The Parish System: A Response
It is remarkable that a debate about the Parish system should elicit the blog heading “Enemy of the Parish System - the Jersey Way in action” on Senator Sam Mezec’s latest blog. One has to ask: is any criticism of Sam’s positions to be met by the rebuff: "this is the Jersey way in action"?
He goes on to say:
“It is a very long running tradition in Jersey that if you stick your head above the parapet or try to speak truth to power, the establishment types will do what they can to run you down and publicly disparage you, even if they're not able to use facts to do so.”
“Truth to power” would be good, if he gets his facts right. That a blog cannot provoke a debate is another matter. There is in fact very little disparaging in the blog post itself.
But before going ahead with looking at his blog, I'd like to make the point that while I may disagree with Sam on matters concerning the Parish, I do think he has been doing well as Housing Minister. Just because there is a disagreement on some matters, that doesn't mean that I'm not supportive on others.I'd refer to my recent blog:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-housing-minister-and-andium-homes.html
So let’s look at a few of the matters he raises, and how he deals with them.
The Requette
Sam says:
“I was wrong to say that the Constables increase the number of signatures required to call a Parish Assembly from 4 to 10, even though that is exactly what I did. But I'm wrong to say they did it, because they were right to have done it, apparently.”
So let’s look at what Adam Gardiner said.
“Sam is referring to a requete. While the point is taken, any proposition that forces an assembly on the support of just 4 signatories vexatious or otherwise, is itself not particularly democratic... If a issue is that important and is widely supported a requirement for 10 signatories seems very reasonable to me and brings it into line with other requirements we already accept.”
Gardiner is not saying that Sam "right" or "wrong" but that four signatures is not a hallmark of democracy and is open to abuse.
Does it really seem unreasonable? And the comparison given is that of elections, where ten signatures are required. If just four were required, members of one family could sign a nomination paper, and the same is surely true of a requette. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
It is notable that his replies do not really answer the points made, as can be seen above. He just says that he is wrong to say that increasing numbers was a bad thing, and he calls it “anti-democratic”.
Quite how a change from just 4 to 10 out of a Parish of thousands, or a thousand or so in the case of St Mary can be significantly undemocratic is another matter. Even if a Parish had just 1,000 voters (and even St Mary has more!), this is asking for an increase from 0.4 % of the voters to 1% of the voters.
I think the main point being made was that Sam was making something of a mountain out of a molehill in taking this as “trying to roll back democracy in Jersey”
Saturday Referendum
His second correction revolves around Saturdays. He says Adam Gardiner is wrong to criticise
“my comments that the Constables wanted to move a proposed public referendum from a Saturday to a Wednesday, because holding it on a Saturday would be a "nuisance". You see, it wouldn't be a nuisance, it would just be impractical... It is bizarre reading a correction that isn't a correction, but actually reiterating the exact point I was making. It's not a nuisance, it's just impractical. Ummm... what's the difference?”
Anything like a public election or a referendum depends on a volunteer workforce to do the counting. This is purely voluntary. The general consensus when asked is that the volunteers want to keep their weekends free – perhaps for family and friends – and might well not be available in sufficient numbers on a Saturday.
The volunteers see it as a “nuisance”, but the action they might well take – i.e., not volunteer if is on a Saturday makes it also “impracticable” from the Parish point of view. This is mainly because you can’t run a Referendum if the bodies are not there to do the counting. So that’s the difference.
One of the correspondents on Facebook even suggested that the volunteers should be ordered to work on a Saturday. I suggest they look up the word “volunteer” in a dictionary - a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task. The pertinent word is “offers”.
Online Information
Sam says:
“It is also quite amusing that when I point out that St Ouen did not have even the names of their Roads Committee members on their website, Mr Gardiner attempts to pin it on me for not letting St Ouen know they had not done this. But, I suppose everything is my fault.”
Sam had originally written . "Some Parishes don't even have the names of the people who serve on them on the Parishes website.".
Notice that he didn’t point out St Ouen at all in his original post. Here is a “reply” which actually responds to a criticism which was not actually made.
Adam Gardiner said. He said “some”. And he went on to say:
Just one more point, a quick glance at all parish websites reveals that Roads Committee members are noted on all but one - St. Ouen. "Some parishes" in Sam's statement - if he had bothered to check- should simply be "one parish". Why not simply ask the Constable why that should be?
And that comes to the etiquette of communication. Why not ask the Constable first, who after all is a fellow States member and perhaps it can be sorted out that way. Sam himself implicitly acknowledges this in his blog:
“Until just a few days ago, there was no record on the St Ouen website that they even have a Roads Committee! The names of the members were not even published. In all fairness to Constable Buchanan, when I pointed this out to him he immediately corrected it and it is now one of the most detailed pages on the Parish website.”
So why didn’t he do that in the first place? And why criticise Adam Gardiner for suggesting what Sam did actually do later – contact the Constable directly? When Adam pointed that out, he had checked out all the Parish websites - it's simply a case of doing homework first.
And finally...
