Welcome and Wisdom from Fellow Senators for 13th Member

Stephen Duncan

The congratulations came thick and fast from Salas’ new colleagues, with his friends from the tourism and N.G.O. communities looking on from the public gallery. But with the social partner Senators now holding a stronger hand in terms of the balance of power in the upper chamber, should Government be worried about threatened deadlock, and begin to curry favor with the new “Gang of Four” to ensure that its policies are not given the back of the hand? Leader of Government Business Godwin Hulse has seen it all in his fourteen years in the chamber, and says their mission remains the same. The leader of the Opposition Senators, Eamon Courtenay, promised not to retard the business of the House for political gain in his response to Government Senator Stephen Duncan.

Stephen Duncan, U.D.P. Senator

“The call for a thirteenth Senator was premised on transparency, and I think that the introduction of a thirteenth Senator requires that we have greater transparency, even more so than before, because of the possibility that the two major political parties will be vying for the attention of the other individual senators and will probably be making attempts to woo them in order to gain a majority in the votes – that’s what the two political parties do. So this, Mister President, with the change in our chambers actually will require us to be even more vigilant because of the stakes now, where people will be trying to get majority vote on issues.”

Eamon Courtenay

Eamon Courtenay, P.U.P. Senator

“I can assure you, Senator Salas and other Senators on the non-government side, that there will be no attempt from this side to bring any type of corruption into this chamber. We propose to make our arguments on the basis of merit, and to seek to convince all the Senators including the Government side to our position, and where we fail, we expect you all to bring compelling arguments and then perhaps we may be persuaded. So we look forward to a deeper debate and to a deeper democracy.”

Godwin Hulse

Godwin Hulse, Leader of Government Business

“The nature of our governance puts the Opposition and ourselves in an adversarial position – that is understood; they’re a government in waiting and as such look for the little holes and tweaks and the things where they can trip up the Government side. But because I held that position where Senator Lin now sits for close to ten years, under both administrations, I understand the importance of the role of what we term as social partners – notwithstanding that is not the terminology used in the Constitution – but we call them social partners and that is what it is: partners; partners working with the Government or partners working with Opposition for the improvement of governance in the country and that is the role. They’re not part of the Opposition in an adversarial mode; nor part of the Government in a compliant mode. But senators representing the social sectors of this country – business, the church, the unions and now the NGO community, whose role and responsibility is to contribute to better legislation, and by extension, better governance.”