Speaker Of The House: “Totally Unacceptable”
Following a photo taken inside the House of Assembly appearing on social media, Speaker of the House Randy Horton called it “absolutely, totally unacceptable.”
The photo, which was very low quality and quite blurry, was recently posted on Facebook and appeared to show Minister of Finance Bob Richards and MP Nandi Outerbridge.
Addressing the House during yesterday’s [Mar 9] sitting, Mr Horton said, “This is absolutely, totally unacceptable.
“I have asked Mr. Fox to be absolutely vigilant in ensuring that electronic gadgets are not used in the House by those in the gallery.”
The Speaker added that the matter will be discussed during the meeting of the Standing Orders Committee on Friday.
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I must be missing something. Why is this a big deal? In the HOA they are public servants conducting public business. Live TV broadcasting should be available anyway.
Why can’t you stream the HOA meetings? Surely would give the voters a real window into the behavior and strengths of their candidates vs. canvassing which sometimes isn’t done with your own running constituent.
Then we wouldn’t have to worry about alleged poor behavior in the House.
Put it on CTV.
Some one must have told the Speaker about this picture, I am sure he is not on Facebook. lol
The reality is however, what does it really matter? Bermuda should in this modern era have the house of parliament on TV for all to watch and see, like it is in most modern democracies. I would have thought by now the OBA would have advance such an ideas since they are big on TRANSPARENCY !!
could you imagine anybody wanting to invest in Bermuda! if people see how the opposition carries itself!
Can someone explain to me why taking pictures of proceedings in the House of Assembly is so bad, apart from it being against the House rules? Maybe we should change the rules?
And the purpose of taking the pic was for??? One word. Childish.
whyis it childish? is it because it shows memebers of the ruling party sleeping on the job? yes the job that the tax payers pay them to do! if i was sleeping on my job you would say that i should be fired.
Closing your eyes, even if it’s for a minute or so, does not indicate you are asleep.
At least the member was in the House – there are many members opposite who are never in there! not even when it’s time to vote – & they clame to care so much
Agree, It was childish to send this photo to social media.. I would hazard to guess that everyone in the house is guilty of this at some point.. Sitting up to 3am and 4am listening to legislative arguments may be a bit boring sometimes.. lol.. However, I am more slightly disgusted by the blowing bubbles, mercy, these are politicians.. Anyway,, on to the real issues.
Politicians = robots that cannot chew gum!
yea that sounds about right.
Nothing wrong with chewing gum, but blowing bubbles in the house of assembly.. maybe its just me,, lol I guess I just sort of associated a certain prestige with the building for some crazy reason.
Regardless, the concern of the Speaker seemed to be the taking of a photo, not the nature of the photo or its intended use.
As Dreamcatcher said, why can’t the proceedings of both the House and the Senate be streamed? Show them on CITV. If we can hear them on the radio, why can’t we see the images?
Of course, if we could see the proceedings, many folks might get concerned by how few MPs are actually in the House at any given time and wonder why those missing aren’t there.
It will cost money, money we don’t have! Most of you commenting don’t have any real interest any way.
No, it showed that the $$$ that these people are being paid for our welfare is bring wasted.
I think what many people are thinking is, of all the things for the Speaker to be completely flabbergasted at, a photograph of sitting MPs tops the chart?
@ smouchless, so true, the they are there to take care of business and taking pictures. Time and place for everything. Grow up! Ban the phones like some businesses do.
Just someone trying to undermine the OBA government…that is all. Ask LF where she got the photo from.
Really don’t think they need help from anyone else , they are quite capable of undermining themselves !
There should be a live camera in the house at all times. That is what the speaker should advocating! I am sure if a vote was taken the public would agree! Let’s go OBA and PLP and speaker of the house make it happen and vote on this!The time has come and is in fact well overdue.
1.) someone in the audience took the pic not the opposition.
2.) They should not be sleeping in the HOA, if you are tired and worn out go home and sleep.
It’s the Bermudian phobia of being identified publicly when they want to cast aspersions or malicious remarks behind the cloak of anonymity. But most parliaments allow in the cameras to cover debates; Bermuda is behind in that respect; and for me in the Bermudian contexts; I would like to look into their eyes or see their body language when they turn their anti-Bermudian policies into laws.
The day after partying hard all night on the peoples money , sleep in the HOA is the decadent reward for these OBA MP’s !
We need to be practical.
MPs can go to the rear lounge to ‘refresh themselves’ and have a quick nap if necessary.
We also need to commend some of the MPs for the extended time they put in, especially during budget debates.