Standing Orders for Parliament - Discussion Thread

[Foucaulf]

1. Only Ministers may introduce legislation (unless on an Opposition Day, see below).  This way there is a clear government program and clear debate between government and opposition.  I, for one, tired of the lethargic debates in the Atlasian Senate that strove to find consensus among everyone.  That might be nice in the RL, but it's good to have some solid opposition in a game.

As Hagrid alluded to, the usual division of bills in the Westminster System is between government bills and private members' bills. I think the standing rules is that all legislation proposed by Government will be introduced in its own topic. There should be another topic in which all private members' bills must be introduced, then the Speaker can decide if/when to introduce them.

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Do you really want to make the system so formal? Since our game doesn't really feature substantial executive business, I don't see why people can't just speak up during a Questions thread.

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It would be good to have a thread like this, so long as we enforce that zingers and complaining go there while serious discussion about bills stay in the legislation threads. In other words, the Questioning thread ensures the legislation threads don't get clogged up.

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Speaker or leader of the house? Which motions in particular? In general we want to set the rules so that bills that aren't successful will be voted down rather than amended constantly. This is where a "First/Second Reading" section may be useful.

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You'll want to set time limits on this too, maybe once every 30 days.

I have no problems with 2, and my problems with 5 are the same as everyone else's.

[Foucaulf]

Getting really spergy here, so apologies in advance.

The Speaker would not be the one with the discretion to decide when to move bills to the floor, again, that's with the Leader of the House ... Regardless, the agenda for the week is set by the Government, so for example the Leader of the House (or I suppose the PM if we don't want this position)

I am almost certain that the Speaker is the one who keeps track of these in every Westminster system. (How the agenda is formed is technically embodied in the Chamber's rules of order, and the Speaker enforces the rules of order.) A Westminster speaker isn't as oppressive as an American speaker, but they also are members of the governing party/coalition. Either way, the rules will be agreed upon by the House before business is done.

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The question is more about if we demand other MPs to stick to a work schedule as well. I certainly don't mind a trial run, though.

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Well, that would be a motion for a resolution instead of a motion on a bill. A speaker would impose caps and debate limits on those just like private members' bills and government bills.

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It's not really that important in Westminster systems, though. Question Time/Period is the usual channel to register complaints. I don't even know if we'll do official oppositions and shadow cabinets in this game, and if the players don't want to that's how it is.

[Foucaulf]

I'm not disputing that a House Leader decides how to prioritize government bills, but it's not true that it's the House Leader who writes Parliament agenda. For example, the Speaker manages the ordering of private member's bills (which aren't as much a thing in Australia compared to other Commonwealth countries).

But this is getting too nitty-gritty. I'm just not a big fan of having a government minister controlling the order of things, and thinks a Speaker should be elected that maintains a degree of impartiality. The choice is between a US Congress Speaker versus an Atlasia Speaker, to use an analogy more people here will get.

[Foucaulf]

Now that the election is over, bumping this up would be a good idea. Here's what I've gotten from discussions:

-The government should play a decisive role setting the legislative schedule (which I admit is how it works in real life). This is a natural incentive for entering government.

-We agree on limits to debate times. I'm in favor of a first-reading/second-reading system: a bill is introduced on first-reading, at which time people may comment on it in debate. No vote is taken, and the bill is defeated if not seconded by a MP. Second reading is when debate is actually scheduled, concluding with an up-or-down vote on the bill. As in Atlasia, there are caps on how many bill threads exist simultaneously.

-A question time thread offers a more active place for opposition to act and criticize the government.

I think the two biggest questions are:

-How freely are members allowed to motion for amendments? Is there a cap on the amount proposed at each time, and how much? Do members have to sign up beforehand? Are amendment quotas allocated to different opposition parties by size?

-What triggers a vote of no confidence? This will decide if we cling to a Westminster system or something else. Right now there is no budget bill that necessitates a vote of no confidence during Parliament, so when can you?

I'm not going to propose ideas for those two questions, because that's something for the next government to decide. A speaker must be elected soon, and somewhere down the line he has to respect some new rules of order.