Everything all at once

HOW MANY things can a country do at once?

The question arises because of the flurry of key legal reforms now engaging the attention of the Rowley administration.

The Government wants the population to participate in its ongoing constitution exercise.

The Law Association, meanwhile, wants the Government to abolish the Privy Council, a matter which state officials are on record as welcoming.

Separately, government senators last month announced plans to change the archaic law on commissions of enquiry by the end of this year.

Individually, each of these matters is overdue.

Collectively, however, they make you wonder: Can anybody take all of this on? Is this the right moment to promulgate far-reaching and consequential changes?

There are so many other things – and basic things – requiring urgent attention.

Children are being beheaded, buried in backyards or dying at hospitals.

Crime levels are such that people are afraid to venture out; prisoners awaiting trial are rioting in jails. Utilities, like water, are under strain due to shortages; people are bracing for increased bills, which might soon arrive in the mailbox at even faster intervals.

Roads need repairing. Ports need fixing.

Macro-economic indicators suggest the economy is rebounding, but nobody feels their spending power is rising.

Another key legal reform engaging the Government’s recent attention, the return of property tax, proceeds clumsily apace; the Revenue Authority is not far behind.

Given all this, are ordinary citizens likely to be in the frame of mind to cogitate the nuances of the first-past-the-post electoral system, the convoluted hierarchy of service commissions, the legacy of colonialism, and the finer details of the Commissions of Enquiry Act?

The Government wants people to participate in its agenda. But participation requires enthusiasm.

It also requires people to surmount the mental roadblock inherent whenever any ambitious announcement is made on the eve of a general election. The current administration has just over one year left. If a relatively simple measure like property tax has taken decades to sort out, how will more ambitious measures tabled in Parliament in the coming months fare?

All governments are vested with the legal, though not moral, authority to make profound changes whenever they wish, even on the eve of a poll.

And the current Government will likely reply to critics of its late-hour legal-reform frenzy by saying: If not now, when?

But there is an answer to that question.

If all governments were in the habit of publishing a legislative agenda with clear timelines, the population would not be placed in a situation in which they are being abruptly hit with a barrage of matters requiring their undivided attention in between everything else.

Indeed, that transparent habit was once, a long time ago, the approach of the present Cabinet.