From the House, an English translation summary from the Tongan vernacular, by Pesi Fonua.

Tonga Legislative Assembly, Minute No. 22, Monday August 27, 2007.

The credibility of the Tongan Parliament hangs in a balance today, after the PRs 'Akilisi Pohiva, 'Isileli Pulu and Vili Helu tabled a petition to the House that they admitted contained false signatures and jumped the gun on the decisions that have yet to be reached by their own select committees.

The petition caused an uproar because it pre-empted the work that is currently being carried out by the Parliamentary Reform Committee, and it echoed the proposal that 'Akilisi and some PRs tried to push through the House last November that resulted in the destruction of part of the Nuku'alofa Central Business District.

"Trouble-making"

The Minister of Police called the petition as "trouble-making", and warned that it could lead to someone spending a night in prison. The Minister told the House that the state of law and order in the country is very bad. He said that he had been informed that the PRs had been holding meetings in the villages, Lapaha, Vaini and Houma attended by 50 to 60 people. He said that the PRs told the village people that the meeting was to inform them of what was discussed in the Parliamentary Reform Committee. The minister said that these meetings were out of order with the code of conduct of the committee, which was for only the Chairman to release information to the public on the deliberations of the committee.

The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, Noble Luani said the petition was "premature and disruptive" because it is demanding political reform that his committee was still working on, and they had not finished their deliberations and had not yet presented a report to the House.

The three main proposals in the PRs petition were:

1. For the political reform and the next parliamentary election to take place in 2008.

2. For the 2008 election to be conducted under the existing electoral system or else under the formula suggested by the National Committee for Political Reform.

3. For government to publicise the outcome of the work of the Parliamentary Committee for Political Reform and the final decision made by the House before the 2007 parliamentary session is closed.

Credibility

If the content of the Petition was disruptive, trouble-making and premature, its credibility also became a big issue because some of the signatures were the names of people who did not sign the petition, such as "Tungi Tupouto'a" and "'Ulukalala", and it also included signatures that were only initials, such as "TK", and "ST".

Debate on the credibility of the petition then became the main issue, but comments from some of the PRs makes one wonder if it was a parliamentary debate by the law-makers of a respectable country or a discussion by a band of thieves.

The PRs' reactions to the credibility issue were:

"Just cross out the wrong names and then let's proceed with the petition . . ."

"The wrong names are only a small percentage of the total number of signatures (of between 2,000 -3,000 names), let's cross them out and proceed with the petition . . ."

Maybe contempt

When the issue was raised that a criminal offence had been committed, Clive Edwards a lawyer and a former Minister of Police argued that it was not an offence, "maybe a case of contempt, but all we have to do is to strike those names out then let's continue and debate on the petition . . ."

Noble Tu'ilakepa queried the names of some of his own relatives on the petition because the addresses were wrong and he could not believe that they had signed the petition.

The response from Clive Edwards was, "we did not do that to you when you presented your petition, and why are you doing it to ours."

Noble Tangipa said that the petition was a disgrace to the House.

At the end the Prime Minister moved for the petition to be passed to the police for investigation. It was carried with votes of 16-8. Against were 'Akilisi Pohiva, 'Isileli Pulu, Clive Edwards, Vili Helu, 'Uliti Uata, Lepolo Taunisila, Sunia Fili and Lasike.