Cabinet eyes old voting system

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says Cabinet is recommending the reintroduction of the first-past-the-post (FPP) voting system in the 2022 general election.
O’Neill said that would reduce the cost and time of conducting national elections.
He said they had advised the Law Reform Commission of the possibility of reverting to the FPP system.
He said they needed to have voters recommend intending candidates before they contested the elections. “These are some reforms that Parliament will debate on in the November sitting,” O’Neill said.
He said the current limited preference voting (LPV) system that was used since the 2007 national elections was meant to reduce violence in elections.
“The other comparison is whether the LPV has delivered safe elections. But as you can see, it is not that case as there are elements of violence in some of the elections throughout the country,” he said.
“So it is fair to say that whether LPV or FPP, there are still elements of disturbances and violence.
“And that is a law and order issue that we need to lift the presences of security within those electorates so that elections can be conducted as smoothly as possible.
“So our recommendations are that those options be looked at it again with a view of going back to FPP because when you look across the global community where there is a Westminster system of government, including England, they all follow the FPP.
“Only Australia and Papua New Guinea is using LPV.
“But Australia is a developed nation with a mature economy and country where people respect the voting process, which is not the case with Papua New Guinea because we have many challenges in conducting elections.”
O’Neill said there needs to be a preliminary round to reduce the number of candidates contesting elections.
“So if you want to contest, then you secure certain percentages of the voters in that electorate you want to contest.
“These are things we need to look into and I think our officials will be tasked to look at it.”
National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop said that election costs were high and there were so many petition cases.