Peter O'Neill
Peter Charles Paire O'Neill is a Papua New Guinean politician who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 2011 to 2019. He has been a Member of Parliament for Ialibu-Pangia since 2002. He was a former cabinet minister and the leader of the People's National Congress between 2006 and 2022. He resigned his position as prime minister to avoid a vote of no confidence, and he was succeeded by James Marape.
Early life
O'Neill was born on 13 February 1965 in Pangia, Territory of Papua, in the present-day Southern Highlands Province. His father, Brian O'Neill, was a magistrate of Irish Australian descent, while his mother, Awambo Yari, was of Papua New Guinean descent from the Southern Highlands. O'Neill's father moved to Papua New Guinea in 1949 as an Australian government field officer and later served as a magistrate in Goroka until his death in 1982.O'Neill spent the first years of his youth in his mother's village, and after attending secondary school, he stayed at his father's urban residence in Goroka. O'Neill was educated at Pangia Primary School, Ialibu High School, and Goroka High School. After leaving school, he obtained a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Papua New Guinea in 1986. He later received a degree with honors in accounting from UPNG. He also obtained a professional qualification and became a Certified Practicing Accountant in 1989. A year later, he became president of the Papua New Guinea Institute of Certified Practicing Accountants. O'Neill was then a partner in Pratley and O'Neill's accounting firm. He combined this with a substantial number of directorships, often as executive chairman, including at the PNG Banking Corporation when it was government-owned.
Early political career
O'Neill entered politics in 2002 as a Member of Parliament representing Ialibu-Pangia under Prime Minister Michael Somare. As a member of the People's National Congress, O'Neill was part of the coalition government and was appointed to the Cabinet as the Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations, then reassigned in 2003 as the Minister for Public Service. However, in 2004, he was dropped from the Cabinet, and the PNC left the coalition to join the opposition. Later that year, O'Neill became leader of the opposition, but Speaker Jeffery Nape initially did not recognise him and claimed Peter Yama held the position instead. In response, O'Neill tried to mount a vote of no confidence without success since Somare and Nape used procedural issues to stop this. After the 2007 elections, O'Neill rejoined Somare's government as the Minister of the Public Service. In July 2010, he was appointed Minister of Finance. When Somare was hospitalised in 2011, Sam Abal was appointed acting prime minister, who demoted O'Neill to Works Minister in July 2011.Prime minister
Cabinet O'Neill/Namah (2011-2012)
In April 2011, Somare fell ill and flew to Singapore for treatment. O'Neill then led the opposition in ousting Abal as acting prime minister. He was then elected by the Parliament as prime minister with 70 of the 94 votes cast. O'Neill's claim to the position was challenged by both the East Sepik Province, where Somare was also governor, and Somare himself when he returned from Singapore. The Supreme Court ruled that Somare was the legitimate prime minister, but O'Neill retained overwhelming support in parliament. O'Neill and Somare both claimed the title of prime minister and thus arose the 2011–2012 Papua New Guinean constitutional crisis. It was resolved when the Governor General decided to call for new elections.Cabinet O'Neill/Dion (2012-2017)
In the 2012 general election, O'Neill's PNC obtained 27 seats, an increase from the 5 seats in the previous Parliament. A broad coalition appeared to support him, with 94 seats out of the 119-member Parliament. This coalition contained three ex-prime ministers, among whom was Somare.Cabinet O'Neill/Abel (2017-2019)
The PNC, which was headed by O'Neill, was the largest political party based the outcome of the 2017 elections. The election of former prime minister Mekere Morauta in the 2017 Papua New Guinean general election was a challenge, but this did not endanger the position of O'Neill. His party had the most seats, and this entitled O'Neill constitutionally to form the government. However, the PNC won a mere 21 seats in the 106-seat parliament. This was substantially less than the 52 seats the PNC had occupied at the end of the previous parliament. He needed to form a coalition from a weak base in a fragmented parliament. O'Neill succeeded again in doing that: he gained the support of 60 MPs, with 46 MPs in opposition. The majority was smaller than before, and it eroded, particularly when a debate erupted in 2018 about the benefits of natural resource projects for Papua New Guinea. Cabinets in PNG are awarded a grace period during the first 18 months in office, during which time a vote of no confidence cannot be mounted. The grace period had passed in May 2019, and the question of a no-confidence vote thereafter became pertinent. There were several attempts before the end of the grace period to replace O'Neill as prime minister. It was suggested to him that he resign, but O'Neill did not respond. However, MPs defected from the government benches as the crucial date approached. This group included prominent cabinet ministers, for example, James Marape, minister of finance, and Davis Steven, attorney general.The replacement of O'Neill
