Greetings to all our people at home and around the world. As we celebrate the 51st anniversary of Papa Nigini's independence, I want to acknowledge our head of state, our governor general, the chief justice of Papa Nigini represented by acting chief justice, his honor sang Kandakasi. I want to also acknowledge the speaker of our nation parliament represented by acting speaker the honorable Ki Iguan. I want to acknowledge former prime ministers, all leaders, members of parliament, provincial and local level governments, churches, members of our discipline forces, public servants, traditional leaders, all development partners, all nations represented here, the private sector, and every citizen of our country. Today, our national flag flies proudly across our islands, coastlines, mountains, valleys, cities, towns, and remote communities. We are one people, one nation, one country, flying under one flag, and of course, our one constitution. We give thanks to God Almighty who has preserved our nation and carried us through the first 50 years of our independence. We remember with gratitude the founding fathers and mothers led by grand chief Sir Michael Somare who brought a hundred or hundreds of tribes and languages to establish one independent nation. They gave us political independence. It is now our responsibility to work to secure economic independence. Last year we completed our first 50 years as an independent nation. Today, as we celebrate our 51st year, we begin the work for the next 50 years. My message today is simple, straight to the heart. We all must work. We ask ourselves this question. What kind of papani do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren? My message again is simple. No god, less man. There must be no person in our country who is lazy. All of us must work. There must be no room for laziness, complacency, thinking or believing that someone else will help build our country. The prime minister must work. Ministers must work. Members of parliament must work. Province and local level government must work. The judiciary must work. Public servants must work. Police teachers, health workers must work. Church must work. Business must work. Communities must work. Every citizen who is able to contribute must work. Dr. Lesman doesn't mean that you must only be in office to work. Rather, work takes every forms and many forms. 50 years we have come through. Last year we celebrate 50 years the year of reset. If there is any one thing we would have reseted ourself, it must be the attitude of work. Work takes many forms. A mother growing food and caring for her family is working. A farmer tending to coffee, cocoa, coconut, oil pump, vanilla or fresh vegetables and produce is working. A fisherman feeding his family and community is working. A teacher preparing for our children's future is working. A health worker serving in remote aposts and all our health posts throughout the country is working. A young person learning a trade towards a better future is working. An entrepreneur starting a small business is working. Our Lenon are protecting the forest, river, sea for future generation is also waiting. No less smart means every one of us must use our time, strength, knowledge, land and talents productively. It means replacing excuses with effort, dependence with enterprise and hopelessness with uh purpose. This call must begin especially with those of us in leadership. We cannot ask our people to work if government and government officials are not working. No less man applies first to me as prime minister and secondly to every leaders elected and appointed. Public servants entrusted with responsibilities. Leadership is service. Every leader must lead by serving our people. Public offices must open on time. Teachers must be in classrooms. Health workers must must be at the post. Police must protect our people. District and provincial administrators must deliver services. Public funds must be used honestly and for their intended purposes. Government contracts must deliver roads, bridges, ports, jetties, airports, air strips, classrooms, hospitals and other public infrastructure and services of proper quality. Corruption is another form of laziness because it seeks wealth without honest work. Those who steal public money are stealing medicine from our hospitals, books from our children, roads for from our farmers, and opportunities for our young people. In our next 50 years, we must build a culture of performance, discipline, accountability, and service. Every kina belonging to our people must work for the people. On the 51st anniversary, I want to speak directly to our people according to the different stages of our lives. Each generation has a particular responsibility in building papini. We want to all papinans. All my children under the age of 25. Your primary responsibility is to seek an education, develop your character and acquire useful skills. Education is your highway to life. Who would have thought a young boy 1978 in James Barape walking 2 hours a day in remote Oxapin in West Ci province will today be addressing you as the 8th prime minister of our country on our 51st. Education is your highway to life. If I could walk the education highway and today stand as prime minister, you too out there. To all my children of Papa Nigini, many of you showed up this morning in your outfits as a proud patriotic daughters and sons of our country. I put to you this one question today. Your work is education. If you're in school, stay in school. Work and study hard. Respect your parents and teachers. Honor your parents and teachers. Attend classes. Read your books. Use technology to learn and not to destroy your mind. Do not waste your young life on alcohol, marijuana, gambling, pornography, trouble fighting or crime. If you have completed grade 8, 10 or 12 and have not secured a place, do not become discouraged or give