NCDC roads project announcement is all about.
The Government is starting the programme now and it will continue into the coming years in order to give a facelift to improve the road system and level of services in the city.

This is also going to happen to other roads throughout the country.

Mr Speaker, I hope that I have answered the question that the honourable Member has asked.

Thank you.

Mr FRANCIS POT APE - My Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for Lands and Physical Planning.
14/08 18 Mr Speaker, under the Medium term Development Plan, it is targeted that the state land should be 20 percent by 2050 under Vision 2050 and seven percent by 2015 according to the Millennium Term Development Plan.

2015 is not far away and we have almost two years left.

figure?

(1) Currently the state land is three percent.

Minister, have we improved on that (2) What steps is your Department taking to achieve these targets under the MTDP plan and the Vision 2050?
Mr Speaker some of us have already bought land because we need to buy land to bring about development but the acquisition of those lands are not transparent and registered as state land.

(3) How can the Lands Department help the Provincial Governments and Members of Parliament who already bought land?

(4) Can the Department of Lands increase the number of Lands Department officers in the districts and provinces to work with the district administrators to convert that land that we already have?
This is because now the customary landowners are encroaching onto the state land.

(5) Let the Works Minister take note of this, can we impose a ban on compensation of land for road?

When the Government of the Day wants to construct a road anywhere in Papua New Guinea, we should impose a ban on compensation for land and only pay for improvements because everybody needs the road.

(6) Can the Lands Department create a law to ban the compensation of land that is already acquired by-state a long time ago?
We need to put a stop to this nonsense, what has been a state land must remain a state land.

No young educated man must come up with new schemes to make money from the state.

Mr BENNY ALLAN - Mr Speaker to answer his questions in relation to Vision 2050 and the Medium Term Development Plan the MTDP asked for an increase in landmass from three to seven percent by 2015 and Vision 2050 asked for an increase to 20 percent.
That is a very important question and I would like to thank the Honourable Member for raising it.

19 At the moment, as you all know we have three percent of alienated land under the state.

Now to be able to increase from three to seven percent come 2015 and 20 percent by 2050, we need to allocate more .money to Lands Department.
At the moment, in your districts and provinces you would know that there are government institutions like schools and hospitals, which are on customary land that we have not acquired, we have not paid for it.

There are some schools and government institutions that are on customary land that we have already purchased but that information has not been updated in our registry.

Currently, we are working on the lucky system transferring all the manual records to computer.
15/08 As I said yesterday, we hope to come alive in November this year.

So what we really need now is to borrow money.

We were allocated K13 million this year to pay for whatever listings we have.

The Department has given me a list of what we need to pay.

So far we have to pay K103 million but there are still some schools and hospitals on customary land.

The onus is now on the provincial governments to work with our respective lands officers on the ground to update those records.
We need to forward this information to Port Moresby so as to up date the records and find out whether we have increased to 7 per cent already or do we have to master it comes 2015.

We need about K50 million a year to continue to purchase land from customary landowners.

I will bring a submission to the Cabinet and I need the support of all Members.
In response to question number two regarding some land purchased from the customary landowners, once payment is made for the purchase of that land, you have to work with the lands department.

There are some valuations done by some private valueer but they are very excessive.

Therefore, we have surveyors and valueer in the department who can come and assist you.

So if you have already purchased land, we need to register that.
We need the survey information and once the land is surveyed, it will then go to the fiscal planning office for them to do the fiscal planning, once that is complete it goes to the land board, who will then grant you the title.

So that is the process we need to follow.

But if you have any more queries write to my office and we will be able to assist you.
In relation to the land purchase under the Australia Administration, or any land that is already purchased and is included in the three per cent, I think at that time payment made were 6 pounds or in kind like salt.

Our leaders at that time accepted what was given as terms of payments.

We should respect the decisions.

We should not come up with the idea that the 20 land sold by our forefathers were sold cheaply.

I for one, would not encourage people trying to get second payment over that land.
I need the support of this Parliament.

I would discourage anyone who wants to again claim compensation over any land that was purchased during Australian Administration.

In relation to the road compensation, that is something that also needs to be looked at that.

The road, schools and hospitals are the means of providing service to our people.

So we should not single our roads but rather look at the whole development activities.
16/08 At the moment we have no law, which states that we should not pay for compensation when a road goes through an area.

GRIEVANCE DEBATE Question proposed - That Grievances be noted.

Mr WERA MORI (Chuave) - Thank you Mr Speaker, for recognizing the people of Chuave.

Mr Speaker, firstly let me state that it is not good that Ministers are not present in the Chamber during Question Time.

They need to be present to answer queries of the ordinary Members.
Mr Speaker, the main crust of what I want to contribute to this debate is all about making the same mistakes that is costing this country millions of kina.

Over the last few Parliament Meetings, the Honorable Minister for National Planning and Monitoring has done an excellent job in presenting reports to this Parliament whereby, we have witnessed wastage of millions of kina that could have been saved for other purposes.
Mr Speaker, a few years ago there was an initiative called the "Green Revolution" that drew nationwide attention and brought widows of hope to very remote communities such as Karimui and Bomai in Chimbu province, Marawaka and Wonenara in Eastern Highlands province, Menyama in Morobe province, Maramuni in Enga province, Niksek and Apusia in East Sepik, Teptep in the border of Madang and Morobe provinces and of course, Teleformin in West Sepik province.
21 Mr Speaker, however, that was a total disaster and failure to the rural population.

Whilst the PNGDF aircraft that was involved in the exercise got stuck in the middle of the runway at the Menyama Government Station, all these products like coffee et cetera, rotted away and millions of kina gone to waste.

