Robespierre for Speaker

[Robespierre]

Robespierre for Speaker
New Blood for the New Year
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Good day, everyone, and Happy New Year!

Speaking of the new year, it’s hard to believe that in a few short months I’ll have already spent over two years here in the North Pacific! In that time, I’ve come to know a number of great people -- many of whom I know refer to as friends -- and, as is customary of our time-honoured democratic traditions, general election cycles are a time for new talent to emerge and be allowed to take the lead as we stand at the forefront of TNP’s future leaders.

The holiday season, in principal, is a time for us to relax and enjoy one another’s company. Rather that company be physical, socially-distanced, or online, etc., I wish you all a happy, healthy 2021 and I understand that the time of voters is precious. With that being said, I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear before I begin: This is not a campaign that’s built on grand promises or lofty ambitions, nor is it one that sets out to achieve unattainable goals. Much like MadJack, Artemis, and other Speaker candidates before me: I do realism, so pardon me if this platform is a bit more abbreviated then what you're used to from me

With that disclaimer out of the way, I’m excited to begin talking about my election bid for Speaker and the nature of service that I will endeavour to provide this region with should I be elected.

Now, let’s get started!

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Where the Speaker's Office is Today...

Since being elected this past May and subsequently re-elected this past September, @St George/MadJack has done a phenomenal job in restructuring the Speaker’s Office and raising the bar for what we’ve come to expect of our public servants. I appreciate the opportunities that he’s afforded me with over the course of the past two terms and I am grateful for the patience he displayed in training me on the duties of a Deputy Speaker when I first was appointed to serve within the Speaker’s Office.

Going forward, I intend to use these past experiences in a way that directly applies what I’ve learned as a Deputy. One way that I will do that is by continuing on with the use of parliamentary language in the Regional Assembly and by bringing back some of the standards associated with a parliamentary approach to the Speakership.

As was the case with MJ, I prefer that appointments be made and voted upon as motions rather than as ballots -- as one example of what I mean by this. I believe the role of the Speaker to be that of a public servant to all and, as such, I consider the task of protecting the interests of the Regional Assembly’s members to be one of my foremost duties.

It’s important that we’re able to have meaningful, substantial discussions and debates about both legislative motions and non-legislative motions alike in our Regional Assembly -- regardless of who’s presenting such a motion or who such a motion concerns. Bearing that in mind, I am able to assure you with an active and engaged Speaker’s Office that aspires to a higher level of efficiency and smooth operation should you elect me because I’ve been around long enough to know I’m capable of providing that.

Much in the same vein, I understand that being a first-time Speaker will come with its own unique set of challenges. None of which I’m unprepared for, as luckily for me the learning curve has never been very steep, but I will look to retain at least one Deputy Speaker with prior experience in the Office for the sake of stability whilst still providing a place for those interested to contribute, be trained, display a commitment to regional service, and be prepared to possibly serve as our future crop Speakers.

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In What Direction Should We Be Going?

For this, I have two answers:

Firstly, in the spirit of who I hope to be my predecessor, I will be prioritizing the increased accuracy and speed of the Office’s residency and activity checks with the goal of getting them to occur as frequently as checks for citizenship applications do. MJ always wanted for us to match the speed and responsiveness of admins such as Siwale when performing checks on citizenship applications. While we have gotten a lot better on that front from where we were during say... Deropia's term as Speaker, I do think that a conscious effort can be made to bring all of our Office's checks up to par with that expectation considering how a check of this kind has not been performed in the past four days (prior to it being done earlier today by the Speaker).

In theory, checks on residency and forum/RMB activity should be performed on a daily basis. I will be providing ample opportunities for Deputy Speakers to get involved and contribute towards this goal should I be elected and I will also be continuing on with the schedule that was implemented last term for the sake of added structure and assured delegation of responsibilities.

Secondly, I'd like to take care of a couple of housekeeping items during my prospective term that'll hopefully present the citizenry with a cleaner, more organized Speaker's Office that can tend to things in an efficient manner under a new Speaker. Thankfully, MadJack was kind enough to supply the Office with updated voting templates that reflect the exact language changes I'd have wanted by posting topics on them just earlier today (You can't see them, however, as templates for the Speaker's Office are kept private).