up. Return through education through food. Our government has opened second chance learning in a very big way. Seek vocational and technical training. Learn carpentry, plumbing, mechanics, electrical work, agriculture, tourism, ICT, media, construction or other practical skills that will skill you for life. Not every child will follow the same educational pathway or academic pathway. Some are gifted in science and mis mathematics. Some are gifted in every trade or other trades rather agriculture, sport, music, art, technology or business areas every child of our country can pursue. Our education I speak to the education department. Our system must recognize these different abilities and give every child an opportunity to develop his or her full potential. Every district must take ownership of its young people. and establish pathways into second chance education, skills training, business, employment, labor skills and participate in many opportunities like the labor mobility we working with Australia and New Zealand right now. Government will continue investing in schools, colleges, universities, teacher training, classrooms, student accommodations and insurance facilities. In fact, the biggest priority coming up in the next 10 years is quality education, wholesome education for our children. We've earmarked 11 billion kila just to make wholesome intervention in the education sector so that our future is secured by giving quality education to our children. But this what government is doing must be met by discipline and personal effort from all our young children. Young people do not wait on your parents, your member of parliament or your government to do everything for you. Use your youthful energy to learn, work and prepare yourself. Your generation will inherit this country as I have inherited from the Somali government. You must be ready to lead it. You must be ready to work in it. You must be ready to work for our country. To those who are age above 25, ages between 25 and 50, these are your most productive years. This is the time to work, raise your family, build a business, cultivate your land, and contribute to the economy. Find something good and productive for your hands to do. Not everyone will find a job in government, a mine, an energy project, a bank or a large company. But we have something many countries do not have. We have land. We have land. We have fertile soil, abundant rivers, systems, and rainfalls, forests, and vast oceans of sea. Therein has resources that has sustained our ancestors. For centuries, our ancestors lived amongst these valleys, these mountains, these riversides, these islands for thousands of years before 1975. We must use what God has blessed us with for the advancement of ourselves and collectively for our country. God has blessed us with everything necessary to feed ourselves and build a strong economy. In the in Bible in Genesis 2:15, God placed Adam in the garden to work and care for it. Laziness is not out of sync with our biblical teachings and our melanian heritage. Work has been part of our life. I point to all of us. We too must work and care for what God has given us. Money will not from the sky unless we collectively work for it. Work your coffee. Work your cacao. Wake your coconut. Work your sego. Wake your fisheries. Work your tourism. Work your land. Plant cocoa. Taro, banana, rice, vanilla, vegetables, raise chickens, raise pigs, kettles, fish. Process what you grow. Package it properly. Take to the market. This is simple, but this has sustained us for thousands of years. We must go back to the basics. All of us must work, build cooperatives in a modern world, register legal businesses, open bank accounts, save your money, reinvest or invest in enterprises or your enterprise. Start small, think big. There is dignity in honest work. There is no same in working your land. A person who produces food and answer honest income is making a valuable contribution to the country. These are your working years. To those who range between 25 to 50 years, do not waste them sitting down and waiting for somebody else. Look after your children. Educate your children, build a home, save money, create employment for others and contribute to your community and to your country. To those of us who age 50 and above, I want to speak to you. Your country still needs you. your knowledge, your wisdom, your experience and your work. You have lived through many challenges just like our country the last 50 years. You understand the history of your own families, your communities and our nation. Do not withdraw from the work of building our nation. Guide our young people. Teach them history of their clans, their communities, and our country. Pass on traditional knowledge and skills, values, and stories. teach them how to work the land, resolve disputes, respect others and live responsibly. Those who are in professional work in our country of work professionally, mentor the next generation of teachers, public servants, health workers, police officers, trades people, farmers, businessmen or business people and leaders. Mentorship and good mentorship is needed right across our country. For those who are in my age group, the Somar generation will not come back and teach us. They are fading into history. They're part of our history. The few that remains alive to this day. We salute you for the work you've done the last 50 years in holding our country together. It is now a time of those of us who age about 50 years. We must help restore discipline, respect, and promote unity in our country. Do not encourage struggle fighting, revenge or division. Be peacemakers. Use your influence to unite families, clans, churches and communities and to get our country. The young have energy but they need direction. Older papers must provide the direction. Every generation has work to do. The young must learn. Those in productive