have two houses of Parliament, one elected and one appointed. The elected house, the House of Assembly, consists of 40 Members of Parliament who are elected at a general election which may be called at any time, but no less than every five years, by the Premier. The appointed house is our Senate where there are 11 members. Five selected by the Premier as Government Senators, three by the Opposition and three by the Governor as Independents. The extraordinary element of Bermuda's system is that however popular the Government is, however many seats it gains in the lower house, it can never be in the majority in the upper house. Perhaps this provides the ultimate in balance and check.

The caucus of the winning party then elects its leader who becomes Premier.

The Cabinet is then selected by the Premier and he is obligated to choose all but two from the House of Assembly. The remaining two positions may be chosen from the Senate. Thus, the Premier has only about 25 people he can select from to fill the majority of his administration. He, in fact, only has flexibility in two out of the 12 portfolios. This places severe restrictions.

It is the Cabinet which is responsible for the general management of government. It creates the policy and prioritises the allocation of funds to its various portfolios. It was thus with this group that the planning process had to start.

Several in-depth and lengthy planning sessions were held. In principle, the Premier is one amongst equals and he does not have the right to veto or dictate policy. His influence comes from more intangible powers and the most necessary skill any Premier or Prime Minister can have is that of persuasion.

Decisions are thus arrived at through the consensus process and, as many of you will realise, this can be a frustrating and time consuming procedure. It thus took us considerable time to develop some statements of policy that we could all agree on and which presented our broad objectives to the community.

We agreed on these five principles.

Economic Stability and Responsible Management: We believe that no country can hope to succeed without a firm and stable economy. But we went beyond that and recognised the need for Government to manage itself effectively and to ensure that the efficient use of the public purse was a priority.

Equality of Opportunity: In any society, it is imperative that we ensure all our citizens are given the means and the ability to partake in the opportunities of life on an equal footing. In Bermuda, given our small size and limited population base, it is essential that each and every one of our people have the opportunity to participate to the absolute maximum of their potential.

Enhancement of the Environment: It is clear our planet faces a major crisis, one that may threaten our very survival. While we in Bermuda are powerless to make any major impact on the global environment, we can certainly do our part.

... Bermuda is the only country that I am aware of which has developed a national waste management programme designed to reduce the amount of waste produced by our Country and recycle whatever, wherever we can. Every country needs to ensure that protection and, indeed, enhancement of the environment is high on the list of priorities.

Social Stability and Security: The strength of any country must, today, be measured in the stability and security of its society. This objective includes our concerns over drugs and the development of a national drug strategy, ensuring that those less fortunate can be assured of a roof over their heads, food, and a sound education system. We also recognise that society must feel secure and have worked hard to develop a good, responsible and capable security system.

Building a Bermudian Consensus: Perhaps the most difficult task we have set for ourselves. This is a powerful statement of intent and recognises the evolution of our population. Our increased levels of education have ensured a much more significant degree of participation in the national agenda. The people of Bermuda are keen to be involved in the decision-making process and we are making significant efforts to broaden the base of participation and bring in the people of Bermuda to the collective, participative process.

The development of these broad philosophical objectives opened up the possibilities for real action. It focused our government and our people and laid the ground for more specific objectives. These we have been initiating over the past several months. We recognised several needs of the community and of the national direction and have put together some ideas that will address these priority concerns. But we also wanted to embrace a broad cross-section of the community, to harness the definitive talent that exists in Bermuda and to develop national responses which were truly reflective of the community itself.

Bermuda has existed for many years as an extremely successful society. But the time has come to analyse what we are doing and how we are doing it. We need to examine every aspect of our business structure and ask the question, "are we competitive?'' We have thus instigated a national Commission on Competitiveness. This will involve almost 100 individuals from across the community. They will dig into all aspects of our two main economic planks, tourism and international companies, and structure a plan to ensure that they remain competitive into the next century. But we are also delving into our society and looking around the world to see what new areas of opportunity lie in wait for our small country. We seek to diversify our economy, build opportunity for a wider cross-section of our community and ensure continued growth. This will be no small task but we have given the commission set objectives and definitive time constraints. We want action and we want it in real time. This may be the first time a country has taken its whole economic infrastructure, turned it upside down, and embarked on a comprehensive examination of its competitiveness in the international marketplace.

We have a relatively small workforce in Bermuda and a very sophisticated society. We are providing unsurpassed levels of international communications, a superb legal and accounting infrastructure, modern transportation and very advanced levels of accommodation and support services. To service this, we have traditionally relied on a large foreign workforce. While we will always need foreign assistance, there is no doubt that we should be able to guide our people into a more participative role in this modern society for the future.

