NO NORE NAMES PLEASE : House Speaker Papali’i Taeu Masepa’u wields the power of the House Standing Orders on MPs use of given names
By Staff Writer
Members of Parliament are no longer allowed to be dressed by their given names while the House is in session starting as of this week.
House Speaker, Papali’i Masepa’u, handed the ruling down according to Standing Orders that he said were always there but not enforced until now.
“All Members are to be addressed by the names of their electoral constituencies and not their given names,” he decreed.
“The naming change is to avoid embroiling the House in family misunderstandings related to conflicts between Members over traditional chiefly title usage rights,” he added.
The Speaker did not give any example of such conflicts in support of his newly enforced Standing Orders in the House.
But heated exchanges have been ongoing at the use of the chiefly title ‘Laaulialemalietoa’ by the FAST leader and former Minister of Agriculture, Laauli Leuatea Polataivao.
Opposition leader, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, has made repeated interjections during previous House sessions to protest the use of the name by the MP for the Gagaifomauga No. 3 Constituency.
The most recent was during the House session this week when the chief title was again to formally address the MP.
The rights to the title are with the Malietoa family clan and Tuilaepa is adamant that it is not registered in the House as the MP’s official title.
The naming changes in the House will need getting used to particularly for Speaker Masepa’u who has made several slips already by calling on the MPs by their given names.
Electoral constituencies with particularly long titles well over 10 letters for some, maybe challenging as well for everyone.
No complaints have been overheard yet from MPs at being given Electoral Constituency names rather than their respected chiefly titles.