SUBMISSION TO THE PEOPLES CHARTER FOR CHANGE AND PROGRESS

THE STATE

1. The Republic of the Fiji Islands is a Sovereign, democratic State

2. Any law inconsistent with this Constitution is invalid to the extent of the inconsistency.

THE PARLIAMENT

Seats -Section 51

OVERVIEW

Section (51) is inconsistent with the Constitution on three points thus null and void. Either Parliament is null and void or the Constitution is null and void.

1. It allocates seats by race. This is institutionalized racial apartheid. An abhorrent situation that is in contradiction of Section 5 State and Religion ... acknowledge that worship and reverence of God are the source of good government and leadership.
2. It is undemocratic on the basis of inconsistencies in the numbers of voters per constituency. These differences vary from 4,000 voters to 16,000 per constituency. This produces unequal value to a voter's vote on the basis of geography or for the simple expedient of voter gerrymandering
3. Due to the lazy application of the preferential system, one creates unequal value to a voters vote. This is seen when a voter's preferred candidate is eliminated and this candidates vote is carried forward to the next preferred candidate. This can result in some voter's votes being counted up to five times and more, whilst another voter has only one vote.

This is clearly undemocratic and in contradiction to the constitution. It creates a situation where the obviously strong candidate has nothing to offer, as he or she, has a very slim chance of dropping out whilst weaker candidates being assured of a strong chance of dropping out have preferences to trade. The weak, the least popular, trade amongst themselves to unseat a popular candidate, which is blatantly undemocratic. This situation also builds a barrier or bitterness against the two most popular candidates (parties) who are then, under our present system, expected to join in multi-party cabinet.

REMEDY

1. Abolish all communal seats.
2. Apart from the one Rotuman seat for Rotumans resident on the island of Rotuma, all the other 70 seats in Parliament must be open seats. Electorate's must be equal in voter numbers and be consistent geographically.
3. The preferential system should be maintained with the simple provision that all candidates' preferences are counted. This will ensure that when 50% plus one is not reached there will still be fare representation.

The situation of a candidate winning with only a small percentage of the total vote is eliminated which is the rationale of the preferential system. By counting all preferences, and not eliminating any candidate, one empowers the most popular candidates, thus giving them a say in the outcome. It ensures that all voters votes are counted equally as it should be in a democracy. So if the count is carried to the 3^rd preference to determine a winner, every single voter had three votes counted to determine the successful candidate.

ADDITIONALLY

• I believe that the voter age should be reduced to 18.

• Elections to be held every 4 years.

• That polling stations utilize government schools and that village halls or private homes are not be used for polling booths to eliminate any chance of vote buying or influence through the hire of those venues.

• Elections to be held during school holidays and that school teachers be utilized as polling officers for no extra remuneration. A public duty undertaken by them every four years.

• That serious consideration is given to paying a stipend to all voters, say $5.00 to vote. This will allow for a high attendance and it will disburse some of the real costs associated with a voter getting to the polls on voting day, transport and meals being the largest expense. This will also eliminate the huge costs to political parties in getting voters to vote. In addition it will add one more safeguard against a candidate influencing a voter on the basis of providing free transportation to vote.

• Elections must be fully funded by the government of Fiji. No nation with any semblance of pride and nationhood aught beggar itself to any other on the most basic of its duties, i.e. to elect its own leaders.

CABINET GOVERNMENT

Section 96 to 110.

Section 97. Governments must have the confidence of the House of Representatives.

Section 98. The President, acting in his or her own judgment appoints as Prime Minister the member of the House of Representative who, in the Presidents opinion, can form a government that has the confidence of the House of Representatives.

OVERVIEW

An assumption that a Prime Minister has the confidence of the House of Representatives at all times and on all issues is a fallacy. Due to our Westminster party system dissent is not possible.

The reality is that at times Cabinet Ministers and Backbenchers do not agree to decisions or the direction that a prime Minister is taking, but due to Cabinet consensus rules and party loyalty rules, parliamentary members of a party cannot dissent.

