The Speaker of Tuvalu's parliament is removed

Transcript

The speaker of Tuvalu's parliament, Sir Kamuta Latasi, has been removed after seven years in the position.

Yesterday the Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga moved a motion to remove him and was supported by two thirds of MPs, on the first day of the first parliamentary session for the year.

In July last year Sir Kamuta came under fire when he adjourned parliament before opposition MPs could debate a motion of no-confidence in the former prime minister Willy Telavi.

Enele Sopoaga says he gave Sir Kamuta opportunities to resign from his post when the current government first took office in August.

He told Bridget Tunnicliffe the speaker's misinterpretations of the constitution were a risk to the good governance of Tuvalu.

ENELE SOPOAGA: If the resolution is supported by two-thirds of the house for him to be removed then he should go and that's what happened that's just a requirement of the constitution so he was removed. And this morning we appointed honourable Otinielu Tauteleimalae Tausi as the new speaker of parliament.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFE: And why were you unhappy with Kamuta Latasi?

ES: He's not with our party, he's with a party of five MPs, and he was misbehaving a lot last year.

BT: You're talking about when he delayed parliament meetings so that you couldn't put in a vote of no-confidence against Willy Telavi.

ES: All sorts of misinterpretations, misapplications of the constitution and he was a risk to the good governance of Tuvalu. I cannot take that as any excuse to let him continue as speaker to parliament, so he had to go yesterday.

BT: Was yesterday the first opportunity, was that the earliest that you could remove him?

ES: I gave him so many opportunities for him to resign from the post, since August when we first got in and took government but he never took heed of that until yesterday so I had to remove him by a motion of no-confidence.  And that's it, it's no longer an issue now, I don't think any investing of my time on Kamuta would help, I would rather I focus on my own work.

BT: And so you're happy obviously with the new speaker, you think things will be a lot smoother now in the future.

ES: Yeah, he's a good one and I think the people of the nation are very happy, the constitution works in Tuvalu so we are very very happy.