Photo: Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill_PNGvillage

Source: Mellisa Martin

The Westminster system of government is an ideal form of government for Papua New Guinea, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said yesterday. He said this during the opening of the Governor-General’s new office at Government House in Port Moresby.

"As a Melanesian nation people might question how relevant is the monarch system of government to the people, these are fair questions in any modern democracy.

"From my perspective, I see many positives apart from some of the setbacks and a positive aspect is we share a system of government with similar legal and administrative processes," Mr O’Neill said. He said as Commonwealth countries, they communicate, share information within these governments to help manage countries better.

"We have a more consensus style of governance that is now being evolved with our Melanesian way of life that is why we see unprecedented number of MPs joining government.

"Our MPs speak very freely even against their own government and sometimes disagree on government decisions while many of them continue to present their opinions.

"After all, we always agree on a way forward to consensus," he added. Mr O’Neill said PNG was seeing more transparent and deeper policy debates taking place both with the Opposition and Government.

"This Melanesian way of doing things is healthy for any young democracy especially in nation building. This provides a platform for us to work together for our collective interests," he said.