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Papua New Guinea: Poet and firebrand finds herself in good company

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Papua New Guinea: Poet and firebrand finds herself in good company

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Yesterday Loujaya Toni MP - gardener, teacher, poet, singer, journalist, mother, wife and (judging by a lively phone interview) political firebrand - was in the Cook Islands, where she was to be welcomed into the fold by some rather more experienced female political operators: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Women chief and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. (She was also to have met the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who had to leave the Pacific Islands Forum early because of the deaths of five soldiers in Afghanistan.)

As she scrambled from Port Moresby to Rarotonga this week after getting the message that ''Hillary wants to meet you'', Toni reflected that her break into the male enclave of Pacific power came courtesy of a collusion of factors.

She had the education, the determination, and a restive electorate prepared to vote against old paradigms. Now she hopes the planets are aligning to usher in other women.

Toni's success in the polls coincides with a welling up of momentum, awareness and investment in the gender agenda in the Pacific, as highlighted by the announcement this week by Gillard at the Pacific Islands Forum of a $320 million, 10-year initiative to expand women's leadership and opportunities in the region.

Read more at Brisbane Times, published 1 September 2012.
News

Yesterday Loujaya Toni MP - gardener, teacher, poet, singer, journalist, mother, wife and (judging by a lively phone interview) political firebrand - was in the Cook Islands, where she was to be welcomed into the fold by some rather more experienced female political operators: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Women chief and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. (She was also to have met the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who had to leave the Pacific Islands Forum early because of the deaths of five soldiers in Afghanistan.)

As she scrambled from Port Moresby to Rarotonga this week after getting the message that ''Hillary wants to meet you'', Toni reflected that her break into the male enclave of Pacific power came courtesy of a collusion of factors.

She had the education, the determination, and a restive electorate prepared to vote against old paradigms. Now she hopes the planets are aligning to usher in other women.

Toni's success in the polls coincides with a welling up of momentum, awareness and investment in the gender agenda in the Pacific, as highlighted by the announcement this week by Gillard at the Pacific Islands Forum of a $320 million, 10-year initiative to expand women's leadership and opportunities in the region.

Read more at Brisbane Times, published 1 September 2012.
News