Had he not done so, this was going to be one of the aforementioned housekeeping items that I wanted to take care of. Even so, I will look to continuously update these templates stylistically should cultural changes in the RA support me doing so. The other housekeeping item is as follows:

"State of the Regional Assembly" reports (Yes, I know there used to be a Speaker's Digest and there's the RA Highlights)

Full disclosure, this is an idea that I'm borrowing wholesale from the Assembly of the South Pacific. Nonetheless, I absolutely love what they've been able to do each month in regards to keeping track of votes, dicussion, incoming citizens (known there as legislators), and outgoing citizens by compiling everything into one comprehensive, complete report ( << Publicly viewable example).

Whereas we here in the North already maintain more extensive records of each citizen's votes on variuous RA motions, I agree with what Dreadton had to say in his most recent campaign for Speaker when he said that citizenship retention and overall RA activity are but another key indicator of our region's health (and the health of our democracy) in addition to the number of World Assembly nations that we have and the amount of endorsements being exchanged between WA members.

If elected, I'd like to publish two "State of the Regional Assembly" reports at bi-monthly intervals in an effort to make more information accessible to North Pacificans about what their Speaker's Office is doing for them. These reports would also serve as a great way for incoming citizens to get up to speed about what's happened previously in the Regional Assembly and having them come directly from the Speaker and their staff at the midterm mark and at the end of term mark means that we could include certain data that the RA Highlights in TNS currently doesn't.

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In summary, I'm not really promising you anything. I'm letting you know what I intend to look out for if elected, how I'd prefer to preside over the Regional Assembly during my tenure, what expectations I'll have for my Office, and what type of people I'd be interested in appointing as Deputies.

Aside from that, I'm open to questions, comments, concerns, etc. Good luck to my fellow candidates and let's make the new year a great one for TNP!

 

[Hulldom]

I know some regions, especially UCRs and several that I’m in, maintain a docket that is publicly viewable. Will the Speaker’s office, if you’re elected, also make an effort to give us all a little bit of an insight into what sort of things are upcoming in the Assembly?

[Full disclosure: this could exist for Citizens, unfortunately, I wouldn’t know.]

 

[Dreadton]

I know that you are active in other regions, do you hold and/or planning to run for office in those regions? Should you hold office else where, do you think there will be to much demand on your time?

 

[Robespierre]

I know some regions, especially UCRs and several that I’m in, maintain a docket that is publicly viewable. Will the Speaker’s office, if you’re elected, also make an effort to give us all a little bit of an insight into what sort of things are upcoming in the Assembly?

[Full disclosure: this could exist for Citizens, unfortunately, I wouldn’t know.]

So... that depends on what exactly you mean by a "docket."

I appreciate your question, so allow me to clarify:

When I talk about the role of the Speaker being that of a public servant to all and how I believe an active and engaged Speaker's Office to be a necessity, I'm also conscious of the degree of communication between the citizenry and the Speaker's Office that's required to ensure that RA business is being paid mind to.

By no means will the Speaker's Office always be perfect and operate flawlessly. It's an integral part of our system of government after all, and it takes a group of people willing to work to make all of the gears turn. Everything from processing citizenship applications to maintaining the citizenship rolls to handling votes on every motion is our responsibility, but I want to be personable and easily reachable to citizens so that they have someone to come to if they ever have any questions or are seeking clarification on something relating to the legislature.

I would expect the Deputies on my staff to be the same way in regard to that, and if it's determined that a docket or something similar would be helpful in that effort then I'm willing to explore the possibility. Otherwise, I intend to have an open door policy during my term whereby anyone is free to ask me about business relating to the RA and whereby they have close proximity to me and the answers that I'd be able to provide.

I hope this answers your question. In a word, yes: I would make an effort to communicate and be approachable to citizens so that should they ever come to me with questions relating to the RA I'd be able to provide them with new insights.

My only reservation with this is that I'm not sure that a "docket" would function the same way here as it does in other, much smaller regions (i.e. UCRs).