years must work and produce. Our elders must lead, mentor and preserve the values that hold our society together. This is how we build a strong nation across generation. In the days leading up to this anniversary, I traveled from Port Mosby through central Gulf across the newly cut missing link leading to Morave and through Lei up the Highlands Highway and down to Kikori. Nine provinces all in all. In fact, this morning I drove in the vehicle that has been my house for 5 days. I travel across the country meeting children, meeting elderly, meeting people, meeting every Papa along the way. I want to say thank you in a special way. I see the my Buddha, the opposition leader amongst us, the honorable James Nam. Your people in Suave have been good. Your people in Simbu have been good. Your people in Yalu Panga have been good. and districts who are currently under the opposition side of the parliament. But people sold out as one people, one nation, one country. For more than 50 years, Potmos had remained one of the most isolated cities or nation's capital, the world. It remained unconnected to many parts of our country. The successful crossing from Potmosby to Lelay s isolation has ended. We must link together. Our people must be together. We must cross over from Papua into New Guinea. From the highlands into the lowlands, from the highlands to the mainlands. One people, one nation, one country must remain together. The journey has not been easy. It wasn't easy. As I cross over from Kamatu to the lay side, reflective of the last 50 years, it was never an easy road. Who would have thought the most diverse nation on the face of planet earth would have been fused into one nation? And 51 years on, we have hosted the flag as a free nation, as a democratic nation, as a free market economy. A robust judiciary that is independent still stands guiding our people, holding the unity of a nation together. Just like the travel I traveled across mountains, valleys, rivers, forest, mud, and in some of the most difficult terrains in our country, we have traveled some of the most difficult times in our nation's history. This road symbolizes our nation being brought together along the newly cut road I made, for instance, an elderly woman and many others. But this elderly woman's memory stands out very well. Right at the top as the sun was setting, we're descending to a resting place in Burma. She was right there at the peak. I was I saw a silhouette that came out very clear. I approached my vehicle that I was driving approach and I said, "Mama, come. I want to give you some money." She refused money. She cried and said, "Mr. Prime Minister, I am happy that you at Bill Road. I could imagine in her the tears that she carried the last 50 years. As she walked these rugged mountains, cross valleys, she saw a hope. She saw that light is being lit up. She saw that she's finally connected to the rest of the country. So close yet seemingly so far. That encounter made me think right throughout my journey. Many of us asked for free handouts. She did not ask for money. She was simply happy for the road. Our rural people in our country out there, the 85% they're not asking for a sympathy. They're asking for access and opportunity. They have land. They have resources. They want to work. In Kipa alone, I counted over 100 coffee bags on the side of the new road we built. They want access. They want road to take their producers to markets. They want road that will save them. Our coastal and island communities need ports and jetties so they can move their produce and themselves back and forth to efficiently and safety through through efficient and safe transport modes. Our remote communities need enabling infrastructures so that teachers have workers, pastors. There was a pastor lady who said thank you for the road because she was serving in remote kiba the last 20 years. They want schools for the children, teachers and health workers to reach the community. They want to fully participate in life and economy of the country. To our people still living in isolated communities across our country, I say to you today, just like I promised the woman, four women and one man and 11 children in Kipa in 2020, they asked me for road. I told them road is coming. I drove into that place to every Papony in isolated corners of our country. I say to all of you, you are not forgotten as you host your flag up in the remotest of our remotes in the islands of our country right across and even to the farflung corners of our country. We will reach you. Government will reach you with or without James Marappe. Even those who come after me will work for you as we pledge to work this 51st anniversary of our nationhood. No place, no child, no person must be left behind in our country. Roads are not built for vehicles to pass through. Only ports and jetties are not built simply to birth boats. Airports and air strips are not built simply for aircraft to land. Infrastructure connects our people to opportunities. And I want to say our people, we're working for you. I want to ask each and every one of you too to work for your country. If you expect government to deliver these infrastructures, you expect government to have public servants to be there saving you. I ask our people throughout the leg and bread of our country. Let's go back to the basics. It was agriculture that sustained us in the 60s and 70s and 80s. It wasn't mining, petroleum, and oil and gas that sustained us. You have land, work your land. Utilize the highways we are building. Utilize the ports we are building. Itless and jetties we are building so that product we can all be productive. Every road we are building must lead to a port in some place. Every port that we are building must have an economic activity in some place. I point to the example of Kikori. In 2022, Kikori that I visited with my family to spend on New Year's Eve