INSIDE ISSUES
about funding from two opposing perspectives: Mr Scotland writes on spending on health care and Mr Glidden on how the Caribbean islands have successfully protected their income from tourism despite the global financial crisis. Leaving the Cayman Islands,
this issue turns to the Pacific where Members from two small island nations, Kiribati and the Cook Islands, write on different aspects of the application of the Westminster parliamentary system to their Pacific cultures. Hon. Taomati Iuta, MP, Speaker of the Parliament of Kiribati, reports that parliamentary government has cost his central Pacific people some of their valuable tradition of co-operative community spirit. Hon. Wilkie Rasmussen, MP, Leader of the Opposition in the Cook Islands, notes that the Westminster role of an official opposition has also taken time to be widely accepted by Islanders. He writes that his party still does not have all the support and powers of oppositions elsewhere; but its role is now respected by the people, the government and its own Members as a legitimate part of the parliamentary process and not a waste of time. Promoting understanding of
the parliamentary system is what Youth Parliaments are all about. The CPA’s Fifth Commonwealth Youth Parliament, held in December 2012 at Westminster, performed that function for about 60 young people from all over the Commonwealth. Rt Hon. Baroness D’Souza of Wychwood, the Lord Speaker, writes in this issue on the organization of this learning experience. Government Chief Whip Mr Mason Nkabindi of Mpumalanga and Opposition Leader Ms Claire Coulton of New South Wales write on their experiences as Youth Parliamentarians, experiences which they hope will take them and many of their fellow Youth Members much further into the parliamentary arena. For many jurisdictions, the development of mineral and petroleum resources has been a boon that brought rapid development
and a high standard of living. For others, it has been a curse that has brought violence, corruption, uneven development and disillusionment. A group of Parliamentarians from Commonwealth countries, states and provinces with experience in extractive industries came together in Vienna last October under the auspices of the CPA with experts from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Institute and Revenue Watch International to discuss how to avoid the problems that resource development can bring. Their Concluding Statement is published in this issue to provide some guidance to the many Parliamentarians in a growing number of Commonwealth countries who are embarking on resource development in the hope that it leads to prosperity not disaster. One sure path to financial
difficulty, if not disaster, is to do nothing about a policy time-bomb that Mr Scotland cited in the Cayman Islands: the rising demand for and cost of health care. Prof. Tim Briggs proposes in this issue a different approach to treating patients in one medical discipline, orthopaedics. Writing with Mr Jonathan Perera, Prof. Briggs describes a new treatment model which he has put to Britain’s government with the support of patient and medical professional groups. He argues the model, which is being trialled in England by the National Health Service, could improve treatment and reduce costs, not just in Britain but in other countries as well. One international study 15 years ago found that the treatment of musculoskeletal disease alone cost 2.5 per cent – not of health spending but of gross national product. With ageing populations, longer life expectancies and rising rates of obesity and other contributing factors, this cost will not be declining. And with growing financial pressure to contain healthcare costs, governments and oppositions around the Commonwealth will be looking closely at policies to respond to this challenge in a way which will not be political suicide.
While Pakistan may have contributed to acts of terrorism elsewhere, that is a small and misleading part of the story.
When the CPA published
its Benchmarks for Democratic Legislatures, the Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory was the first to test itself against them. It has now taken its self-assessment programme a step further by examining its performance against the Commonwealth Latimer House Principles on the Three Branches of Government. Mr David Skinner, the Assembly’s Manager of Strategy and Parliamentary Education, and Mr Tom Duncan, the Clerk of the Legislature, report the results in this issue.
The results of a different study
are also reported in this issue as Dr Philip Massolin, Manager of Research Services, and Dr David McNeil, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, examine the results of using the social media to elicit public reactions to assist an Assembly committee in reviewing the performance and policies of the Canadian province’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund, a multi-billion- dollar investment fund. Having experienced low levels of attendance using the more traditional public hearings approach, the committee turned to the internet. The public input results achieved through the social media are reported here. The work of committees in
another House, India’s Rajya Sabha, is also examined in this issue. Shri Satya Narayana Sahu, a senior
official of India’s national House of the States, describes how his House has doubled committee scrutiny to improve legislation. Not satisfied with joint scrutiny by a committee of both Houses of the Indian Parliament, the upper House has followed this up in certain cases with further scrutiny by the upper House alone. Finally, we feature an article on the
resolution of a problem faced by the British Parliament which many – but not all – Commonwealth Parliaments will find strange. Dr Paul Seaward, Director of the History of Parliament Project¸ writes on the research being undertaken in the United Kingdom to identify who has actually sat in Parliament over the centuries. With as many as 40,000 people having been elected to Westminster, including those who took office as many as seven or eight centuries ago when record-keeping was not what it has become more recently, it is not surprising that the identities of all who have ever served as Westminster MPs are not clearly known. For those who administer more recent Parliaments, it is incomprehensible that a House would not have a full and accurate record of its Members. But with several other Commonwealth Parliaments that date back many centuries, including one in the Isle of Man with a thousand-plus years of parliamentary government, this surely cannot be a problem unique to Westminster.
The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One | 5
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92