GOVERNMENTS are made up of ordinary mortals who cannot accomplish everything demanded of them by the public.
The most we can expect from our Members of Parliament is a commitment to try and achieve what they believe to be right for their electorate and the people who live within those constituencies.
It is safe to say that there are very few governments that do not attract scathing criticism from the public; in the case of those countries that enjoy freedom of the media, that criticism is often savage and protracted.
Some criticism is undoubtedly ill-founded and off the mark; that is the price we pay for a robust and energetic democratic process of government.
It is a price we can well afford.
The public’s short and at times brutish experience of governments since independence has honed community perceptions and changed the national point of view from starry-eyed idealism to sometimes unjustifiable levels of cynicism.
We need to remind ourselves that we the public are as responsible for the culture of which we are a living part as our leaders in the House.
One of the dangers of modern government lies in the tendency to dilute national initiative to the point where the whole community sits numb waiting for the next handout, or for “somebody” to do “something” about the matters that hold us in thrall.
It’s time to recognise that the “somebody” is often ourself and the “something”, the action required to bring about an outcome, lies in our own hands.
Ignorance of our system of government, of our judicial framework, of the responsibilities of Members of Parliament and of the civic obligations of individuals and communities is often the cause of this apathy.
We read letters from correspondents that demand a sharp increase in the severity of the penalties laid down by the law for a variety of crimes. The letters often show that the correspondents concerned have little or no knowledge of the existing penalties provided by the law.
It is some 16 years since the death penalty was re-introduced into PNG and a succession of judges has since imposed that sentence. No executions have been carried out, but the sentence remains active and available to the courts.
Yet scarcely a month passes without a reader writing to demand that the sentence be “introduced” in our country.
Parents have been so effectively manipulated by political promises that many now believe that they have no role to play in generating the costs of their children’s education.
We’re told that parents cannot afford school fees.
Perhaps.
But we challenge some of our parents to honestly reveal how much they spend on alcohol, tobacco, gambling and other optional expenditures.
Is it right that the government should underwrite those expenses by providing free education?
The education of children must be primarily the responsibility of the parents and then by extension the family, clan and tribe.
The National Government has the burden of providing the best possible educational facilities, but the nation’s birth rate and therefore the potential number of students is determined by the parents, and not by the government of the day.
Men cannot father 10 or 11 children then shrug their shoulders and leave it to the government to provide virtually free medical care, cheap schooling and ultimately a job for every school graduate.
It is right that the people of a country bursting with resources, one that enjoys peace and a democratically elected government and one that has most of the freedoms sought by other less fortunate nations, should accept at least part pf the responsibility for the society in which they live.
Governments cannot build national goals overnight, even in times of wars or natural disasters.
We have to generate our own sense of nationality, of pride in being Papua New Guineans.
That cannot take place until and unless we put some effort into identifying and pursuing national goals, recognising that we must work together as a nation.
We need to take some of the responsibility for the anti-social elements within our own society and work towards eliminating the causes of disaffection.
In short, we must accept that very often the buck stops with us, the ordinary people.