Canberra, 18 September 1969
[ matter omitted ]
7. Select Committee: Constitutional Development
The Administrator thought that the process of bestowing additional responsibility on Ministerial Members under Section 25 might be accelerated in two ways:
(a) Ministerial Members to take responsibility for their individual Departments instead of sharing it with Departmental Heads;
(b) the Administrator being placed in a position where he had to take the advice of the Administrator’s Executive Council. (Not quite clear whether this would be ‘normally’ or without exception.)
The Secretary commented that, whilst (a) was attractive in itself, the implications of such a move would need to be very carefully considered, especially in the light of the lack of collective financial responsibility on the part of the Ministerial Members—there would need to be some clear definition of the matters in which their authority prevailed in their own department and of the ways in which this arrangement fell short of self-government; in relation to (b), the Administrator was thinking more of the executive decisions that had to be taken from time to time (like sending police to Rabaul) which were more difficult politically for the Australian Government to take than a local government. However, if the general rule was to be that the Administrator would take the advice of the council it would have to be subject to over-ruling by the Minister if the arrangement was to fall short of self-government, which clearly was the present constitutional position (and also clearly the view of the bulk of the people).
The Minister said that in his opinion there should be no further major changes in the constitutional position other than perhaps the establishment of a House of Review. He was not opposed to change within his own powers under Section 25. A House of Review should, he thought, consist of about 20 members elected largely by local government councils (indirect election). Such a House of Review should not include any Ministerial office holders as this would conflict with its performing of its true functions of review. It could be put to the select committee that Australia had accepted the five-year programme in conjunction with the House of Assembly in 1968, and no further basic constitutional changes should be made until that had expired.
The Administrator thought that it would be a good thing to abolish the votes of official members. The Minister was inclined to agree. The Secretary agreed but pointed out that the contrary view was that having the ten votes in the House saved the Government a good deal of embarrassment in that legislation or motions could sometimes now be defeated that would otherwise have to be rejected or very unwillingly accepted. The Minister indicated that he would like any proposal regarding the votes of official members to come out of the select committee.1
[ matter omitted ]
10. Australian press attitude on Papua and New Guinea
There was a discussion on the extent to which the Australian Press was creating an adverse reaction in Australian public opinion by giving prominence only to extreme and radical views; for example, the views of Maori Kiki got front page treatment,2 whilst the views of more conservative native people (even elected or even Ministerial members) got no or little publicity. It was agreed that the situation called for [a] conscious public relations effort on the part of the Department in relation to visiting Papua and New Guinea leaders such as Sinake Gire Gire in his present visit. The Administrator suggested the Department might need to hire PR help on this …
[NAA: A452, 1969/4189]
1 Hay later indicated that he believed the ‘next constitutional change could, for example, involve removal of all Official Members except those in charge of reserved departments’ (telex 9236, Hay to Warwick Smith, NAA: A452, 1968/3174). Meanwhile, in DOET there was sensitivity to criticism of the behaviour of official members; Ballard complained: ‘While I think that the Official Members will be subject to criticism whatever they do … a good deal of this criticism could be avoided if Official Members were to adopt a posture of Government spokesmen … rather than seeing themselves as a Ministerial Bench’ (minute, Ballard to Warwick Smith, 11 September 1969, NAA: A452, 1968/5901). Warwick Smith thereafter wrote a letter to Hay reminding him of the Minister’s view expressed in Document 253 that official members should present policy dispassionately and ‘avoid participation in an emotional climate’ (14 October 1969, ibid.).
2 See footnote 2, Document 276, and footnote 5, Document 321.