Speaker not allowing it!
A RULING against the use of visual aids in the House of Assembly did not stop Opposition Leader Mia Mottley from providing a snapshot of Barbados’ fiscal governance, yesterday.
During the no-confidence motion against the Freundel Stuart administration, Mottley attempted to use to a full sized graph to illustrate that Barbados was known globally for fiscal discipline between 1955 and 2007. However, Speaker of the House, the Hon. Michael Carrington, intervened, stating that use of such an aid in the House was new to him.
“It is certainly new to me. The rule is that a member may not read his speech, but he may read extracts from books or papers other than newspapers and so on.
“I am not permitting any use of placards… what is to stop the other members from getting up with placards. As far as I am concerned, there is no provision made for the use aids in this House, and there are good reasons for that… If you had consulted the Chair beforehand so we could see how it could be done, I could understand. I am not going permit you to walk in here with your aid, which disadvantages some members simply for the benefit of the cameras. I am not allowing it,” Carrington stressed.
Mottley made it clear that she was not in possession of a placard, but a graph.
She explained, “I am using aids in order to make them documents of the House. It is not the first time; it is certainly not the first time in this parliament. A document is still a document irrespective of its size... It is not electronic.
“Mr. Speaker, I would like the reason for the ruling and I am not sure of it. I do not have a placard. I have in my hand a document which I am using to read from, and I can’t see how this is other than my notes when the source is the Central Bank of Barbados, the Accountant General and the Ministry of Finance, and it shows the current revenue, the current expenditure and capital expenditure.”
Stating that she was bewildered by the ruling, the Opposition Leader further expressed, “The truth is that no amount of removal of aids or notes will stop the ability to tell the story of the fiscal indiscipline that this government has engaged in from 2008. I don’t need it (the graph) because the facts cannot be erased.” (TL)