By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Leader of Government Business in the House of Assembly Tommy Turnquest said yesterday the government must take a position on the gambling referendum or it will lead to “anarchy”.

Mr Turnquest was responding to comments made by Prime Minister Perry Christie earlier this week that the government will not take a stand for or against gambling.

Mr Christie said that Members of Parliament will not be required to vote on the gambling referendum in the House of Assembly. Instead, he said the government and the PLP will remain neutral on referendum issues, giving each MP a chance to vote at the polling stations just like everyone else.

“We will not campaign for, nor will we encourage the adoption of, either a ‘yes’ position or a ‘no’ position on any of the referendum issues,” Mr Christie said. “We do not have a horse in this race.”

However, Mr Turnquest said the government will have to vote for or against the gambling, if the results of the referendum show the people want it.

“You cannot just have a referendum and then say yes the people want it so now it is legal. It does not work that way. In order to enable gambling to take place there had to be a change in legislation and they would have to vote on the legislation in order for it to change. They have to vote on it in parliament,” he said.

“The government must take a stand otherwise you have anarchy. There must be a position that the government takes. We elect the government every five years, they must take a stand. Now they can get a reading from the people by the referendum but governments lead and they ought to lead the society in the way in which they feel it should go during their mandate and I believe they ought to do that. The Parliament is there they are representatives of the people and they are to represent the views of their people. I was surprised to see that so many of them did not have a view or did not disclose their views.”

Senator Zhivargo Laing said he found it “curious” that the government would hire consultants from the United Kingdom to advise on a National Lottery, if they don’t have a “voice” in the matter.

“It seems to me,” he said, “a very strange thing that a Prime Minister says he does not have a position on gambling but goes ahead and talks to consultants about setting up a national lottery. Why would you take an interest in studying something you do not have an interest in? It seems very odd to me. Now if you hired consultants about whether to have a lottery or not that’s a different story, but to have one about the lottery itself, I just don’t see it. But that’s again one of the confusions that I see prevailing in this environment that we have in government today.”

The Prime Minister said the consultants from the UK will advise the Ministry of Finance on how a national lottery will be best structured in the Bahamas.