The topic of Christianity was hotly debated in parliament yesterday afternoon after the Minister for Justice and Attorney General, Mr. Pila Niningi, presented a bill to amend the Constitution to declare Papua New Guinea (PNG) a Christian Country. The Minister said that this proposed amendment to the Constitution should not be a surprise to anyone because the 2011 Censors showed that 96% of Papua New Guineans align themselves to the Christian Faith and therefore, it is imperative that this fact be anchored in the Constitution. It is for this reason that in 2020, the National Executive Council (NEC) in its Decision No. 234/ 2020 directed the Constitutional Law Reform Commission (CLRC) and the Department of Community Development and Religion to consult the people on their views in declaring PNG a Christian country. That consultation took 12 months and at the end of it, the report came out in two volumes. The prime minister then presented the final report of the CLRC to the NEC, and it approved its recommendations and the final report was presented to parliament on its Decision No. 227/ 2021. Mr. Niningi said the CLRC made six recommendations in its final report that was approved by the NEC. These six recommendations can be grouped into two categories; (1) Legislative Reforms and (2) Policy Reforms. “This amendment forms part of the recommendations on Legal Reform. It seeks to amend the Preamble and Section 1 and 3 of the Constitution to declare PNG a Christian country,” said the minister. “In terms of Policy Reforms, the Department of Community Development and Religion have started work on the draft National Policy on Religion, which is almost 60 percent complete awaiting the outcome of this Constitutional Reform, for completion.” However, that did not go down well with the Member for Vanimo Green, Belden Namah who challenged it, saying that the amendment would prevent other religions to practice their faith in PNG and would also hinder foreign investments, and that there was no need to make changes to the Constitution when the whole identification on PNG as a Christian nation, was already embedded in the Constitution by the country’s forefathers. “Section 45 of our Constitution states very clearly, freedom of conscience, thoughts and religion,” said the MP. “There is no need for us to bring in a bill to parliament to declare PNG as a Christian country, it’s already been addressed by the founding fathers, who crafted this Constitution.” He added that when the government makes a legislation declaring PNG as a Christian State, then that means the country will not be tolerating other religions to practice their faith, like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or Judaism to name a few. He also claims that the proposed amendment would be bad for PNG’s business dealings with its bilateral partners in the future. “The legislation will scare many development partners who will come and invest in this country. This will have a collateral effect on our country.” He said this because PNG deals with countries like China, India and Indonesia, which are countries with different religious beliefs and backgrounds. “This legislation will scare these important bilateral and multilateral partners.” However, the Minister for Finance and Government Business, Rainbo Paita, who intervened on behalf of Minister Miningi, stated that the whole amendment was straight forward and that was for PNG to be identified as a Christian nation and nothing other than that. Meanwhile, the amendment bill passed the first reading on the floor of parliament with an 80 to 10 vote by the Members of Parliament. The second vote has been adjourned to two months from the date of the first vote as required by the Constitution. The amendment bill will have to be read three times before it can be passed in parliament in order for the changes to the Constitution to be made.