Mr Speaker, what I am trying to say here is that one of the tools of development is road constructions.
Based on these reasons the construction and maintenance of roads is very significant in this country.

Mr Speaker, in recent weeks and months the focus has been on roads in the Nations Capital and in the city of Lae in Morobe Province.

In NCD roads are given priority for the fact that we will host the next South Pacific Games in 2015 and also to relieve the heavy traffic congestions now facing Port Moresby daily and to keep in pace with the current development.
Mr Speaker, my grievances are that the rates that apply in constructing roads in NCD are too excessive, especially when most of these roads are only rehabilitation of existing roads.

These roads are geologically on stable grounds and no major obstacles to remove.

It places questions on the engineers who are responsible for the specifications of those roads.

One needs to ask where there any qualified quantity surveyors involved to help to do up the costing?
Did the PNG Association Professional Engineers get involved? "

Mr Speaker, I raise these issues because today as I speak we are having problems trying to rehabilitate the Highlands Highway especially through the Chimbu province and we are very lucky if we can get K2 million per kilometer whereas in NCD, it is on the average of at least K40 million per kilometer.

There is something wrong somewhere and something must be done to correct these abnormalities.
Mr Speaker, someone needs to explain to the people of this country for the justification of K80 million for the 1 Kilometer intersection from Six Mile market to the old airport 17/08 This means that for every meter it will cost K80 000, unless the road pavement is sealed with gold and silver.

The scoping engineer must justify such cost as this is only a rehabilitation of the existing roads.

Mr Speaker, you do not need a rocket scientist to work this out.
Now I must put on record that I have nothing against the contracting companies who are building this road; those 22 contracting companies have done so well to maintain our roads.

And it's good that they are building this road if the contract is given to them then it's alright.

But what I am alluding to are the professionals behind doing the scoping, it's got nothing to do with the contracting companies.

Mr Speaker, this brings me to the second point; and this concerns the roads in Lae.
Lae must also be given priority because it's the economic hub of PNG.

It also supports the entire seven Highlands Provinces apart from the Morobe Province.

In other words, it sustains both directly and indirectly the livelihood of 4.5 million people.

Lae provides the main logistical support base to all developments that are taking place in the Highlands Provinces as well as Morobe and parts of Madang Province, Lae deserves the attention.
But Lae roads have been problematic over the last 40 years, due to the increase in the volume of traffic supporting the developments of mega projects by global standards, especially in the exploration of hydro carbon and mineral resources in the Highlands and in the Morobe gold fields, which is basically to the South West in the Wau/Bulolo area.

Mr Speaker, unfortunately, the roads are subjected to the weather especially Lae, where it receives 5 meters of rainfall a year.
For so long Lae has been described as the pothole capital in the world, this ugly graphic descriptions come about because simply for the fact that the gravel being used in Lae are not appropriate.

There are better sources in other parts of Morobe, which is in the Wau/Bulolo area especially the airstrip is, they can easily quarry those gravel in Bulolo river or alternatively up at Yang Creek.
But they must not use as a cheap source rather the Busu or the Bumbu River, which is basically adjacent to Lae City.

Thank you Member for Kundiawa, if we are in the grape vine that they are going to bring gravel from Port Moresby across4o Lae, then this is the biggest joke.

PNG is not a desert and there is a lot of suitable gravel that can be quarried that are in and around the city of Lae.

Now I would like to encourage us to make the right decisions by not bringing gravel from Port Moresby to Lae.
But we must quarry and produce appropriate gravel which can withstanding weathering and what we need to do to basically address those roads in Lae, whether they are doing experts sealing, which is along the main wharf of Lae or the cementing of those road pavements or cheap sealing.

What they need to require are aggregates that would withstand weathering.

I am running out of time so I will stop here.


23 Mr KEN FAIRWEATHER (Sumkar) - Thank you Mr Speaker, couple of months ago, I presented a paper on agriculture in relation to fertilizer subsidy.

18/08 There are many discussions on the agriculture industry in Papua New Guinea but it is like thunder without a rain.

In this paper, I propose that there be a major subsidy for fertilizers.

It is not unique in the world but it is in fact common in the world.
I will just give one small example; that in the year 1900 in Western Australia, there were no agriculture developments to speak of so the government wanted to promote wheat and so they built railway lines into the land that has not been used before and gave them to the farmers who took out the land fertilizer.

Now, there is an Australian wheat belt which is the biggest in Australia.

In the past, all we do in Papua New Guinea is recycled the same old policies.
Let's have a new Agriculture Board, revamp them and give loans to the farmers who cannot possibly pay back.

The list just goes on and on about failure after failure.

What we are trying to do is to get out of the box in this regard.

I know that it is an expensive box but what we are trying to do is say, if you give the people the inputs at a reasonable price, they will increase production.

In Milne Bay, they brought the copra industry back from the grave by promoting subsidies on the copra price.
We are doing the same in Sumkar and it has now doubled its production because we are using government funds as subsidies.

If we look at the future, we have all these policies about Education and billions of kina are pouring into it but there are no jobs.

Mr Speaker, what I am saying is that it is about time to rethink what we do and really invest in agriculture instead of playing around with village plots of two and three hectares.

They don't work anymore because they are not commercially viable.
If you give fertilizer to the coffee industry, they can double the coffee crop on the same number of trees they have planted now.

Why don't we do that?

You don't need to take more land off the vegetable growers, the population is growing and they need more vegetables.

We should give cheap fertilizer to the people so that they can apply them to their cabbages.
The Treasurer comes from Kandep where I was once there in the 1970s where they grew cabbages and if they had put fertilizers, they'd probably get two or three extra cabbages.

This is what it is all about.

If you give the people the incentive, they will do the work.

