Ronald Thwaites | ‘What Parliament good fah?’

“What Parliament good fah?” asked the handcart man pushing his scrap metal limousine up Duke Street one day, manoeuvring past the armada of throttling ministerial chariots.

If those of us privileged to represent the public were to show less contempt for each other and moved away from the inherent conflict of the Westminster winner-take-all political system, we might actually recognise the shared responsibility to make progress on some of the burning issues of our time.

Take last week’s inability of the crucially important Public Administration and Appropriations Committee to gather a quorum of degge-degge three members – nothing new. Every committee chair has had the same problem. As Mr Millwood would say, “it is a state of chronic”. Nothing “adhocly” about it, would echo the late O.T. Williams, the one-time wordsmith of the House.

Why? Wasn’t the cheesy excuse for reversing Opposition leadership of parliamentary committees that they needed revival, less of an adversarial attitude towards a thin-skinned administration and greater efficiency? Do you see any of that happening? Except, of course, the successful ‘muzzling’ of contrarian ‘oxen’, so big money can be spent carelessly, corruption can keep, and scamming of state resources remains unchecked. Both politicians and police bring down distrust and cynicism upon themselves. For some, this is exactly what they intended. Distrust breeds autocracy, which is their end-game, anyway. For ordinary folks, deeply disillusioned, this state of affairs is their spur to join the embassy line. For the rest of us, we just ‘chups’ our teeth and go ‘bout our bizniz.

SELF-CREATED MALAISE

The malaise of Parliament is self-created. The assumed homogeneity of Westminster is not to be presumed in Kingston among the survivors of Willie Lynch’s bloodline.

Years ago, I moved a motion to change around the seating in Gordon House as a way to improve respect between members. Predictably, it was never debated. The idea was to abolish two sides of members glaring and cussing each other across an aisle and, instead, have us sit in a semi-circle, with places assigned either according to alphabetical order or constituency affinity.

Fancy Mr Terrelonge having to sit beside me or my being placed next to the adjoining Kingston member, Mr McKenzie! We might have become more tolerant of each others’ viewpoints. To listen and respect the other is easier at close range.

Small measure, but highly symbolic. What a ‘prekkeh’ if the prime minister and leader of the Opposition ended up sitting beside each other! What image would that convey to a sceptical public?

Common cause is essential for the nation to make any progress. While ordinary people are suffering every conceivable blight, our MPs can’t bother to meet, ignore crucial areas of public concern, while getting ready to debate parliamentary sleeve length and neckwear.

Which crucial concerns are being ignored, you ask? Here are a few.

GENERATION BEING COMPROMISED

A whole generation of young people is being compromised by subjecting them to the rigidity of external exams next month. The requested postponement for a few weeks won’t be enough. You can’t replace almost two years of missed classes by a few months of swatting, and maybe some extra lessons.

Whether the tests are held sooner or later this summer, the performance of most candidates is going to be dismal, the marking will be on some curve to make the outcome look good; and the results will reflect the stubbornness and inattention of legislators and, sadly, some educational leaders. Just look what happened last year?

And more, the continuing level of school absenteeism is still likely as high as a quarter of enrolment. Why not use existing law and resources to curb this? Big up Mr Christie of Kellits High for his candour and truth-telling.

Next, where is the urgent remedy for the frightening almost 700 criminal cases listed for trial this term in the Home Circuit Court? Most of them are for the most serious crimes of murder and rape. When is the debate scheduled to redress that denial of justice? The concern about the venality of some badly chosen JPs pales in importance.

And what about the similarly long list of unresolved civil cases, and the continuing wasteful delays at the Stamp Office and other agencies dealing with conveyancing and succession? All are needlessly depressing productivity. But hush! Remember, “we are recovering nicely”.

Are our leaders going to ask why there should be any thought of importing construction labour when the public have been contributing more than $11 billion a year to HEART Trust/ NTSA for the training of just those workers?

Want more? Where is the leadership to tell us what wi a go do when the 37 per cent increase in food prices lick us, as predicted by the World Bank study few days ago?

And why – when we have ample legislation and institutions to resolve the contending interests of say 300 landowners, and perhaps a million squatters on their lands – do we make things get worse by refusing decisive action? Dead assets – real property, misplaced financial resources and idle human capacity – are crippling us.

The nation needs leadership and inspiration. In 1865, those qualities cost George William Gordon and his kind their lives. The current ‘tenants at will’ in the House that bears his name are betraying his heritage.

“Where there is no vision the people get out of hand.” (Proverbs 29:18)

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.