Third time lucky? Or third strike and you're out? That's the question
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Time: Eight and a half hours1. Randy Horton PLP 10.41 a.m. (48 minutes)
2. Grant Gibbons UBP 11.29 a.m. (50 ninutes)
3. Dean Foggo PLP 12.19 p.m. (29 minutes)Lunch: 12.30 to 2.00 p.m.4. Trevor Moniz UBP 2.18 p.m. ( 30 minutes)
5. Michael Scott PLP 2.48 p.m. (38 minutes)
6. Cole Simons UBP 3.26 p.m. (52 minutes)
7. Ashfield DeVent PLP 4.18 p.m. (43 minutes)
8. Patrice Minors PLP 5.01 p.m. (23 minutes)
9. Pat Gordon-Pamplin UBP 5.24 p.m. (50 minutes)
10. Renee Webb PLP 6.14 p.m. (42 minutes)
11. Jamahl Simmons UBP 6.56 p.m. (26 minutes)
12. Paula Cox PLP 7.22 p.m. ( 23 minutes)
13. John Barritt UBP 7.45 p.m. (22 minutes)
14. Premier Dr. Ewart Brown PLP 8.07 p.m. (10 minutes)
Finish: 8.17 p.m.
Total Number Speakers: 28
Did Not Speak: 7 (not including the Speaker who actually doesn’t get to speak: he listens, except when spelled by the Deputy Speaker who can speak when she is not in the chair listening).SO what, Mr. Editor, now you (and everyone else) thinks that I have nothing else better to do than wile away the hours in the House on the Hill counting the minutes members spend speaking? Er, well, yes and no, I suppose - to give a typically political straddle-the-fence answer.First of all, I admit it, it does help pass the time when you’re confined to listening. But as I also explained last week, it’s partly my job as Opposition House Leader and Whip which is to keep a count and to make sure everyone who wants to, gets to, speak.
Within reason, of course, Mr. Editor.There are 14 of us and 21 Government members. While we cannot all speak at once - although I know at times it sounds like that over the radio- you can easily figure out, without the aid of rocket science, just how much time we do need if all 35 members choose to speak for, say, 20 minutes each: 12 hours or thereabouts.But who speaks for just 20 minutes? Well, you can answer that question for yourself. Check out the Barritt Scorecard for this and last week. You will see that few do.
Still nothing beats a failure but a try, and so we had a crack at trying to move things along at a reasonable pace. The “we” were the Whips, Ottiwell Simmons for the PLP and myself. We reached a kind of general understanding going into the Throne Speech debate that ( one) we would have the debate over two days, this and last Friday, (two) we would try and end the debate each Friday around eight in the evening, and (three) we would encourage our respective colleagues to keep their speeches to around 20 minutes or so.Unfortunately, Mr. Editor, the “or so” can sometimes exceed the 20 minutes.Still, as you will see from the Scorecards, there was an achievement of sorts: we did manage to finish around eight o’clock each Friday evening: thanks in large part to seven members who chose not to speak - and for those who did speak, Mr. Editor, there were some who were more equal than others when it came to giving themselves time to speak.
Speaking from experience, it isn’t always easy saying what you have to say in twenty minutes (er, sorry, in my case, twenty two).
We are not supposed to have written out what we are going to say. Reading prepared speeches (which isn’t debating anyhow) is not permitted under the Rules, the relevant one of which reads in part:
“ —a Member shall not read his speech, but he may, with the consent of the Speaker — read extracts from books, papers, including newspapers, in support of his argument or may refresh his memory from notes.”
When it comes to notes, Mr. Editor, suffice it to say that there is a fair bit of refreshment each Friday in the House on the Hill. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you are looking for members stick to their points and stay on message. Late in the day, besieged and beset by interpolations, twenty minutes soon becomes insufficient and you can soon find yourself racing, as I did last Friday, to get it all out in time, speaking at a clip that was once used to describe the late great orator HHH, and that was that he could speak at the rate of hundred words a minute with gusts up to two hundred: with some thunder and lightning, but hopefully without, please, any intermittent showers.
Premier Brown proved himself short man of the day, again, when he wrapped up the debate in ten minutes. Remember last week, he opened it with one. But, hey, as we found out during the debate, he got to re-write the Throne Speech which The Man Before Him had written and which the Governor read for him to start the whole thing off in the first place.
<$>TWO heads, Mr. Editor, are often said to be better than one, and according to PLP MP Michael Scott, now of the backbench, formerly of the Cabinet, this was in fact the case with the Throne Speech, which he said was the product of two minds, that of the new Premier and The Man whom Dr. Brown replaced, Alex Scott, who incidentally wasn’t there last Friday (not that it mattered because he had spoken the week before, and a member can only speak once in the debate).Unfortunately, Scott, Michael, didn’t tell us which part was which.