It is true to acquire more land for large plantations but if you start them off with fertilizer, you can achieve it.
24 I was very pleased when the Minister for Foreign Affairs presented the Israel Treaty Agreement because they are major fertilizer producers and maybe we could talk with them.

We need to address this quickly.

It is the same with stock feeds.

It is not good giving the poultry farmer some lights, mesh wire and roofing iron if he cannot feed the bloody thing.

You end up with long legged chickens with meat.

Mr SPEAKER - Honourable Member, can you with the unparliamentary language?
Mr KEN FAIRWEATHER - The stock feed needed to be treated in the same way.

It is no good telling the farmers to establish chicken farms if they can't feed them properly.

Mr SPEAKER - Honourable Members, I want to interrupt you again; I have not heard you withdraw that word.

19/08 Mr KEN FAIRWEATHER - I will withdraw that, sorry but I am planning when you cut their neck, you put me off, Mr Speaker, so you can see what point I am trying to make.
Certainly, Mr Treasurer, Finance Minister, Minister for National Planning, this all costs money.

I know that and I won't expect you to do it in ten minutes.

I will say this, don't think about doing a fertilizer or any other subsidy if you don't do a big one.

All my modeling says, if you don't half the price you just wasting your time, if you just take off the GST or take off something like 5 or lOpercent, it won't work.

You have to have a big slice and a big go at it.


On the jsame matter Mr Speaker,^watching the TV last weekend on EM TV.

On the TV one strange fellow came on the TV and he said he was a Loans Manager.

He said we got a K30 million stimulus off the government, we got a 30 million and we are not going to give it to agriculture we are going to buy trucks!

What kind of a statement is that?


The National Development Bank of Madang is deemed as a bank that does not offer loan and yet we got this person on the TV telling us they won't lend to agriculture.

I don't know he was on the TV and I was looking at him, it was hard for me to talk direct to him but I have practiced.
Mr Speaker, its beyond me and I'm sure that its beyond everyone's mind and whichever Minister is in charge of the National Development Bank, his probably not here, there is hardly any of them but whoever it is, could you tell them that 80 to 90 percent of the 25 people depend on agriculture and there is only few of us that have trucks and we don't need their money, I'll just borrow off from the Member of Mul Baiyer.
So please, I ask you Ministers, I ask the Members of Government, can you please look at something big for agriculture and not just mark around like we have been doing not for 37 years but for probably 60 years because under the colonial regime, it was no better.

I was there then, seeing my face you may think Im young but I was there.

I was involved in it and thinking then is no better then thinking now, you got to think outside of the box.
You better do something different otherwise you really going to have a lot of social problems because there is no work out there.

Thank you Mr Speaker.

Mr DANIEL MONA (Member for Goilala) -Thank you, Mr Speaker, for recognizing Goilala people.

My debate basically is going to be on the LLG Elections and it covers a lot of public funds we spent in elections.

After every election in this country, we have claims of millions and millions of kina and they hide under the name called a constitutional office.
I think this Parliament needs to take the word constitutional office away from commissions like Electoral Commission.
This week Mr Speaker, I was away from Parliament because I was trying my very best using the DSIP funds to hire helicopters to get the elections running in Goilala and this morning I was at the air port sending off the last policemen to go and do the polling, while we have declared sits in other parts of Papua New Guinea, I want some of the Ministers, some have took off, those who are remained please take note.
When you are appointed as Ministers of State responsible for whatever department, you must do your work.

A lot of us here are backbenches, you must not come to Parliament and try to impress us because some of us know whether you are really working or just pretending on the Floor of Parliament.

20/08 Mr Speaker, I think I went public in the media when I was at Tapini this week to check the Electoral Commission.
We need to check their books before they fix up their books and find out where the election funds are.

If they are hiring vehicles, we want to find out every vehicle and who is using this vehicle or who owns it.

You would be very surprise that they owned it and they are using it, yet, they are saying that it is Goliala hire vehicles or we are hiring plans but that plan is not going to Goilala instead going to somewhere else.
26 Mr Speaker, I am very disappointed that these officers like the Electoral Commission are using a lot of State money for different purposes and not running the elections.

This is very serious and it must be addressed here in the Parliament Meeting.

I want to do a demonstration yesterday but there were so many demonstrations in the city so, I do not want to outnumber the police.
Therefore, I left mine out until I inform this Honourable Parliament because mine will be much bigger than the one you saw yesterday.

Mr Speaker, what the Member for Sumkar is saying is true and we've been going around the circle for 37 years.

We really need to get down and see some of these officers whether they are doing their work or not.

Two days ago, I was dropping off polling teams and the clouds were covering up and it was scary.
I was thinking that whether I will get back or cover up in the clouds of the most terrain mountainous area of Papua New Guinea, the mountains of Goilala District.

When these clouds were covering up, I told the pilot to turn around and go back.

Let me highlight some experiences that if you people do not get the metrics or things right, where are we leading the people and as politicians we need to tell our public servants that the Government has paid you very well and you must perform your duties.
They should not ask for more pay increase but they should go and do their job.

Mr Speaker, during my term in office I do not want to see that we pay outstanding money for Electoral Commission until they tell us where they have spent the rest of the monies that were budgeted for those elections.

I had a very hard time because people were refusing to go for these Local Level Government Elections since they were not paid allowances for the 2012 Elections.
What happens to those monies and we are now giving them new monies to conduct elections.

It takes five years for them or the ElectoralJUommission to plan for an election.

This is enough time to prepare and there is no reason for them to give excuses.

I do not think that they were planning for the election during the four years simply because those years were wasted by playing pokies and playing horse race.

When the fifth year comes they pretended that that is an emergency election.
This is not an emergency election but these are things that you have to plan for five years.

I believe, they should be well aware were the pick up points and drop off points are.