I know that you are active in other regions, do you hold and/or planning to run for office in those regions? Should you hold office else where, do you think there will be to much demand on your time?

Hello, Dreadton! Thank you for the questions!

For transparency's sake, I am also active in the Rejected Realms and hold a position there as an Officer without Portfolio. That is the only other region that I am presently active in and I don't foresee this changing anytime soon, as I simply don't have a desire to involve myself in more than two regions.

In response to the second part of you question (since I do hold office elsewhere), I can assure you that I wouldn't be seeking office if I felt as though the time commitment would be too demanding on me. I've been active in both regions for the past several months without issue so I don't anticipate that there'll be any constraints on my time.

Additionally, I've long prided myself on maintaining high levels of activity and involvement (mostly on the forums and on Discord, less so on-site) and there's never been a time thus far where I've felt like I had too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Although I love both regions, my commitments in the North Pacific will not waver due to my involvement in TRR.

Fortunately for me, I've given proper thought to running in the weeks leading up to this month's election cycle and I'll have plenty of time IRL to be playing NationStates actively and hopefully fulfilling the role of the Speaker should voters see fit to elect me. I appreciate your inquiry!

 

[Dreadton]

A person applies for citizenship and passes the Admin Check. Your Deputy post that the Applicant has passed the Speakers Check and adds them to the citizenship rolls. Are they a citizen?

 

[Robespierre]

A person applies for citizenship and passes the Admin Check. Your Deputy post that the Applicant has passed the Speakers Check and adds them to the citizenship rolls. Are they a citizen?

No. They’re not a citizen until they’ve passed each of the three checks involved in the process to attain citizenship.

In the scenario that you provided above, there was not mention of a Vice Delegate’s check. If my Deputy posts that an applicant has passed the Speaker’s check then that simply means that they’ve provided a nation on their application (one with residency) and have taken their oath correctly. Outside of that, it’s up to the administrative team to make sure of an applicant’s IP address being from a residential network (not school or a business) and it’s up to the Vice Delegate to ensure the security of the region by scanning them for a security risk.

Passing two out of three checks does not make you a citizen, so no. My Deputy would be incorrect in adding them to the citizenship rolls immediately considering that we have a separate “pending applications” tab on the Google sheet to track applicants as they progrsss through the process on their way to citizenship

 

[Wonderess]

Given that there were some difficulties with your job performance in your previous term as Vice Delegate, what has happened since then that has prepared you to be a responsible and integral candidate for Speaker?

 

[Oracle]

What is your greatest weakness and how do you intend to address this weakness if elected?

 

[Robespierre]

Given that there were some difficulties with your job performance in your previous term as Vice Delegate, what has happened since then that has prepared you to be a responsible and integral candidate for Speaker?

Thank you for your question.

The difficulties in performance that you're referring to from my time as Vice Delegate revolved primarily around my ability (or lack thereof) to rise to the #2 position in regional endorsements and assume the in-game placement of the Vice Delegate.

When I was elected to public office around this time last year, I didn't have any prior experience either as a Security Councilor or even really as an endotarter. This was mostly due to the fact that I had been leading the North Pacific Army as the Minister of Defense for a period of four months up until the point of my election and prior to that I was an Officer serving in the Officer Corps. Because of the nature of that job and the dedication I have to the NPA and my service there, I prioritized being WA-mobile during my time in office while on the Executive Council and I did so in an effort to lead by example and be continuously present as an active updater during NPA operations.

Admittedly, I should have been better prepared and risen to the occasion at that point in time. Unfortunately, following my election and as I had been serving in the role till around the third month or so of my term, I was unable to do this. I've taken responsibility for that in the time since my resignation, even as early as shortly thereafter my exit from office, and, while I still find the experience to be inherently valuable in it of itself, I would say that my time as Vice Delegate wasn't nearly as fruitful and successful as I'd hoped it to be initially.

With relation to your question, I'd say that the circumstances surrounding the aforementioned difficulties in performance aren't present in this case. As Speaker, I wouldn't have a need to be constantly endotarting or even have my WA membership attached to my main nation within TNP and I wouldn't be able to cite a lack of experience considering that I've been serving under MadJack in the Speaker's Office for nearly eight months by this point.