But none of us on the Opposition benches would have imagined that Scott, Alex, would have dropped completely the Social Agenda, Sustainable Development and/or Independence from his version of the Throne Speech.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent to get us this far on sustaining the debate on Development and Independence. Countless hours too. But try as we might, Mr. Editor, we couldn’t find out what’s cooking. We are simply told that they’re still on the stove. Front-burner? Back-burner? Is the stove even on?
The New Premier also tells us that just because some items are not mentioned in his Throne Speech, doesn’t mean Government isn’t working on them.
Precisely -which is why inquiring minds want to know.
Scott, Michael, had no trouble rowing his new boat in the sea of change. He didn’t use the Scott, Alex, slogan “Social Agenda”, but instead the words “Social Activism”. Scott, Michael, was most indignant that the United Bermuda Party continues (in its Reply) “to castigate us for our social activism”.
While he didn’t say, we presume that it was our reference to their botched work to date in housing and in education, for example, as in the staggering, still escalating, Berkeley construction project.
No mind, said Scott, Michael: “we will wear the scars of our errors as a badge of honour”. Expensive errors when you start to tot up the cost.
But the battle is joined - and speaking of which Mr. Editor, I was intrigued by his further comment that: “there is a short time to the next election and this [Throne Speech] is a good game plan to follow.”
Hmmn. How short, I wonder?
<$>IF an election is just around the corner, Mr. Editor, the New Man In Charge looks and sounds like he is trying to build some momentum going in [which is quite apart, may I say, from the monumental steps he is taking with the appointments of a Chief of Staff, Press Secretary and, most recently, Special Advisor and the construction of a new mini-empire down at the Cabinet Office]. Meanwhile, we were warned Friday in the House on the Hill that his Government was only idling in neutral throughout the Throne Speech debate and that members on both sides could expect to move into high gear shortly.
Okay - and we did, sort of, that very night when Government chose to take up four pieces of legislation that kept us there until after ten and which proved once again, in one instance, that not all motion is progress.
Case in point: amendments to Taxes Management Act, Contributory Pensions Act and National Pension Scheme (Occupational Pensions) Act.
They looked simple and straightforward. Simple always does, but rarely is. What Government was looking to do was to now make directors and officers of companies personally liable for unpaid taxes and pension payments.
Harsh maybe, but fair enough, particularly when you consider some companies have made a practice out of withholding payment, and then subsequently going out of business.
According to the Auditor General, there are unpaid taxes totalling $27-million and outstanding pension payments of over $2 million. The pension loss is devastating for some of our seniors who, as a result of non-payment, end up with something less than that to which they would otherwise be entitled and which, as Louise Jackson will tell you, as she does on a regular basis, isn’t sufficient to live on in any event.
Here’s the thing though, Mr. Editor. Government is looking to make the liability retroactive. Directors, who weren’t aware that taxes and pension deductions were not being paid, and whose statutory responsibilities at the time did not include making sure that they were, can now be held personally liable.
The period of liability was initially set at three years for pension payments. However, the limitation was dropped completely when the Opposition benches pointed out that they had been much kinder to themselves when they prescribed no limitation period for the collection of back taxes.
The limitation period is in fact twenty years, Mr. Editor, according to another statute.
The retroactive effect was also a point taken up by the Opposition - it is unusual to find in legislation, and may yet be challenged in a court of law - but to no avail. The Minister, Paula Cox, was determined to see the Bills through - even though she did at one point, appear to acknowledge the strength of the point which was being made.
The P.S. on this Mr. Editor is this: As Dr. Grant Gibbons shared with us that night it did not appear that local stakeholders, the usual suspects when it comes to legislative changes, even knew about what was being proposed, let alone been consulted.
Stay tuned: there may be more to come as the unsuspecting find out just what was done late in the evening in the House on the Hill when no one was looking.
<$>FOR most people, Mr. Editor, legislative drafting is as exciting as watching paint dry. For everyone else, it’s like watching paint.But as difficult as it might be, it’s still nonetheless important to know what laws are in place - and to at least have the opportunity to know what’s proposed, whether you are an effected stakeholder or not.
Proposed legislation is tabled in the House - usually two weeks in advance of debate - and hard copies may be made available upon request. But the introduction of Bills is not something that attracts any more attention and publicity than, say, a lick of new paint.
People don’t know unless you reach out and tell them - and it’s high time efforts were made in this direction .Reform of the House on the Hill goes beyond just changes to the Rules to bring the public in. We also need a Legislature web-site where Bills can be posted along with Orders of the Day and the Minutes, brief as they may be, along with any other reports, statements or accounts which are presented in Parliament.
I know, I know, it takes money.
But it’s also a question of priorities. We’ve now got plenty of new parking spaces and there’s talk of a security gate and new “ergonomically-designed chairs” - and yes, I checked, the word is not ego-nomical - while members struggle with out-of-date resources, including the statute books themselves and a library that is a library in name only, the most useful purpose of which seems to be as a backdrop for press conferences.
Meanwhile, I seem to recall that the 2006/2007 Budget included $250,000.00 for a “computerised Hansard”. Priorities, Mr. Editor, it’s all a matter of priorities.