They cannot just use the district to gain benefit.


Mr Speaker, a classical example is us, the Goilala District, they use us as rubber stamp to collect money and enjoy themselves in Port Moresby while the people or the polling teams 27 are working in and around the mountains and mountains trying to get back to the Government stations.
I am sure, I have wasted my time to form this Government and nothing will be done about it but those of you who are responsible, please do it, because if I do not see anything happening, I will physically mobilise down to the Electoral Commission office.

We cannot be just the rubber stamp and somebody has to answer to the people of Goilala or else I will burn the head quarter up.

(Laughter in the Chamber) Mr DANIEL MONA -1 am very disappointed.
Mr SPEAKER - The Chair wishes to ask you to withdraw the phrase 'I am not going to burn it'.

— Mr DANIEL MONA - Mr Speaker, I am not going to burn it, but I will withdraw it.

However, I want warn this Parliament and the people responsible for the Electoral Commission that enough is enough.

Mr Speaker, this morning I have been disturbed whole morning.

I have been at the airport to send the policemen and electoral officers.

I am not the Electoral Commissioner.


If people responsible do not want the function then give it to us and we run the election ourselves because people are not very responsible.

They ask every time for perks and privileges and also want to be like politicians.

But, they do not have a lot of people to feed and we have a lot of people to feed.
We "have voters follo~wing"usr everywhere we go and even sleep, ihe pubhc^servants do not have voters following them but they want to get the same pay as us, the politicians and they getting more than some of us, the Members.

Mr Speaker, my next point is concerning the agriculture sector and I want to support the Member for Sumkar also for the District of Goilala.

We have lot of coffee beans rotting away.


I am not sure whether the much talked about the Green Revolution, whether, it exists or what happen to it.

For instance, the Government talked about the freight subsidies and when can we critically address this issue once and for all.

When we talked about subsidies but what form do they come.

Are you paying the subsidies of the plan or are you doing like they did in the past?
28 21/08 Are you going to put a Stabilisation Fund to control the prices so that places like Goilala, Menyamya and those in the most remote areas can be able to transport their coffee into the towns and cities to sell them?

The cost of transportation services out of rural areas is very high and as a result farmers are giving up in planting coffee.

What are the other initiatives we as Members of Parliament going to do to help our rural coffee farmers?
As Members, we are trying to address this issue as best as we can, but what is the National Government going to do about this issue?

Will the Department of Agriculture and Livestock come up with ideas like utilising our Defence Force to airlift coffee from rural areas?

If we are not going to do anything about this then we should not be sitting here and dream of big coffee productions or any other cash crop in this country.
We need to go back and do our homework and ensure that these crops are going to be grown.

Therefore, if there is a bad pricing system how do you expect the farmers to be interested in growing coffee, copra and et cetera when, we, as a Government are not supporting our rural farmers.

Also, the commercial banks in the country are not interested in our small coffee growers and agricultural farmers.

Our farmers cannot open accounts with the banks because it is very difficult for them to do so.
For our farmers it is like trying to travel to America where you have to fill out so many forms.

Therefore, as a farmer myself, I too have no account with any of our commercial banks in the country.

Mr Speaker, our country seems to have become very complex and complicated making it aliardship for our own people to have access to services and goods.

Therefore, we should not try and make our country complicated.
Papua New Guineans are simple people but we have made our banking systems so complicated that our people are not saving their money in any of these banks.

Apart from that, the banks have so many fees that they charge.

For depositing there are fees and even to withdraw money there are also fees for that as well.

Therefore, how do we expect our small grassroots businessmen and women to do business in this country and compete in the business sector?
Those are some of the impediments that we see when growing up small businesses in this country.

Mr Speaker, my time up and I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to have my say.

29 To conclude, I would like to see the Electoral Commission pull up their socks and for those responsible to get and tell them to do their job.

This is because we are wasting a lot of public funds to Statutory bodies and Departments.
It seems that they are not doing their jobs right and that we politicians most of time have been blamed for their wrong doings.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr DOUGLAS TOMURIESA (Kiriwina-Goodenough) - I seek leave from the Chair to comment about my table.

Mr SPEAKER - Go ahead, leave is granted.

Mr DOUGALS TOMURIESA - The ear piece that I am using at the moment does not belong to my table but belongs to the table next to mine.
It has become a norm in the Chamber where we Members of Parliament struggle to hear sometimes because we hardly have any sound in our systems here.

Therefore, can I request the Chair to have our technicians to have our sound system checked before the sessions.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER - I have taken note of that and that is an issue that has been around for some time.
Directives have been given and our technicians will be getting in the necessary parts to fix the thing hopefully as soon as possible.

Mr DOUGLAS TOMURIESA - Mr Speaker, I thank you for recognising the people of Kiriwina-Goodenough.

As you know my electorate is one that is so remote.

We have been struggling with a lot of things like goods and services.
I have a couple of issues that I would like to highlight, but first of all, let me say to the Minister for National Planning that he has done a job well done.

Unlike in the past today we have seen in this Chamber and for the first time we have seen a lot of reports being tabled by the Minister for National Planning.

Therefore, I would like to commend the Minister for a job well done and for updating this Parliament of the people with the many reports that he has tabled in Parliament.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention a couple of things that brings concern to the people of Kiriwina-Goodenough, and especially to the Office of the Member.

In your 30 last report, Minister, you stated some things about the RESI and NADP funds, and today we have seen a report regarding church funds.
22/08 It brings great concern to me especially, and may be to a lot of Parliament Members that with the RESI funds we have not seen much development and the funds have been squandered , same applies with the NADP Funds.
There was nothing new and we got too low to steal from the church funds .We are members of Parliament continue talking about the churches need to be equipped with more funds and some good Christians who are sitted here even talk about giving one tenth to the churches and here the churches have been recognized and funds have been channeled through and yet we steal from the Lord's money.

