Office of GM Foucaulf - POLICY AGENDA POSTED

[Talleyrand]

Here are some provisional ideas for a ministry, loosely based on the Peruvian government.

• Prime Minister
• Minister for Foreign Relations and Defence
• Minister for Agriculture, Labor, and Employment
• Minister for Economy and Finance
• Minister for Commerce and Culture
• Minister for Transportation, Communication, and Housing
• Minister for Interior and Justice
• Minister for Energy and Environment
• Minister for Health and Education

One the opposition benches, you'd obviously have a Leader of the Opposition and a number of shadow ministers. Thoughts, ideas, comments?

[TNF]

I like it, but one thing I think that would make a bit more sense would be to put Agriculture with the Environment. Perhaps something more along the lines of the following:

- Prime Minister
- Minister for Foreign Relations and Defense
- Minister for Labor and Employment
- Minister for Economy, Commerce, and Finance
- Minister for Transportation, Communication, Housing, and Energy
- Minister for Interior and Justice
- Minister for Agriculture and the Environment
- Minister for Health, Education, and Culture

[Oakvale]

I was actually thinking that since 11 seats are required for a majority that the Cabinet should be smaller specifically to allow for competition for Cabinet spots and for resentment - and intrigue  - from those on the backbenches.

I also quite like the slightly archaic UK names so I'd propose -

Prime Minister
Chancellor of the Exchequer - muh money
Foreign Secretary - muh foreign affairs. Could appoint an Ambassador to Atlasia.
Home Secretary - Responsible for justice and prosecutions etc.
Infrastructure Secretary - for every Atlasian's favourite thing - muh roads and bridges
Social Protection Secretary - health, welfare, education

Positions like Ambassador to Atlasia or maybe an attorney general for the Cabinet could be sub-Cabinet "consolation prizes".

[TNF]

That also sounds good. One of the downfalls of Atlasia was too many offices with too few people to staff them. Let's avoid that in Mock Parliament.

[Talleyrand]

I'm open to it, but those positions seem way too Atlasian... if that makes sense. I remember there was even a proposal to rename the SoIA, SoEA, and AG back in the day to those positions.

I think TNF's idea so far is the best because I think it makes more sense in a South American context. It also only has 8 ministers, so you'd see some members of the government left out in a majority situation. Even more interesting, in a weak minority situation, you could have some members pulling double duty. If we want, I think we could find a way to pull it down to 7 ministers like oakvale's proposal.

[Oakvale]

Not the place but as I've suggested I think Parliament should be increased from 20 to 21 - or reduced to 19 but I assume we want to go bigger when possible - so that we'd avoid 50/50 splits and could have the fun of a government's majority hinging on a single seat in a 11-10 split rather than a 11-9.

Secondly, I think we could do with a formal Speaker position, but I'd suggest that we allow - maybe even encourage - that the position be filed by a non-MP.

I'd also advise against formal Shadow ministers, both because if/when we get a wiki it'd be a bit of pain to add the various portfolios an MP could hold and more importantly because it'd add another element of surprise and intrigue as to who the PM appoints to the Cabinet.

[TNF]

I also support either adding another member (in case of ties) or a formal Speaker position for a non-MP.

[Talleyrand]

An easy way to keep 20 members is to make the Speaker a non-voting member of parliament except in case of ties, sort of like in the UK and Australia. So you'd effectively only have 19 members.

I agree totally about Shadow ministers- seems like it'd be far better not to have them at all.

[Oakvale]

I'm open to it, but those positions seem way too Atlasian... if that makes sense. I remember there was even a proposal to rename the SoIA, SoEA, and AG back in the day to those positions.

That's a reasonable concern but I think those positions actually have better names than Minister for X, which is, I think, actually far more evocative of SECRETARY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS

[Foucaulf]

Only on lunch break at work, but more thoughts:

My plan had been that, if there is an event government needs to tackle (hint), I will send it directly to government. I would not send unsolicited information to individual members. However, individual members can ask me questions and I will respond.

Using actual SA cabinets as a model is not the best, since almost all SA governments are presidential and not parliamentary. I want to encourage something that is not immediately obvious - frequent cabinet reshuffles and portfolio switching. That's why I'm not a big fan of proposing fixed positions.

I'll write a draft election bill tonight. Make sure to check out Leinad's bill last page. The speaker must decide if he wants to continue putting worldbuilding bills to the floor after one is approved.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Opposition parties can have their own spokesmen for this or that issue without making it official. I would suggest at all points that we learn from the failures of Fantasyland and avoid constructing a gilded tomb.

[Oakvale]

Opposition parties can have their own spokesmen for this or that issue without making it official. I would suggest at all points that we learn from the failures of Fantasyland and avoid constructing a gilded tomb.

This, exactly.

[Türkisblau]

I really like Vega's idea that only a majority of the Cabiney had to serve in the parliament (like Japan, yes?) I feel like that would relieve some of the issues that we'd have with too many positions and not enough MPs.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I have a last minute alternative-post Apartheid South Africa, with Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia included if possible.

[Leinad]

I have a last minute alternative-post Apartheid South Africa, with Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia included if possible.

I like that.

I also like:

-Democratic China (or NK, or Cuba).

-Australia

-Independent Scotland (forgot who proposed this first...)

Not to mention South America, post-Soviet Russia, and obviously Europe (which I wrote a write-up for on page 3 of this thread).

And, if you're high at the moment:

-Moon/Mars/Alpha Centauri/Generic Space Colony.

If anything, this should be a control of sorts to make the other options seem less crazy.

[politicus]

I have a last minute alternative-post Apartheid South Africa, with Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia included if possible.

People in those countries consider South Africans to be arrogant and dominant bastards. Besides Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland would be oddly isolated.

[Foucaulf]

Here's a draft election law, not even in the proper format yet:

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TL;DR: We're doing things the Scottish way. 10 FPTP, one PR constituency with 10 seats. Form a PR list however you like, but list leaders send them to the RG. For your sake, have some warm bodies on your list just in case a landslide victory occurs.

Elections need to happen for at least a day and at least once every ten weeks. For the first election, we're just doing straight PR. Once it's over, those who lead lists get first picks at constituencies, which are intended to stay. But Parliament can exercise the "nuclear option" of straight PR at any time, which would rescramble the constituencies again...

[Хahar 🤔]

Any sort of "constituencies" would be an unspeakably bad idea.

[Talleyrand]

I think we should just permanently do the method described in Section 4. We can't support 10 FPTP constituencies with the sort of population we have and want in this game, I think.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I have a last minute alternative-post Apartheid South Africa, with Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia included if possible.

People in those countries consider South Africans to be arrogant and dominant bastards. Besides Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland would be oddly isolated.

I totally forgot about those countries .

[Murica!]

I think we should just stick with Party list PR for all of the seats.

[Cassius]

I think that 10 fptp constituencies would be too many to have active contests in. I think a better idea might be 5 2 seater stv constituencies and have the remaining ten seats elected by PR.

[Foucaulf]

It's good that people are debating the bill in the other thread!

There should be another section on recognition of parties in there (Xahar made this point), and a clause on replacing a MP. I think every country that has a national PR system would have the next MP on the same list take the spot.

[Oakvale]

That method for replacing an MP makes the most sense - it unfortunately deprives us of by-elections but those would be utterly boring without constituencies and as indicated by Xahar et al constituencies would be a bad idea at this juncture.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also don't forget that there's always the option of REFORM within the game, much as there is in a lot of r/l countries (c.f. Italy). A future populist party could easily incorporate constituencies into its platform, etc.