11-15-2014, 03:46 PM
Unibot for Chair 2.0:
Now It's Personal
"We have no need for comfy chairs..."
"Hah! I made him say comfy chairs."
I began this term with a set of goals that I wanted to accomplish - I adopted an Assembly that wasn't necessarily working as well as it could have been. We bickered a lot, we would argue for pages and pages and there were never any conclusions to a lot of those debates. My idea as Chair was just, (1) identify when debates are losing sight of the issue at hand, (2) try to strike common ground and find compromises that might not have been previously considered, (3) focus the Assembly towards composing a final text. The latter point is important because I've found if the discussion isn't focused on a particular text, the Assembly can become hostile and, well, aimless in its discussion. Working in specifics with context and a particular document to be drafted, helps bring some reasonableness to the exchange of dialogue.
I recently compiled a new Index for Assembly Votes which tabulates all of the votes in the Assembly since April 2014. Tabulating the votes was a surprisingly refreshing thing to do near the end of the term because it reminded me of all of the stuff that we've accomplished as a region and I took a lot of pride in some of the compromises we managed to reach and the little things here or there, subtle reworkings and policy debates, which I've had the honour and pleasure as Chair to oversee. We managed to formulate a overhaul of Article 4-5, the Charter's sections regarding the High Court of The South Pacific and Appeals, plus we added to the Bill of Rights, reworked electoral reform, developed a parole system and even held a remarkably civil discussion on military ideology and the "Brave Little Toaster" recalls. I genuinely had a smile on my face when I remembered all of the great debates that we've held in this Assembly over the past few months.
Going forward, we've got a lot of open discussions that have become hot topics over the past week - how to address contradicting legislation has presented itself as a challenge for legislators and a fuller response may even involve more difficult questions and a grand project to overhaul how the Assembly works altogether (I've hinted at the idea of a Committee system - but honestly I'd consider it 'spit-balling' at the moment). Overall, how we respond to the problem has to also respond to the culture of "Motion First" - I think that kind of behavior is nonconstructive in the Assembly and disrupts dialogue and consensus-building.
I sense the 'Election Commission' issue is dying down, but the discussion in regards to justice recusals is still open. My hope is also to, in a second and final term as Chair, reopen the discussion on First-Past-The-Post in The South Pacific. We've never actually had a vote on a proposal to move away from plurality - the discussions on First-Past-The-Post have always gone effectively nowhere. I'd consider it a privilege and a real challenge to oversee a civil discussion on various proposals (Run-off, Instant Run-off, Condorcet etc.) to reach a final vote, because I think it's something that is important to a lot of people in The South Pacific and it's a change which could bring some more positivity to our elections and our political culture as well. It's a discussion I'd like to see reopened and pursued with more focus towards producing a final proposal.
I don't like it when good ideas get lost in circular discussions.
I don't like it when good ideas get lost in circular discussions.
It's been a pleasure serving as Chair. It might surprise some to know that Unibot is actually just an overgrown boy scout and we have a saying in scouting, 'leave things better than they were before you arrived'. My hope is when I'm done as Chair, whenever that happens, I've left the Assembly as a better place. Thank you for reading - feel free to ask questions.
And, the obligatory Campaign Song... kick it, Tweedy!