Money that is supposed to go the churches so the benefit trickles down to our people.
Today it gives me great concern, because when I look at the RESI funds, I see Kl million being given to the people of Krirwina-Goodenough and yet I don't see Kl million worth of development down on the ground for my people.

I look at the NADP report and I have seen another Kl million allocated for the Kiriwina-Goodenough electorate but I don't see the money in fruition in my area and it is a concern for me.
The church funds have been squandered , I don't want to be precise in saying it has been stolen, that is too low, but before we get into this I want to say even half a million kina was allocated to build toilets in Alotau and my Minister does not know how that money was used.

I have a couple of issues that I think would like to bring forward.
Before we go ahead and place millions of kina; K130 million or K200 million and so forth into such activities, I think it is proper that we as leaders of this nation need to so sit down and brainstorm.

We must come up with the proper offices, proper mechanisms, equip the offices well and man them before we put funds in there.

At the moment, we are just coming up with ideas to allocate millions of kina into areas which are not properly manned and so we allow corruption to come into these offices.
I saw a job vacancy advertisement from the Office of National Planning in today's paper.

It's a vacancy for someone to occupy the church run office.

Why didn't we do that right in the beginning?

Advertise the positions so that qualified people apply for these positions and funds that go in will trickle down to the people because these monies should not stop at Waigani, they should reach the people we represent.
The same companies that got money from NADP and RESI are also getting money from the church, we haven't seen any new company.

These companies continue to operate in Port 31 Moresby alone and they haven't implemented much in my area, Kiriwina-Goodenough for that matter.

Mr Speaker, we make a lot of laws and in this week alone we have passed some very important bills and laws but are these laws made to protect our people.
We make these good laws but if a foreigner comes into this country and breaks the law, we leaders try to protect them.

I'd like to suggest that we leaders set good examples that when we pass laws, it is for the sovereign nation of Papua New Guinea and that we should stand for the rights of our people when laws are broken.

Mr Speaker, I would like to thank you for allowing me to express myself in this time of Grievance Debate.
I have great concerns in my Electorate regarding some of these laws that we make.

23/08 The Foreign Affairs Minister has stated and we have passed some of those laws that the Minister for Justice and Attorney General have mentioned but I have great concern that these laws have to be tightened by the Police Force and the Defence Force in that some of the marine resources in my electorate have been harvested and I am talking about clam shells.
When you get my electorate today these shells have been harvested taken by some people who have anchored out there and these clamshells have taken 10 to 100 years to mature to this size.

Today when you go these reefs they don't sit there they have been harvested already.
These laws that we have enacted, please the Defence Force should be given enough funds to go out there and police the waters of Papua New Guinea, Milne Bay Province especially for surveillance purposes and Esa'ala District for that matter as well.

Mr Speaker, I thank you very much for allowing me to represent my people of Kiriwina Goodenough, as I participate in this debate.
Mr MARK MAIPAKAI (Minister for Labour- Kikori) - Thank you Chair for recognizing the people of Kikori and I have few observations to make.

Firstly, on the issue of the reports that have been coming here.

If we are really serious and have that ICAC Bill passed then some of these reports can be handed over to them but otherwise as a Government we got to now seriously go the path that the Governor for Oro was suggesting.

Bring some foreigners in.


You can talk about Sweep Team but its been 32 culturalised, and tribalised, whatever you want to use.

I'm not downgrading them but lets bring some professional people from outside.

Give all these reports to them and let's prosecute them, if we are serous about it.

That's on the issue of reports about abuse of government funds that we have been debating on this Floor.

Lets take some bold stand.


I would also like to support this agriculture debate that has been on and many other sectors as well.

I commend the Government is taking in some of the major sectors like Education and Health but what are these to us?

These are expenditures.

The Honorable Treasurer made the remarks about the drop in the mineral sector; the price is going down, how will this country sustain itself?

Agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, these are sectors we have not fully exploited.
If our Government is serious about the agriculture turning up the economy subsidizing the down turns of economy in other sectors revenue sources we got to put the money.

If it means putting K500 million or Kl billion in agriculture tomorrow in next years budget lets be serious about it and get agriculture to the level while we can sustain it.

Then bring the next economy sector fisheries, get it to the level that we can maximize revenue in this country, and bring forestry abroad.
Unless and until such time we can be serious about putting real money with proper planning and technical experts we don't have to go outside and borrow.

So far our all Budget has been based on revenue made out of non- extractive industries and of course carbon industries coming on board.

We have not addressed those sectors like agriculture, fisheries, and other sectors that can really grow.
I think we have debated enough, I am part of the Government and I'm proud to make some serious intervention because if we go down the trend of the way we are trying to address social sector issues, educational and health, of course you need a healthy educated person to make wise decisions to grow this economy but we are lacking in a bigger intervention into those revenue source areas.

I think we have to be serious and I as part of the Government I want to make some changes.
24/08 I feel that we have debated enough and we want to get the coffee out of Goilala, Marawaka and those very remote areas.

As a Government, let's get these issue of corruption in order and get the revenue resources come on-stream.

The worse scenario is that the population is growing at an alarming rate and as the nation is relying on carbon industries and non extractible industries I am in doubt as to where we heading.
33 I am glad the Planning and Monitoring Minister is here taking note and as a Government we have got to be serious.

My Speaker, my view is that we have to bring confidence back to the nation and enough of these public servants corruptions that have come on before us.

I went through hell with the Ombudsman investigations while some of these people who strive for millions hardly go that far.

We are all subjected to the Leadership Code.


