There is a certain kind of courage that is rarer in politics than the kind shown on battlefields: the courage to stand in Parliament and tell a difficult truth when the easier path is silence. In December 2025, Peter O'Neill demonstrated exactly that courage during the debate on PNG's 2026 National Budget.
As government benches applauded what they called a "record" K30.9 billion budget, O'Neill rose to remind the House of a distinction that matters enormously to every Papua New Guinean: the difference between money allocated on paper and money that actually reaches communities.
"Running deficits is not inherently wrong — if borrowing is directed at productive projects that build the economy. But what we are seeing now is different. This is not investment. This is survival spending dressed up as progress."
— Hon. Peter O'Neill, Parliamentary Budget Debate, December 2025
He pointed to the expansion of the temporary advance facility — effectively a government overdraft at the Bank of PNG — which he said had ballooned dangerously, warning that borrowing to simply keep the government system afloat, rather than to build productive infrastructure that generates future returns, is a path toward long-term fiscal failure.
O'Neill did not merely criticise. He reminded the House of PNC's track record of fiscal responsibility during the party's years in government — a period in which PNG LNG was delivered, infrastructure was built, and free education was introduced without the chronic cash-flow failures now plaguing the nation's provinces and districts.
The PNC's message heading into 2026 and beyond is clear: Papua New Guinea deserves a government that tells the truth about money, spends it wisely, and delivers results that can be seen and felt in every province.