Falklands : The Hon Mrs Sharon Halford: Motion for Adjournment Speech 23 July 2012
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 30.07.2012 (Article Archived on 13.08.2012)
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in rising to speak to the Motion, I would first like to belatedly offer my congratulations to the FIDF on their achievements at Bisley. Although part time they are a dedicated group of people who continue to do the Islands proud.
The Hon Mrs Sharon Halford: Motion for Adjournment Speech 23 July 2012
Transcript by J. Brock (FINN)
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in rising to speak to the Motion, I would first like to belatedly offer my congratulations to the FIDF on their achievements at Bisley. Although part time they are a dedicated group of people who continue to do the Islands proud.
I would also like to compare with what the Honourable Roger Edwards has just mentioned on the Referendum. It is very important and when it comes around I do hope we will have a wonderful turn-out.
And the Honourable Gavin Short mentioned the return, maybe one day, of the Pound – a – Day. It is a wonderful sentiment which I would strongly agree with but I wouldn’t agree with a Pound a day because when this scheme was first put in place it was the intention that the money donated then – the Pound – a – Day would equate to the same as a return fare to the UK after a given amount of years. Bearing in mind that that fare has gone up and continues to do so, I think you would be looking at more money. (Just a point to make)
I quite like the comment made about the stair lift for the FIGO Flat. Actually, it’s not a bad idea. I don’t say that from my point of view but bearing in mind we send a lot of medical patients to stay at the flat, I suspect an awful lot of them don’t want to have to hike up all those stairs.
With the recent announcement and activity surrounding the oil industry working in Falkland waters, I believe we have some interesting and exciting times ahead. We will also have some tough decisions to make and a lot of extra work will be required. But hopefully FIG and the private sector will be able to work together to find sensible solutions on the way forward in various areas, although I would expect the private sector to take the lead in many of these.
Having said that I believe we have one short-fall at present with all the works that are anticipated and that is in the area of our workforce as has already been mentioned. We simply do not have enough bodies to do the work. To get certain works done we will need to bring in outside labour. This may not be a popular move in some quarters but already we are not getting take-up when contract works are advertised and I understand that PWD are very short staffed also to give just a couple of examples.
MLA Hansen mentioned something on the roads. Well I, too, am not a road engineer so therefore cannot answer most of his questions. I would suggest, though – though it has been mentioned in more than one TAC meeting – that we are in a position now that we have built more roads than we currently have the workforce to maintain. And that is possibly one of the reasons for deterioration. Certainly this has been a particularly wet winter and the roads have been built to such a standard that they are going to deteriorate quite quickly as they were built at low cost/high maintenance and we are now certainly paying for that.
However, with additional funding set aside for road-works this next season, we will require additional staff if we are going to make the progress that we would like. Whilst many people focus on the MPA Road, let us not forget that there are other roads and tracks out there that farmers have to contend with. In some cases these are their lifeline out of their farms, as they have no access by either sea or air. To put things into perspective, I would suggest that these roads are far more important for those farmers who rely on them than the MPA Road. It will take time to get the roads to where we want them to be and at this time everyone tends to think that they have the worst road. But it is winter and as always conditions tend to deteriorate and roads become iced over from time to time – in fact, covered in snow today. If you think your patch is bad, then I would gladly take you on my daily journey to feed my horses as the road I travel to do that each day when I am at home is, I believe, one of the worst, if not the worst on East Falkland. Having said that, it is my choice to make the journey.
Talking about horses, I felt somewhat elated travelling to Stanley on Monday as I waited for daylight to come in before venturing out on the drive to feed them. Yes, I have mentioned the dreaded “T” word, which will have many of those around me cringing but I think I need to clear up a few things. Firstly, as has already been pointed out in the last Penguin News, depending on what questions you ask, you will, of course, get the answer you want. But if you then calculate the answers in a different way, you will get a different answer. It does beg the question of who is right.
When I sent out one of my weekly round-ups a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that the answers to the questions on the census in relation to the time change would need to be reconfirmed by EXCO. How wrong I was and apologised for that. It has now been pointed out to me that in Fact, EXCO made a decision to stay on summertime earlier in the year after the online survey, which I knew but had assumed, wrongly it would seem, that as EXCO had then agreed that the question could be asked in the census that it would be reconfirmed and changed after that depending on the outcome. I realise that on any issue you win some and you lose some and I am not going to bemoan that point further.
However, what this recent exercise does highlight to me is that in our community where we have two constituencies, if you are not going to take note of opinions in both constituencies, generally on a percentage outcome, then there is no point in asking the Camp Constituency their opinion on any issue as their voice will be lost by the sheer numbers in Stanley as opposed to Camp. I would ask are minority groups not provided for in our Constitution. This, in my view, is a very serious issue and if any questions are to be asked in future then there should be a clear understanding that both sectors of the community should be heard equally. And as I have already said, the only way I see of achieving this is via a percentage outcome from each constituency. The numbers of people in Camp may be fewer than in Stanley but they have an equal right to be heard.
There is some good news for people out in Camp and that is in relation to FIGAS, who are going to extend their flying hours in September this year as a trial. Full details of this will be released by FIGAS shortly.
I look forward to the Budget Presentation which we will be having at Fox Bay and Goose Green in the next couple of weeks and hope to meet as many Campers as possible during these meetings. I know many of you were in for Farmers’ Week but there are also many who were not. And this will give another opportunity to get together.
A few meetings back I think I mentioned e-government and said “e.” Since our security settings had been reset, I think that many of us have actually said “e” as for a while it was so efficient that we were unable to access the system. I know one of our members very keen to have things secure amongst MLAs – well I think he got his wish though possibly a little more so than he anticipated.
And finally, it was pleasing today to bring our pensioners in line with all the increases made during our budget round rather than leaving them to play catch-up in six months’ time.
Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.
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