“We have been spoken to a number of times, but that is not consultation.” Tina Cambridge

When I read the above quote from yesterday’s article in the Nassau Guardian by Geoffrey Brown, (More here…) I thought of so many occasions this has happened with successive governments when discussing proposed legislation.

Frankly they (the Government) does not “consult”, they coerce. It’s as simple as that.

There’s a litany of people that have subjected themselves to much personal abuse and victimisation because they dare challenge public policy.

And some of the present crop in charge of the Government are very skilled at personal attacks rather than defending the policy with logic.

Take most legislation over the past 25 years or more and seldom does Government make a concession with what they proposed. And when they get your association or the so called “stakeholders” – I hate that expression – to agree to “negotiate” behind closed doors and not offer criticisms in the press, any hope for reasonable amendments is lost.

As Henry Hazlitt describes the Leviathan State:

"Whatever the outcome may be the future seems ominous. By whatever standard we measure it – the number of laws, the rate at which new ones are enacted, the multiplication of bureaus and agencies, the number of officeholders, pensioners, and relief recipients the taxpayer is forced to support, the total or relative tax load, the total per capita expenditures – there has been an accelerative growth in the size, arbitrary power, and incursion of government, and in the new prohibitions, compulsions, and costs it keeps imposing on us all."

One day the Bahamas Chamber and other NGO’s will refuse to take the “negotiation” bait and/or businesses will simply refuse to comply and start to challenge the Government’s capacity to impose it’s will in the Courts.

That day can’t come soon enough.

Maybe then Governments will “consult” rather than talk down to the taxpayer and decide to "take" what they want.