General Debate Topic for the 12th Session of Parliament (September-October 2017)

As per the provisions of SO 2017-19 General Debate Act, I, Abdoa, Prime Minister of the Union, do hereby create a General Debate Topic for the 12th Session of this Parliament, which may be used until the dissolution of this body on October 31, 2017.

Members of Parliament have the exclusive right to post in this thread, while members of the Government may respond to questions put to them through the chair by members of parliament, if the chair calls upon them to do so.

Please refrain from using this topic to discuss matters which have to do with bills currently before parliament, or are already being discussed in a committee of parliament.

-Abdoa, Prime Minister

Senators of the 12th Parliament,

I would like to make a statement to Parliament as regards my recent reduction of activity.

For almost two years now, almost continuously, I have held the Chair of this wonderful institution. This has never been an easy job, as it requires an enormous amount of time and energy to be spent on behind-the-scenes preparation and record-keeping. Frequently, there have also been periods where getting a quorum to vote was difficult, and throughout the first year, there were times when there weren't even enough Senators for that to be possible. Yet we have pulled through those times.

My recent reduction of the effort I was putting into my duties to the bare minimum - due to external (RL) factors - will cease now, and I can assure the Parliament that it will have my full attention from now until the end of the Session.

Thank you for your audience,

Sincerely,

The Rt. Hon. Prime Minister Abdoa, MP LSM GSM

I thank my Right Honourable friend for bringing forth this explanation, and I wish to emphasize that my confidence in his abilities has not faltered one bit. I thank you for your continued hard work, and I wish you all the best IRL.
-LibDem

Honourable and Right Honourable Members,

The opportunities for me to actively debate the Bill that would repeal the Parliamentary Journals Act 2017, are over and I fully realise that. However, I would like to highlight some points on this issue. I wish to especially address my Right Honourable friend the President [Lhistonia], and I hope to persuade him to withhold his assent once the Bill (as it seems undoubtedly) passed this Parliament.

Parliament is an extremely useful organ of our community: it has the power to write, discuss, and vote on any sorts of legislative proposals. I think that because of this unique position of the organ, it should be made as open as possible to the wider community. Now, I can almost already hear that you start questioning me: 'But we do not want the entire regional membership to be active, because then we could not get anything through effectively!' This might be true, but that is not the point that I am trying to make. The Parliamentary Journals were created with the idea that ordinary members of our community would be able to see what Parliament does and how it did those things.

Therefore, it states that certain bits of information must be provided in a Journal. If we withhold our fellow members from easily receiving this information, then I think we are in trouble. We should be willing to invest some time in this project, and as far as I can tell, it existed too short an amount of time to properly tell whether it was effective or not.

My Right Honourable friend the Prime Minister [Abdoa] claims that he does not have enough time for the creation of new Journals, and in no way whatsoever would I try to deny that. I also do not think that we should make it mandatory for him to create this Journal in case his time is already limited.

Yet I must point out to you all that when I originally submitted the Bill, I had already thought of such a situation. Therefore, I wrote Article 3 which clearly says that the creation of the Journal can be delegated to someone else (with more time available and the will to create the document). I already put myself forward to do this as well.

In conclusion, I hope that, after reading these arguments, you will vote in opposition of the proposal to repeal this Act, which records our shared history within this organ.

Nassau-Windsor

On the occasion of Constitution Day, I would like to briefly recapitulate the Union's accomplishments over its two years of existence.

We grew from nothing to a vibrant community with large participation in just a month, holding our first elections less than a month after the promulgation of the Constitution. However, soon thereafter set in a period of decline, where it was frequently hard to get a quorum in Parliament. But with the passage of the Recruitment Act in late 2015, things started to look up again. By early 2016 we were doing well again, yet in June we had to refound due to the untimely CTE of our original Founder, Aralunya. Under the leadership of Nassau-Windsor, the current Founder, we moved to our current region, while keeping the old one for record-keeping purposes.

Since then, it has been a mainly upward trail: with contested elections becoming the norm again in late 2016, we opened up 2017 with the passage of two key bills, the Act on Judicial Rights and Privileges, and the Union Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which cemented due process into the law of the Union. With a brief period of stagnation during late spring of this year, activity since then has been relatively constant, and it is with great pride that I have led the government of the Union during this period of growth and prosperity.

Yet it is now time for me to step down from the Prime Ministership, and take a break from its intense demands, and I will therefore not be standing in the upcoming elections. I hope my successor, whoever it may be, can be as proud as I am of our Union.

Happy Constitution Day to all of you!

-Abdoa, Prime Minister

God Bless and Preserve our Union!!

Thank you for your service, Abdoa. The Union is in a much better place thanks to your leadership. Long live the Union!

Right Honourable and Honourable Members,

On October 15, 2017, SO 2017-74 Regional Language Act passed with a majority vote in parliament and was sent to the president's office for assent or veto. Today, October 19, the bill is yet to be processed by the Rt. Hon. President [Lhistonia]. This, of course, could have perfectly reasonable explanations. The President has many duties within the region as well as obligations IRL.

However, as the President has shown activity on the forum and the RMB during this time period mentioned above, I ask myself how I should interpret this activity in regards to the processing of SO 2017-74. So I ask the Rt. Hon. President Lhistonia to clarify; is it the President's intention to delay or veto this bill, or will the President give their assent as soon as they have the ability to do so?

– Saint Artica and the Nordic Kingdoms

I do hereby call the Rt. Hon. President Lhistonia to the Parliament Chambers to answer as best as he can the Hon. member's question. (a telegram has been sent)

I hereby apologize to all senators, but for some unknown reason the forum didn't show me any new posts on the PreDesk. I immediately gave assent as soon as I noticed today, thanks to your question.

Again, my most sincere and profund apologies,
Lhistonia, President.

Mister Speaker, through the Chair I would like to ask the following questions to the Rt. Hon. President [Lhistonia], concerning his most recent Executive Order (2017-6):

1. Is this Executive Order to hold a referendum based on the Referendum Act (SO 2015-1)? If not, what is it based on then?

2. Did the President, alongside the provisions set out in the Referendum Act, consult the Prime Minister and which two Members of Parliament did support his call to hold the referendum?

3. If the President did not do so, can he explain to us why he did call for the referendum nonetheless, and can he confirm that he will, indeed, annul and cancer the said referendum? If not, why will the President not do so?

4. How does the President think about the possibility that, undertaking that someone could succeed him in that office, he is setting a demand for the next President to do something that might go against his stances and beliefs?

The Rt. Hon. President Lhistonia is summoned to the Parliament Chambers to answer the questions of the Hon. Nassau-Windsor.

Just for clarification, I would like to posit that initiative for the Referendum came from myself and two other Senators in a Proposal, to be found here: https://parliamentaryunion.forumotion.org/t542-referendum-proposal-foreign-policy