The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

BAMBOO Town MP Renward Wells yesterday said he was prepared to step down as parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Works and deputy party whip if the referendum Bills were not revised.

Outside the House of Assembly yesterday, Mr Wells and Marco City MP Greg Moss, both PLP backbenchers, expressed their satisfaction with the revisions to the referendum questions and Bills. The government announced the revised questions on Sunday, however Mr Christie has not as yet tabled the changes to the Bills.

However, Mr Moss said that he is still not satisfied with the wording of the fourth bill, which seeks to include the word “sex” as a category of discrimination.

He called the revision to include the definition of sex as “male and female” “incomprehensible”, adding that he was in talks with the Constitutional Commission to reach common ground on the issue.

Yesterday, Mr Wells confirmed that he would support all of the Bills. Last week, during debate on the Bills in the House he said he could not support Bill four as originally written because of fears it could lead to gay marriage.

He denied that there were any rifts in the PLP, and said that his contemplation to step down as parliamentary secretary was a matter of principle based on the parliamentary system. He also told reporters that he even went so far as to draft a resignation letter.

He added that Fort Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins’ decision to resign as party whip on Monday because he disagrees with Bills two and four was “honourable”.

“There are no party rifts,” Mr Wells said. “As a matter of fact, if you would think about that in the confines of the Westminster system, what (Fort Charlotte MP) Dr Andre Rollins did was the right thing.

“The prime minister said in the House (on Monday), ‘Listen if you all vote a certain way you understand the consequences of that vote.’

“We are all politicians, we are all adults, we know the way the system works and if we vote ‘no’ we ought to have taken responsibility for that vote,” Mr Wells said. “In my case it would have meant resigning as deputy whip because the whip is the one who is supposed to keep the vote.

“I was prepared to do the honourable thing if the party hadn’t made the amendments and in addition to that as parliamentary secretary attached to the Cabinet, for me to vote ‘no’ meant that the prime minister had the right to fire me on the spot.

“And I would have accepted that,” he said.

The first and second reading of the four Bills were passed in the House of Assembly yesterday. The Bills have now moved to the committee stage where they will be addressed on Monday.

Mr Wells said the revisions made to all four Bills indicated that the government had listened to his concerns, and those of the religious community.

“It would be disingenuous for me to now come back, having stated what my position was in the House of Assembly, to try and move the goal post further for my party,” he said.

Mr Wells said: “We in this place I see us as gate keepers, we have our own particular views and values, the constituents we serve have their own particular views and values.

“We ought to listen to those, and then we make requisite presentation in the House of Assembly. I would have made mine, now I know my other two colleagues both Dr Rollins and brother (Greg) Moss had similar positions.

“I think they wanted to see some other things take place in regards to question four, so I can’t answer for them.”

Mr Moss said: “Bill number four, the one dealing with insertion of the word sex in the Constitution, without any kind of definition as to what that means, or proviso as to what it doesn’t mean, remains unacceptable to me.

“We are moving toward the process of trying to find a common ground on that definition, the chairman of the Constitutional Commission (Sean McWeeney) has asked that I propose some drafting on it and we’ve had some discussion on it. No commitment has been made in either direction, but I think we’re leaning toward a point where a common language on that will be found.”

He added: “I think this exercise has been a very useful one to show that democracy is a vibrant organic process and we should all contribute to it for the greater good of the country.”