Kidu to spend Women’s Day in Australia

By JEFFREY ELAPA
OPPOSITION leader Dame Carol Kidu will mark International Women’s Day by speaking at a number of functions in Australia.
Dame Carol said International Women’s Day falls on March 8 but she would not be around to meet with women groups and leaders in the country as she was going to represent the country in Australia.  
She said her travel and accommodation would be covered by the organisations which had invited her for the trip.
She said while she was away from March 2-15, her deputy Sam Abal would be acting leader of the opposition.
“I apologise to the women’s organisations that have invited me to be with them for International Women’s Day but the international commitments were made last year and could not be broken without considerable embarrassment to myself and to Papua New Guinea,” Dame Carol said.
“I wish all women in PNG a peaceful International Women’s Day celebrations on March 8.”
She said last Friday, she met with Prof Ernest Hunter about PNG emotional well-being conference.
Last weekend, she was a guest speaker at Mayor Val Sheir ‘s International Women’s Day breakfast and had a lunch meeting with Prof Hurriyet Babacan, director of the Cairns Institute.
Tomorrow, she has morning tea with staff at the Cairns TAFE and will meet with PNG students there.
On Thursday, she will attend the Canberra UN International Women’s Day lunch and deliver the Pamela Denoon memorial lecture at the Australian National University in Canberra.
On Saturday, Dame Carol will address the PNG Inter-generational Women’s Association in Sydney.
On March 13, she will brunch with the secretariat of parliamentary group on population and development and then address Australian parliamentary group on population and development on the importance of reproductive health at Parliament House, in Canberra.
On March 14, Dame Carol leaves Canberra for meetings at the JCU and to start arrangements for a councillors study tour to Cairns.
She returns to Port Moresby on March 16.