It is sad that the Public Accounts Committee Reports are filled with cobwebs and dust.

Enough is enough.

Let's be serious and hire investigators from abroad so that they will be free from culture and tribalism so they can be paid to look into all the reports and proceed prosecuting the culprits so we can gain confidence.
We have to start paying more attention on the agriculture and the culture and tourism sectors I think we have not done enough government intervention.

I feel starting from next year.

We should bring one sector forward and allocate enough money and encourage the Planning and Monitoring Minister who can proudly come through and emphasis that the economy will grow by that rate by this sector.

And in the following year we will be doing this other thing and so on.
Down the line the K50 billion budget will be realized.

If we don't make that attempt in this coming Budget we are simply wasting our time.

Mr WILLIAM POWI (Southern Highlands) - Mr Speaker, I thank you for recognizing the people of Southern Highlands.

I also want to contribute to this Grievance Debate on two very important issues I have observed.
Almost a year since we came into office I would like to speak on the Integrity of the Parliament and the Integrity ~of governance and the institutions we have in Papua New Guinea.

Mr Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to commend you for re-establishing the integrity of this Parliament as the premier institute of this country.
I say this because of the doubts and confusions we had from the outside and I am happy to be a Member of this Parliament during this period of good governance and stability although we have been in office for a year now.

I think we will receive the respect of the people who have mandated us to be leaders in this Parliament, the House of the people.

34 Mr Speaker, you have introduced a Parliamentary Committee system that is well and truly functioning.
In fact, most of the Members of Parliament are actively participating in this Parliamentary democratic process.

If you look at Parliament democracies in the world, the Parliamentary Committee system plays an important role in ensuring Parliament functions.

I commend you for that.

Mr Speaker, a lot of legislations have been passed in this Term of Parliament and we have been only in Parliament for just over a year.

I think this is a significant step in the right direction.
25/08 Mr Speaker, I have seen a lot of Ministerial statements and reports on performance of government departments and agencies.

And Parliament has the authority to scrutinize, assess and take note of this.

And so either having been here as the first time Member of Parliament I see that the Parliamentary system is beginning to function and I want to commend the Executive Government and your stewardship, Mr Speaker, a job well done for maintaining the integrity of Parliament that far.
Mr Speaker, having said that, secondly, I also want to commend the Executive Government led by O'Neill-Dion for stability and confidence that this Government is beginning to bestow in this country.

We have a positive micro economic outlook growth and stability and based on that the Government has intervened in critical areas of Education and Health and growing the economy and of course, service delivery.
I think that is the most important thing because if you look at all the reports that are coming from the National Planning emanates from the confusion of roles of different levels of government in this country, Waigani government departments can not become requisition or paying officers and can not become the implementers because you will confuse the roles and functions of government.

Once you start to do that, and the Minister for Planning is here and he is taking a bold step and I take my hat off to him.
If you become the requisition and paying officer then you are doing the work of the sub national government and different levels of government down the line.

You will find it difficult to monitor, evaluate and assess the performance of government public policy.
Mr Speaker, for as long as you roll out the service delivery to the different levels of government that we have in this country and being to bring about stability, the functions of Waigani should be strategic policy direction, coordination and monitoring, strategically 35 performing and oversight function while the doers in the Provincial and District level perform the implementation.
If that is not correctly done we will year in year out come with this abuses, waste of public funds and all the different abuses measures that we have so and take it as an entrance culture of governance in this country.

We should commend the Minister for National Planning for doing the correct thing and I also want to commend the National Government for taking the right strategic direction in governance and placing the priority of government.
Mr Speaker, I have also read from the different reports in the Public Sector Management, a specific relevance relating to this issue of discussion, that there is an urgent need to streamline Waigani, by freeing up money for our people in the provinces and districts and I think the O'Neill/Dion Government has done this.

And I commend the Government for taking the right step in the right direction.
Mr Speaker, with the recent legislations and changes that we have enacted in Parliament, PNG has set a path for political stability, which is the most important prerequisite for development and progress of this country as demonstrated by experiences in other countries.
I am happy to be a Member of Parliament in this generation of leadership that is setting a huge benchmark for the progress and development of this country, and the Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill and his deputy, Leo Dion's Government will be long remembered for the stewardship and direction they are setting task far.
For all of us who have been new to Parliament who are here now, you should be congratulated for part taking in this milestone achievement, an achievement our future generation of PNG will remember.

.Finally^ I commend the-Government led by me Ministers of the O'Neill/Dion Government, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Mr Speaker, your office for the leadership in the first year of this Parliament, thank you Mr Speaker.
26/08 Dr ALLAN MARAT (Rabaul) - Thank you Mr Speaker, today every Friday during sittings of Parliament is usually allocated for Grievance Debate.

Mr Speaker, I would like to encourage the Chair must always entertain every Fridays as time for grievance debate because it is a time when Members of Parliament or the Legislature express their observation on what I would term as the moral handles that are on the performance of governance generally in this country.
Moral handles include things like 36 lack of fiscal responsibility, transparency and accountability.

We have heard from the honourable Member for Sumkar, honourable Member for Goilala and honourable Member for Kirivina-Goodenough.

They have expressed grievances according to their observations on these moral handles on the performance of governance.
Mr Speaker, when we stood in front of our constituents in our electorates, we told them that we wanted to continue progress of the quality development of the welfare of our people.

And based on that trusts that our voters heard on our presentations and maybe on our character generally before them, they voted us into office, and we are here.

Just on what we have now and I say that with deep understanding that this Government or the currently Government now can do and achieve whatever it wants.
I am happy that Members in the Government are able to express their grievances during the Grievance Debate.

That is very healthy and I would like to continue to see that happen even especially when we amend the Constitution and other legislations.

