Statement on "negative attacks"

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

At absolute best, the Most Honourable Seneschal is confused about events.  Thankfully, the thread is right here.

Original Context
I wrote and posted my simple bill on August 12th.  At that time, there had been zero immigration for four months.  Literally, zero.  We hadn't yet lucked out with the Tiktok video or magazine article of last month.

The Process
MC Somelieir objected to one of the introductory clauses, since I said the bill was to resolve a legal ambiguity.  She said that I wasn't allowed to say that.  We argued about it briefly, but I decided that it wasn't important and just deleted the entire clause to which she objected.

Then the Most Honourable Seneschal posted what she calls a "snide comment," saying "I do think that E.5 probably is a bit wider in scope than appropriate. And the Government would be willing to discuss softening it - if we weren't having these discussions with an individual whose whole political 'shtick' right now is angry condemnation that the Government isn't jumping and hollering and doing political theatre around immigration."

Then when I Clarked it, she has already confessed to lobbying her party to vote against it.  And so it failed to pass.

The Motivation
Please notice that I am directly recounting and often quoting from the public record about this, whereas the Most Honourable Seneschal feels free to be a little more creative.

That's also why she says, over and over again, that she's afraid she's going to be prosecuted.  At this point, this has to be called what it is... a falsehood.  She's lying.  She knows that I have repeatedly told her that's outright impossible.  But it's a more sympathetic story than killing a necessary bill just because you don't like the sponsor.

The Most Honourable Seneschal feels caught out on a deeply unpopular decision, knows that there will be a reckoning with the voters, and she's looking for an excuse to explain it.  But there's no excuse that holds water, folks.  There's no good explanation for the Government demanding the power to secretly control immigration.  There's no good explanation for lying about it.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Riddle me this, Batman:

- if the PA admits that they have no evidence that I'm not throwing immigration apps in the trash, and that they don't even think I'm doing it;
- and that I'm going to be immigration minister at least until December 1;

then: why was reforming this law last month such an urgent priority that people would flip parties over it?

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I was honestly very surprised that the URL voted down The Public Process Act.  Here's a power that you have admitted many times you think is excessive, and a simple bill which would fix it to require transparency in the process.

I guess my thinking was like this:

STEP ONE
"Hey, an egregious violation of our civil liberties and basic good governance.  Let's fix it!"

STEP TWO
"Wait, the URL is voting against the bill... they want to keep the power to secretly control immigration?  I should try to get public support for the bill, so they don't kill it."

STEP THREE
"Well, I guess the URL has taken a position in favor of secret government control over immigration, so we'd better campaign on that and get the votes to fix this... since they just showed everyone their position."

And that's where we're at now.  I think that if you didn't want your party to take this position, you probably shouldn't have lobbied for it so hard.  You stuck them with this, and now you won't let them move on to a more positive subject.

Maybe we can move on and discuss some other topic?  Like we could talk about some policy plans for the next term?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

You did not answer my question.

This saga has a few points which go to the question of your personal fitness to be Seneschal:

• The original intemperate comments - including accusations of corrupt interference in the immigration process of that Malawian fellow - which sapped my interest in engaging with you at all.
• The unwillingness to consult with other parties over the (howsoever well-intentioned but) flawed bill. This attitude that "silence = consent" is what the Distáin was criticised for over the Fixed Terms amendment.
• The opportunistic panic-mongering that a loophole which you know I hadn't used and wasn't intending to was such an urgent priority as to make a central election issue.

That's not to deny my own responsibility. I made a political blunder in that I thought if I deprived your increasingly shrill accusations of the oxygen of my attention, no-one else would pay attention either. Clearly I was wrong, and you've made great political hay out of it. Well done.

As I keep saying to the Sex Pest, I beg you to understand that your behaviour has consequences on how other people engage with you.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

The problem with "Step Three" as listed above is that it completely ignores the Immigration Process Reform Act, which I myself currently have in the Hopper and will be continuing to refine with feedback from the community once the new Cosa is seated.

One of the central tenets of the bill — one I am more adamant on proceeding with — is that the review of immigration applications is handled by a committee of at least three, as opposed to the unilateral, "secret" discretion of the Immigration Minister. In other words, it neutralizes the same concerns to Public Process Act claims to address.

