I thought I’ll bring you the debate that happened this week; it was brought to the States by Deputy Carolyn Fiona Labey of Grouville. It was to reinstate 4 Senators that were demecratitly voted out of the next Election witch is in October. The Government Party want them back because they can see there grip on the House slipping. Now this has been voted on 4 times before & the States agreed to let go of the Senators in all of them, so they are in a panic.
It was one of those debates that you may think “I can’t be bovid to listen” but I just had a feeling that it could be interesting so I recorded it & I’m glad I did.
My view is that we need 1 class of member be it Deputy or Senator. We need to get the Connetable’s out or they can be in if they also run as a Deputy or Senator as well.
I also think the Bailiff should not sit in the States, the job of runing the States could be done by the Greffier.
Now I Know there is a lot to listen to but if you have an interest in our Island & you don’t get the chance to listen to them in the big house, just listen in stages come back & carry on were you left off. But it was one of the best debates.
First of all in the morning you had the feeling that it was going to win, “the whip would have been out to get every one in line” to get the 27 votes that would of got the 4 Senators back. Finished in an hour, But with a couple of long speeches it was running towards lunch time. I can here you say “So”. Well most of the Connetable’s were going be in the Royal court in the afternoon so the Debate would lose because nearly all of them would have followed Senator Ozouf’s lead.
So the games began first a Connetable, not sure witch one called a Closser Motion to try & finish it before lunch which just lost. Then we had Senator La Marquand best speech since he came into the States. By the way I did vote for him as a Senator, I think he has let me down since getting in with the way he has handled the Child Abuse Investigation. But he sertenly showed what he can do with passion & knowledge.
Then in the afternoon when you knew the connetable’s weren’t going to be back for a while. We were getting all the one’s that were not going to speek. Senator Ozouf & Senator Cohen going into the History of the Senator, all the way back if I can remember rightly to 1066!
Then they came back, the vote came & they LOST. 26 to 25 with 1 not voting!
I will put more up if people would like. But for now this is how it went.
First Deputy Labey, put's her Proposition.
Then we had Connetable Gallichan, who is Chair of Privileges & Procedures Committee. Who came up in the first place of get rid of the Senator's.
Then we had a Connetable from a country parish trying to close the Debate before they go to Court in the Afternoon.
Finally for now, Senator La Marquand gives his best Speech.
If you would like to listen to any more just leave a comment.
TheJerseyWay would like to Credit & Thank BBC Radio Jersey for making these recording's posible
15 comments:
You say you want the Constables out "or they can be in if they stand for election as deputy or senator".
I'm not sure that that would give us a level playing field, and I really don't like the idea of having one person being, say, Mr St Ouen as Constable and Deputy.
Would a viable alternative be to leave the Constables in to speak on parish matters - but without a vote?
If not - why not?
This is a very useful site and I hope it will continue providing yet another infomation service that government fails to do.
It is the growing enormity of the task of governing Jersey that is the root problem.
If the political aspirations of our elected reps do not extend beyond the provision of cycle paths then we could probably reduce their number.
Alas, there are some reps who want to address the whole world and in a changing cosmos the whole world now wants to address us.
We could not have embarked upon a worse business than international finance if we wanted to avoid global attention and responsibilities. There is no hiding place. Jersey is no longer a simple little community growing a few spuds, keeping a few cows or entertaining some tourists.
Jersey always had pretentions to local, national and international government but few people took it too seriously in the past.
Now the burden of government over such a range is unsupportable. Even larger places like the UK with a population of 60 millions has a mountain of government arranged through local, regional, national and international forums.
Jersey aspires to have all the levels of government, legislating and representation arranged in one small administration with just 53 elected reps.
If parishes undertook more duties and the States concentrated on "all Island", national and international matters - it would be possible to improve the current situation. But, the burden of government is ever-expanding and the aspiration for a wider international role and more independence is a destructive dream.
The scrutiny system is failing simply because there are not enough reps to serve the panels and as ministers/assistant ministers too. The shortage of sufficuently competent elected reps is also an issue partly because £43,000 is not a sufficient salary to attract people of calibre or commitment.
We don't expect the Crown Officers to serve for such a low sum yet we expect a first class government, just the same.
ALWAYS READ THE LABEL
GREEDY PIGS
TJW.
Ian Le Marquand gave the speech of his life, it was almost inspirational. He spoke with passion and gusto where it was almost impossible not to cling on to every word he was speaking.
