22nd February 2006

I am happy to rise to support this resolution and to second the motion moved by the Member for Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador.  I was proud on the day the Governor General took the oath of office.  I thought of my mother and father both deceased.  Today would have been my father’s birthday.

I am related to the Governor General through my mother.  In his high school years he lived at my grandmother’s house in Armstrong Street.  We grew up calling him Uncle Arthur and so it remains.  My grandmother was a Hanna, the daughter of Robert Hanna of Acklins, a merchant who made good and whose land still sits on East Bay Street in Nassau.

I offer familial congratulations our new Governor General.

Last week in this place the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister made the point that there was something missing from the ceremony.  Someone, too smart for his own good, thought that they would take up their marbles and not play the game.  In response to the matter which was in fact raised most appropriately by the Member of Parliament of Bamboo Town, the side opposite sat silent and glum and but for one member singularly uninformed.

The newspapers of the country are all in a tizzy because someone in their arrogance and their embarrassment called a press conference over the weekend to say essentially this in his defence: I don’t know what you all are talking about since you did it too.  He even showed a picture from a newspaper, which purported to support the case.

Mr. Speaker, the devil is always in the details, and what at first appears to fit the mould, when examined for the facts, it shows quite a different story.  But you know I said many times in this Parliament last year, the motto of too many in this country is don’t let the facts interfere with a good story.  Don’t bore me with facts; I have already made up my mind.

In September 1992, I sat as an Independent in the Senate.  My appointment came after weeks and months of hard bargaining, proselytizing on behalf of an alliance with the then governing group.  But the reward was grudgingly given or so it appeared to me.

My instrument of appointment was handed to me on the morning of the event, having been signed on that very day it appears by an Acting Governor General or the Deputy to the Governor General, Sir Kendal Isaacs.  A fine man and I have no quarrel with him.  But I say this to answer some of the critics who claim that they were so organized and upright and correct during their time.

The instrument was delivered to me, on the day of the event itself.  It was not clear to me whether I should come dressed for the Parliament or not.  I had no opportunity to invite my parents or family, which I, too, would have wanted to do.  But there was no thought or consideration of that.

Nor Mr. Speaker was there any thought or consideration for the considerable embarrassment personally to Sir Clifford Darling the then Governor General who was dispatched on leave to Canada, with the clear and transparent purpose of not allowing him as a former PLP to read the Speech from the Throne to an FNM Government.  You will note that the PLP did no such thing.

Dame Ivy Dumont who served as Cabinet minister of the FNM swore in all PLP Ministers and read the speech from the throne in 2002 and only recently retired.  And this Prime Minister did that in the face of all kinds of criticism and pressure from his side on the matter.  But he took the position of principle that we must stop acting like primitives and act responsibly and respect the institutions.

No apology was delivered to Sir Clifford Darling for that singularly shameful act in 2002.  Now someone has the gall; the temerity to suggest that he needs to be consulted on matters, on which we are certain he did not consult the former Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition.  He simply did it.  What goes around comes around.  What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

This Prime Minister wanted to put an end to that.  He has extended the hand of friendship, but each time it is extended the hand is cut off.   So the point Mr. Speaker has nothing really to do with whether or not the individual showed up or not.  Well he should have been here and the reason given does not wash but be that as it may, it was his reason, this has more to do with respect for the House, for the institutions for the Parliament.

The singular difference between what the PLP is alleged to have done was that the PLP involved itself in clear, transparent, political acts.  In 1992, it said we are here in the House but we cannot participate in a sham down in the square when you have disrespected the Governor General.  I believe they were right then so to do.  There is a big difference between that and what happened last week.

And Mr. Speaker, my colleagues will tell you, from 1992 to now I am, me, that is; I am opposed to holding that ceremony down in the square.  In social matters, I am a traditionalist and ultra conservative, and I believe it should be held in the Senate chamber.  But I am also a democrat and as personally uncomfortable as I am with it, I still go because that is what those in authority including myself in our governmental recess have decided. And I must respect that or myself be disrespected.