I've considered placing WA membership on my main nation in TNP regardless just for my own usage and perhaps to show those who doubted me during my term as Vice Delegate that I can, indeed, endotart. But I find that to be mostly irrelevant since the job of Speaker doesn't involve the same tasks that I had previously shown to be mediocre at.

I appreciate you mentioning it, nonetheless, so that I can be given the opportunity to properly explain

What is your greatest weakness and how do you intend to address this weakness if elected?

This is a good question. Thank you for asking it

I think that my biggest weakness probably involves me being stubborn and wanting to go into things alone rather than relying on the help of others. In some cases, this is a trait that proves useful when I know that I'm able to get something accomplished and can directly apply myself in pursuit of whatever goal I have. On the other hand, it's led me to being reluctant to ask for assistance even when I may need it and it carries the potential for me to be distrusting of other's ability to get the job done.

I like betting on myself and my abilities. Taking ownership over what I do and doing it the "Robes way" (like how I'm very OCD about formatting in posts )

While I don't think of this to be a "weakness" entirely, I do think that I could stand to place more faith in others and work more collaboratively on things. Pardon me if it seems like I'm bringing up MJ in this thread a lot, but he really has been an influence to me in the way of how I've learned to do the job of the Speaker's Office and I always remember him emphasizing how it's okay to reach out and ask other people in the Office to do x, y, and z.

Working as a team, I think that's what I've learned to do a bit better since I've been serving under him

This took some real thought to answer! Kudos!

 

[St George]

Should you win, will you commit to offering your defeated opponents a deputy speaker role in the office?

 

[Comfed]

If your intent was to coup the region, how would you go about doing that?

 

[Cretox]

The way things are going, this is going to be a pretty close race between you and @Bobberino. You're both qualified, longtime Deputy Speakers, former Ministers, NPAers, etc. You've both outlined solid visions for the office. So I guess what I'm asking is: Why should voters choose you over Bobberino?

 

[Robespierre]

Should you win, will you commit to offering your defeated opponents a deputy speaker role in the office?

I’d say so, yes. I’m very willing to make that sort of commitment should my opponent choose to accept it because I recognize the sense of continuity that they can provide the Office with if I’m elected.

I get along great with @Bobberino and we work well together. As Cretox will elude to later in this post once I address his question, we both come from similar backgrounds and we’re both NPAers. I’ve worked with him as a senior officer in the NPA, I’ve worked with him for two terms now in the Speaker’s Office, I’ve worked with him in various ministries since I arrived in TNP, and I’d be more than happy to work with him again in the future provided that he’s willing to stay on and contribute to the training of new Deputies and such as he has in the past.

I haven’t reached out to anyone as of yet about being a Deputy Speaker next term, as I feel that doing so may be a bit premature considering that we haven’t even entered the voting phrase of this election. Nonetheless, I can say with confidence that prior experience within the Speaker’s Office is valuable to me and, as I said in the OP of this thread, I will be looking for at least one Deputy Speaker to fulfill a more senior role with regards to experience in wake of a new Speaker being elected.

Thank you for your question

If your intent was to coup the region, how would you go about doing that?

Hmm...

I was asked this same question when I was running for Vice Delegate last year and I answered it from the perspective of the Vice Delegate. To clarify, are you asking me how I’d do it in general or are you asking me how I’d do it from the perspective of the Speaker of the Regional Assembly? The answers may differ there, so I want to make sure that you get a proper answer to your question

The way things are going, this is going to be a pretty close race between you and @Bobberino. You're both qualified, longtime Deputy Speakers, former Ministers, NPAers, etc. You've both outlined solid visions for the office. So I guess what I'm asking is: Why should voters choose you over Bobberino?

I think that voters should choose me over Bobberino not because Bobberino is a bad choice (because he isn’t), but because I represent the level of preparation and attention to detail that you’d like to see in a candidate for Speaker.

As you mentioned, we both have prior experience serving within the Speaker’s Office and we both have similar backgrounds as far as what facets of the region that we’re most involved in. What separates Bob and I the most, I’d say, would be our demeanors (with me being the more serious one and a bit “stiff” at times) and how we approach things.

