With the greatest of respect:

1) I actually worked with Ben Madison as Immigration Minister. He decided to keep me out, but he didn't do that through unaccountable backroom shenanigans. He did so by briefing against me with the Uppermost Cort, who had the final say. He wrote a snotty note in his newspaper saying that I could be reconsidered if I learned to toe the line, and of course I was already forming a new micronation by then, lol.

2) I could *already* be throwing half of the immigration applications in the bin and you'd know nothing about it, because you can't see the immigration mailbox. If you really think that any quality control is going to turn into unaccountable gatekeeping, then I expect you to support an automated process where any immigration application gets autoposted to Wittenberg. Which I'd actually support if we decided to reject the idea of quality hurdles.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 09:17:26 PMI can only find studies and discussions of people valuing something more after the fact if they paid for it, versus when it's free.

That's probably a more rigorous and better way of putting it. I encourage everyone to read the hilarious article this is from:

Quotewhen something has no cost, you're not motivated to get your money's worth. New games have learning processes, and if you invest zero dollars in one, you invest the same amount of time in figuring out how to play. I know how this sounds, but it's almost as if you have to tax the player in order to get them to learn how to play your game. Ugh. I type 15 jokes about Hitler a day, and that was the most awful sentence I've ever written.

So after a few months, we changed the price from zero to three dollars (then back to free again). And here's what's nuts: When it cost more money, more people downloaded it. And everyone who downloaded it played it more.

But that's what I was getting at. If a new citizen has to make an *effort* to get in, they're more likely to cherish their Talossan citizenship and contribute to the community. So thanks for helping me clarify. And also to clarify, the "effort" I'm suggesting is one of demonstrating understanding what Talossa is and how a new citizen can contribute. I'll never forget that one citizenship who immigrated, tried to play the two major political parties off against each other, choose one, and then vaporized.

I hope you noticed that I also identified the problem of "ImmMin getting too much gatekeeping authority", which is why I included the option of an appeal to the SoS.

MinSTUFF has made a polite request, Brenéir.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 06:16:08 PMwhat provision of the law requires the Government to keep all prior communications private until seven years elapse?

Yeah, that's a question that has been puzzling the Govenrment

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 06:09:19 PMs the idea to just generally make it harder for people to immigrate?  Why would we want to do that?

Because recent experience shows that just accepting everyone who fills out an online form and makes 1 post on Witt leads to:

(a) low-quality citizens who overwhelmingly don't contribute to Talossan life, apart from making a number on Infoteca look good for those who care about such things;

(b) unintentional broosking to the ImmMin's party. Honestly, this is a hangover from the pre-Reunision days, when the ruling party discovered that a completely open-door immigration policy led "somehow" to a semi-permanent political majority.

There is a phenomenon whereby people who don't want something offered to them for free will be interested if they have to pay a small fee. We call Talossan citizenship "The Best Thing That Money Can't Buy", and we literally go out and throw our "pearls before swine". I wouldn't be surprised if this policy actually increased immigration numbers, but in any case, the wager is that it will increase active citizenship.

Honestly, I share the Baron's discomfort that this is very different from my macronational political stance, but that's something we all have to get used to. I don't believe there is such a thing as "high/low quality" citizenship in New Zealand. I do in Talossa.

If I might jump in in front of my Ministers here: as I've said elsewhere, the Government is fully in favour of expanding the Civil Service and providing backup in case officials go AWOL. The only question is being *able* to recruit to such provisions. The problem with legislatively establishing Deputies is that it doesn't amount of a hill of beans if there's no-one available. As we've found out with PermSec Immigration.

So instead of legislating, in the first place, let's simply ask the Royal Archivist to appoint a Deputy.

If I may, est. Túischac'h:

- the Member is using Terpelaziuns "tactically". He has set out to ask every member of Cabinet a TERP to attempt to exert political pressure, regardless of whether this is appropriate or even sensible. Consequently, he has tried to ask this question of the Distáin, when the Distáin is the Deputy in the office of the Prime Ministry, and this question should have been directed to the Seneschál, i.e. me. We should not be surprised by this, because the Member has a history of bullying the Distáin, and it is to be hoped that the Distáin doesn't start getting nasty WhatsApp messages again.