Source:On 7 May 2020, the rebels lodged their intention to mount a vote of no confidence with Marape as alternate PM. They claimed to have a majority behind them. O'Neill resorted, as before, to parliamentary rules to procrastinate the vote of no confidence and suggested adjourning parliament for three weeks. The opposition then mounted a motion to change the speaker of parliament, who ruled in O'Neill's favour, and this failed. Nevertheless, the vote split parliament. O'Neill obtained a nine-vote majority supporting his proposed adjournment to stave off the vote of no confidence. The opposition appeared, therefore, to be short of numbers. O'Neill thereafter turned to the courts in an attempt to procrastinate with the argument that the no confidence motion could not be held as long as it was a case before the Supreme Court raising pertinent constitutional questions. The political configuration changed fundamentally when William Duma and the Natural Resources Party made a deciding move and joined the opposition. This raised the number in opposition to 62, and therefore they had a definite majority in the 111-member parliament.
Paradoxically, the opposition seemed then to be in disarray. First, they withdrew the vote of no confidence motion. Second, they changed the leadership: Marape, the former finance minister, was the alternate PM of the opposition until 28 May. He was then replaced by Pruaitch. This was announced by Marape and reported to be by consensus. However, later, it was evident that there was a vote between Marape and Pruaitch in favour of the latter. O'Neill then turned again to the courts, asking for a speedy decision on his request to stay the vote of no confidence because of the urgency of a possible vote of no confidence. The Supreme Court decided on 28 May that O'Neill did not have standing because there had not been a vote of no confidence at that moment. That moment was in between the first one that was withdrawn due to a lack of numbers and the second one when the opposition had the numbers. The latter was mounted on the same day as the court's decision in favour of the opposition.
A Vote of No Confidence has to pass through two hurdles to be tabled. First, the Parliamentary Business Committee had to decide whether it should be tabled in Parliament. That committee was stacked with supporters of O'Neill. The opposition won a motion to bring in supporters of their cause. The support for changes in the Parliamentary Business Committee showed that the opposition had the numbers to be a majority. The Speaker is a second hurdle to be taken. The opposition tried to change the speaker, but he successfully withstood the move.
O'Neill then avoids a vote of no confidence by following the suggestion that he had rejected earlier: he resigns and appoints Julius Chan as his successor. Chan first accepted the appointment and retracted it almost immediately in an ambiguous way: he was not interested in the position but would serve the nation in a caretaker position. There was a flurry of arguments about whether the selection of Chan was a constitutional possibility. The salient one against Chan was that the government must be formed by the leader of the largest party in parliament, which was the PNC, the party of O'Neill.
Marape then suddenly returned to the PNC along with thirty MPs and joined the government bench. The opposition no longer had the numbers. O'Neill resigned again and handed over to Marape as prime minister, in line with the constitutional requirement that the largest party form the government. Marape engineered a comeback as a candidate MP when he was no longer the alternate PM of the opposition because he lost to Pruaitch as leader of the opposition. Marape was confirmed as prime minister with 101 votes against 8 for Morauta, the most prominent critic of O'Neill.
Policies
O'Neill embarked on an activist development policy that he contrasted with the stagnation of previous years. He took a substantial loan from the Chinese Import-Export Bank, to remedy the "sins" of the past. He laid stress on the development of infrastructure, especially roads. Free education and free health care were signature policies in the 2012 election. He maintained these policies after being re-elected in 2017. The international stature of PNG was raised through the organisation of the 2015 Pacific Games, and the proposal of Port Moresby as the location for the APEC summit in 2020.In August 2011, the O'Neill administration announced a new public holiday, Repentance Day, on 26 August. The announcement was made eleven days before that date. The public holiday was established at the request of a "group of churches", which had approached Abal with the idea shortly before he lost his office.