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Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James has dis­missed claims by the Op­po­si­tion that the Gov­ern­ment de­lib­er­ate­ly wound up the Bud­get de­bate in both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate to pre­vent Op­po­si­tion mem­bers from con­tribut­ing.

The Op­po­si­tion has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing pro­ce­dur­al tac­tics to sti­fle scruti­ny of the na­tion­al Bud­get, al­leg­ing the de­bates were pre­ma­ture­ly con­clud­ed in or­der to avoid fur­ther ques­tion­ing on key fis­cal mea­sures.

“The Gov­ern­ment has con­duct­ed the Bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate in a sim­i­lar man­ner to the way in which they con­duct­ed it in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which demon­strates a seem­ing­ly de­lib­er­ate avoid­ance of the scruti­ny and ac­count­abil­i­ty re­quired in the process of gen­uine de­bate,” the Op­po­si­tion claimed.