Campaign to boost number of female MPs in PNG
Updated
The campaign to increase the number of women in Papua New Guinea's Parliament is once again on in earnest. PNG's only female parliamentarian Dame Carol Kidu will signal the start of the campaign next week. Then, if all things go to plan, the prime minister will put a motion to the vote later this month. Attempts to have a number of women nominated to parliament without facing the electorate failed in March when it was first put up.
Presenter:Michael Cavanagh
Speaker: Dame Carol Kidu, Community Development Minister
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CAVANAGH: Under PNG's constitution, apart from the 109 members who are elected through the ballot box, there is room for a number to be nominated to parliament.
In March, with Community Development Minister Dame Carol Kidu very much at the fore, -- attempts were made to try and have three women join the parliament through nomination.
KIDU: In the March session, actually there really was no real opportunity for debate and there are many many members that are in favour and for very good reasons. So we can have a debate and then on the 13th July we'll be launching the 'cedaw' (convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women) report, the prime minister will launch the cedaw report and that ties in with all things as well and then we hope to take the vote on the 14th or 15th, the second week of the sittings. I do not want to actually want to risk losing the vote again, so we will be checking the numbers very thoroughly beforehand which we didn't do well in the first vote in March. I think for PNG parliament to lose this vote for a second time it is a very, very bad signal to the world about Papua New Guinea."
CAVANAGH: Dame Carol entered parliament in 2002 and at the moment is the sole female.
After independence there were up to three women in parliament although at one stage PNG went 10 years without a female in the parliament.
Now attempts to increase female representation will possibly see the parliament again having to vote on whether it will accept nominated women.
In March, a similar attempt failed after 79 women had put up their hands to be nominated. This was narrowed down to 11 being interviewed and finally to six.
However, the opposition opted out of the final process and while the Prime Minister had narrowed the field to three the motion failed falling 13 votes short of the number required.
Apart from opposition within the house, surprisingly the National Council of Women also was against the move . At the time Dame Carol accused them of spreading misinformation.
KIDU:The National Council of Women after that time then came to me and decided that they were changing their opinion because you know they needed my support on something and they decided they would remain silent on it and allow it to go forward.
CAVANAGH:If the scheme does get up, the women are likely to sit on the cross benches -- although they can be appointed to the ministry -- or as shadow ministers.
They cannot participate in a no-confidence motion and cannot block the budget.
With Dame Carol retiring from parliament at the next general election scheduled for 2012, she isn't confident that other women will be voted in to replace her...
KIDU: We always go back to the cultural attitudes and in addition to that the nature of elections is just so tough. It does require, I had to fundraise an enormous amount just to keep my campaign on the road last time and I don't ever get involved in bribery. But that was just to feed the people who are helping and all those things and often women, particularly women in rural areas just don't have that capacity for fund raising. I'm lucky I'm in an urban area, so I have the opportunity to run fund raising because the population is there.
CAVANAGH:Dame Carol and her supporters will be hoping this time they will have the numbers right in getting women into parliament if not through the ballot box.
