Canberra, 3 October 1969
9614. Unclassified Immediate Priority
Your 83871 constitutional committee proposed programme.2 Generally speaking the programme embraces points which were discussed here with official members of Committee who are aware of our thinking.3 Government’s attitude will need to be sought on several items and some delay is expected before this can be obtained due to forthcoming election. Meanwhile we assume committee will not embark on discussion of programme in depth (except for item 1 basic need) until self education of committee has advanced to stage enabling it to properly assess issues involved. When Arek was in Australia4 we pointed out that we saw the issues raised in 3(a) official members and 3(h) ministerial representation of Commonwealth departments as being ones in which the Government must have a special concern.
With regard to point 3(h) in general other Commonwealth instrumentalities operate in Papua and New Guinea under the direct authority of an Act of the Commonwealth for which some other minister is responsible to parliament. The Select Committee should not be allowed to think that it would be appropriate for arrangements to be made for representation for actions of departments or instrumentalities under the authority of Commonwealth Act to be answerable in the House of Assembly. The basic philosophy of role of the House is that it should deal with those functions of government which are paid for from the Territory budget. If the Select Committee wished to examine methods of bringing other instrumentalities or authorities within the purview of the House of Assembly they should consider whether they wish to propose organisational arrangements which will bring those instrumentalities within the ambit of the Administration and the Territory budget with the consequent increase in Territorial responsibility to provide necessary funds.
This does not of course exclude the present arrangements under which Official Members obtain information from the responsible authority or department. In connection with the role of Ministerial Members in reserved subjects your attention is drawn to para (2) on page 4 of the working paper5 which was discussed with Johnson. We have also stressed in discussion with the chairman and Morrison the importance as we see it of the committee fully investigating the present constitutional arrangements and their scope particularly under section 25 of the Act.6
[NAA: A452, 1969/3605]
1 Not printed.
2 See Document 318.
3 See Document 304.
4 Arek had been in Australia for a PNG Week symposium organised by the University of New South Wales (paper by Kerr and Ballard, undated, NAA: A452, 1969/3605).
5 That is, point (ii) in the section, ‘Criteria for constitutional re-arrangements short of self-government’, Document 284.
6 Hay reported on the third meeting of the Committee (6–7 October) as follows: ‘The Committee endorsed the programme with some minor amendments, but without any changes of significance to the content. The Committee further established four Sub-committees to deal with respectively, name, flag, emblem, and anthem. The Sub-committees each had some preliminary discussion on ways and means of carrying out their task. The Executive Officer was directed to prepare papers on the matters set out in the programme, specifically those relating to Section 2 of the programme’ (memorandum, Administration (Hay) to DOET, 11 October 1969, NAA: A452, 1969/3605).