Falklands : Motion for Adjournment Speech of The Hon Jan Cheek
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 01.03.2012 (Article Archived on 15.03.2012)
A meeting of Legislative Assembly took place in the Court and Assembly Chamber of the Town hall at 0930hrs on Thursday, 23 February 2012. Present were the Speaker, the Hon Mr Keith Biles (KB). The Acting Chief Executive, Mr Keith Padgett (KP), the Clerk of Assembly, Ms Claudette Anderson-Prior (CAP), the Attorney General, Mr Mark Lewis (ML), Commander British Forces South Atlantic, Brigadier Bill Aldridge (BA), the Hon Congressman Mr Frank James Sensenbrenner (R - WIS) Members of Legislative Assembly Jan Cheek (JC), Roger Edwards (RE), Dr Barry Elsby (BE), Sharon Halford (SH), Ian Hansen (IH), Dick Sawle (DS), Gavin Short (GS) and Mike Summers (MS).
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 23 FEBRUARY 2012
Part 2: Motion for Adjournment Speeches
By J. Brock (FINN)
A meeting of Legislative Assembly took place in the Court and Assembly Chamber of the Town hall at 0930hrs on Thursday, 23 February 2012. Present were the Speaker, the Hon Mr Keith Biles (KB). The Acting Chief Executive, Mr Keith Padgett (KP), the Clerk of Assembly, Ms Claudette Anderson-Prior (CAP), the Attorney General, Mr Mark Lewis (ML), Commander British Forces South Atlantic, Brigadier Bill Aldridge (BA), the Hon Congressman Mr Frank James Sensenbrenner (R - WIS) Members of Legislative Assembly Jan Cheek (JC), Roger Edwards (RE), Dr Barry Elsby (BE), Sharon Halford (SH), Ian Hansen (IH), Dick Sawle (DS), Gavin Short (GS) and Mike Summers (MS).
Motion for Adjournment Speech by the Hon Mrs Jan Cheek:
JC: Mr Speaker, Honourable members, I would like to be first again. The Honourable Dick Sawle and I were at the airport to welcome him but I want to publicly welcome Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner and his aide, Todd (Washam) and to thank them for making what is not a simple or short journey in order to discover what the Falklands are really about. And I hope this will be the first of several such visits. I hope that you will have found enough here that you can go back and tell others that it’s well worth a look. It’s probably a unique occasion for us in that Mr Sensenbrenner will be saying a few words later.
I want to move on now to something which could be more controversial. And I know one or two Members felt uneasy about it. But I wanted to publicly send my condolences to those affected by the horrendous rail crash in Buenos Aires yesterday. We know quite a large number of people were killed and others were seriously injured. There are bereaved families; there people fighting for their lives. It doesn’t matter how ill advised that country’s government is in its treatment of our Islands. We can still show Humanity and that we care about things like that.
I would also like to welcome someone else who is sitting in the Chamber. Mrs Irene Lucas, who has just completed for us a review of the structure of Government, which was requested by Members as there was a large amount of debate about that review of Government at the time of the General Election. And although I didn’t make it a great feature of my election platform, I only had a couple of issues with it because I certainly didn’t think Government was perfect before the review, I don’t think it was perfect after the review. I think we need to keep on reviewing over the years to make sure that the structure of Government is fit for purpose and that our staff get credit for the work they are doing.
There are a lot of departments within Government who we know are stretched almost to the limit by the demands that we place on them. It’s easy to forget we are not running just a local Council – we are running a small country. We have no economies of scale and I think that should be borne in mind when people are being critical of the activities of various departments.
I would thank Irene for the excellent review that she has given us, for the opportunities she has given us to have further debate on how we implement the suggestions that she’s made and I know that she is going to be sharing those with various groups over the next couple of days.
Finally – because I know a lot of others have to say quite a lot after me – I’d like to say to Members of the Public who have been unsettled by events in the last week by fairly large groups of slightly aggressive visitors moving around the town and displaying a sense of arrogance exhibiting behaviour that to some was regarded as provocative.
We have only to look at the support we have received from people around the world. Although there has been some negative stuff about us in the Press, the vast majority has been favourable. Above all, we have always enjoyed the support of the British Government as an overseas territory. That has been cross-party support for many years. But I have to say that it has never been as vocal, as firm and as far-reaching as it has been in recent months. And I think our thanks should go to the British Government and people for that.
I support the Motion.
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