When we amend the Constitution from now onwards, I would prefer what I said during the debate in relation to Section 124 and Section 125, I would like to see a wider consultative process because that is how our Constitution was designed and framed.
There was prior and wider consultation.

They gave them the idea from our people who we represent on the Floor of this Parliament and especially the Constitution because the Constitution is an octonocious Constitution.

This is a Greek word for the land and that it came up from the land.

It is homegrown and sprang out from the land.

So it is not just any ordinary document; it is the fundament law of this country and therefore should not be changed easily.

Our people must be engaged.


Their views and opinions must be involved in even the consideration of the amendments to our Constitution.

In terms of other laws that are to be amended, time should be given to as many Members of this Parliament as possible to debate the amendment.

I am aggrieved at times when the Question is put so quickly therefore, not giving enough time for all the Members to debate.
I think the question should be put at times when the Chair sees that there is no longer any Member interested to make any contribution to the amendment.

So, Mr Speaker, I just want to express that grievance that when it comes to constitutional amendments from now and in the future, there should be wider consultation.

27/08 When other laws are amended, questions should not be put quickly, as many members of Parliament should be given the opportunity to debate.
That way everyone is happy and I 37 believe speakers during Grievance Debate will start to decrease because everyone will have expressed their views on the Constitutional laws and other legislations that are being made on the floor of this Parliament.

Thank you Mr Speaker.

Mr JIM KAS (Governor- Madang) - Thank you Mr Speaker, I wish to contribute my thoughts with Members of this honourable Parliament and my subject would be on the issue of discipline on our children.
I come from a very remote area in Madang called Simbai and I was introduced to textbooks.

In one of the textbook, I came across a very coloured picture of a boy scouts and girl guides and that sort of made me want to become one of them.

I never grew up to be a boy scout.


But with whatever is happening in parts of the country and especially in Madang with the discipline of those children who come after us it raises a greater concern for us as leaders to take into consideration what is happening now in comparison to when we grew up in our time.

I think boy scouts and girl guides is a system that instill discipline from the times when they are growing up in the systems of education that we have.
I hear about the attitudes and the ways of a Highlander.

I come from the border of Western Highlands, Jiwaka and Madang and there is a general assumption that Highlander posses this undisciplined attitude but I see on the floor of this Parliament in the likes of the Minister for Finance and Education and my brother the Member for Komo-Magarima, honourable Members who have attitudes that put us coastal people to shame.
I think through their education and upbringing they learnt something called common sense and it became part of them and they wanted to be better.

They are all other honourable members and citizens of this country who have come to learn those through teachings of the good book, from mentors that played a huge role in their life, through teachers that crossed the country in teaching students because they wanted them to be better citizens.
I think some of the things we can instill in our generation to enact legislation that has to become compulsory in our education system.

I made this suggestion during the Governor's Summit when we met with the Department of Education.

I said why don't we make boys scouting and girl guiding become compulsory in the education curriculum starting from elementary up to grade 12.

We should strictly control them under those types of system and make religious instruction compulsory.
I agree with the Minister for Justice and Attorney General when he suggested yesterday on the Floor of this Parliament that that it would be better if I reintroduce corporal punishment.
I totally agree with it because I had a piece of chalk forced into my mouth and I had to have 38 my mouth open for about five to ten minutes with tears streaming down my cheeks and when I look back the corporal punishment that we went through in our days of schooling years by our teachers has brought you and I to be a better person.

28/08 I went through a corporal punishment by holding the rafters of the roof of the classroom until my hands got tired and I felt down.
In one way or the other, corporal punishment is not bad but it educates us to change our attitude and behaviour, even have self-respect to use abusive language.

I think, the teachers were doing the right discipline through introducing corporal punishment.

If we compare our age groups and today's age groups, there is a very big difference in their ways of doing, their language, attitude and behaviour to our age group.
They have no self-respect and to respect their parents, mothers, sisters and the public, even the public properties.

During our days, you won't hear any abusive or offensive language or word like 'fuck' or 'cunt' because discipline was enforced in all the school system and we were scared of the rules and regulation of the school as well as our culture by the elders of the community.

Mr Speaker, this also brings me to my next point concerning the population, which growing at a rate 2.7 per cent per annum.
We have to critically consider this issue and come up with a compulsory system which will be installed into our children as they grow up.

They must be aware of their code of conduct at the early childhood age.

We have gone through one way or the other through a corporal punishment which brought you and I to become the leaders of this nation.

We have passed the system and the age but my concerning is about our children and the future generations.
The Government should critically address this issue of aging children to put in place a compulsory magnesium, for instance, a bible study should be at all elementary schools to Gr.

12 in PNG.

Another point I wanted to raise is reintroduce the Boys' Guide and Girls Guide which will assist to develop discipline of our children.

We will be held accountable for our children's actions, attitude, behaviour and abusive language.
We are responsible to make decisions or alter the laws of this nation and we must act on it.

Mr Speaker, my very last point is about the Grievance Debate in Parliament and I support the Member for Rabaul to say that Grievance Debate is very important and we have only the Fridays to express our grievances during Parliament sessions.

39 During my first term as a Member which is ten years ago, especially during the grievance debate, we hardly have Members or Ministers in the Chamber.
The whole Chamber was empty.

Nobody sees that importance of grievance debate and they do not want participate.

When the Chamber is empty, the Speaker would come and just adjourn the Parliament to the following day and it continues to next Friday while we, the Members have a good time day off.

I commend the Speaker and the Members of Parliament today that the Grievances Debate is very important and many Members now are fully participating.
With regard to this, I wish to ask the Leader of Government Business to refrain from introducing the Government Businesses on Fridays.