In addition, Parties are brought together to fight elections and then they generally disband and thus have very little control over their Prime Minister, Ministers or Parliamentarians during the period between elections.

This section also deals with the formation of a multi-party cabinet. I would not be remiss in stating that this provision has proved to be a total farce.

As the situation stands now, the person of Prime Minister must pick his Ministers from a very small pool of people with limited abilities. Further more, he is under pressure to consider Ministers not on merit but on their political power or chiefly power or blackmailing ability of some nature or other. Our last government had more Ministers then backbenchers.

Our nation of less then a million souls has created gridlock in its governance. The City of Brisbane that has an equivalent population is governed by 13 Aldermen.

REMEDY

1. Retain the position of President and Vice-President. The GCC to elect one candidate as their nominee and the House of Representatives and Senate to jointly elect a nominee. The nominees to be put to the vote of the people on a simple first pass the post basis at the same time as our National Elections are undertaken. The successful candidate takes office three months after his election. The term of a President is 4 years with a maximum of two terms. The unsuccessful nominee becomes the Vice-President.
2. Abolish the position of Prime Minister and introduce the position of Governor. The responsibilities of Governor remain the same as Prime Minister.
3. Abolish the present practice of drawing cabinet members from the House of Representatives. In fact being a Member of Parliament, the Senate and GCC precludes one from being a member of the Cabinet.
4. The Governor is the Administrative Authority, with a governing cabinet chosen by the Governor from suitably qualified members of the public to be vetted by a Committee of Parliament. The cabinet members are the state secretaries of Ministries within government, including the secretary to the office of the Governor. The positions being given the titles Secretary to the Office of Governor, Secretary of Health, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Public Utilities, and so forth.
5. Secretaries to Ministries of Government are not financial officers of those Ministries. Responsibility for financial management of a Ministry rests with a chief financial officer. Secretaries of State Departments must be managers of policy implementation and personnel and not accountants.
6. Sections 97 to 110 of the Constitution to be amended to reflect the change as suggested above. The Governor is ultimately responsible to the President and House of Representatives. A vote of no confidence in the Governor does not extinguish the terms of the Secretaries of State Ministries until another Governor is elected from the floor of the House of Representatives. In the interim the position of Governor is executed by the President.
7. There shall never be any possibility of a "caretaker government". The position of Governor shall always be filled by a member of the House of Representative and the President shall only ever exercise his power as Governor under an extreme circumstance that threatens the State, and in any event, only to a maximum of 30 days.

STATE SERVICES

Appointments to independent service commissions

143 (2) The Public Service Commission consists of:

(a) a chairperson; and

(b) not less than 3 nor more than 5 other members.

OVERVIEW

Prior to independence one could say that we had an honest and efficient civil service. The Colonial officers served under threat of transfer to some God forsaken outpost of Empire and more importantly served with the much more threatening fear of social ostracism from fellow colonial officers and the wider community.

With independence, our local officers served under conditions that were very much less fearful. Over time, the discipline that was instilled during the colonial period wore off and due to what I belive were structural weaknesses in our system, we have in due course ended up with a Civil Service that has turned governance on its head.

Parliament is our only foil, or supposed counter balance to keep in check the power of the bureaucrats. In the days of yore, the Sovereign was able to lope off a head or two to keep this group of people in check.

We saw in Fiji the power of the Civil Service when Ratu Mara gave them an open check book in the 1980's. In trying to curb government expenditure, government was forced to deal firmly with the Public Service Unions and this resulted in the formation of the Labour Party.

In due course we find that the power of the Civil Service unions taming the SVT government and ultimately in coalition with the Methodist church, forming the SDL government of 2001.

The result of their power is seen by the total capitulation of SDL in wage negotiations prior to the 2006 elections. Without any foil to their power they were set to cannibalize our economy, but this is not the most insidious part of our situation.

The real problem we have with our inherited system is the lack of check and balances and the total centralization of government.