had no hotels, had no roads, had was an isolated outbreak post. As I drove into Kikori last week Thursday, I drove into a modern hotel. Kikor is changing. Kikori town was sealed. Business are emerging. A model modern hotel has opened. This s our country can move towards the destination of development if all of us work. A mother from Kikori right now is selling her produces in Hagen earning monies she never earned before. This shows if you work and utilize infrastructures that government is putting together and in place you can be producing and become productive. No less man in practice I saw in Kikori through that mother who's now utilizing this road to bring her produce from Kikori back to Hagen and Yalibu to sell her examples should inspire every papu niginans opening of infrastructures and roads educating you and empowering you so that you too contribute to the betterment of our country. As we stand on our 51st anniversary I appeal to all of us in conclusion my message is simple. every corner of our country, every person in our country, every one of us. Don't expect our development partners to work for us. They have helped us the last 50 years. It is now our time to shoulder our burden, work for our country, carry our country forward in the work that we must do. We must all rise up and work for our country and build our country in the next 50 years. People must participate in this growth. Don't stand by and watch development pass by. Prepare yourself, educate your children, raise the business, supply food to markets around us, and together we can work to build our country a better place. I want to also point to all of you as we stand in this n in in in this nation's juncture, we cannot afford to not to work. Every one of us must work. That is my simple message on our 51st. Find a place in our country that you must work. You must respect each other. We must have discipline. Stopping violence, stopping tribal fight, respecting the rules of law in our country. Stop stealing. Stop vandalism. Stop rascal behavior. Stop violence against women. Stop sanguma. No one is a sanguma. No mother is a sanguma. Stop sanguma. Stop the false accusation. Stop even spitting bu in public places. We must keep our homes, villages, towns, markets, PMVs, taxes clean. These seem so small and basic, but are fundamental, a very fundamental to working for our country. Independence is not only about raising a flag on September 16 each year. Independence is about personal responsibility to each other and to our country. It is about respecting the law, respecting women, respecting children, respecting public property, respecting each other. If you do not know what work is, then I point to you. This may be the first work we must all do. No less man must never become an excuse to abandon people who need genuine help. We must care for the disabilities, the elderly, the widows, the orphans and families who face hardships as Melanians and as Christians do. We must recognize that many hardworking papunians still rake roads and other important infrastructures. That is government's job. But as government work I want to close now asking all of us it is all of us to pull together work together and stand side by side helping each other and carry our country forward ura lassiu no less man is the message I want to leave today wherever you are in our country let's start to work to those under the age of 25 and below as I summarize learn and prepare yourselves to those age 25 to 50. Work, produce, and raise your families and build businesses. To those age above 50, lead, mentor, and pass on your knowledge to the younger generations. Let every find something good to do. Let every leader serve with honesty and dignity to our people. Let every worker work. Let every farmer produce. Let every fisherman feast. Let every student learn. Let every businessman invest and women invest. Let every citizen contribute. Love your brothers and sisters from other tribes and provinces and region. Work together. Stay together as one people, as one country, as one nation. And together we can make our country a better place. Happy 51st anniversary to each and every one of you. May God bless all of you. Every papers, I pray for God's blessing on every one of you. But I expressly in a special way pronounce that God shall bless every Papain who work hard. Now repeat this to every Papa I pray for God's blessing on each and every one of you. But to those who work hard, God shall bless you. And may God bless our beautiful country. To those who stood in us the last 51 years or sitted at my right, I want to thank each and every one of you. You have not have you have not left us. All development partners thank you for believing in Papa Nigini. Thank you for helping Papa Nigini. Papa Niginas today pledged that we will work for our country and I ask you wherever you can assist us work with us. This country will live on with or without James Marav. That is something I can tell all of you. Many have pronounced us to be failed, but we have not failed as yet. This country will live on with or without James Marab. Those of you who've stayed with us the last 51 years remain with us. This is a good story emerging. A robust democracy, a vibrant free market economy stuck in the middle of APEC, ASEAN and Pacific Island nations. We will certainly not fail. We are pledging ourselves to work this 51st year in the next 50 years to work harder. My generation is pledging to mentor the next generation. Those that come after me are pledging to work harder. and our children are pledging to be in study and in school to gain enough and good skills to carry on our country. I want to ask all of us let's have hope and have faith in our country pap we live on happy 51st papini to every citizens across the country and especially the rural and claims of our country and the settlements and small people I love each and every one of