THERE appears to be an air of self-congratulation wafting through Government corridors at the moment.
It is based on the gesture to women, the sop to Cerberus, of perhaps four appointed women joining the House in 2009.
This announcement from Dr Puka Temu gives a fair indication of just how far off the mark the Government is when it comes to women’s affairs.
The proposal is that the existing legislation that allows for three non-elected women members of the House should be amended to allow four such appointments.
Why bother?
What possible difference can one extra woman appointed member make?
How can four appointed members radically change the direction of Parliament and fight to replace the nation’s attitudes towards women?
We cannot believe that the women in assembly who heard Dr Temu’s announcement can have been anything other than insulted and angered by such a move.
The women of PNG don’t want a paltry and demeaning gesture such as this.
To make it worse, the Prime Minister has apparently spoken of “a commitment” to establish a women’s office next year.
Sir Michael has been the Prime Minister on a number of occasions since 1975 and that is now 32 years ago.
In that first year of independence, he set up a women’s desk within his office. As the years passed, it disappeared.
During that time the number of women in the House, always tiny, has declined to almost nil.
Women leaders in government departments, statutory authorities and quasi independent government bodies have suffered similarly.
And the fate of women in the private sector has been as bad; it appears that companies wait for governments to make moves first when it comes to appointing women to high positions.
Our women want to be elected to government, not appointed.
And our women in the private sector want to win positions through their own abilities and experience, not as a wink-nod sinecure from men sniggering at their own manipulative cleverness behind some boardroom door.
To the best of our knowledge the many suggestions put forward to solve the question of women in Parliament have never been canvassed by any PNG Government.
One that we favour, and have put forward on a number of previous occasions, would be to have the present regional seats reserved for women candidates.
The option would see any number of women contesting the former regional seats with the woman who obtained the most votes after limited preferential voting being declared the winner.
The point is that those seats would be reserved for women candidates.
If this proposal was to be adopted, the question of who votes in those seats would be open for debate.
At least two scenarios are possible – first, voting should be restricted to women voters; second, that the whole electorate should be able to vote.
Many democrats will insist that everyone should vote; at the same time we have reservations.
If men vote for women candidates, there is a real chance that the outcome could be skewed in favour of one particular candidate, either to boost party votes or to ensure that a particular political agenda could be fully supported with the aid of a woman member.
It might be preferable for women to exclusively vote for a woman member.
Such a proposal would see 20 elected female members of
the House elected in the one year, a far cry from the prescription put forward by this Government.
We suggest that the successful women candidates should be free to debate and vote on any issue that is brought before the House.
In practice, their particular concerns could prove to be the status of women in each province.
But they must be free to put forward private members bills, to comment upon, and offer amendments to existing legislation and take part in the full life of the House.
There’s been a great deal of controversy and delay over the question of retaining or abolishing the 20 regional seats; the method suggested here could provide the perfect solution.
The women of PNG must stand up now and make their views clear to the Government.
Otherwise their situation will continue to be untenable.