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Thanks Michael, this was a descriptive piece, and possible reasons for political stability are beyond the scope of this blog. We're working on a discussion paper on parliament fragmentation, and will address these questions there. Lack of party/MP tracking data in years between elections limits this analysis. On the question of PSIP/DSIP levels contributing to political stability, no-one has done a quantitative study to prove this. PNC's longevity (7 years) as a result of higher PSIP/DSIP, is too small a data set to prove definitively if there is any relationship as Politician-Allocated Expenditure (PAE) were first introduced in 1984 - what about NA's 9 years? What about governments before 2002? So far, the literature on governments prior to 2012 seem divided on the issue of : Frankel (2011), Chand & Duncan (2007), Batten (2011), and others. I'm also putting together a time series (1984-2020) of real PAE levels to see if there is a relationship between PAE and political stability.

Thank you for this interesting blog post. You found that “when parliament is more fragmented, governments have been more likely to stay in power” and you provided a scatter plot graph to show this trend. Are you willing to speculate as to why that might be? I wonder if it could be because of the necessity for leaders to emphasise coalition building, relationships, and inclusion of MPs from diverse parties in decision-making processes. I have one other minor question. What do the horizontal lines in the table refer to? It’s where you have the DPM’s party column and some entries don’t have percentages listed. Thanks again, Amanda

Hi Maho, this a good piece. However, it shows patterns but doesn’t explain why these patterns emerge. For instance, by 2002 OLIPPAC (sec 63) requires party with the largest number of MPs following a national election is invited to form the government (if there are two or more parties with the same number of MPs, party with the highest share of votes would be invited). This may explain why PM’s position is always held by the party with the largest party and not smaller parties. If you compare government formation after election where sec 63 applies, and Vote of No Confidence where sec 63 doesn’t apply, it’s almost the reverse. In a VONC, PM in recent years at least, have come from smaller parties. This may mean that PM comes from the party with the largest number of MPs because it’s required by law. If there was no OLIPPAC, would larger parties still form the government? Data for 1987, 1992 and 1997 shows otherwise. Second, government stability in recent years has largely to do with control of discretionary funds by the PM. PM’s party grows after elections (O’Neill’s party grew from 5 men when he became a PM in 2011 to about 80 when 2017 elections came around). Great job.

I contested 2 times for West New Britain Provincial Seat. 2002 - First Past Post Voting I was The only female out of 9 Candidates. I came 5th place 2012 - Limited Preferential Voting I was the only female out of 25 candidates. I came 12th place. My big challenges are: - No Money for logistics - No Money/Campaign Committee - No Money/Campaign Coordinators - No Money for transport (Land sea & air) - No Money for Fuel, food & sleeping in voters and supporters homes. I have to give a token of appreciation (PNG culture). -

Hi Scott, We don't say, as you claim we do, that the Forum has been a failure, or that it provides no value to its members. We say "In sum, while there are definitely some benefits to being a member of the Forum, they aren’t overwhelming, and the costs to leaving to make a point are low." That seems accurate, and consistent with what has just happened. Regards, Stephen

No worries Peter. Yes, the higher up levels of NBPOL and Hargy and are expats but we all live onsite and are not fly in fly out of the province. In fact these companies both put strict travel bans on all employees for the balance of last year (I was forced to leave the country as a “non-essential employee” for 8 months). All other spouses of company executives left a month before I did in April 2020 and they remain outside the country. I was able to return due to my employment. Those employees who have travelled have been subject to a double quarantine regime whereby they quarantine on return to the country in POM and then again on return to the island. This did not happen all the time but once numbers began to increase these measures were reinstated by the companies. The labourers are housed on site on plantations. There is a certain amount of “cultural” (in the event of family deaths) migration which occurs with workers travelling back to home provinces at these times. However, this is not a huge amount of traffic. The largest traffic on and off the island is due to government employees and staff/owners of larger (due to higher disposable incomes) local businesses travelling to and from POM and Lae etc. Planes are Max loaded/overloaded with people not wearing masks correctly if at all. These are the biggest issues to my mind. There are significant issues with testing: correct procedures testing being followed; delay of 30 +/- days for results; mobility of population affects the re-contacting of those who may test positive; mobile phone coverage very poor and not widely held (people do not always have credit), no isolation once testing has been done, severe limitations around contact tracing...these issues go on. I was tested during the lockdown in early January due to showing mild unspecific symptoms. The health worker who took the test on the side of the road did not wear gloves or PPE beyond a surgical mask, inadvertently touched the tip of the swab after withdrawing from my nose; advised me they would phone results through within 5-7 days which never happened. I waited 8 days, quarantining myself by not leaving my home, before giving up. My symptoms had subsided and I was feeling well for most of that time. You would be aware of the huge geographical, language, social and cultural limitations that exist in the country. These are exacerbated on the island. I recommend you establish contact and dialogue with Jack O’Shea of Australian Doctors International (currently in quarantine in Cairns having returned to Australia for a short period of time) who has been based on the island since the end of 2019. Jack would be a highly credible source of information with valuable insights into the issues faced on the island in the area of health delivery gained from his efforts to roll out obstetrics and other programs in isolated areas of the island. I am conscious my observations are anecdotal only, thus with little credibility. I have huge empathy and respect for these people. My husband runs a Palm oil plantation for NBPOL and we have around 1500 who live in company housing on the estate. We constantly struggle to provide some semblance of a covid safe environment, however due to overcrowded accommodation, betel nut chewing and spitting, the cultural practice of sharing drinks/food freely which signifies respect and friendship between themselves, lack of ability to adhere to strict hygiene practices required when infection risks are heightened, use of PMVs to go to town (always overcrowded with no-one wearing masks, attendance at religious rallies held in town around the shopping and market areas...we are failing these people. I do hope you find some use in my writings and I do urge you to make contact with Jack O’Shea. Further, should you ever come to New Britain Island I extend an invitation to meet and talk further. I am not sure if you have either been to, or heard of, Walindi resort: we are located very close by.

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Thanks, Netta. Perhaps there was a semantic difficulty. I always think of CEOs, senior executives and scientifically-trained employees of companies as ‘workers’. When I checked the web site for New Britain Oil Palm it seemed that many on the company’s work force were not ‘born and bred’ West New Britainers. Are any of them ‘mainlanders’ who fly in and fly out? If I’ve got it wrong, thanks for the correction. But as someone with strong ties to West New Britain and oil palm it would be great if you could help us understand how Covid-19 took off in the Talasea district.

Thank for you understanding and well thought article. Doing better with minimum or without aid made Somaliland citizens globally to accept the reality and open their wallet for a better tomorrow.

This is a very interesting view. As a Papua New Guinean, I’ve been silently concerned with the PNG-Bougainville post-referendum consultations. It is understood that these consultations will follow the Melanesian Way, very much described in this article. The issues at stake, which will inform parliament to decide on whether Bougainville becomes independent, is too important to be discussed online. The Melanesian Way works well in a face-to-face meeting.

Sir thank you for your research into PNG Political Governance History. It has shed light into many unknown and unrecorded history of our country PNG. Please, I need a copy of election report of 1972.

Oil Palm workers on New Britain Island do NOT fly in fly out. They are nationals who live and work on estates.