10 November that the Justice Law and Order Committee had completed receiving public submissions on the bill, and were in the process of compiling a report. The presentation, due in two weeks, to parliament would take account of the views of all who made submissions, Tugia said. On 22 November, however, he announced another probable postponement of the tabling of the bill. He and Prime Minister Qarase said that the vast number of submissions might prevent the bill from being tabled for the December Parliamentary session, and that it might have to be postponed till February 2006. Prime Minister Qarase announced on 1 December that the bill would be tabled in Parliament later that day, and that the Cabinet would prepare amendments that would be ready to be processed in Parliament's February 2006 sitting. The bill would not be withdrawn, he insisted on 16 December; to do so would be undemocratic, he considered. In his New Year message on 1 January 2006, he declared the bill to be the only way forward for Fiji. The legislation was vitally important for the harmonious and stable development of the country. Changes recommended by the parliamentary committee Manasa Tugia, Chairman of Parliament's Justice, Law, and Order Committee, tabled the committee's report on the bill, on 1 December. He revealed that the parliamentary committee had received a total of 124 written and 148 oral submissions on the bill. The majority of organizations who presented submissions supported the legislation, he said, but the reverse was true of members of the public. He alleged that many people on both sides of the debate were supporting or opposing something they had not read. He expressed disappointment that few submissions had been received from the Indo-Fijian community. "We thought they would come forward to use this opportunity to air their views. But everyone was given a fair opportunity to air their views on the draft Bill," he said. Tugia said that in attempting to reconcile the diametrically opposed views on the bill, the committee had studied similar legislation in countries like South Africa, Timor Leste, and the Solomon Islands, and had borrowed and synthesized elements from them in order to come up with a model for Fiji. A priority was that "necessary reconciliation" should take place between the perpetrators and the victims of the coup, he said. The bill's preamble, which emphasizes the rights of indigenous Fijians, should