Kidu slams media over reports

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REPORTS in the media that prostitution and homosexuality are being legalised are not true, according to Minister for Community Development Dame Carol Kidu.
Dame Carol said the whole idea that she had forced a bill through parliament to legalise prostitution and gay sex in the country was ridiculous.
“There is no such bill.
“What bill is the media talking about?” the frustrated minister said on FM100’s Talk Back Show yesterday.
Dame Carol was referring to a front page report by the Post Courier that she had allowed for a bill to be tabled in parliament so as to “decriminalise prostitution and homosexuality”.
“What was approved by NEC was to review the existing laws on prostitution,” she said.
“A review is not an enacting of the law, but a reinterpretation of the law.”
Dame Carol said since the politicians were reluctant to talk about the subject of decriminalising prostitution and homosexuality, the matter has to be transferred to the National Law Reform Committee for a review.
She said based on the review and consultation with other stakeholders parliament would then decide whether it would make prostitution and gay sex a law or not.
The minister said the media must understand this and get their facts right before they report anything.
Dame Carol said the media must not misreport and mislead the people on sensitive subjects.
She also said notion to review the existing laws on prostitution and homosexuality was not an overnight decision but a decision that had taken the past 10 years of sheer research for her officers to come up with. 
A caller who spoke to Dame Carol on the show said though he agreed to the idea of legalising prostitution in principle, he wanted homosexuality to be banned as PNG was a Christian country and its constitution was founded on Christian principles.
Another caller who called in from Mt Hagen said even though there were no bills passed in parliament as yet, he said the subject of decriminalising prostitution and homosexuality should never be mention in the first place so as to spark public outcry.