Further, in 1993, the FNM reconvened Parliament on the 19th August the anniversary of their election to power.  Usually the House is closed for the summer. But they brought it back only for the pure political purpose of celebrating their victory.  Fine!  But why should the PLP play along with that, having experienced the booing, spitting and cursing of 1992.  Again, in a clear and transparent political act, the PLP said we will not participate.  That is clearly different from what happened last week.

Last week, was an example of what lawyers call similar fact evidence.  We have seen it before.  In 2002, the individual did not show up for the opening of Parliament.  Up until last year, the modus operandi of the Member was to come to the House, stay for ten minutes and then walk out and go home after being marked present.  He would speak on a matter, insult the Government, disrespect the chair, and then walk out when someone else started to talk.

And on each occasion when I have had to deal with the matter, I have advised the House that in my humble opinion a former Prime Minister has a certain responsibility and is accorded a certain respect because of that position.  So when he did not show up last week, without excuse or notice and that is the operative point, what was this House supposed to think other than this was a mark of disrespect.  We had seen it before.

We have all been analyzing his demeanor and behaviour since he returned to the House as Leader of the Opposition, in this place and on the public platform.  Our analysis is that he is more tightly scripted, on a short political leash, trying to control his volatility, to create a new image.  But it is difficult to hide one's idiosyncrasies, one’s contempt for others and disdain for those whom one regards as a inferior when it is so much a part of one’s political life; it is simply difficult to shift gears.

When it is part of the political persona that has made one politically successful, your minders can only do so much, tell you and coach you; but in your moments of stress you are going to fall back on that which you know best.  Fighting back like a bull in a china shop.  So the lack of excuse or notice to his colleagues is the problem.  Whether he intended it or not, it comes off as contemptuous.

How else would you explain a man who is able to provide the press with full release on a spurious point about failing to answer questions in Parliament, but could not at the same time as matter of courtesy say and oh by the way I have doctor's appointment so I will not be able to attend the opening of Parliament.  No amount of ex post facto patching up can help.  If one were a judge in a court you would have to conclude that the evidence inescapably leads to the fact that contempt was intended to be conveyed and was so conveyed.  So why not be brave and say yeah I did not intend to come and stick it if you don't like it.  Instead now he wants to blame it on a doctor’s appointment.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to respond to two editorials that appeared in the Bahama Journal, that I consider the last refuge of good journalism in The Bahamas. It is only holding on by a thread.   One was published on the 17th February under the headline DISAPPOINTED WITH THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE; the other on 16th February 2006 CERTAIN REALITIES MATTER.

I will deal with the last editorial first about disappointment on the speech.  I wonder what people expect from the Speech from the Throne?  It appears that there is some expectation in the press of soaring rhetoric and oratory.  They want something to be done, it appears, that is substantive.  But how does one do that in a speech from the throne?  It is not an executing document.  It is a descriptive document; it may even be prescriptive.

What is always interesting about press commentary in this country is obvious and patent internal contradictions that appear in the commentary.  In this case, the very thing that they seem to anticipate in the early paragraphs, they denigrate it in the later paragraphs by describing it as “an unprecedented amount of wishful thinking, self-promotion and hype”.  A speech from the throne can be all of those things, and I am sure the author means it only in a sarcastic way.  I mean it in a good way: what is wrong with thinking wishfully, promoting oneself and a hype in this case.  The speech is very much a promotional document.  That is what it is.  What it is more realistically a lot more than that, a lot simpler than that.

A speech from the throne is simply the Government’s legislative and policy agenda for the next session of the Parliament.  If you go to Barbados or Britain, the speech is usually about 15 to 20 minutes.  It simply lists what laws will be introduced, what the general themes of the session will be, and in the British case what the Queen's personal travel agenda is likely to be.  That’s it; they pack up and go home.

The British want to do away with it altogether but everyone recognizes that there is a role for ceremony in public life, in galvanizing people behind objectives.  We are not simply rational people, we like ceremony and emotions and they are things which drive us toward goals.

We may never accomplish all that is said in the speech but we think we will.  We have the will to do so, but it simply wrong for the Bahama Journal to say that the speech lacked substance, while at the same time denigrating everything in it as hype, wishful thinking and self promotion.  The Police Service Bill, the Prison Act, the Witness Protection Bill, the Amendments to the Bail Act, those are all without substance and wishful thinking?  My goodness!

