Parliament and people in dark

Earlier this year, super-technocrats Ken Julian and Prakash Saith were invited to appear before the Joint Select committee of Parlia-ment, which she chairs, in order that the Committee, and by extension the public, may gain a clearer understanding of the issues surrounding the troubling intention of establishing two aluminium smelter plants in the country.

Both men did not attend. And as a result, parliament and the people remain in the dark. But here is the rub. At a recently held $500 breakfast forum put on by the prime minister’s constituency, which both men attended, the prime minister continued to berate those in opposition to the smelter projects as being misinformed. This notwithstanding the fact that I am on public record as challenging the prime minister to answer certain questions publicly regarding the smelter deals which he has so far refused to do.

Now, these men did not merely attend this function. Media reports have indicated that both Messrs Julian and Saith made PowerPoint presentations at the function.

In other words, in the minds of these men, accounting to the ruling party constituency apparatus is given higher priority than accounting to parliament. The message therefore is quite clear and we must make no mistake in interpretation: in the conduct of governmental affairs, both the party and the cabinet are paramount to the parliament.

Senator King and her colleagues have much work to do in order to reverse this trend. In so doing they must not only continue to probe the smelter deals but also the purchases of blimps for national security, expenditures of UTT, issues concerning expenditure and occupation of the Red House, the fulfilment of the promise to establish a replacement for the national broadcasting network and so many other critical issues crying out for decisive intervention by parliament.

If parliament fails, so too will our democracy! Where do you stand?