Bob can be serious when he wants to be and has shown the capacity to do the job of a Minister well, amongst other things. Bearing proper respect to that, I’m confident that I can provide voters with an active, attentive, and responsive Speaker’s Office that’ll work for them and work to serve everyone to the best of our ability.

As an example: Notice how I posted my campaign immediately after accepting my nominations for Speaker. It may seem par for the course, but that’s the prepared nature that you’d want from a Speaker — I’d think — to where you can expect them to be prepared and to get their agenda out while paying mind to timeliness and constant feedback.

I hope that answers you question, but I wish my opponent the best of luck nonetheless

 

[Comfed]

To clarify, are you asking me how I’d do it in general or are you asking me how I’d do it from the perspective of the Speaker of the Regional Assembly?

Yes.

 

[Cretox]

Any plans for the Speaker's Staff or similar programs?

 

[Robespierre]

Yes.

You clarified what you meant on Discord after I pointed out how “Yes” isn’t an applicable answer to an either or question. In light of that clarification, I will now answer your question:

Quite simply? I wouldn’t. I’d be wasting a lot less of my time by not trying to coup a region that I already believe to be virtually un-coupable and betraying an entire community isn’t worth the short-term notoriety for me.

There are some past coupers or rouges who have gone on to be welcomed back into the community or even elected again in certain cases. These players are few and far between though, and the backlash that I’d receive just wouldn’t make the time planning and trying to execute worth it.

I will say, if I were going to coup, then it would require some co-conspirators on the Security Council to better support my attempt. It’d have to be somewhere in the ballpark of four or five, as it isn’t enough to get two or three of them on your side these days. Led alone convincing yourself and four to five others to betray their community in favour of your grand vision for a North Pacifican region under x person’s rule.

I answered a similar question to this when I was running for Vice Delegate last year. I’m not sure if my answer to that question holds up, but feel free to search for it if you’re interested. Otherwise, I just wouldn’t for the reasons I stated above.

Appreciate the question, Comfed!

Any plans for the Speaker's Staff or similar programs?

At present, no. As exhibited by the last four or so months, possibly more, becoming a Deputy Speaker is already an appropriate role for those who are looking to get involved and begin contributing either as newcomers or those looking to garner some experience in regional service initiatives.

For that reason, I don’t find a potential revival of the Speaker’s Staff to be necessary at this time when I can easily appoint someone who’s interested to the role of a Deputy Speaker without the need for another tier of staffers and the potential for overcomplicating things.

In relation to similar programs, I don’t have any concrete plans for any new ones. The only one that I think could be considered a new “program” or effort would be the State of the Regional Assembly reports that I talked about in my OP.

If the need arises for something new to be created then I’m of course willing to look into that and evalutate the viability of whatever ideas come to me. In absence of these instances, however, I think it’s more important that we as an Office prioritize the efficient running of things, the increased frequency of checks, and the communication between us and RA participants before looking to roll out flashy or gimmicky programs.

Thank you for your question, Cretox!

 

[Pallaith]

Robes, I have the same questions and even the same sentiment for you that I shared with Bob. It’s interesting that you wound up in this office, but I have to say, nice work. I’m going to try to find a good disinfection between the two of you outside of the personality angle, so let’s see how this goes. I asked these of Bob in his town hall, but your answers would also be interesting.

What do you think of the previous Speaker’s use of discretion in starting and scheduling votes? Are you going to continue this?

When it comes to the guidelines the office follows, do you think the standing procedures have room to change further? Would this limit how often you have to utilize discretion or do you think it’s better to keep things looser and rely more on your discretion?

 

[Cretox]

Under what circumstances would you use the Speaker's power to end debate?

 

[Robespierre]

Robes, I have the same questions and even the same sentiment for you that I shared with Bob. It’s interesting that you wound up in this office, but I have to say, nice work. I’m going to try to find a good disinfection between the two of you outside of the personality angle, so let’s see how this goes. I asked these of Bob in his town hall, but your answers would also be interesting.

What do you think of the previous Speaker’s use of discretion in starting and scheduling votes? Are you going to continue this?

