The National Coalition Government was able to control the influence of the Papua Besena through the efforts of a number of leading Papua politicians in the Government. These included Maori K i k i , Ebia Olewale, Ruben Taureka and John Guise.
There were other groups which also agitated for separate independence, although their efforts were not as clearly organised as those of both the Bougainvilleans and the Papuans. Apart from the Highlanders, the other notable group were the Tolais of the Gazelle
Peninsula in East New Britain. Much of the conflict on the Gazelle was, however, more concerned with the shortage of land and the
129. See Hannett, 1969:8-14. 130. Johnson, 1983:161.
131. See Woolford, 1976:183-206.
composition of the local government council than with the desire to secede from the rest of PNG.
1.5.1.3 Decentralising the Power
One of the central demands of the secessionists and others was for more power to be given to local authorities. This was a reaction against centralism of the executive power during the colonial rule when the people themselves had virtually no power. To the people it
133
seemed the Administration had all the power. But the actual power, as noted above, was exercised by the foreign Executive in Canberra. The Coalition Government was aware of this situation in that the initial intention in establishing the CPC was that it would take
1 3 5
political initiative away from Canberra. The CPC in turn advocated a comprehensive system of provincial government by which it sought to avoid concentrating power in the National Government through its scheme of devolving that power to the provinces. The people themselves were also keen to have some form of provincial
I OfL
government. °
The CPC itself found that:
Colonial rule has brought peace between once warring communities, roads and other forms of material progress. But the price of these changes has been the establishment of a system of government that has not made adequate provision for local initiative.
The system of administration was centralised and dominated by the bureaucracy. Two specialist consultants whom CPC brought in to advise it on an appropriate decentralised system of government found that the bureaucracy was bigger than any that was left by the British in their
138
former colonies. The CPC recommended its solution to the problem: to return power to the people through a decentralised form of
133. Wolfers, 1976:19. 134. See Johnson, 1983:4. 135. Downs, 1980:493. 136. Goldring, 1978:109. 137. CPC, 1974:10/1, para. 3. 138. Tordoff and Watts, 1974:2/2.
government.
The Government had certain reservations about the system for decentralisation recommended by the CPC, largely because it feared that such a system would neglect local needs by concentrating power in provincial centres; and it was concerned that, in the light of experiences with federal systems elsewhere, a sudden introduction of such a system of government would cause many legal and administrative
140 problems.
One important reason for the CPC's emphasis on decentralisation was its concern that without some form of decentralised system of government, certain powers being transferred from Canberra to Port Moresby, beginning in August 1970, would be concentrated further in the central Executive.
139
1.5.1.4 The CPC's Opposition to Transfer of Powers to the Executive As noted earlier in this Chapter, the then Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton, announced in Port Moresby in July 1970, that certain powers would be transferred from Canberra to the local Executive in Port Moresby.^'*' These powers were transferred between
1970 and 1973.
The initiative to transfer was taken by the Australian Government. z The Coalition Government became a passive recipient of these powers. A close adviser and a foundation member of PANGU Pati later condemned this attitude of the Government as a blind acceptance which showed a lack of priorities within the Coalition's own policies.
The CPC saw the endorsement of the programme of transfer by the Government as amounting to a breach of the undertaking the Coalition had given to it to prepare a Constitution for Self-Government and
139. CPC, 1974:10/1, para. 8. 140. Government Paper, 1974:35.
141. See Bayne and Colebatch, 1973:199. 142. Ibid., 196.
Independence.^^ This view must have been reinforced when Somare was able to get the House of Assembly to endorse, in September, 1973, his motion for self-government to be granted on 1st December, 1973 or reasonably soon thereafter, irrespective of whether the written constitution was ready or not. By the end of 1973 the CPC itself had not finalised its recommendations and was in fact behind in its schedule. This did not assist Somare, who was under constant pressure to move as fast as he could towards early Self-Government and Independence, especially after the Labor Government came into power following the 1972 General Elections in Australia. All these pressures served only to deepen the C P C ’s suspicion of the Coalition Government.