The Journal says that they would have thought that we would have signaled the Bahamian people that we have a plan to finish strong in this last lap of the tenure in office.  Where are they living?  The government says that it will continue its general policies: investments in each island to create work.  The levels today are unprecedented.  New legislation to reform the law relating to Children and Young Persons, to aid the business community.  Lacking substance?

And then this which I consider anti intellectual claptrap; boorishness which I would not expect from the Bahama Journal “Bahamians who are wondering just what it is they are getting from a Foreign Affairs Ministry that some times seems as if it all about racking up more and more frequent flier miles.”

Sometimes, an argument is such a non sequitur, you have difficulty answering it.  But it is so self evident, that if the Secretary of State of the United States wants to talk about something, you need either to go to Washington or she has to come here to Nassau.  You can talk on the phone but sometimes you need to talk face to face, and The Bahamas has to be at the table where the world’s decisions are made.  This argument is simply more becoming of the down market rag The Punch or John Marquis of The Tribune than the Bahama Journal.

Of course in The Bahamas when one reads these things in the press, you always think that someone is sending you a signal that they are unhappy about something which is bothering them personally and which you haven’t dealt with, because they surely can't be serious, in this modern world, advancing such a silly argument.  So I will be on the phone within days to seek to discover from the editorial writers what this is all about.

Mr. Speaker, I remember when I was the editor of The Herald, the PLP's newspaper, and my friend Michael Barnett, a lawyer who is an FNM, saw me somewhere and pretended or so I thought not to see me.  So I said I know what I will do, and I published a note in one edition of the paper that said ‘next week we are going to publish a story: MICHAEL BARNETT AND THE VANGUARD PARTY.  Now, anyone who knos Michael Barnett, knows that he is by no stretch of the imagination a socialist as the Vanguard Party was.  The paper was not out on the streets for one day when I got a call from Michael.  I asked him what the matter was.  It turned out that it was all innocent but I say sometimes in the press that there is a hidden message in what is being said and I need to find out if some personal offence has been committed by me against these editors.

This Speech from the Throne had it all: the grand themes, the specific policy initiatives.  What more could be asked for?  I am sure someone else could have done it differently but that is our presentation and it more than passes the test.   We mean to try and carry out an ambitious programme of legislation and policy initiatives to wipe every tear from every eye before the next General Election.  And if The Lord wills, we will and we think that we will have done a sufficient job that the people will see fit to bring us back to complete the work we began in the first term.

This leads me to the second editorial of the 16th February.  The following is of interest to me: “There are any number of indicators to suggest that the Christie Administration’s brave new agenda as outlined in the Speech from the Throne might yet be hamstrung by a lethargic and bloated bureaucracy that is simply not up to the task set for it by the political directorate.”

That language is quite uncharitable so I would rather put it my way.  Shortly after Michael Manley lost the general elections in Jamaica in 1980, I went to see him in my previous profession as a Journalist. One thing he said to me about his loss and why it had occurred.  He said that the changes, which the political directorate wanted to make, were so fast and furious that the public administration of the country simply could not keep up with the pace of change.  Presumably, if and when as he did get a chance to govern again, he would pay heed to that.

In this connection then I wish to address briefly the question of initiatives at public sector reform.  Execution of policy is the number one issue facing the public service.  There is no problem at all with decision making of the Government.  The number one issue is execution.  You can decide as much as you want to do a certain thing but in the end, in too many cases, it is the Minister himself or herself who has to end up personally hands on doing something or it won’t get done.

Arthur Foulkes and others say that is because we don’t get along with public servants.  He is dead wrong.  I am not one of those who say that about public servants as the Bahama Journal as argued.  I told the Prime Minister yesterday that after looking at this issue from all sides, I am convinced that there is a national culture of inertia, which we have to find a way to culturally address.  In both the private sector and the public sector, we have to come to grips with executing matters on a timely basis; otherwise we will not get anything done.

Further, I have also said in connection with my work in the public service that everyone talks the language of change until you actually put documents of change in front of them and say this is what I want to change to, and then suddenly they are against change.

There also seems to be a misunderstanding about the role of politicians and the role of public servants.  I have said within the context of the public service that once the advice is given by the public servant, the minister makes the decision and that decision provided it is lawful must be carried out and should be carried out with dispatch.