When it comes to the guidelines the office follows, do you think the standing procedures have room to change further? Would this limit how often you have to utilize discretion or do you think it’s better to keep things looser and rely more on your discretion?

Greetings, Ghost! Thank you for your questions!

If I may, I’d like to reference the relevant portion(s) of the Constitution of the North Pacific and the Standing Procedures before I relate what’s enshrined in the status quo back to you question.

From Article 2 of the Constitution of the North Paciric entitled “The Regional Assembly,” in clause eight, which reads:

8. The Speaker will administer the rules of the Regional Assembly. Where no rules exist, the Speaker may use their discretion.

... and from the Standing Procedures’ section on “Voting Procedure,” in clause two, which reads:

2. The Speaker will clearly announce when any vote is to end. All votes must be cast before the end of the announced voting period. The Speaker is not required to post to end the voting period.

To answer...

I think that there are certain situations which absolutely require the Speaker’s use of discretion and the Office’s ability to set forth judgements when no rules exist. It’s hard to articulate on what exactly would constitute these types of situations since they oftentimes go unforeseen prior to an issue or discrepancy arising, but changing the Standing Procedures to allow for less use of discretion or less authority to make judgment calls wouldn’t exactly help matters, I don’t think.

Doing so would make the Speaker’s Office increasingly inflexible and less able to be adaptive and responsive to changes in the RA. I can understand why some may want the Speaker to be beholden to some additional restraints with regards to the Standing Procedures as they exit in the status quo, but ultimately I don’t believe these discretionary powers have been misused in recent times and I think that when you’re electing someone to such a high public office you ought to have confidence in their ability to use these discretionary powers responsibly before you support them.

I, personally, am more than willing to have conversations with participants in the RA and figure out whether or not there’s anything more they want of the legislature’s standing procedures. If that requires me to limit my own use of discretion, then so be it because I’d be there to serve them and provide a forum for them to conduct regional business properly.

Aside from that, I’d rather use discretionary powers in a more loose manner should no issues occur which require me to reassess that preference in presiding over the RA.

Hopefully that answers your questions sufficiently, but if you have any follow-ups then I’d be more than happy to elaborate further

(EDIT: Also, as something that I forgot to include in my originalanswer but posted about over on Discord, I am aware that the Standing Procedures can be amended by the Speaker with relative ease.

Doing so, however, relies on observance of those changes and if I were to amend parts of the Standing Procedure in such a way where the use of discretionary powers became stringent then I’d imagine that’d be a bit of an adjustment for RA members who’re used to the Speaker being adaptive and simply using discretion when the situation calls for it.

Not every situation calls for it to begin with, so by electing someone who’s able to retain those powers you’re essentially expressing confidence in their ability to use them responsibly and not abuse it)

 

[Robespierre]

Under what circumstances would you use the Speaker's power to end debate?

The power that you’re referring to was solidified by a 2013 Court ruling that can be seen here and is mostly derived from the set of discretionary powers that I mentioned above in previous answers on this thread.

The power of the Speaker to end debate is one of the most powerful tools that someone can have at their disposal and it’s something that should be used with caution and done sparingly only when necessary circumstances present themselves.

MJ actually used it back in August to shut down debate on an amendment discussion that he believed to be proposed in an effort to further personal vendettas via the RA. I went ahead and discussed this with him prior to answering your question to get his insight on the matter, and in retrospect it seems like it was a fair assessment of the situation at the time once things were put into context.

Generally speaking, I’m a fan of debates. I wouldn’t want to silence discussions or prevent meaningful discourse from taking place, but I don’t believe the RA to be an appropriate avenue to further personal vendettas through either. If it was apparent that was the case then I may consider using a more powerful tool in the toolbox.

