PNGBLOGS

ACTNOW Prime Minister, Michael Somare, has a secret legislative plan that will make the proposed changes to the Leadership Code and even the recent amendments to the Environment Act seem relatively benign and insignificant. The PM is waiting for the opportunity to again by-pass proper Parliamentary process and bulldoze through legislation for a Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that will further impoverish rural Papua New Guineans and boost the profits of foreign multinational companies. The legislation will allow the government to declare key ports and coastal areas as Special Economic Zones where foreign companies can import goods duty free, enjoy lengthy tax holidays and avoid any minimum wage restrictions for the workers they employ. With this legislation the Prime Minister seems determined to further enslave his own people and consign them to a life of poverty while he lives the high life in the bosom of the foreign companies and governments he is allowing to plunder PNG. It is unders

ACTNOW Prime Minister, Michael Somare, has a secret legislative plan that will make the proposed changes to the Leadership Code and even the recent amendments to the Environment Act seem relatively benign and insignificant. The PM is waiting for the opportunity to again by-pass proper Parliamentary process and bulldoze through legislation for a Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that will further impoverish rural Papua New Guineans and boost the profits of foreign multinational companies. The legislation will allow the government to declare key ports and coastal areas as Special Economic Zones where foreign companies can import goods duty free, enjoy lengthy tax holidays and avoid any minimum wage restrictions for the workers they employ. With this legislation the Prime Minister seems determined to further enslave his own people and consign them to a life of poverty while he lives the high life in the bosom of the foreign companies and governments he is allowing to plunder PNG. It

NATIONAL EDITORIAL THE legal advice provided to the prime minister on the appointment of the governor-general is seriously flawed. The actions of Parliament in the recent controversial re-appointment of the governor-general were contrary to the explicit directions provided by the Constitution. The appointment of Grand Chief Sir Paulias Matane for a second term as governor-general, therefore, cannot be held to be legal. The legal advice or, as it turned out, the legal position adopted by the government and Parliament, is a clear misreading of section 87 of the Constitution and should not stand any serious contest of it in a court of law. The part of the Constitution cited as the basis for the advice is section 87(5). Clearly, and in plain English, that entire section deals only with “qualifications for appointment” to the post of governor-general. It makes no mention of the process for the “appointment of the GG” which is, again, very clearly spelled out in the following section. Sectio