But the fundamental objection of the CPC over the transfer was that it pre-empted "possible options that might otherwise be open to
.. 146
the Committee to recommend . As Johnson observed:
CPC was intent on ensuring that Papua New Guinea's future system of government would not be cast in a colonial mould.1
Thus, the CPC sought to have transfer of the powers relating to six specific subject matters, namely, the Supreme Court, administration of courts, the Public Solicitor, prosecution, House of Assembly matters
148
and electoral policy deferred. Although by November 1973, the CPC had not formulated its final recommendations on these matters it sought the deferral on the basis that:
it seems likely that, in respect of these areas, the Constitution will not allow the political executive direct control of the kind that would be appropriate in the case of defence and foreign relations.^
Thus, by then the CPC had already determined that at least in these six subject areas the Executive should be controlled. It also saw the Coalition's willingness to accept transfer of these powers readily as an indication that the Government was not keen to reform the existing system of government.
144. Ley, 1978; and Woolford, 1976:165. 145. Ley, 1978.
146. See CPC, 1973a:3, paras. 10-11. 147. Johnson, 1983:152.
148. CPC, 1973b:l/4, para. 1.14. 149. Ibid., para. 1.16.
1.5.1.5 Opposition by the Government to Proposed Reforms
Hegarty has noted that the Coalition Government was generally committed to reforming the colonial system as well as adopting new social and economic p o l i c i e s . B u t the Government failed to achieve these, largely because of structural and other problems inherent in the colonial system of administration. Moreover, the Government prevented those reforms it did not support. Its opposition to these reforms and its failure to achieve others convinced the CPC and others that the Coalition lacked confidence in being able to reform substantially the existing governmental institutions.
At the outset the Government faced the problem of formulating policies. The Coalition partners had no experience in formulating joint policies. The Coalition Government was therefore faced with a
two-fold task. One was to formulate policies which were acceptable to all its partners; and the other was to change the existing machinery of government in order to ensure that there was an adequate and appropriate institutional framework within which the new policies could be implemented. But before the Coalition could change the existing machinery of government it had to acquire a control over it, and that task was not an easy one.
The Coalition did not lack ideas on social and economic policies. 1 52
It was, for instance, willing to adopt the 'Eight Aims' rather than the 'Programmes for Development - Principles, Policies and Priorities' 1 S3 prepared by McCasker's Office of Programming and Co-ordination. The CPC itself was able to develop these Eight Aims beyond a merely economic sphere, into all-embracing National goals that were eventually adopted by the Constitution.
150. Hegarty, 1972:455-466. 151. Ibid., 442.
152. The Aims are discussed fully in Chapter 9, post.
153. This Office carried on what its predecessor was doing previously. This was the General Financial and Economic Policy Division set up within the Department of Treasury in 1969 “to provide advice on the use of economic powers as they were released from Canberra." See Garnaut, 1981:167-168.
But the coalition did not show the same degree of enthusiasm in changing the existing institutions of government into the forms that it considered appropriate for implementing the new policies in a fundamental sense. It was able to create only two new bodies: the National Planning Office, which replaced the old Office of Programming and Co-ordination, and the Budget Priorities Committee. These were created "out of sharply perceived needs for specific improvement in the machinery for planning and co-ordination". By this time the coalition generally, and Somare in particular, came to adopt a view that the existing administrative system be preserved.
This non-reformist attitude of the Government was seen by the CPC and others as the general factor which explained the Coalition’s opposition to some of the CPC's radical recommendations. It is relevant therefore to note these specific recommendations briefly because the various arguments on each of them during the constitutional debate brought out in a distinct way the conflict between the CPC and the Coalition.
1.5.2 Specific Issues of Conflict During the Constitutional Debate The conflict was brought out into the open when the Chief Minister tabled in the House of Assembly the Government's White Paper on constitutional p r o p o s a l s o n the same day on which he tabled the CPC's Final Report.^'7 The White Paper was a substitute for a
158
minority report which Somare and Guise submitted earlier in April, 1974 to the House of Assembly when a draft of the CPC's final report
159