The whole system is so unresponsive on all levels that developments plans are not implemented, budgets passed by governments are no more then fairy tales and to add insult to injury services are abysmal. Workers within this system have been able to operate with almost impunity. The cases of incompetence and criminal behaviuor over the years are to many to list, but examples of dangerous doctors and nurses, molestation off students by teachers, corrupt health officers and policemen and downright don't give a damn attitudes from civil service workers has to force one to think what needs to be done to correct this situation.

REMEDY

1. The centralization of the Public Service Commission has been a total failure for the people of Fiji. To bring back a quality of service, integrity, professionalism, and productivity that our people require to achieve good governance and prosperity in their own land it is essential we de-centralize our Public Service Commission.
2. It is critical that every District Office area has a Public Service Committee. I would suggest 6 District Committee Members, including Chairman, to be elected from the community every 2 years. One to fall at the same time as the national elections to save costs. Elections to be conducted by Elections Office.
3. A traveling secretariat to attend all meetings with a qualified lawyer as secretary. Meetings must be held no more then 4 months apart and sooner if required by the Chairman of the District Committee.
4. The position of District officer is upgraded to hold a limited executive power over all other heads of departments of government, including any Authority or Public Company with a majority government shareholding operating in a District.
5. All Departments of Government, Authorities, Public Companies in a District must report their budgets, development plans and progress reports to the Committee via the District Office.
6. The Public Service Commission must delegate powers it holds to the District Committees in addition Government must broaden the powers of these committees to:

(a.) Meet with the public either closed door or not as appropriate to hear complaints or praise of public or government officers.

(b.) Reprimand, dismiss or recommend to reward an officer in addition to having the power to except or reject an officers posting to a District.

(c.) Call to a meeting any officer in any Ministry of Government, Authority, Public Company, up to the level of Director or equivalent for questioning or clarification on any issue.

(d.) All scheduled meetings are open to the public where any member of the public may make submissions orally and in writing and enquire as to the status of public policy matters.

(e.) The District Committees must endorse the budgetary requests from the above arms of government from their District. Allocations made and approved from out of the National Budget must be presented back to the District Committees. The Committees must be empowered to call upon the Ministry of Finance to answer to any discrepancies or shortages of funding allocated by Parliament.

(f.) The District Committees must make annual reports ending 30th. June of every year to be presented no later then 31^st. August to the Governor and Parliament. Included in these reports are any recommendations for new laws or change to any laws that are proposed within that District by any concerned citizen or group.

 

GENERAL

Village Life.

OVERVIEW

Since the removal of regulations to regulate village life in 1968 it has been observed that the quality of life and social order in villages has deteriorated.

One can understand the view at the time that Fijians needed to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and that these regulations that applied to Fijians only within their villages were an impingement of their individual human rights and so were not something in accordance with a people about to gain independence from a Colonial power. If there was to be any new reality and benefit from independence this would be it.

Observation of village life will show some of the following situations to a more or less degree then were observed pre-independence.

Farming activity reduced. Variety of food crops grown reduced including fruit trees. Masi and Voivoi growing reduced. The manufacture of mats and tapa reduced with skills being lost. Transfer of knowledge from one generation to another being lost, i.e. song, dance, folk law, building, medicine, bush craft, fishing.

I have personally observed over a number of years the efforts of individuals who have recently left school or have reached an age where they have determined to start a farm. Invariably I have seen fellow villagers take the crops of these individuals with the predictable consequence of loss of moral and reduced future effort.

REMEDY

I think re-introduction of the Fijian regulations that governed village life would be of huge benefit to villages. This has been proposed a number of times over the years but has never been implemented.

To my mind the question of human rights can not apply to a situation where one is applying rules to a group of people who live in a community that relies on communal effort and co-operation. The implementation of rules and regulations creates order and discipline for a viable community, no different from a town with its public order regulations, not to mention all the other responsibilities one has in living in a town such as paying rent, electricity, water and phone bills.

I believe the implementation of village regulations aught to be done on a voluntary basis. Those villages that are registered can apply for and vote to decide whether to be governed by Fijian Village regulations.

To those that decide too, the government should fully support and be prepared to allow for its implementation with a codex of regulations.

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