[Terpelaziun] Immigration Minister (Sept 5)

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

Túischac'h, I rise to submit an enquiry to the Minister of Immigration. @Miestră Schivă, UrN

During the discussions on immigration reform the Minister of Immigration brought up the important issue of broosking.

What efforts, either in the current reform proposal or other activities, is the Immigration Ministry undertaking to educate prospective citizens about broosking, why it is discouraged, and who to contact should it occur during their immigration process?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I thank the Member for his question.

Right now, "broosking" (the active recruitment of prospective citizens to political parties) is not a problem. Getting new citizens to actually participate and stick around is the problem, towards which the Government has been bending its energy.

But I am quite surprised that the Member is so worried about broosking, since his former political party was the main beneficiary of it for years.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I thank the Member for his question.

Right now, "broosking" (the active recruitment of prospective citizens to political parties) is not a problem. Getting new citizens to actually participate and stick around is the problem, towards which the Government has been bending its energy.

But I am quite surprised that the Member is so worried about broosking, since his former political party was the main beneficiary of it for years.

I thank the Minister for her reply and point to the last part of her reply as the reason for my own enquiry. She is the one who has made assertions that "implicit broosking" has been occurring.

A supplementary question, related to this assertion. Besides the obvious broosking by a member of her own party, Senator GV, can she recall any other recent examples of actual broosking?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

"Broosking" is not a legal term with a precise definition, so I suppose we revert to TalossaWiki's definition:

Broosking is the act of recruiting a prospective citizen of Talossa into a particular political party. It is widely regarded as unethical, though it is not illegal.

It would be probably best therefore to regard Senator Valcádac'h's actions in that regard as "attempted broosking", since it did not succeed in any respect. This was at the time disavowed by the Free Democrats. In contrast, in line with the computer science principle that "the purpose of a system is what it does", given the recruitment of virtually all active prospective citizens to the Talossan National Congress during the 58th Cosa, there is nothing "implicit" about this. Prospective citizens were recruited, by the party which had an absolute majority at the time. This is a fact.

The current Government's immigration reforms, by removing incentives to maximise bare immigration numbers, are the best way to cut down on any kind of broosking. But an additional measure might be to emphasise the right of new citizens to a single Cosa seat, to make it clear that you can be involved in Talossan politics without joining a political party right off the mark.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

"Broosking" is not a legal term with a precise definition, so I suppose we revert to TalossaWiki's definition:

Broosking is the act of recruiting a prospective citizen of Talossa into a particular political party. It is widely regarded as unethical, though it is not illegal.

It would be probably best therefore to regard Senator Valcádac'h's actions in that regard as "attempted broosking", since it did not succeed in any respect. This was at the time disavowed by the Free Democrats. In contrast, in line with the computer science principle that "the purpose of a system is what it does", given the recruitment of virtually all active prospective citizens to the Talossan National Congress during the 58th Cosa, there is nothing "implicit" about this. Prospective citizens were recruited, by the party which had an absolute majority at the time. This is a fact.

The current Government's immigration reforms, by removing incentives to maximise bare immigration numbers, are the best way to cut down on any kind of broosking. But an additional measure might be to emphasise the right of new citizens to a single Cosa seat, to make it clear that you can be involved in Talossan politics without joining a political party right off the mark.

Got it. Where there is no proof I point to imagined misbehavior because my opponents must be nefarious. Where there is proof I attempt to diminish or invalidate the clear misbehavior because my ally can't possibly commit nefarious actions. This world tinted by partisanship would make Alice in Wonderland look like nonfiction.

Thank you for your answer and I agree, as a cosponsor of the bill on reserved new citizen seats, that it should be promoted as it was when I was MinImm. 😀 A bit weird for the leader of a party recruiting new citizens to then tell them they can be politically involved WITHOUT joining that party. I agree with that.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Just to set the record straight on this: to the best of my knowledge, the TNC did absolutely zero broosking.  We were very successful at recruitment for several reasons:

1. The incumbent government had been in power in some form since 2017, and by 2021 the strain was apparent.
2. You had some members who were unbelievably acerbic.  Folks like V made your whole party look bad.
3. The TNC's public face was mostly Breneir and I, and we had really good message discipline.  We tried to be polite whenever we could, we worked hard to publicly cheer and boost everyone's cultural efforts, and we took the time to greet new people.

We never ever publicly broosked people.  I never ever privately broosked people, and I don't think Breneir did either.  It's wrong and it hurts the country.

As far as I know, all the new folks just joined us because we were nice and positive.  That goes a long way.

GV has twice attempted to broosk prospective immigrants in the most flagrant manner to ever occur in modern Talossa, posting on their threads on the Immigration Board to advertise the Free Democrats.  Ian apologized on behalf of the party last time and said he would ask him not to do it again, so it's best not to try to rewrite the history on this one.