Parliament’s home stretch

THE PRIME Minister’s unveiling, on August 28, of his administration’s legislative agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session was something of a throne speech, setting out a list of areas the Government plans to focus on. It was at once over-ambitious and underwhelming.

Dr Rowley should be lauded for laying bare the Cabinet’s agenda. When he first assumed office in 2015, his attorney general Faris Al-Rawi began a similar practice. That practice has come and gone.

But in signaling an intention to focus on Tobago internal self-governance, campaign finance reform, tax information exchange, Election and Boundaries Commission (EBC) matters and public official pay, the PM has gone some way to restoring it.

Yet the ambitiousness of this list relates to timing. For instance, the idea of enacting new election rules on the eve of a parliamentary poll is ill-advised. While the Prime Minister is largely correct to suggest any government is entitled to do the work of the people right up to election day, campaign-finance reform – promised so often by so many – needs time. Parties must get ready. The EBC must prepare. Shifting the goalpost inspires animus, as we saw when the People’s Partnership changed local-government rules abruptly.

Similarly, why should the issue of Tobago autonomy be kept until the last hour, especially given its complexity?

There is a long history of governments tabling important pieces of legislation on the cusp of an election, only for them to lapse. The important measures left on the Parliament floor in 2015 by the Partnership include: the Family and Children Division Bill; the Insurance Bill; the Cybercrime Bill; the Constitution (Amendment) Bill; and the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Bill. Some themes of these bills were subsequently taken up by the new PNM administration, but there’s a sense of governments using parliamentary time to gallery in the hope of votes. That’s not democracy. That’s abuse.

It could be the PM feels now is the time to dispense with special majorities, considering recent jurisprudence. Even so, releasing an agenda has risks if goals are not met. And these lists expose priorities.

In this case, it is notable what areas the Prime Minister did not emphasise.

Crime was not mentioned, nor was the upcoming constitutional conference in November. Are we to expect a suite of reforms from the latter to deal with the former?

The budget is also due. That debate alone could take up a great deal of parliamentary time once the new term starts on September 13.

And if there is something that needs to be changed, it is the way EBC reports and orders are tabled and debated, a longstanding matter that reflects the unfortunate fact that we still do not have fixed election dates.

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