Australia spied on PNG,

PNG Prime Minister, Peter O'neill

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says he expects Australia to respect the sovereignty of PNG and the rights of its citizens.

O’Neill was responding to a question raised in parliament today by the Member for Manus Ronny Knight.

Mr. Knight was concerned that PNG has been spied on by Australians.

Mr. Knight said PNG lacked the capacity in its intelligence services, and thus was prone to threats.

He took the recent reports of Australia gathering intelligence information from PNG, and asked the Prime Minister to confirm this report.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill confirmed today in parliament that Australia has been involved in collecting intelligence information in PNG.

O’Neill said he has instructed the Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato to summon the Australian High Commission to PNG Deborah Stokes to provide an explanation on this matter.

Ms. Stokes will also be asked to explain the asylum and visa issues brought up in parliament this week.

Prime Minister O’Neill said the issue of intelligence will also be discussed at the Ministerial forum to be held in Canberra next month.

In the meantime, he said the National Intelligence Organisation which has been run down for a while has a new director in former Police Commissioner Gari Baki.

O’Neill said the country has also engaged officers from Israel to do a gap analysis of NIO and will be working to beef up Intelligence gathering activities on a timely manner. EMTV