Through a Telescope Backwards- National Politics and the LLGs

JOHN FOWKE

The decision taken in 1964 to close down the established embryo political system comprised of the appointed District Advisory Councils interacting with the overarching and partly-democratic Legislative Council was wrong. 

The system was fully capable of being transformed into a democratic one where full national adult franchise might have been introduced via the  Local Government Council system with its existing electoral system, registers, records and procedures for administration, all well-established and  well- understood.

This linkage of institutions would logically have served the new nation very well when fully democratized and extended to include the then Local Government Councils as the grass-roots end of the whole. This was an established system, well-understood. And it worked.

Although I have looked for  logic behind the rise of a Westminster-type party parliamentary system in PNG I have not found any evidence of guidance or planning or policy for its introduction. The system grew of itself- a product of the rivalry between the black conservatives allied with white business interests, against the educated young nationalist contingent in the House of Assembly. PANGU against the United Party. Only the late David Fenbury, a man of great experience and unusually high level of intellect and determination confronted the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, with a different vision. This may have been as early as 1956 but nothing came of Fenbury’s ideas..

So PNG grew a Westminster-style polity, but not, sadly, a democracy. Introduced into one of the most egalitarian societies then existing on the face of the earth, the resulting  rise of PNG’s first social class, the MP’s and party apparatchiks, became a wealthy and very exclusive club.Inborn social ideals, the concept of the “bigman” for instance, were perverted so as to provide conditions for the rise of great personal wealth and influence as opposed to communal or tribal benefits. 
A society heretofore almost entirely bare of any vestige of overlordship; a society where every male member had equality of opportunity within his clan; where everyone had rights to the use of land and hunting and fishing resources; where everyone had the right to be heard before the assembled clan in times of controversy; this society suddenly became one ruled by an isolated and powerful political baronage.

The conditions of class-disparity, lack of equity and influence in society, and lack of justice which prevailed in the England of the fourteenth century gave rise over the centuries – (  through the civil war, the execution of King Charles and Oliver Cromwell’s republic)- ultimately to the Westminster party-system where the underclass, represented by its own men, was at last given a voice in the running of their nation, gaining empowerment and equity as the result.. 

In an absolute paradox  our lovely and much loved Land of the Unexpected has turned the system around and landed in the position of England in the time of King John and the Crusades. Led by a selfish and often clumsy, unchallenged hegemony, PNG is imprisoned by its own leadership; denied the chance to be a nation, let alone a democracy.

What can we ex-colonial mastas say, except to say sorry for our lack of foresight. Australia didn’t think deeply enough nor fast enough at an important juncture.