Beckles: Govt ‘bullying’ its way through Parliament

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing its par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty to rush ma­jor leg­is­la­tion through Par­lia­ment with­out ad­e­quate scruti­ny, con­sul­ta­tion or pub­lic de­bate.

In a state­ment is­sued as Par­lia­ment meets to­day, Beck­les raised con­cerns about si­mul­ta­ne­ous de­bates tak­ing place in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate, ar­gu­ing that the arrange­ment makes it dif­fi­cult for the Op­po­si­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, the me­dia and the pub­lic to prop­er­ly fol­low both pro­ceed­ings.

She de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as part of what she sees as an ero­sion of par­lia­men­tary and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tices un­der the Gov­ern­ment.