The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE behaviour of House Speaker Halson Moultrie was unprecedented and overboard, according to a former deputy prime minister and a former long-time parliamentary clerk.

During a 32-minute speech in the House on Tuesday, Speaker Moultrie railed against “yellow journalism”, “fake news” and attacked the logic of Opposition Leader Philip “Brave” Davis’ criticism of him in a recent article. He declared he will lead reporters to Jesus if they target him. He was responding to the debate after he forced a reporter to delete a photo she took of Exuma and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper, who was making a contribution in the House last week.

Frank Watson, a former Free National Movement deputy prime minister, and Maurice Tynes, who retired as parliamentary clerk in 2017 after 24 years in the role, expressed alarm yesterday.

“I was in the House for 20-something years and I’ve never seen a speaker, FNM or PLP, deliberately set out to attack the public and the media, I’ve never heard of it and it’s unthinkable,” Mr Watson said.

“Somebody got to check him, man, because he’s gone overboard. I don’t understand how somebody in the party - I don’t know who is responsible for the House other than the prime minister - but certainly somebody has to speak with him before he does more damage than he has. What disturbs me is this is the second or third time he’s done this and clearly nobody in the administration has said anything to him about it so he must think he’s doing the right thing, but certainly it is out of order.”

Last year, the official Opposition brought an unsuccessful vote of no confidence motion against Speaker Moultrie after he attacked Mr Tynes, appeared to knock the foreign-born status of Mr Davis’ wife and accused the Cat Island, Rum Cay and Ragged Island MP of taking advice from “reprobates and perverts”, a remark observers deemed homophobic.

Mr Watson said after such an attack the prime minister in his era would have called the Speaker into a room to have a chat.

“If he did it again, knowing Ingraham, he’d fire his ass,” he said. “He would’ve been gone.”

“Moultrie been around politics forever,” Mr Watson said, “and this is not the only thing where I see he’s gone awry with. I see the other day he was talking with the Chinese about development and so forth and I think he must be looking for another job, he must not like the job he has.”

On September 19, during an official courtesy call with China representatives, Mr Moultrie said he offered personal recommendations to the Chinese to consider developing the south-east Bahamas to divert population away from north-western islands.

Both Mr Watson and Mr Tynes acknowledged the Speaker’s right to maintain order and decorum in the House of Assembly, including by reprimanding reporters and members of the public who contravene rules.

Mr Tynes said it is not unheard of for Speakers to call out reporters who violated parliamentary rules, demanding they come forward when the House sits and have their error addressed in the open.

However, he said: “It would have been criticism specific to that person and that person’s actions. But this generalised attack on everyone and throwing mud at everyone is really uncalled for, especially for someone presiding over the House of Assembly. When I was there, if the Speaker alerted me that that’s something he would want to do, I would advise him that you can call a member of the press to account but I would advise him strongly not to overreact like how he did.”

Mr Watson said: “The Speaker, of course, is supposed to keep order in the House and if somebody in the newspaper business gets up and does something wrong you reprimand them but outside of that then he has no business saying the things he did, it becomes a political issue for the parties to resolve, all he is supposed to do is keep order in the House.”

Mr Tynes said the problem may be symptomatic of a wider issue: the relative inexperience of House Speakers. He said he served under three Speakers who were also first-time parliamentarians.

“In our Westminster system, in the bigger parliaments, this would never happen,” he said. “To become Speaker of the House is really a process, people are chosen when they show some qualities for knowing the procedures, for good temperament and stuff like that, but in the bigger parliaments you will never see a first-time parliamentarian become Speaker of the House.”

In a statement yesterday, the Democratic National Alliance said the Speaker has been “making the headlines for the wrong reasons” since the FNM assumed office in 2017.

“As the head of the second arm of government, the Speaker holds a pivotal role in our parliamentary democracy and ought to uphold the highest standard in the discharge of his duties,” the DNA said. “Regrettably, the Speaker has fallen short of the expected decorum, composure and objectivity required of his office. Many Bahamians still recall his blatant attacks on members of parliament and private citizens as he embarked on tirades during what has now become his normal outbursts…It is, however, the recent attacks on the fourth estate that is alarming and disturbing to the DNA and the Bahamian people. The Speaker’s conduct is a direct attack on the media, freedom of the press and speech. This constitutes an affront on fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution –- the supreme law of the land.”