http://www.bougainville-copper.eu/news-december-2011-2.html
21.12.2011 ABC Radio Australia News
Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter O'Neill says he is in total control of the country, and the dispute with Sir Michael Somare is over.
Sir Michael is still insisting he is the legal prime minister, basing his claim of a ruling from the Supreme Court.
But Mr O'Neill says he has the backing of a majority in Parliament and the Governor-General, and the government and people have acknowledged that.
Presenter:Bruce Hill
Speaker:Peter O'Neill, prime minister, Papua New Guinea
O'NEILL: We are in total control of the affairs of the country. Public service mission has now fallen in line with the governments' wish and governments' directions. The Defence Force and the police are under our control. Normalcy has returned to the critical structure of the country and we are in control.
HILL: What about Sir Michael Somare and his supporters, I think he's got about 40 MPs on his side, he is still claiming that he is the prime minister and he says he's backed up by the authority of the Supreme Court in that?
O'NEILL: In fact he's got only 32 members of parliament who are with him at present, and that is compared to our 75. Now when you look at it as I've stated on many occasions, the courts in this country have got no powers to order the parliament to install a prime minister. Sir Michael continues to have minority numbers on the floor of parliament. Parliament has not mandated him to run the country. Only the Supreme Court or the courts of our country can only make references back to parliament to correct itself. Now we have taken note of the court orders, we have accepted the court orders in parliament, we have debated on it and we have disposed of it. We now have introduced legislation to correct the process, and the process is that any person owning the office of the Prime Minister who is away for an extended period of time, over three months, in fact automatically vacates that office. In line with that the parliament has taken note that there has been a vacancy and a new Prime Minister has been elected. So now this has been recognised by all sectors of the community, almost 90 per cent of our people support that. In fact the public servants are now fully behind, and the Governor General yesterday admitted to the fact that he was wrongly advised by people who had no right to advise him, and as a result he now admits that we have been duly sworn in and we are now in total control of the country.
HILL: So is there still basically a clash between these two principles of control of parliament and rule of law? Is the Supreme Court falling into line though? Will you have to go back to the Supreme Court to get them to somehow publicly acknowledge this?
O'NEILL: Parliament is not answerable to the Supreme Court, that must be clearly understood. If anybody feels aggrieved by any decision parliament has taken, of course they have every right to go to court for an interpretation. Again Somare and his camp have got every right to go and exercise their constitutional right and go to court if they feel aggrieved that they can seek an interpretation, which the court will interpret and report back to parliament, and parliament will continue to correct itself.
HILL: The people who supported Sir Michael Somare apparently in good faith adhering to this principle of rule of law, is anything bad going to happen to them as a result of them supporting Sir Michael Somare, or do you understand their reasons for doing what they did?
O'NEILL: Nobody is operating outside the rule of law. That influences our government, we are subject to the constitution of our country, acts of parliament that we introduce on the floor of parliament, and I want to state to everybody that the country despite the crisis has been able to operate in a very orderly manner, our citizens have gone about with their lives in an orderly manner, there has been no riots, there's been peaceful protests supporting our government in many cities throughout the country, but that is a constitutional right. So all in all I think Papua New Guineans have expressed great maturity in ensuring that our country's democracy prevails.
HILL: How is this eventually resolved, just basically through people acknowledging you as prime minister, because there were some talks I understand between the Attorney General for Sir Michael Somare, Sir Arnold Amet, and Dr Alan Marat, your Attorney General? Did anything come of those peace talks or did it not just go anywhere?
O'NEILL: That did not go anywhere because of the fact that they depended entirely on the court order the Supreme Court has ordered. When we look back you must realise that the proceedings of the Supreme Court were under extreme controversy where the Chief Justice despite the person who chaired the tribunal of the Supreme Court, despite very serious conflicts of interest refused to step down. Now under those circumstances even the decision of the Supreme Court was not a unanimous decision, it was just by majority of three to two. So given those circumstances, parliament rightly took note of those and acted by changing the appropriate acts of parliament to ensure that there is stability in the political structure of our country.
HILL: Sir Michael Somare is the father of PNG, took the country to independence, a very long and distinguished career, is this really the way that his political career should be brought to an end though on this note?
O'NEILL: Well this is not by choice, Sir Michael Somare has done this to himself. This country belongs to seven million people, we acknowledge his contribution to the country. We have great respect for the contributions that he has made, but he clearly knows that he's not healthy, he has had extreme health issues, he's not capable of managing the affairs of the country, he should have done the right thing that his family and himself announced that he was retiring and he would retire from politics. Now he's been discharged from the hospital he just wants to walk back into the job using the court order as the basis on which to do so. He does not have the public support, he does not have parliament's support, and certainly he does not have the business community and international community's support. So it is quite obvious the writing is on the wall. He needs to retire gracefully with dignity and the respect that he deserves.
HILL: One of the very significant aspects of this whole crisis has been what many are calling a very mature and measured response by the ordinary people of PNG, there was calm, no one took their disagreements to the streets, the military stayed in the barracks, wouldn't be drawn into things, public servants stayed at their posts and did their jobs without picking sides. Were you surprised by this response or not?
O'NEILL: No we have been appealing to everybody in the country that we must respect the rule of law, we must allow parliament to do its job, we must allow the mandated leaders, which are their representatives on the floor of parliament to continue to manage these issues. Now Somare and his camp has not been attending parliament, they are trying to run a so-called minority government under court order outside of parliament, not responsible to anybody. Now these changes have happened because of massive corruption and massive mismanagement of public funds, and lack of attention to people's needs. As a result of that the people's desires have been to change. So we know that we have got the public support and we know that public support is for the good of the country.
HILL: Are you going to let Sir Michael Somare continue to pretend to be prime minister if as you say you're in control, or are you going to just simply ignore him, what?
O'NEILL: Well he knows he's lost any opportunity for him to become prime minister. He's no longer a member of parliament, he cannot conduct himself out there as if he's a prime minister, when we all know that prime ministers are only elected by parliament and only members of parliament can be prime ministers. So I'm sorry he's singing his last song, but let him see how he plays that out.
HILL: What lessons are there for PNG in this crisis? How can we prevent this kind of thing happening again in the future?
O'NEILL: We are now doing legislative reforms on the floor so that we don't know allow this kind of nonsense to reoccur in the future. We are changing the prime minister ?? act to make sure that if a prime minister falls ill automatic invoking of a prohibition which will allow two medical doctors to carry out an assessment, whether he's still mentally sound to carry out that function of the prime minister or not. And secondly, we are trying to do also limits to the age that if you're well over 72, which is the same as the judges in this country, that persons who are over 72 years of age should not continue to hold the office of the prime minister. This is a stressful job and a fit and a healthy person should hold the office and managing the affairs of seven million people in this country. -----------
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