From ABC Radio

Papua New Guinea's new Prime Minister Peter O'Neil has made political stability his top priority in office.

 Earlier this week Mr O'Neil ousted Sam Abal as the country's leader, who had been appointed by Sir Michael Somare before he became ill.



Speaking at his first press conference as PM, Mr O'Neil called on the Opposition to respect the views of the parliament and the change of leadership. 

He also promised a new Cabinet by the end of the week and elections next year.

 Meanwhile, corporate watchdog Transparency International Papua New Guinea, is cautiously optimistic about the new leader of the country.




Presenter: Campbell Cooney


Speaker: Lawrence Stephens, Chairman of Transparency International PNG

STEPHENS: We're still catching our breath, this is quite a dramatic change. We have seen a process take place, we're still waiting for the adjudicators to come down on that process, but the process appears to have provided us with a new prime minister. The individual conferred is the Honourable Peter O'Neil, he's a member of Pangia, lalibu-Pangia. He's a man of many talents and we've been seeing him perform some very useful responsibilities of late in financial ministries. It'll be interesting now to see where he takes it. We have heard second-hand that he is talking about fighting corruption. We've actually seen some action by him on reducing the ridiculous number of trust accounts which suddenly appeared all over the place for government funds to be held in commercial banks. So we can hold out some hopes that there will be some efforts to stem corruption in government.



COONEY: You've got probably I think 12 months, maybe even less, that he will hold power if he actually is allowed to stay in the office. I mean can much be achieved in that time before elections are held next year? That was always the question I suppose when it comes to PNG politics, just being able to be in long enough to actually achieve something?



STEPHENS: Yeah, being long in government here is a problem and that's one of the things that happened with the National Alliance, they were able to hold government for so long and attempt to bring about some changes. He can bring about some dramatic changes if he decides to rein in some of the excesses that are taking place. Though we've seen what appears to be gross misuse of money, we're seeing funds apparently disappearing. We've heard Peter O'Neil himself point out that they are able to close the accounts for several years because the accounts are unintelligible. He could as an experienced accountant and as a political leader bring about some changes in that regard. We're also about to see this awful pork barrelling that goes on just as elections come up as people start to delve into the funds that are available that they bankroll all of the slush funds. Again he could play a role there. In the past the Ombudsman has moved in in that regard, pointing out that people are using these funds basically for electioneering. He could play a role in that, he could start to insist that people actually report on the spending of funds they've received. There are some things that he could certainly do, and yes it is only 12 months, and yes, one would imagine he also wants to get re-elected and does not want to make himself too unpopular with the other 108 or 109 members of parliament. So those issues too face him. But we can hope that he will bring about some change. It's been attempted in the past and it could be done again. We do need somebody who is dedicated to protecting the future funds that are flowing into this country as a result of the liquid natural gas. He seems to have an interest in and an understanding of that issue and it would be great to see him keep working in that regard as well.