On Fridays, we have Questions Times and immediately after that we have Grievance Debate.

I believe that Tuesdays to Thursdays is usually Government Business and the Government can introduce its business.
Of course, Monday is also Question Time and immediately after that we should have Grievances Debate and that depends on the Government's Alteration of Time and Hours of Meeting.

Mr TITUS PHILEMON (Milne Bay) - Mr Speaker, I wish to put on record my appreciation and I wish to support the Governor for Madang on what he expressed.
29/08 I believe that those of us who came and served the people of this country through this Parliament in the past few years have come back again and have felt that this Government and Parliament is good for this country.

I am talking from experience as a Member in the former years.

I would like to put on record and join the Governor for Southern Highlands and endorse what he"had said regarding your conduct and the conduct of the Chamber, especially, from the Speaker's Office.
Many of us Member's here were on the outside in the last few years and taking note of what was happening on the Floor of Parliament and we were not happy.

Especially, for those of us who have the experience of coming into Parliament.

Therefore, when we came into Parliament we had the fear that the same things were still going to happen.
Nevertheless, it has been nearly a year since this government has taken office and from the way you have conducted from the Chair and the neutral position that you have taken regarding both sides of the Parliament I would therefore commend you.

I am also very proud that you have lifted the status of the Speaker of this Parliament to a higher level, 40 especially when the world is watching and judging us in terms of the good governance that you have restored.
Mr Speaker, secondly, I would also like to commend the Prime Minister and the O'Neill-Dion Government for how they have led this country.

They are very young leaders ruling this country while the Fathers of this nation are also in the same Chamber.

Sometimes, it is very difficult to lead when there is someone who was once in the leadership position also present.

It is like trying to steer a boat where other more experienced captains are also aboard looking over your shoulder.
It is very difficult with this kind of pressure but I would like to commend the Prime Minister, the Government, his Deputy and his Ministers.

At this time and with the leadership of the Prime Minister he has brought major changes to this Parliament.

Our people out there are commenting with a little fear but we have been mandated by the people to make decisions on their behalf because all of us cannot come into this Parliament.
Therefore, we have been elected and given the opportunity to be in this Parliament and we have made the necessary changes.

From the way that I have been watching and seeing things occur I believe that it is very good for us for stability.

Because when we talk to investors for our people they appreciate what the Government is doing now.

Therefore, the changes are welcomed.

I would also like to commend the government for thinking about us Governors.
Every time when Members talk about the DSIP we Governors feel a bit out of place.

Nevertheless, we have now been included and we have also got the PSIP as well.

Therefore, PSIP, DSIP and the LLGSIP it all sounds very well.

Therefore the three systems of Parliament with the elected ones like the National Government and Local Level Government.
The provincial government is basically a representative government of both the LLG and national; Government where we are represented on the Floor of the Assembly at the provincial level.

I therefore commend the Government because this year when they allocated through the PSIP it really gave us a lot of task to do what we or our predecessors could not do previously in the past.

That is why I said that I was proud to be part of this Parliament and Government.
This is because I have resources now that I can be able to make decisions on and when I'm given a budget I can be able to implement some of the projects.

Not only that, has it gone down to the local level government.

30/08 41 Mr Speaker, one thing we must take into considerations is that we now have funding in LLG SIP, DSIP and PSIP, we should now separate what projects the LLG SIP should fund and what projects DSIP should fund and at what level the PSIP should fund.
This is because as Governors, we are receive letters even from the level where we feel that that falls under the responsibility of the local level government.

Now that they have their own funds they should fund that?

They should not come to us.

This also applies to the DSIP and also with the PSIP too.

Mr Speaker, the second one is, I want to bring back again to the floor of Parliament on the famous Woodlark issue that I have been talking on in the Grievance Debate and Question Without Notice.
When the question was answered by the Minister for Lands, when he said that the matter has been taken to court and we will not discuss it.

I'm thinking that if the matter has been taken to court then why send MRA officials with other state organizations move very fast to go and discuss those issues with the land owners when the land issue is still not being addressed.
From different experiences in the past and lately with how the Mineral Resources Authority how they go about trying to access agreements with people and try to fast track and facilitate for the landowners to give their endorsements for projects but when those things are done and the mining begins and the land owners encounter problems, MRA officials and the line Departments that were involved don't assist them.

Mr Speaker, I would like to see that the land matter on Woodlark island be resolved first.
When the land issue is not settled and then you send people to go and talk about it, the minning will be done on the land not in the sea or air and if there is a case in court over that piece of land we should wait until this matter is cleared and we should get the consent of the land owners first.

Consult the landowners in Woodlark to confirm if I am telling the truth in Parliament.
It's like putting the cart before the horse; I know I speak for the people of Woodlark because the Deputy Speaker has been raising this same question.

I have continuously talked on this same issue for the last ten years and some of the leaders who heard me talk have died already.

Mr Speaker, I have a lot of confidence that this Parliament with the current Prime Minister and the Cabinet as well as the Minister for Lands can be able to resolve this problem.
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak and commend you and the Government for making this Parliament for all of us a productive one.

Mr Speaker having interrupted the Parliament, adjourned in accordance with Standing Order 44.

42 MOTION BY LEAVE Mr JAMES MARABE Tari - Minister for Finance) - I ask leave of parliament to move a motion without notice.
Leave granted PERMANENT PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS, ACTS AND SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION - APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS Motion (by Mr James Marabe) agreed to - That Mr Solan Mirisim, Mr William Powi, Mr Eriman Tobaing Jnr be appointed Members of the Permanent Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Laws and Acts and Subordinate Legislation.

ADJOURNMENT Motion (by Mr James Marabe) agreed to That the Parliament do now adjourn.

The Parliament adjourned at l.pm.

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