In the Legislative Assembly on Thursday 4 May 2006, Leader of the Opposition, McKeeva Bush said, “I am not going to vote against the Budget” – making reference to the 2006/7 Budget the Government tabled on 28 April 2006.

Making his contribution to the Budget Debate, Mr Bush said, “There are good things in there,” and he made special mention of the plans to improve education and road works plans as well.

Even with this, however, Mr Bush slammed many items in the proposed Budget, and one of the major ones was education.

Mr Bush went after the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Education and said that the Ministry was not going to get ahead as long as the PS was in the post.

“She is going to get you into big trouble,” said the Leader of the Opposition.

“With all the goodwill in the world you can’t do it without proper staff.”

After laying on the table other criticisms related to what he saw as a delay in getting rid of the shift system, teachers leaving the profession, and other items Mr Bush said, “It stinks to high heaven. It’s the running of an old Animal Farm experiment.”

During his time on the Floor of the House, after Mr Bush spoke, the Minister of Education, Hon Alden McLaughlin, referred to the Opposition Leader’s statement about the Permanent Secretary as an “underhanded jab.”

Demonstrating the extent of his objection to the ad hominem attack against the Permanent Secretary, Mr McLaughlin, in referring to Mr Bush, said in retort:

“May he grow old, and grey and feeble in that position.” He described Mr Bush’s criticisms of education matters, and items in the budget, as having an “absence of detail, wrapped up in bluster and accusations.”

Mr McLaughlin added that he had grown to understand that that is what was to be expected from the Opposition.

In his presentation Mr Bush slugged away at the Schools Inspectorate and said that it  was “obvious” that the Minister’s concerns about literacy and other problems related to schools, “bring into focus the Inspectorate,” which was not performing.

Mr Bush went to label the budget a “tax, borrow, and spend budget” and said that the Government had named a borrowing level of $94 million when it was not going to get the work spoken about, done, in that year. With that, Mr Bush was making reference to plans to build schools, with no people on island to get the work done.

“It is not sound fiscal policy to borrow $94 million,” he said. Adding that on the campaign trail to the 11 May 2005 General Elections the PPM had given education priority and since the Government has been elected it has not made any changes with education.

Mr Bush next moved to Immigration matters and said that the PPM Government had introduced polices of “Over protectionism and bad nationalism.”

He said that because of the policy path the Government was pursuing, “untold numbers have left and untold numbers are planning to leave.”

He criticised the Government for appearing to want to stay with the polices despite the devastating negative effect on people and the economy.

“Revenues of the Island are going to be affected and our people, our children and future generations will feel the negative effects of these policies for years to come,” he said.

Mr Bush said that with the PPM Government the work permit process, and the exemption process had been “politicised by moving the same to the Cabinet.”

He said this was so because Cabinet now got to choose who would come into the islands and be eligible to stay long enough, because of an exemption from Cabinet, to therefore apply for Permanent Residency.

He accused the Government of being able to choose who came into the country and stayed and of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in the Islands in this way.

Mr Bush also criticised the Government about not doing anything to reduce cost of living and listed insurance, gas (petrol) and electricity as items of concern.

He said the PPM was way off base with a declaration of a 7 per cent rate of inflation when he had figures to prove a 35 per cent increase in cost of living.