Senator Browne: I was prepared if I was called upon

New Government Senator Luke Browne is not too perturbed about missing the opportunity for his maiden budget contribution last week despite making extensive preparation.{{more}}

“What I would say is that I was prepared if I was called upon to present,” Browne said on radio Sunday.

“It wasn’t in my place first of all to present so early on if I were to give a presentation,” he added in response to the question why, like the other parliamentarians, he didnt take up the invitation to speak.

“In that case I thought it would be important to defer to my seniors. It’s my first sitting in a budgetary exercise. You obviously went to learn. Learn about how things unfold in that sort of setting. And ultimately I deferred to the judgment of the Prime Minister in those circumstances,” said Bowne, who is also Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Culture.

Prime Minister Gonsalves wrapped up the budget debate early Tuesday on the invitation of House Speaker Hendrick Alexander, after no Parliamentarian responded to calls for further debate following the presentation by Leader of the Opposition Arnhim Eustace.

Several political commentators believe the two sides were seeking to outmanoeuvre each other to dominate the latter stages of the debate.

The truncated debate meant Browne and fellow Government Senators Jomo Thomas and Camillo Gonsalves – the Foreign Minister, missed making their first budget contributions following their appointment to the House in September last year.

Asked what would he have done if he was sitting on the opposition benches, Browne said he would have spoken “because the onus is with the opposition to challenge the government.”

“The government is sitting in office. The Ministers would have every opportunity to present their ideas and to promote their views. But they (the opposition) are the ones who basically want to topple the system.”

Opposition parliamentarians, who walked out of Parliament ahead of the Prime Minister’s wrap up, argue that they needed to hear the Minister’s plans and programmes to have something on which to focus their rebuttal.