The Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Papua New Guinea says the country has to go back to basics if it is to cope with soaring levels of crime, plunging health statistics and the lack of opportunity for most youth.
Bart Philemon says crime figures show staggering levels of crime over the five years to 2006, and he says most of the perpetrators are young people.
He talks of people shut out of education and jobs, exposed to AIDS and drug and alcohol use, and who often resort to theft to survive.
Mr Philemon says the tens of thousands without work need to be engaged meaningfully.
"It's going to be going back to the drawing board as I was saying to cater for the future, at the meantime we will have to have a look at what we do in terms of broader engagement and I am thinking in terms of agriculture opportunities. That is the only way we can absorb a lot of these young people, the bulk of whom are coming from the rural areas and because there no services in the rural areas they tend to migrate to the urban centres."
