Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 982226,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/982226/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 96,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I rise to support the Motion on the constitution of the Senate Business Committee. Looking at this list I think it is a very good one with people who are very experienced. They have qualifications and capabilities to do justice to the business of our House. Let me also take this opportunity to congratulate Senators and welcome them to the Fourth Session, as has been said before. I look forward to this team making sure that the programmes of the Senate, as per our Standing Order No.184, are executed smoothly and above board. When we came to the Senate, we were told that in the 11th Parliament this House passed five Bills. I was appalled and was wondering how that could ever happen. However, looking at the amount of time that has passed so far - we are halfway through our term - we might even do worse than we did last time, which is really a shame given that many Bills and House business had been transacted, and it is not for lack of work from the Senators. I believe that each of the Senators has spared their time to come up with Bills. We have to decide how we will deal with the issue of Bills just getting stuck and similar Bills coming up while it is in the pipeline at the National Assembly. This is something that we need House leadership to look at and see how we will unlock the bottlenecks that are happening. The only thing that I can say about this list though is that we may need more women going forward. As you know, the two-thirds gender rule starts with us. As much as the two-thirds gender rule in terms of the Act of Parliament has not been passed, the efforts that happen on the Floor of this House, and even in our little ways in these Committees, should actually start to be in practice to make sure that women are involved. I know that perhaps two women are quite ‘many,’ but so to speak, as we go forward, we need to make sure that even in the Committees no one gender is overly represented. That one gender does not have to be the women always being the lower threshold."
}