By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

HOUSE Speaker Halson Moultrie’s advocacy for greater parliamentary independence sparked a tense exchange in the House of Assembly yesterday involving St Anne’s MP Brent Symonette, who suggested Speaker Moultrie impinged on his independence by directing him to support his agenda.

The episode saw members of the governing Free National Movement party once again react awkwardly as Speaker Moultrie made observations and criticisms that are unusual from Speakers of the House.

Speaker Moultrie, who resigned from the FNM last month, linked the rise in the country’s national debt to weak parliamentary oversight of the executive which prompted a rebuttal from Bamboo Town MP Renward Wells.

A statement last week from the Office of the Attorney General about the abrupt ending to a Senate meeting and a directive from Cabinet Office from earlier this month are what prompted Speaker Moultrie’s latest call for greater independence for the legislature.

He said the OAG’s statement wrongfully blamed the parliamentary clerk for the Senate’s scheduling mishap while the Cabinet Office’s directive “absurdly” implied the parliamentary clerk should coordinate with the secretary of Cabinet to set parliament’s agenda.

“There are a number of members of this Parliament who have indicated that they’re not going to be seeking reelection,” Speaker Moultrie said. “They include the member of St Anne’s, the member for East Grand Bahama, the member for Mangrove Cay, the member for South and Central Andros and the member for Garden Hills. Today I call on those members to throw a blow for democracy, for tough parliamentary democracy by supporting the initiative for the independence of this Parliament.

“In fact, I call on all Bahamians, including the workers and taxpayers, to demand the independence of this Parliament, to throw a blow for the independence of this Parliament and the independence of the judiciary as is the right and proper thing to do as we move out of this pandemic and we purge ourself of this breach of the Westminster model that has led to the national debt growing from $500m to $9.5b without Cabinet being accountable to this Parliament. This haemorrhaging of the public purse must come to an end. The stranglehold of the Cabinet on the judiciary and the legislative branch of government must come to an end.

“We are all fooling ourselves if we believe that human nature is such that without constraints and without boundaries human beings will do the right thing. As a matter of fact, Thomas Hobbs, the greatest philosopher, postulated that men are brutish beasts and without the proper constraints they will encroach on the territories of other men to the detriment of the weaker in our society.”

Later, Mr Symonette criticised Speaker Moultrie’s reference to him.

“Throw a blow, stand up, stand on my head, I don’t care what you said, you were trying from the chair to direct this member on what he should do and what he should say. I am in my third non-consecutive term in this House and two terms in the other place. I have never had a Speaker of either chamber direct me on what I should do,” he said.

Speaker Moultrie denied directing parliamentarians to do anything, saying he merely made a request.

“In my opinion,” Mr Symonette responded, “when a request is made or a direction is made or a comment is made... from the judge of this House, that has a different intonation to me. It might not do to you but it does to me. So I wonder whether I am independent in here when I want to say some things or whether I will be censored, especially after making these comments. The role of the Speaker in my opinion is set out in the rules. I don’t think you can nudge, push, say throw a blow to me on what I can say, so I hope that’s not what you meant to say… Whilst we’re here, as the member of St Anne’s I am entitled to privileges of this House and I trust that they will not be impinged on by comments from the chair, respectfully sir.”

For his part, Mr Wells, the leader of government business in the House, pushed back against Speaker Moultrie’s comments about the national debt, saying the rise in debt has involved the legislative branch of government.

“Every member of this place has a vote as to decide whether the budget of this country is moving forward,” he said.

Speaker Moultrie said in response: “No matter which Prime Minister it may have been in the ‘80s that breached the principles of the Westminster system and breached the conventions of the Westminster system by taking away the independence of the legislative branch of government, it was wrong when that happened and it was wrong when any other Prime Ministers that followed maintained that circumstance.

“The facts are that despite the Parliament meeting on a regular basis, having oversight of the activities of the executive branch or the Cabinet of The Bahamas, we have a circumstance since the mid-80s where the Cabinet walks over to this Parliament with the majority of votes in the Parliament. I don’t know what kind of oversight a Parliament can have when the Cabinet can outvote the backbench and the opposition combined. That is happening today. So, we need to address that situation. The facts are that since 1985 or thereabout, the national debt has grown from $500m to $9.5bn. We have arrived at at time in the middle of this pandemic where we need to address this stranglehold of the executive branch over the legislative branch and the judicial branch of government.”

Speaker Moultrie has spoken about wanting to pass a bill that would limit the number of parliamentarians that can be members of the executive.