Anyway, the Member is fully aware that I have previously answered both his questions, and I will repeat these answers below:

1) that, while a non-political Permanent Secretary of Immigration would be ideal, and we looked for one, we found no takers. We asked the previous Minister of Immigration to stay on in a non-political capacity; he turned us down. In desperation, I personally took on Immigration, and since I've found it's not as hard as I thought it would be, I've stuck with it. Applications for the position of PermSec Immigration are always open to those enthusiastic about doing donkey work, and not personally unpleasant.

2) the Member's "Single Transferable Obsession" with the SoS is irrelevant to the question of increasing the scope of the civil service, since the SoS is a civil servant and has no role in the elected Ziu or in the Government, as it should be.

Finally: the Government is discussing further points on the issue of expanding the Civil Service and we hope to announce further initiatives down the track.

A previous government, of which I had the honour of being a part, established La C'hronică (LC), the "official newsletter" of the Talossan government. At the time, we made it clear that LC was supposed to be a stop-gap, a way of keeping less-active citizens in touch with what was happening in Talossa, substituting for the lack of a private enterprise press.

But there are several functions of a private-enterprise Free Press which LC cannot, and should not, cover. Like fearless reporting on political debates, or muckracking explorations of personal misbehaviour. It is this Government's belief that a lot of bad habits have crept into Talossan politics and culture precisely because there is no sanction - reputational or political - for bad behaviour, or simply for being what we could call in the national language 'n verpă.

Therefore, the Culture Ministry will look favourably on giving grants out of our 60th Cosă budgetary announcement for anyone who wants to set up a private-enterprise newspaper, journal or magazine in Talossa. However, preference will be given to applicants who are not leading political figures or party leaders. A return to the biased partisan press of the Støtanneu/TNN era is not what we need.

Questions? comments?

As the Attorney-General is currently explaining to the Cosa, according to his learned opinion there is no legal requirement to keep the contents of behind-closed-doors Cabinet discussions secret. However, in my perhaps not-so-learned opinion there is a political reason to do so. In the Westminster tradition, we call this "collective solidarity"; that is, debates and individual opinions should not be published so that the Cabinet can speak with one voice. in the US tradition I believe you refer to "executive privilege";  that is, debates and individual opinions should not be published so that the executive officers can engage in full and frank debate and individuals cannot be targeted for their advice.

I have already posted to this effect in the Ziu, in a Terpelaziun thread that descended into nastiness, so I'd better repost it here.

1) My Government will not republish any debates or any opinions or comments of individual Cabinet ministers, and we expect that future Governments will follow this precedent.

2) There is no problem with discussing decisions or consensus opinions of previous Governments, as these form part of our tradition of Government which should be known by the public, especially when they give context to decisions of the current Government. But the names of individual Ministers should not be attached to them.

I hate to say it, but Brenéir is right on this one

I thank the Member for this question. This is a question in the competence of Ministry of Technology personnel, who would know about the best way of exporting Wittenberg threads to an archive, so I invite them to chime in.

Unlike the former OrgLaw Standing Committee, the Cabinet is a constitutional body with a tradition of collective responsibility. That is, if it was a position taken by the previous Government, it doesn't matter who said it, all the previous Cabinet are bound by it, until they publicly disassociate from it (once they are no longer in Cabinet). The "seven-year rule" applies *specifically* to internal debates within the Cabinet and the associated names of individuals.

In any case, this is the precedent that my Government will follow in regards to previous Cabinet discussions: we will not discuss individual Cabinet Ministers or intra-Cabinet debates, but - if we are asked a question on X, and a previous Government took a position on X, even if not publicly reported - we *will* offer that information, in the interests of informing the public. The Leader of the Opposition is guilty of what would be considered a "breach of privilege" in other jurisdictions.

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on September 08, 2024, 09:14:43 PMThe awkwardness started when Miestra took a statement from a private board to make a political point.

Yipes, this gets weirder all the time. The Cabinet board is not a "private" board, it is a confidential but official board. The whole point of this debate is that what happens there isn't a secret once the Government changes, and I *agreed* with the previous government's stand on this issue. I mean, if the Leader of the Opposition now wants to *distance* himself from the decisions of the previous TNC government - by picking on a former political ally - then fine, but I can't work out what the proposed alternative is.

Anyway, this is no longer an answer to a TERP, but something of a free-for-all caused by the questioner dragging a third MC's name into things.

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on September 08, 2024, 08:28:27 PMIt was reasonable advice which Miestra though was useful for political point-scoring.

???

I hope the record shows that the Opposition Leader has just performed what is described in the vernacular as a "dick move", for which I confess I am befuddled as to the motivation, and I apologise to Baron Davinescu.