Seminar recommended to continue, says academic

UNIVERSITY of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) Vice-Chancellor Frank Griffin says the Waigani seminar would be reintroduced next year following high interest.
Speaking at the closing of the two-day 2019 PNG Update on Friday, Griffin said the Waigani seminar would be held over five days.
“We will hold the PNG Impact forum in Dec then we will consider the Waigani seminar,” he said.
“The Waigani seminar will feature a number of sessions and we may give a day for gender issues and four days on other issues.”
Griffin said organisers of the PNG Update forum would work to make next year’s event bigger and better.
Australian National University (ANU) director Development Police Centre Stephen Howes said about 80 papers were presented.
He said some of the papers presented were on gender and domestic violence where the research recommended that the Government introduce a family policy.
Howes said another research paper was on the 2017 elections and the data base since Independence was now being made available.
“The impact on limited preferential voting (LPV) was determined and in general it did support women. Women did better after reference,” he said.
“The research also found that LPV supported voting along party lines so the recommendation would be to retain LPV,” he said.
Howes said there was also a research paper on corruption in the public service which recommended that female officers and young people do not to entertain corrupt behaviour.
He said there was a presentation on infrastructure which found out that PNG was a world leader with 60 per cent of solar power connections in the country.
The paper recommended for an increase in the penetration of more quality solar connections in the rural communities and to look at new battery technology for better usage.
Howes said another research paper was about seasonal workers programme for Papua New Guineans to work on farms in Australia and New Zealand.
“The research had found out that PNG had missed out. There is huge opportunity and the scheme is expected to reach 37,000 by 2030.”