Why I abstained from petty and puerile politics

Saturday 3rd October 2009, 3:00PM BST.

From John Refault, the Constable of St Peter.
I CAN understand the frustration of your correspondent Doug Smith (JEP 30 September), who wrote regarding the States Members who abstained from voting on Members’ sandwiches.

I was one of the four who abstained, and I would surmise that Mr Smith could not or would not wish to have endured the one hour of debate consuming the time of 53 Members plus five non-Members on a matter of housekeeping.

If your correspondent multiplied the average income of those 58 people in the Chamber, including the Greffier of the States, the Attorney General and others, and added to that the officers’ time in putting the proposition together and then posting it out to all the Members’ homes, then perhaps he can start to realise why I and others abstained.

Mr Smith is right – the electorate do have a right to expect their politicians to vote on matters of substance that will maintain and enhance the way of life for every person in this Island of ours. I would add that the electorate have a right to expect that Members exercise good judgment on what really matters to the people of Jersey, and I for one do not believe that sandwiches fulfil that expectation.

Had the proposition been about the number of Jersey people who are becoming unemployed, the number of people who have had wage restraints, not just this year but also last year, imposed upon them, the number of people who are having to exist on Income Support, the number of Island businesses closing down and the potential structural deficit facing us in 2012, then I would join him in shouting from the rooftops against anyone who had abstained.

However, in the matter of Members’ sandwiches I am afraid that I cannot join him in his crusade. I see the proposition as being petty, puerile, populist politics of the worst kind that just deflects Members’ attention from matters requiring urgent and mature judgment for all our benefits.

However, I do support any initiative that trims excess within the States, and I would have agreed to the withdrawal of lunchtime sandwiches by a conversation of consensus in the coffee room outside the Chamber. Voting ‘pour’ common sense.

1
MMatt

October 3, 2009 at 5:35 pm

This maybe be petty politics to you but judging by the reaction on the Net some people took the matter very seriously.

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2
common sense at last

October 3, 2009 at 6:37 pm

Hear hear, totally agree. Lets get on with running the island properly and stop time wasting on trivial matters when there are many more urgent matters that politicans need to address first.

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3
Dec

October 4, 2009 at 8:55 am

Article 106 of the Standing Orders of the States of Jersey is headed “Declaration of Interest” and instructs that a “member of the States who has….an interest in the subject matter of a proposition must…. if it is a direct financial interest….declare the interest, and….withdraw from the Chamber for the duration of the debate and any vote on the proposition.” Given that States members have at least 75 minutes lunch break and many sandwich vendors in easy walking distance, the provison of free snacks is obviously a financial perk. So can we assume only non-sandwich eating States members participated in the debate?

The whole of article 106 makes interesting reading. My impression is that it is being seriously ignored, and about more costly matters than sandwiches.

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4
SJW

October 4, 2009 at 12:24 pm

Agree with no.2 surely there are more urgent matters that our politicans should be spending time and resources on that will really benefit the island.

Yes, free lunches in this enviroment should be cut back on but as said in the article this could have been agreed in a quick sensible 10 minute conversation during a coffee break leaving more time spent in the chamber voting on more pressing issues.

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5
cynthia

October 4, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Be it about sandwiches or skyscrapers, the vote was concerned with how States members spend public money.

If Mr. Renault finds such a matter too trivial for his attention as a public represntative maybe he should reconsider whether politics is really the job for him?

It’s the PRINCIPLE of the matter, Mr. Renault.

You would have agreed to withdrawal of the free food in a coffee room discussion? If left to the politics of the coffee room this squandering of public money, because that’s what it is, would never have been debated.

Next time, please remember the job you’ve been elected to do Mr. Renault. You’re there to represent the public, no matter how big or small the issue at hand.

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6
My Opinion

October 6, 2009 at 5:50 pm

I expect my Constable to vote on what his Parishoners want not what he thinks personally!

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7
Pip Clement

October 6, 2009 at 8:14 pm

‘Agree with no.2 surely there are more urgent matters that our politicians should be spending time and resources on what will really benefit the island.’

Obviously you have never listened to the States.
Hours are wasted on points of order, referring back and rambling speeches that go nowhere.
Because there is no government as such there is no possibility of using a guillotine motion or moving to a vote.
In the Commons you get fairly short shrift if you start reading out a huge prepared speech, budgets been the exception, but this is regularly done in the States and sometimes there are huge chunks of completely irrelevant material.
The Bailiff should act more like a Speaker of the house and less like the chair of a gentleperson’s debating club. But he is caught in a cleft stick on this issue as he lacks the authority that a proper elected speaker would have over the house.
Reform of the house would cure so many ills and would benefit the island in the long run but unfortunately the States cannot bring itself to grasp the nettle.

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8
Carl

October 7, 2009 at 12:20 pm

If the States as a whole sees fit to discuss something, then all politicians should DO THEIR JOB despite what they think of it!

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