I'm sure we will have other disagreements in times to come. But is that "the Jersey way", or is it simply an intelligent debate which demonstrates a lively democracy? I'd like to hope it is the latter. And I do wish Sam well as Minister for Housing and Children. I would genuinely like to see the very different government that we have now succeed and, while balancing the books, show more impetus towards social justice and fairness than we have seen in the recent past. .
“Truth to power” would be good, if he gets his facts right. That a blog cannot provoke a debate is another matter. There is in fact very little disparaging in the blog post itself.
But before going ahead with looking at his blog, I'd like to make the point that while I may disagree with Sam on matters concerning the Parish, I do think he has been doing well as Housing Minister. Just because there is a disagreement on some matters, that doesn't mean that I'm not supportive on others.I'd refer to my recent blog:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-housing-minister-and-andium-homes.html
So let’s look at a few of the matters he raises, and how he deals with them.
The Requette
Sam says:
“I was wrong to say that the Constables increase the number of signatures required to call a Parish Assembly from 4 to 10, even though that is exactly what I did. But I'm wrong to say they did it, because they were right to have done it, apparently.”
So let’s look at what Adam Gardiner said.
“Sam is referring to a requete. While the point is taken, any proposition that forces an assembly on the support of just 4 signatories vexatious or otherwise, is itself not particularly democratic... If a issue is that important and is widely supported a requirement for 10 signatories seems very reasonable to me and brings it into line with other requirements we already accept.”
Gardiner is not saying that Sam "right" or "wrong" but that four signatures is not a hallmark of democracy and is open to abuse.
Does it really seem unreasonable? And the comparison given is that of elections, where ten signatures are required. If just four were required, members of one family could sign a nomination paper, and the same is surely true of a requette. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
It is notable that his replies do not really answer the points made, as can be seen above. He just says that he is wrong to say that increasing numbers was a bad thing, and he calls it “anti-democratic”.
Quite how a change from just 4 to 10 out of a Parish of thousands, or a thousand or so in the case of St Mary can be significantly undemocratic is another matter. Even if a Parish had just 1,000 voters (and even St Mary has more!), this is asking for an increase from 0.4 % of the voters to 1% of the voters.
I think the main point being made was that Sam was making something of a mountain out of a molehill in taking this as “trying to roll back democracy in Jersey”
Saturday Referendum
His second correction revolves around Saturdays. He says Adam Gardiner is wrong to criticise
“my comments that the Constables wanted to move a proposed public referendum from a Saturday to a Wednesday, because holding it on a Saturday would be a "nuisance". You see, it wouldn't be a nuisance, it would just be impractical... It is bizarre reading a correction that isn't a correction, but actually reiterating the exact point I was making. It's not a nuisance, it's just impractical. Ummm... what's the difference?”
Anything like a public election or a referendum depends on a volunteer workforce to do the counting. This is purely voluntary. The general consensus when asked is that the volunteers want to keep their weekends free – perhaps for family and friends – and might well not be available in sufficient numbers on a Saturday.
The volunteers see it as a “nuisance”, but the action they might well take – i.e., not volunteer if is on a Saturday makes it also “impracticable” from the Parish point of view. This is mainly because you can’t run a Referendum if the bodies are not there to do the counting. So that’s the difference.
One of the correspondents on Facebook even suggested that the volunteers should be ordered to work on a Saturday. I suggest they look up the word “volunteer” in a dictionary - a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task. The pertinent word is “offers”.
Online Information
Sam says:
“It is also quite amusing that when I point out that St Ouen did not have even the names of their Roads Committee members on their website, Mr Gardiner attempts to pin it on me for not letting St Ouen know they had not done this. But, I suppose everything is my fault.”
Sam had originally written . "Some Parishes don't even have the names of the people who serve on them on the Parishes website.".
Notice that he didn’t point out St Ouen at all in his original post. Here is a “reply” which actually responds to a criticism which was not actually made.
Adam Gardiner said. He said “some”. And he went on to say:
Just one more point, a quick glance at all parish websites reveals that Roads Committee members are noted on all but one - St. Ouen. "Some parishes" in Sam's statement - if he had bothered to check- should simply be "one parish". Why not simply ask the Constable why that should be?
And that comes to the etiquette of communication. Why not ask the Constable first, who after all is a fellow States member and perhaps it can be sorted out that way. Sam himself implicitly acknowledges this in his blog:
“Until just a few days ago, there was no record on the St Ouen website that they even have a Roads Committee! The names of the members were not even published. In all fairness to Constable Buchanan, when I pointed this out to him he immediately corrected it and it is now one of the most detailed pages on the Parish website.”
So why didn’t he do that in the first place? And why criticise Adam Gardiner for suggesting what Sam did actually do later – contact the Constable directly? When Adam pointed that out, he had checked out all the Parish websites - it's simply a case of doing homework first.
And finally...
I'm sure we will have other disagreements in times to come. But is that "the Jersey way", or is it simply an intelligent debate which demonstrates a lively democracy? I'd like to hope it is the latter. And I do wish Sam well as Minister for Housing and Children. I would genuinely like to see the very different government that we have now succeed and, while balancing the books, show more impetus towards social justice and fairness than we have seen in the recent past. .
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