Otherwise, it’s not something that I’d look forward to doing and I’d rather not use it considering that the interests of RA participants is something that I’m explicitly looking out for (as I mentioned in my OP). If those interests are being hurt by a discussion, that’s where talk of ending it could come into play. But I don’t foresee this being an expected event by any means and I’d rather not have to use it at all

 

[El Fiji Grande]

Regarding the 'State of the Regional Assembly' report you refer to in your platform, I noticed that you distinguish it from the Regional Assembly Highlights section of The North Star by stating that it will be imprived by offering data on citizenship counts and voting records. I happen to agree with Dreadton's sentiment that such records are a good metric for the health of our community, especially as it pertains to democratic participation. As you know, the Ministry of Communications is always looking to improve its regional publications, and I would see such a report as an improvement over the existing RA Highlights segment. So why not just have your report supplant the RA Highlights segment, and return authorship of that part of TNS to the Speaker's Office - at least for this term? Subsequently, to match the cadence of TNS, why not publish these reports monthly?

 

[Robespierre]

Regarding the 'State of the Regional Assembly' report you refer to in your platform, I noticed that you distinguish it from the Regional Assembly Highlights section of The North Star by stating that it will be imprived by offering data on citizenship counts and voting records. I happen to agree with Dreadton's sentiment that such records are a good metric for the health of our community, especially as it pertains to democratic participation. As you know, the Ministry of Communications is always looking to improve its regional publications, and I would see such a report as an improvement over the existing RA Highlights segment. So why not just have your report supplant the RA Highlights segment, and return authorship of that part of TNS to the Speaker's Office - at least for this term? Subsequently, to match the cadence of TNS, why not publish these reports monthly?

Excellent questions, Fiji!

In the past, Deputy Speakers who’ve happen to also be members of the Executive Staff for the Ministry of Communications have typically been given the RA Highlights segment of TNS in part due to their presumed familiarity with the content featured in that segment.

The reason that I distinguish the aforementioned “State of the Regional Assembly” reports from the RA Highlights segment that we already have being published continuously by the Ministry of Communications is because there’s only so much information that a staffer from Comms would be able to include without going out of their way to garner more data points in what I imagine would be a very time consuming process.

My proposal for bi-monthly releases of reports produced by the Speaker’s Office would aim to provide anyone who’s interested with statistics straight from the source. As a courtesy, I’d like to begin making a conscious effort to record various types of data on checks and such so that there’s referenceable records to look back on in the future.

In that sense, I suppose you could say that the aim of these reports would be to improve upon certain aspects of the RA Highlights segment that may be lacking. But the reason I don’t propose an outright supplementation of that segment with my Office’s reports is because I believe that to be a decision that’s best left up to the Minister of Communications themselves to decide.

As an example: If the Minister of Communications would like to continue publishing monthly installments of the RA Highlights segment in TNS even after the Speaker’s Office begins releasing bi-monthly reports of its own then that would be something that’s up to them and their discretion. I don’t believe that both publications would be necessary, but as Speaker it wouldn’t exactly be up to me to decide that.

Conversely, ifthe Minister of Communications would like to scrap the RA Highlights segment altogether in lieu of what I propose in the OP of this thread then I suppose that would be alright too. I want to respect them and the authority that they have over the Ministry before claiming that my reports would replace the RA Highlights.

Even so, I’m certainly not opposed to these reports being released by the Ministry of Communications after they’ve been posted from the Speaker’s Desk (Note: The Speaker’s Desk thread is already publicly viewable even without the need to log into a forum account). That’s a conversation that I’m willing to have with whoever happens to become Minister of Communications for the upcoming term, but until I know who that person is and get into contact with them I won’t be suggesting things on their behalf.

In response to your second question, I believe bi-monthly reports to be much more manageable on the Speaker’s Office and I wanted to err on the side of caution with regards to making any particular promises in my campaign.

As you know, the North Pacific is a very large region with a lot of moving parts. It’ll take some time to get data compiled in the way I want it to be and I wouldn’t ever want to risk being late on a release or fail to publish a report that I said I would.

You can see past reports that I’ve helped compile to get a sense for my aptitude for formatting and ease of readability (Many of which I made for the Minister of Communciations during my time as a Deputy Minister there), but ultimately it’s a matter of me looking to underpromise as opposed to overpromise and avoid any potential disappointment when transitioning to a new way of collecting data on the activities of the Speaker’s Office

A longer answer than I perhaps wanted to spare you from, but I hope that this clears things up