We have thus formed a Task Force on Employment whose role it is to ask, "Where are we today and where do we need to be in the next decade? What will our society need in terms of talent? How is the workplace going to change? What will the needs of both the employee and employer be?'' This task force is asked to produce a plan to guide us into the 21st century with a workforce that is equipped and trained to handle very sophisticated needs of this new society. Its membership embraces a wide cross-section of participants from employers to union leaders and includes every sector of participants from employers to union leaders and includes every sector of our economy. Again, it has specific objectives and set time frames.

The use of illicit drugs in Bermuda, although not a problem in comparison to almost any other jurisdiction, is a major threat to the fabric of society. By employing a first-rate international expert as a facilitator we have developed a true national strategy on drugs. Using hundreds of participants from across our society we have developed a true consensus on the problem. We are now putting the recommendations into place and will create a semi-autonomous authority whose role will be to harness all the many agencies both in the public and private sectors and to ensure we approach this problem in a unified and collective fashion. We may actually have got to the point where we can engender the needed community support to really tackle this international cancer.

The core of any society must be based on how well it is educating its people.

Once again, our limited human resource base makes it vital that all our children are given every possible opportunity to maximise their own potentials. Again, utilising a wide cross-section of our community in a national Education Planning Team, we have developed an education plan which will see a virtual revolution in our teaching standards, our physical plants and our cultural understanding of the role of education in our society. It is going to cost us a great deal in cash and human resources, but we are going to transform our fundamental education system into one that will provide a level of public education not found anywhere else in the world. It is our hope that this will not only provide the resource base to our young people but will also form a key ingredient in uniting our people and in eliminating any racial bias that may exist. It is a bold plan, filled with minefields, particularly for a political party, but it has to be done.

Any society in today's world must, as part of a national review, take a meaningful look at the way it is incarcerating its criminals. Throughout the world, we are losing a significant percentage of our population to incarceration. For centuries, society has regarded criminals as elements that need to be locked away and removed from daily life. Certainly, there are those in any society who are dangerous to the public safety and must be removed.

However, it is becoming widely recognised that a significant number of our prisoners have the potential to be successful and productive participants in society. It is sheer waste to lock them away and not attempt to correct their various problems.

Recognising this, we are building a major new facility which is designed to correct and not to incarcerate. We will provide the needed facilities and resources to give every Bermudian the ability to escape that potentially endless spiral of negative behaviour.

While all of these steps will impact on our racial environment, we have now reached a maturity in our society where the real task of total integration can be addressed. We have come a long way but elements of prejudice and discrimination still exist. We are now formulating plans to embrace society in a national examination of these problems and to develop meaningful plans to foster a new level of understanding and participation. We are regarded by many as the model for racial harmony. It is perhaps because of advances in this area that we are now able to take the next bold step forward.

Society is changing and so is its perception of government. We recognise that as an institution, we must also change. We no longer have the resources either financial or human to be all things to all people. We have thus launched a complete review of the way Government does business. We have encompassed several initiatives under a value for money objective. A significant percentage of our public servants are now working on an Access to Government Initiative. This will look for ways to improve accountability, enhance management skills, free up the system and eliminate bureaucratic road blocks.

It will develop strategies throughout Government to introduce a real client-oriented ethic and develop means to make government truly serve the people. We wish to make Government more participative, more consultative, and more directed by the public agenda. You all know well what Bermuda is really doing. It is government by the people, of the people and for the people.

Governments of today are realising that the days of huge unwieldy organisation are over. The resources just are not available. This lesson is no more true than in the tiny island of Bermuda. We have realised that we can no longer be the provider of everything. We must, instead, utilise the one fundamental resource we have, the human intellect, and make it work for us. We will be the facilitator and the uniter. We will attempt to bring opposing views together and eliminate discord through the development of consensus. We will work amongst the people, not above them, we will be part of society and make its agenda our agenda.

The time has passed for governments which isolate themselves. Such systems can never survive this age of instant communication. We must deliver a message of realism but also one of hope. A hope based on the essential strength of the community we serve. If we can succeed in bringing our people together we will have created a reservoir of intellect that can meet any challenge. If we can remove the waste that is present in every society as it seeks to refute, to argue and to negate, we will have created a mine of wealth. If we can reach beyond the prejudice that is part of every man, we can harness a powerhouse of energy.

All of us have had a role in creating a tremendous level of expectation. In doing so, we accepted the burden of making those dreams come true. We are entering an age of participation, of collective responsibility. We can no longer ignore our responsibility to deliver what we have been promising for so long, it is time ... for us to begin the process of this new order.

I have much hope for the future. ... I recognise, however, that the tasks before us are as significant as any that have faced any generation in the past. I am convinced we have the needed resources, skills and ability to meet these challenges. The only question is whether we have the energy and commitment to use them. Our societies are endangered but there is still time to save them from extinction.

Every politician has the element of a dreamer about him. The trick is to take the vision and focus it into real action. We have, at least, started a process in Bermuda of positive and definitive action. We are merely bystanders in the world arena. Our global objectives will have little impact on world events, we are very minor players on the world stage. But we can earn our right to be citizens of this world.