The waiting game
THE illegal firearms situation in Papua New Guinea is arguably worse than ever.
Yet successive governments have refined the fine art of refusing to take any notice of public opinion, no matter how loud and how long it might be expressed.
The PNG public, whose opinion was sought in what has now become one of this country’s most cynical exercises, was particularly outspoken in condemnation of illegal firearms.
Indeed, in many provinces, the possession and use of firearms of any kind was roundly rejected. Men and women in a rare show of unity made their point of view abundantly clear to the team of investigators that toured the nation.
People were led to believe that this was a transparent exercise to determine what the public thought of the issue.
The enquiry was publicly funded and when the results were made known, a relieved nation waited for the former government to take action to end the nightmare of high powered weapons in the hands of thugs.
Virtually no action has been taken.
The public is entitled to go on asking why the present Government flatly refuses to openly revive the issue.
To conduct a national survey distinguished by a large number of face to face meetings and careful questions from a distinguished panel and then to slam the door on the findings of that survey, is at the very least inexplicable.
At the worst, it is nothing but an exercise in power politics and the twisted art of controlling public opinion.
Governments since independence have increasingly used this method of “riding the storm” by way of defying popular opinion.
They have found a measure of security in the unfortunate fact that we are all weary of reading, viewing and hearing the same issues in the media day after day and week after week.
Such political actions are tantamount to playing with dynamite.
They reinforce the public belief that there is one law for the big men and altogether another for everyone else.
Why else would a democratically elected government refuse to entertain the findings of surveys and enquiries set
up at its own behest?
There are other similar issues and other enquiries with which we are all familiar.
Does the Government imagine that nobody remembers these matters of great public interest and does it believe that it can now safely regard these issues as dead and buried?
We live in a country that has suffered grievously from the on-going inertia of successive administrations.
Failure to act when action has not only been desirable but has been a necessity has been the hallmark of too many PNG governments.
Our nation displays the battered face of neglect, wherever you glance.
Public facilities have been allowed to decay for want of funds and want of interest.
The needs of the public have come to rank a dismal last, over and over again.
Medical services, both rural and urban, have in many places reached the point of no return and simply closed.
How is it possible for governments to have allowed the nation’s major hospital to be repeatedly brought to its knees, despite a board of expert managers?
Where were the funds a decade ago that could have averted the imminent physical collapse of termite-ridden Angau hospital?
Scarcely a single public library remains in PNG.
Our young students are pointed towards a Western-style solution founded on computers, when the technology outside a few of our cities and towns scarcely exists.
All of these matters have been made public again and again over many years but the voice of the people, supposedly the guiding force behind our democratic governments, goes unheard.
The public wants answers to the guns survey – and more than answers, action.
The public wants answers to the finance department survey and many citizens support the board of enquiry to the hilt.
And the public has not forgotten the other allegedly public enquiries that remain very much on the books.
They will continue to do so as long as governments continue to play the waiting game and the media has the freedom to remind them of their responsibilities to the people who elected them to power.
 
NZ wine growers fear worker shortage
A PANIC has swept across the Marlborough wine industry in New Zealand that growers will not have enough workers for the critical pruning season starting in six weeks.
The labour shortage is an annual issue and gets bigger as more vineyards are developed.
However, this year is different because of the government’s introduction of the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme for employers to fill seasonal labour shortages with Pacific Island workers.
Teething problems mean it has turned out to be a mess.
Experienced workers from other countries have had to leave as their permits have expired, there are not enough Pacific Island workers coming in to replace them and those that are will be inexperienced.
That is critical for Marlborough’s wine industry which grows half the country’s grapes and exports more than NZ$400 million of wine.
Growers estimate 3,000 workers are needed for the pruning season, which runs from May to September. So far, only half are available, made up of 400 RSE workers, 700 under the approval in principle scheme and 400 from Marlborough.
New Zealand Winegrowers chairman Stuart Smith likens the introduction of the RSE scheme to the introduction of GST.
“It’s like a new world, it’s a completely different strategy. I am sure in the future it will work smoothly but now, it’s a huge change, almost like GST coming in,” he said.
Smith is confident the problems will be sorted and the vines will be pruned. “They will because we are working on it but it’s not something we can go to sleep on.”
However, not all growers are so sure, and eight have been to see their National MP, Colin King. Grower and accountant Susheel Dutt said they went to King because they were frustrated.
They believed the immigration policy was unclear and inconsistent, the time taken to process applications too long, the needs of the viticulture industry not understood, and the urgency for getting pruners in not appreciated, Dutt said.
Growers were getting anxious and the government must relax its rules so that workers from countries other than the Pacific Islands could stay, he said. He finds it absurd that experienced hard-working workers from non-Pacific countries are not allowed to stay long term.
King said the National Party would keep the RSE scheme but would open it up to allow workers from other countries.
“There is a question mark over the work habits of some workers,” he said, adding for the greater economic good of the nation, a good quality job had to be done.
The labour department had underestimated how quickly the pruning season was coming in, he said.
The growers had told him they did not see him earlier because “they could not say something was broke until it was broken,” King said. “There has been a lot of fuzzy talking and not a lot of substance.”
Now everybody had been put on red alert, he said.
When associate immigration minister Shane Jones was approached for comment last week, his office said he would not comment because it was a department issue.
Since then, he has met King who said he was confident pressure would be brought to bear.
The department needed to act as a facilitator for the industry, not a policeman, King said.
The department’s workforce international service group manager, Kerupi Tavita, said it was aware Marlborough was in a difficult situation with a predicted shortage of workers, and it was now “actively considering” the industry’s request to extend their workers’ permits.
Employers wanting to get RSE approval must open their books to the department.
Dutt said the department had been pedantic, such as wanting to inspect an employer’s books three times in three months.
Other RSE requirements include the employer paying half the airfares of the workers and looking after their pastoral care.
Smith said there had not been enough uptake of the scheme.
It was mostly larger employers becoming RSE accredited because of the cost involved.
Marlborough mayor Alistair Sowman is concerned the RSE scheme is putting a huge demand on the region.
The onus was on contractors to provide accommodation and care for their workers and a lot were not willing to go to the trouble, Sowman said. – Stuff NZ
Editorial