This man had the chance of being a hero when he first entered politics and a lot of us had high hopes for him. Alas he chose the other path, he did what he was told and will be remembered and written about for decades to come, not for this speech, but for the way he has (mis)handled the Graham Power suspension and related issues concerning the "Historic" Abuse case.
It is a great shame that he took the path that he did but i'm sure, in time to come, nobody will regret that decision more than him.
TJW.
Alan Breckon also gave a fantastic speech. And thanks for providing us with this service as it is all making a part of history where real "journalists" and researches can come to instead of going to the (tooth) fairy tales churned out by our local "discredited" media.
Tom,
One could argue - superficially - that in the big island to the north of us, the constituency affairs of 90,000 people usually require the attentions of 1 MP... and one could equally argue (more seriously) that a single unitary authority would be far more efficient than 12 parishes (heck, Cornwall is a unitary authority looking after half a million people). But I take your point.
One other potential improvement is the quality of research. The proof of Jersey's inability to govern itself came the day that the States were assured that there was no legal action pending against Harcourt: fifteen minutes later - after the vote - a simple Google search demonstrated this was untrue. Better information might lead to better decisions...
When Alleged "VICTIMS" Should Be Punished!!!
James.
Thankyou for your comments, I may not have it right about the connetable's in saying they can come in as a Deputy or Senator, lets just not let them in at all.
All we get is "Not in my Parish","St Helier can take the people who have had some bad luck" & they vote on block apart from One that is Connetable of St Helier,I quite like him for going against the grain but as for he's parking rules in town he's a joke.
But if that is all we have to worry about we could be worse off.
I agree with Tom Grochy & I've said this on the then program Radio Phone In. That our States Members should be paid much more then they do. £47k for what they have too but up with, hour's that they have to do is not enought. People say that they get to much, but I know how much work they have to put in. I am not saying that they all do the same amount of work for the States.
We are laking in members of scrutiny, that is a fact & if we only relie on the few Scrutiny will fail.
I can only hope that my States member's will all way's do there best. But going by the way the last 3 year's has gone I'm not going to hold my breath.
James. Thankyou for your comments, I may not have it right about the connetable's in saying they can come in as a Deputy or Senator, lets just not let them in at all.
That's fine.
The reason I make the suggestion of non-voting constables is that I recognise that taking them right out would be furiously opposed by those who can't see past this is the way we have always done things.
I think you are a little unfair on one or two of the constables - what I see of the constable of St Lawrence suggests that she is more progressive than most. But if people won't stand and hold the incumbents to account, we get what we get (please, we need a candidate to contest St Saviour).
However, the fact that we can have a civilised discussion on here about the merits of different approaches is another argument in favour of citizen media - because you sure as hell can't get this in the JEP.
Oh, and one other thing. The level at which you set member pay is an interesting argument (you say much more than £47k - what had you in mind?), but you need to ensure that if they are going to claim a full salary, members treat it as a full time job and do not sit in the coffee room with a BlackBerry running their other financial services business.
Hi James.
Member’s pay, well first of all everyone says that we have a pour quality of member in all the divisions & I agree to that. People can’t say that some one like Senator Ozouf does not have what it takes to be a Politian & he properly does not take his pay because his rich, But I find him to be a bully & someone that I would not trust, He is there for his own mean’s. There are two many like him.
Then you have the like’s of Deputy Noel who just does what Ozouf say’s, Lewis, Duhamel, Pryke, Reed, Hilton, Fox, Le Fondre, Gorst, Jeune, Dupre & Green are all the same.
Senator Shenton goes to work during States business days, Just to mention one.
The Connetable’s have always got something better to do then sit in the chamber. You have the one’s that don’t do anything, no Scrutiny. It should be in the contract that they had to do something & that would have to include the Connetable’s if they had to be there.
So the big question is how we get the right member, well if the pay was say £80k plus a Pension of some kind then you would get a lot more people interested. You are always going to get the yes men in but in my way of thinking the more you pay the wider the choice you are going to get & then it’s up to the voter’s to weed the chaff out.
I work for myself so I know how hard it is out there, so I’m not just saying pay them more, they will all need to be full time at it, not like it is now.
I have never ever heard Jeremy Machon saying or doing anything in the States Chamber, why is he there?
TJW.
Lenny Harper giving evidence PART TWO.
TJW, did you record the censure motion debate today? If you did could you publish Philip Ozouf's sickening speech?
TJW.
The Skull, the "evidence" and THE MEDIA
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