Arrest house speaker: PNG opposition

Papua New Guinea's opposition will move to have speaker of the house Jeffery Nape arrested and charged with contempt of court after he tried to declare a former minister's seat vacant and have him evicted from the House.

Former Attorney-General Sir Arnold Amet says he will file an application at the Supreme Court on Wednesday to have Mr Nape arrested after he evicted former planning minister Paul Tiensten for missing three consecutive parliamentary sittings in August and September. Mr Tiensten was in Brisbane at the time, having fled after anti-corruption investigators tried to question him about 10 million kina that went missing from his department over three years during his tenure as planning minister.

Sir Arnold says Mr Nape is in contempt of court because his powers to suspend ministers are currently under the Supreme Court's microscope because he tried to dump former Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare from his seat, using the same three sitting rule, on September 6."This is unprecedented, two members of parliament," Sir Arnold said. "This is sub judice.

"We will be moving for his arrest and incarceration." For his part, Mr Tiensten says he did not miss three sittings in August and September as Mr Nape alleges, but rather two in September.

Earlier, Mr Tiensten initially refused to leave the chamber, causing Mr Nape to briefly suspend the proceedings. He then returned, but called off proceedings until 11am AEDT after Sir Arnold tried, amid calls of "shut up" and "sit down" by government MPs, to move a motion to have Mr Tiensten heard in parliament.

The flash-in-the-pan stoush dashed the hopes of hundreds of women in the public gallery, who had turned up to witness the final debate and passage of the Equality and Participation Bill, a constitutional amendment designed to guarantee seats to women parliamentarians.

Angered by the suspension, some could be heard shouting at MPs and another shouted "So this is the state of women's lib in PNG". "Twenty-two seats have been guaranteed by the prime minister, and that is what we have come here to witness today," National Council of Women PNG president Scholla Kakas told AAP before the suspension.

"We are hoping for it to get passed. We need to have an absolute majority on that."

The government of Peter O'Neill last week crawled out from under the wreckage of a battle with the Supreme Court in which Deputy PM Belden Namah and Attorney General Arnold Amet were arrested and bailed for contempt. Cabinet in early November voted to suspend Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia pending an investigation into alleged financial misconduct.

Sir Salamo responded by issuing an arrest warrant for the pair for contempt of court and released them on bail and with the promise they would not interfere in the ongoing Somare/O'Neill court battle.

Along with four other judges, Sir Salamo is currently overseeing the constitutional battle between the Somare and O'Neill camps, and is due to hand down a decision on December 9.

AAP

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