Additionally, one of the committee members must be nominated by the Opposition — meaning that the workings of the Ministry will be known to the very people intended to keep the Government accountable. This also serves to better balance the committee politically, assuaging concerns about political bias affecting immigration applications.

One of the big advantages in the committee method under the IPRA as compared to the Public Process Act is that the committee approach still increases transparency and Ziu oversight of the immigration process, without subjecting the Ministry's day-to-day operations to Ziu micromanagement. There is a difference between the two.

To claim that a government run by the person who put this committee approach forward (me) would somehow be more secretive is a level of dishonesty bordering on the comical.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Good point. IMHO Mic'haglh's proposal has all the positive features of 61RZ27 without the potentially dangerous loopholes/make-work for Immigration Minister.

What say you, Baron?

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

First of all, I am glad that we're turning towards a positive discussion of solutions!  The current situation is intolerable, and even if it took this much pressure to make it happen, it's still a good thing to turn our attention towards solutions!

It is fundamentally a terrible idea to allow the government to secretly control immigration, so we need to fix it!

Now, on the bill.  I'm a little surprised to see you bring it up... that bill was posted in September, and within the day, I pointed out some fairly serious problems with it.  And then... nothing.  No response, and here we are in November.

Now that it's a priority, I think my objections from September still need to be addressed.  Here's what I wrote back then, and which you never responded to:

I appreciate the thought and care behind this bill!  It is drafted with great exactness.  I also appreciate your openness to feedback.  I think there's some merit here, but I'd also like to hear more about some aspects.

A couple of immediate notes:

• A lot of this bill isn't strictly necessary, if the Government wants to try this.  The MinImm could establish a Comità del Veitariçaziun today.  Indeed, whatever happens to the bill and regardless of what the peanut gallery thinks, the Government should probably do this immediately if they feel it's a good idea.
• This bill seems like it would establish a third category of ministers, called staff, who are neither deputies nor permanent secretaries.  This doesn't seem like a good idea, and I'd suggest incorporating this into the existing system instead, if possible.
• While I think I understand the rationale for expanding the petition time, it also seems like it's going to be frustrating for eager new immigrants to wait a full month to start participating.  Is this the best way to stop people from feeling adrift once they migrate?  This is the change that is most likely to have the biggest impact.
• The part I don't feel like I understand the rationale for is the need for the clerks and so on.  Can you speak to why you think this is better than just the minister being transparent in public about the process?  As I understand it, if the minister processes every application and announces when they're declining to do so, then we're already maximally transparent (short of automating the process and taking the human element out, which would be a mistake).  What's the advantage of a new bureaucracy here?

So there you have it.  There are some pretty big hurdles here.

1.  First of all, it should probably be pointed out that the problems with The Public Process Act are imaginary, lol.  The law still says very clearly that an incomplete or deficient application can be returned to the applicant with an explanation, and that disclosure to the Ziu would only be required if a complete application was discarded.  And of course, the fear of prosecution is entirely fictional.

But hey, I'm flexible: why not just amend my bill to include a clause saying explicitly that it's not grounds for prosecution or making anything illegal ex post facto (already impossible, of course, but no matter), and another clause saying explicitly that disclosure doesn't apply for incomplete/nonsense applications?  I'll draft up the changes tonight, and we can pass that bill immediately while we work on what you call "very much a draft?"

2.  But anyway: I note that this bill doesn't actually provide government transparency!  I guess it's good that the Opposition would get to appoint one of the bureaucrats who were part of the secret decision-making, but it's not actual government transparency.  I think it's a pretty simple proposition: if the people in our government are secretly blocking applications, I think that the people should know about it!  And that's true even if the bureaucrats are bipartisan.

3.  Speaking of bureaucrats... why exactly would we want to create a new bureaucracy?  One of our planks in this campaign is to cut red tape and eliminate bureaucracy... this seems really counterproductive.  I'm not adamantly opposed, but "let's make a new bureaucracy" seems like a pretty drastic thing to do.

4.  And of course, it has to be pointed out that you guys could have done this back in September if you thought it was a good idea.  You don't need legislation to do this... this very night you could announce two new deputy positions, one of which would be nominated by the Opposition, and let them in on the secret process.  Before we make it mandatory in law, in fact, it seems like you'd want to try it!

All of that being said, I'd love to keep working on this and try to work out the kinks.