LEGISLATING LIMITS ON COMPENSATION IS A SUSPICIOUS MOVE BY ONEILL.
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The Governments recent announcement to regulate customary compensation by legislation is a knee jerk reaction and not a well thought out policy decision. It is an indication of lack of intellectual leadership of this nation, a leadership that is not guided by a body of knowledge translated into policy garnered through research and wider consultation that is absolutely necessary for a growing country, and a democratic one. The autocratic style decisions of the O'Neill government (like the ill-advised UBS Loan) is a style that will continue to hurt this nation, like a life sentence. The government has failed to address its own failures in housekeeping, and is rushing to legislation as a solution that may end up hurting this nation more than do any good.
No one disputes the fact that unreasonable road compensation demands is hurting this country. To set a statutory limit on how much can be claimed, can easily be legislated on the basis of a maximum value for each square meter or kilometre of land or cubic meter of dirt moved. Every bit of this country is owned by someone. The government can by employing the mechanism of compulsory acquisition acquire any piece of land for public purposes. The Constitution says the State cannot deprive someone of their property rights, including customary land, unless proper and adequate compensation is paid. To determine what is proper, just and adequate, the Valuer General’s schedule of values of village flora,fauna ( habitat), gardens, trees, sacred places, and other land use, is critical.
However, if you look at the Valuer-General’s schedule of values, they are totally out-dated and outmoded. They do not include loss of fauna habitat (a food source) or loss of sacred places or other customary aesthetic values attached to a place. These were the same restrictive values of the 1960s and 1970s that the colonial government used. They are no longer reflective of true monetary value of our land gardens trees, fruit trees, flora, fauna, lifestyle and sacred places destroyed or taken. The people have suffered quietly for many years as the government, resource companies and timber companies have intruded upon customary lands and used an out-dated schedule of values to rob them. Successive governments since Independence have failed to review and amend the Valuer General’s values, to an extent where the people find them quite ridiculous, thereby forcing them to assert their own values.
There are other heads of compensation that the government has absolutely failed to address. Workers Compensation for example is an area where major reforms are absolutely necessary to give true value to our people. The government has set maximum values of life limb and disability costs that are laughable. We are dealing with 1970s colonial government down grading the value of our people, and even currency values that have lost their buying power. Something urgently needs to be done to address this and give value comfort to our work force. The maximum payable on loss of life was only k15,000 in 1975. In 1985 it was K15,000, and in 1995 it was K15,000 and in 2005, it was again
K15,000. Guess what in 2015, 40 years later it is still K15,000.
The story is no different with the schedule of values that motor vehicle accident victims suffer from. We are still grappling with the same values set back in the colonial times. MVIL is always insisting on case precedents set in the 1970s and 1980s when the real kina value of those precedents have long depreciated into nothing. When matters are disputed and go to court, Judges feel hamstrung and frustrated that they cannot make an award that is just and fair under the circumstances. The values set for MVIL victims must be reviewed and statutory safeguards be provided to prevent unjust and unfair
outcomes for loss of life, limbs and property.
In respect of other actionable wrongs against the State, the State cannot and must not legislate against a person’s democratic right to address his or her grievance against the State, where the State has wronged a subject, and extract just and fair compensation. We have recently seen an increase in cases of Police brutality, resulting in many grievously injured and even deaths from shootings. The O'Neill government’s curious introduction of the subject of compensation by of a set question by one of its own Backbenchers in Parliament is a suspicious move by the O'Neill government to limit the amount of compensation it may have to pay to the poor Hanuabada families who recently lost their sons, for instance.
The people behind this choreographed question and answer charade should be soundly condemned. This is a suspicious and underhanded move of an unfeeling government, against the Motu Koita people who have given so much of themselves for the greater good of this nation. Police brutality is becoming all too common, and t he State is to be blamed for the way it trains and arms its Policemen with high powered guns. In some countries you cannot be a policemen unless you have done 4 years training at a Police Academy. In this country, it takes just 6 months training for the State to transform good neighbourhood boys and innocent high school graduates into gun totting raskols in uniform. Then it is the same State now trying to protect itself against the people seeking fair and just compensation against its acts of brutality. The O'Neill government must think the people are stupid!
The Prime Minister is also involved in another deception of the people through the current media beat up to supervise the internet to stop pornography. This is all a lie an d a smokescreen to gain technological access and IP addresses to track and victimize social media users who are constantly calling the government to account for its actions and inactions. This country did not elect leaders to become moral policemen. We elected them to perpetuate a good government for the good of everyone, not a government for a few seeking to gain power and maintain power at the expense of the nation. Gaining internet protocols to spy on PNG citizens in the pretext of ridding the country of
pornography is the lowest levels the O'Neill government can possibly stoop to, just like this bid to regulate compensation claims against the State.
The Government must not touch the dealing with the rights of citizens to take State to court and make it answerable for its actions. This is a democracy, it is not a totalitarian State. Citizens rights must be protected, even against the State. The Courts must have complete freedom, as they do now to set a fair and just compensation heads as each situation merits. In this respect, the Wrongs miscellaneous Provisions Act must not be unduly tempered with.
This country is not like Australia, or the UK, where the living standards are high, where Workers Compensation and other Compensation Schemes are constantly updated, where the Dollar and Pound Sterling values are high and the courts have had the flexibility to do relative justice in each case in value of damages awarded against the Crown. There is a real danger that any attempts to set maximum limits in compensation in personal actions against the State is going to be a backward step for PNG, and will gravely disadvantage the people of PNG.
There is a real sense where the Politicians have made their money through UBS and other dubious means, but do not care, or do not care to do real work required in such cases as updating values as indicated above, which takes research and real policy work, that would benefit the people, especially victims of the State. Without proper policy research and updating values, such proposed legislation will most certainly be capricious and will work an unjust, harsh and oppressive result on the people.