The conversations and instructions to a Permanent Secretary are just that: instructions to a Permanent Secretary, not to the subordinates who must carry out the decisions. That is why the constitution says the Permanent Secretaries supervise Departments.  So if I as a Minister issue an instruction to a Permanent Secretary to carry out a lawful order affecting a subordinate, all the subordinate should know is that the PS has given a lawful order to that individual.  But there seems to be a misunderstanding about how ministers are to be shielded from this kind of situation.

Patrick Manning, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago makes the point in his country that people are fond of crying political interference in matter in which the Constitution gives the Minister the authority and discretion to act.  How when a Minister exercises his lawful authority in a decision, is that political interference he asked?  One can add, it does not mean that the Minister is smarter or better than the subordinate, he or she simply has a different level of authority.

John Pinder, the Labour Leader, and head of the Bahamas Public Service Union signed a record-making agreement, which is enforceable and binding in law that will fundamentally change the basis of the public service.  It is expected to give more control to the Permanent Secretaries to manage their Ministries.  It will require significant changes in the human resources practices of the service.  That is in place now, but there are agents who are against change who will frustrate its implementation.  I wish to assure Mr. Pinder that the Government is pledged to carry it out.

Proposals were exchanged yesterday with the Bahamas Union of Teachers to conclude for the first time a revised recognition agreement and of course an industrial agreement which will be groundbreaking for the teaching profession. That is what this government is doing.  We believe in dialogue.

To add in this, we are going to create proper public service training institute.  This should address the problem of the many people who want to join the public service but do not have the qualifications.  It will be a way of upgrading their skills to take them to next level.

In a related matter, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be introducing Foreign Service Orders, which will govern the people who work in the Foreign Service.  They have different considerations and a separate career path than public servants but they all now have to go though the public service system.  We expect to lay those before you by October of this year.

Similarly, you can expect legislative changes to accommodate passports, machine readable passports, new visa documents to make them more secure and less open to theft and tampering, including biometrics in the document.

You can also expect a Bill to Amend certain of the pension provisions as they relate to Parliamentarians, to Judges, and to allow for the bridging of the service of civil servants with broken service.

Mr. Speaker, the Press has become more effective in articulating that which the Opposition wants to say than they – the Opposition – themselves.  When I read Eileen Carron's editorials, I think to myself she is a better Hubert Ingraham than Hubert Ingraham.  No matter what claptrap utters forth from the other side, she is there battling, trying to make sense of it, no matter how contorted the logic at getting there.  The Bahama Journal's contribution certainly helped to elucidate where the opposing forces are coming from on this ceremonial occasion.

The fact is there is an ambitious programme to get done.  I am always for a short speech from the throne.  A considerable legislative agenda, and then let the ceremony last for an hour, and then let's get to work.  We did that and now it’s off to start our work, following this debate.  There is no time to waste.

I am not sure how you can argue with a government who says that it will continue its efforts to provide safe and secure communities, alleviate poverty, and to provide growth and security for the Bahamian people.  What’s wrong with that?  Nothing.  Everything is right with it Mr. Speaker.  Everything!

This year on 26th August will mark the 30th anniversary of the shortest speech from the throne ever delivered by a Governor General, Sir Gerald Cash simply came and in 33 words promised to continue the policies of the Government began in the first session.  May Almighty God rest upon your counsels and with that he was gone.

Eddie Minnis, the famous songwriter and singer recorded the history of the event in his song show and tell.  You will remember that the Government lost its majority just after lunch in August 1976 and backbenchers and the Opposition voted to send the Public Disclosure Bill “to committee this day six months”, effectively killing the bill.  The Prime Minister prorogued the House and brought it back in ten days.  As Eddie Minnis said of the Opposition then: these MPS think they so slick.  And that I suppose is politics and it is still the case that different strokes for different folks, different man, take different stand, dog like road and cat like sand.

We have an ambitious agenda.  We dedicate ourselves to complete that agenda and soon we think the people will reward us, if it is God’s will with a second term.  It’s off now to the races Mr. Speaker.

I am happy therefore to rise to second this motion and I so do.