We Need A New Deal - PNG 50 years on

This is an AI-generated song based on the public statement by Hon. Allan Bird titled "We Need a New Deal for All PNGeans." It was posted on his Facebook page on December 29, 2024, as Papua New Guinea moves into the new year, 2025, which will mark 50 years of independence on September 16, 2025.

This is the link to the original post by Hon. Bird :   / pfbid0uzepnkmt3m674ntgldyd4snqyta6cf7ol3pc...  

This is the copy of the Public Statement by Hon. Allan Bird:

We need a New Deal for All PNGans
Many educated PNGeans have been questioning for a while now what we can celebrate next year given we are 50 years as an independent nation. It's difficult to justify otherwise.
Many PNGeans lament that our country has fallen far away from the heady promise of our Founding Fathers and we are off track as far as Vision 2050 is concerned. Funding of MTDP priorities is poor and unequal distribution of wealth and poor management is making a bad situation worse.
With rampant crime and corruption, chronic unemployment, businesses struggling with Forex challenges, cost of living crisis, failing SOEs resulting in constant power outages, water outages, flight cancelations, lack of fuel, lack of medicines, etc.
It makes celebrating 50 years a difficult proposition for every honest patriot in the country.
There is however one slim possibility that continues to escape our focus. But if we care to study it without bias; gives us our greatest hope for the next 50 years. That hope lies in the AROB legal framework.
AROB has the highest possible autonomous arrangement of any political entity in the world. AROB already has a Block Grant arrangement which is my pet favorite.
It would be very interesting to figure out how much the Bougainville leaders and people have used their powers to better the lot of our people on the island.
In ESP we have hit a glass ceiling. We can't go any further because the services that are failing in our province are all, exclusively, National Government responsibilities.
The Greater Sepik Region needs autonomous arrangements just like AROB inorder to transform our society and progress. For everything we want to do today: we still need authorization from Waigani.
Leaders and public servants in Sepik already see the possibilities of what we can achieve with autonomy and I believe many Sepiks are beginning to see that too.
By next year, we will have been beggars in Waigani for 50 years. Not anything worth celebrating. Our founding fathers achieved independence. What have we done with that? How much have we progressed that?
So I humbly submit to our extremely powerful National Government Ministers, to the PM and his government, give PNG something to celebrate next year, give all provinces autonomy. Change the way we do business.
Give us a New Deal.
Don't give us K5m or K10m and expect us to perform miracles or transform society. That is simply another link in a chain of bondage that replaces a colonial master with a PNGan master. Neither of which is a positive step forward.
Our current arrangements keep us prisoners of our colonial past. A past our founding fathers tried to free us from. By our own lack of wisdom, we have replaced a foreign prison warden with a PNGan prison warden and we call him Prime Minister.
A K200 billion economy that does not serve the majority of PNGans is nothing to celebrate. Our mantra of "Richest, Black, Christian Nation on Earth" is now nothing but a hollow, embarrassing and sarcastic joke.
In 2025, we will have no time to build any significant physical infrastructure as a milestone for our 50th year anniversary.
In the absence of any physical promises, perhaps we should all settle for Hope. Give us hope, give us a promise for a better future that We the people can choose for ourselves.
I propose that that Hope lies in Autonomy and Block Grants. That hope lies in the AROB framework.
50 years of centralized Governments has failed us all, it is time for a New Deal for all PNGans, a new deal based on Equality, Fairness, Justice and Prosperity for all PNGans, not just the select few.
For without Hope, what else do we have?
Perhaps then, we can wish all PNGans a prosperous New Year commencing after 2025.