Transcript
LOPETI SENITULI: I was part of a visiting delegation that called upon His Majesty King George V in 2010 just prior to the reforms and the question that was placed to His Majesty King George V was is this the perfect Constitution and His Majesty said no, nothing is perfect in this world. What we have done will continuously be tweaked in order to adapt to the circumstances and to the development of this country. This Constitution is not perfect so the tweaking has to continue, the discussion is ongoing.
KORO VAKA'UTA: You have been a long-time advocate for democracy. In 2014 'Akilisi Pohiva came in, have you seen it been working, because this has been seen as kind of ushering in a new era with his election as Prime Minister.
LS: Of course. Democracy is working. We had adopted this reform Constitution and reform structures in 2010 and we have now lived for the last seven years. It's working. Sure it's not perfect, but that is the whole purpose of democracy is that you continue to learn from your mistakes and you adapt and tweak your structures so that they live up to the aspirations of the public.
KV: You've worked with Prime Minister Pohiva for many years in various ways, does have blame, part to play for what's happened?
LS: The other reasons that the Speaker gave, has some merit. You know where the Speaker said that Prime Minister Pohiva had misled Parliament about the Pacific Games and after the adoption of legislation that permitted the collection of the levy on foreign exchange, he cancelled the games. And then he promised he would punish a former minister that was being accused of misuse of authority and resources but he intervened and said don't punish him, I will do it personally. He ended up not doing it so he had misled. Those are mistakes in my view that Pohiva has made but those can be dealt with by the powers that the Speaker has through the Parliamentary Standing rules and he has enormous authority there. He can actually suspend ministers, he can turn the Parliament into a court of law and try people for contempt of court and they can be sent to prison or fined 5,000 pa'anga. Those are mechanisms available for him.
KV: [But] of course he would need the numbers though if it was changed to a court for example.
LS: Of course he must have the numbers but of course there is the issue of the violation of Standing Rules of Parliament. So there are things that he does not have to resort to court rule and there are things that he can use his authority on. And he also says of course the most recent example where the ministers gave themselves a 5 percent salary rise which he felt was selfish. If he is concerned about that then he should raise it publicly and tell the people that hey look at what this government is doing, selfishly enriching themselves. That's what he should do. He should not shut Parliament down.
