‘Lunch money’, gambling & drink tabs subvert PNG journalists
18 November 2015
MICHAEL JOSEPH PASSINGAN | Edited extract
Michael Passingan says he has used personal sources as well as information from the public domain to compile a dossier on Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, ‘A comprehensive analysis of Peter Paire O’Neill - fraudster or leader’. Much of the document is potentially defamatory but we publish here an extract on disturbing developments in PNG’s mass media and civil society. A link to the entire document is included at the end of this extract
THE media play a very important role in shaping public opinion and the political discourse of any country. It is one of the pillars upon which the strength of democracy is measured. All democracies respect media freedom.
Peter O’Neill has considerable control over the content of the two daily papers, the Post-Courier and The National.
In television, as if owning Kundu 2 is not enough, the government, through Telikom, is organising to purchase EMTV.
All adverse news is being either watered down or blotted out before publication across the media spectrum because of pressure from the prime ministerial spin doctors, or because of the corruption of journalists.
At the prime minister’s media division, there are external and internal spin doctors working tirelessly to maintain O’Neill’s fast-fading image.
For overseas journalists to come into the country, their entry authorisation comes from the prime minister’s department through his media team. Journalists they perceive are harmful to his political image are banned from entry. Examples are Mark Davis and John Garnaut.
Senior management of the major media outlets have been bought off or intimidated into doing as they are told by O’Neill and his media officers.
Individual journalists are bought off by “lunch money” and other regular bribes by the prime minister’s office. Free gambling and drink tabs are available to select journalists, mostly from the Post-Courier, at Paddy’s Bar.
Social media has opened up a new and uncontrollable platform for citizens to express their views.
Though regarded by O’Neill and his cronies as radical and destructive, the social media minority is comprised of the educated elite of PNG. Their views really matter. O’Neill has failed to win his arguments on social media where he is openly derided as a corrupt monster.
In his dictatorial approach to media control, O’Neill has directed the communications minister to expedite the passage of cybercrime laws. Armed with this draconian legislation, O’Neill will curtail freedom of expression and there goes PNG’s democracy out the window.
During the Morauta and Somare prime ministerial terms, think tanks, unions, university students and NGOs became extremely vocal when it came to issues of national importance.
Today, they can be heard no more. It seems as if there are no issues to talk about.
Important people and institutions have been silenced.
The no-nonsense director of the National Research Institute, Dr Thomas Webster, was forced to resign from IPBC as board chairman and eventually as director of NRI.
Conveniently during O’Neill’s reign, university student council elections are unduly influenced and suddenly Southern Highlanders and Helas are taking up presidencies and other senior roles in the big universities such as UPNG and Unitech. In fact, a fight broke out when other students protested last year.
You can read the full text of ‘A comprehensive analysis of Peter Paire O’Neill - fraudster or leader’ here
Matthew thanks for post and the link.
I felt surely some of the deeds attributed to our Leader could be, or are well founded urban legends. And we all know that anthropologists tell us how myths and legends have basis in actual events.
I daily read both Rupert Murdoch's Post Courier and he doesn't have a terribly ethical background either; along with the caterpillar of the jungles RH's National.
The reports of million-kina frauds area almost a daily read and they surely must be just a symptom of a deeper corruption that starts way up in the dim lit rooms of Waigani or is it now in the plush opulence of Moresby's 5-star hotels where ministers stay at public expense.
For the past 45 years I have seen PMs come and go - some rebound for a second bite of the riches from the low hanging fruits available to their political positions.
Our ex-kiap's son came to power with same brave talk as his predecessors of ridding PNG of corruption. Alas it has also become a hollow promise.
How he can hold his head up amongst the world's leaders with an 18 month arrest warrant against him I do not know. Surely he is a kapul? But no! - more like a crocodile with a far far thicker skin.
By the way who is footing the bill for the slimy trail of legal reviews, challenges or the dismissals then sometimes reappointment of perhaps honourable policemen and others that attempt to stop his progress as he wriggles his way towards the next election.
Will the next underfunded general election now with a failed ID digital safeguard provide us with a new honest team - if only that was even a remote chance I could be optimistic for the next 45 years.
I am sad for PNG a nation with mineral, forest, marine and agricultural riches beyond many small nations wildest dreams.
A Christian nation its founding fathers said but alas the Devil seems to have free reign.
May God forgive all those who knowingly have sinned against the people of PNG!
Posted by: Arthur Williams | 21 November 2015 at 02:39 AM