Senators crossed swords during an heated debate over the Bermuda Government’s proposals in the Throne Speech and the Opposition’s alternative vision for the Island.

While the Senate leaders of both parties, Michael Fahy and Diallo Rabain, exchanged verbal blows on the issue of good governance and immigration, other senators were quick to question and criticise their rivals’ policies and track record.

One Bermuda Alliance senator Georgia Marshall accused the Progressive Labour Party of paying “lip service” to the protection of families and children, saying the Opposition had not acted on a single recommendation contained in the 2009 report, Justice for Families: A Review of Family Law in Bermuda.

She applauded the Government’s move to provide greater protection to vulnerable witnesses in judicial proceedings and backed the creation of an integrated Family Court under one roof that would champion mediation.

Sen Marshall branded the PLP’s plans to reform the education system as “throwing the baby out with the bath water” and said it would be “nothing short of disastrous to a whole generation of students”.

“This Government is committed to building on the improvement and ensure that our children have the opportunity to settle into the curriculum,” she said.

She went on to brand parts of the Reply as “blustery rhetoric” that did not make sense.

PLP senator Marc Daniels claimed the Throne Speech lacked “any real developmental ideas towards diversification”.

“I would like to have heard more about the very specific basis of how each initiative will help economically and socially,” he said.

He criticised the OBA of using the America’s Cup as their “lynchpin” and maintained that there was an “exodus” of the Island’s best and brightest from the country.

“I have heard that less than 80,000 watched the America’s Cup on television in America and in percentage views it was the 91st most watched sporting event,” he said.

“It’s a feel-good factor for Bermuda but the question is, what are the long-term results?”

OBA senator Jeff Baron hailed the positive impact of community initiatives within the National Security Ministry — in which he is a junior minister — but took issue with large parts of the Opposition’s Reply.

“The PLP say that violent crime has not abated, but it has abated,” he said. “That statement is just false.”

Sen Baron then accused the PLP of making the issue of national security a “political football”.

PLP senator Renee Ming also claimed the Government’s Throne Speech lacked any diversification ideas and said she was “baffled” that the OBA planned to ban dark visors after recently tabling legislation approving a darker tint on cars.

She added: “I will be interested to see how the expansion of the CCTV network in St George’s will work.

“We don’t need any more in the town area, it is in the residential areas that there is just one camera. They are the ones being most hard hit in terms of robberies.”

OBA senator Vic Ball questioned whether the country could “trust the words of the leadership of the Opposition party” after citing examples in 2010, 2011 and 2012 when he said that the PLP had claimed the country was out of recession.

He rejected claims made in the Opposition’s Reply that “all indicators say we are still in recession”, before pointing to the growth in GDP and proceeding to highlight hotel developments.

Sen Ball also countered the PLP’s proposed policy of selling fish caught by local fishermen off Bermuda in international markets by saying: “How are we going to compete with the global world when our fish is being sold for $17 per pound in Bermuda?”

OBA senator Lynne Woolridge said the Government’s proposal to dispose of surplus government real estate was a “great way of reducing our debt”.

She finished by pointing out three typographical errors in the Opposition’s response, including having the wrong date on the cover and confusing “moot” and “mute”, before saying that the OBA was moving the country in the right direction.