Proposed legislation that would prohibit unsuccessful political candidates from working for the Premier, Cabinet ministers or the Opposition leader was rejected by MPs last week.

Jarion Richardson, the Shadow Minister of National Security, Governance and AI, presented the Premier, Ministers and Opposition Leader Personal Staffs and Parliamentary Election Amendment Act in the House of Assembly.

The Bill would stop any unsuccessful political candidate from being appointed as staff for the Premier, Opposition leader or a minister for two years after losing an election.

Mr Richardson explained: “This Bill does not say that unsuccessful candidates are unqualified; it says that public confidence requires distance between the ballot paper and publicly funded appointments.”

He added that the proposed Bill would close one perceived gap in Parliament fairly and “in a way that binds both the Opposition as well as the Government”.

David Burt said that the Bill was “a solution in search of a problem” and does not exclude members of political parties from being appointed as advisers, only those who choose to run for office.

The Premier added: “A person who may already be holding a legitimate appointment, performing valuable work already and have done absolutely nothing wrong, under this Bill, that appointment will be ended automatically — no assessment of performance, no evidence of wrongdoing, no consideration of public interest, just automatic dismissal.

“That is not good governance.”

Douglas De Couto, the Shadow Minister of Finance, said the Bill would help people to feel “more confident in what is going on in the operations of their government at a time of great cynicism and mistrust”.

Nine MPs supported the Bill, 16 rejected it and ten were absent from voting.