Hello.
I want to welcome everyone who's checking / reading this debate, and i'm glad for your attendance. I also want to thank the debate moderator and everyone who cooperated or will cooperate for organizing this debate. And last but not least i want to thank Blair for agreeing to hold this debate, which i'm very grateful for, and I wish him a lot of good luck in the upcoming election. He's my opponent in the upcoming race, but I certainly do appreciate his work in the senate and respect him. Eitherway, after the upcoming race, Lincoln and democracy above all will certainly be the winner.
COVID-19 unfortunately has been a disaster. I think Labor so far did do a relatively good job concerning covid-19, esp. in terms of vaccination strategies. Extra-ordinary events demand extra-ordinary measures. I would continue to support the Labor vaccination strategy, and I also believe Atlasia has a vital role in rolling out vaccinations to other countries as well, ensuring their vaccination efforts can go fast as well. I also believe we need to lay out a roadplan into the future for how to easen the covid measures and how we should help build in a post-covid world, and what our position should be in a post-covid world.
I think it's vital we work on opening education fast, esp. when the new academy year will start, depending on how much of Atlasia will be vaccinated by than, but if older generations and people with more health risks are vaccinated, i think the least we can do is to offer young Atlasian students the opportunity to study normally again. The covid measures has unfortunately created rough problems for young students, who are missing the structure to go back to school, because of long-lasting school closures, and inevitably some will get a backlog because of that. I think Atlasia needs to work on reducing the backlog with students, and give them the opportunity to catch up again by funding additional lessons in certain important subjects like maths or languages for poorer students whose parents are unable to afford the costs of additional lessons for people who are in need of reducing the backlog that was created by covid-19. For many poor Atlasians, education is their way for a better future. And I believe since a future Atlasia will require more high-skilled jobs, we should do whatever in the realms of what is possible to ensure every Atlasian has that opportunity to study for whatever she or he wants, regardless of the COVID pandemic.
Another crisis that popped up is the mental health crisis. Many people are suffering because of covid and covid measures. Day-and-night structure got severely changed, there were and are almost no leisure activities anymore outside and people are increasingly isolated, lonely and depressive because of what covid has demanded of us. Since those issues were there already for some people before covid striked us, i think it's time for Atlasia to work out a plan to invest in our mental health wellbeing, and to increase the happiness of our people. And it's my plan to introduce a number of bills in congress if i get elected as a senator for Lincoln. I have suffered from some mental issues, and to me this is an important theme i want to work on.
Re-opening other aspects for Atlasia should go through phases. I don't think it's a good thing to do to immediately open up everything, but I think that there is a possibility we can loosen up some measures very slowly, and depending on how the covid evolutions goes from there, perhaps more will be possible, but it's important to make good judgments in what we can do and what we cannot do. Re-opening more parts of the economy whenever it is possible will be priority in that (esp. with regards to small businesses), as well as perhaps allowing more leisure activities that have social distancing and some other covid measures to ensure everything can go on pretty safely for as long the crisis will be at it's peak.
I think it's in the interest of Atlasia and the government to fund small businesses some relief payment who have experienced major losses during the crisis, and who experienced near bailout or are in financial trouble. They are the backbones of our society, and so is the Atlasian worker. And when small businesses will disappear there will be more monopolies on certain goods and I don't think that's a good thing to do, since what we need is more balance in the market economy. I think we should create a better environment to start businesses again, and support that. At the same time, we should punish businesses that have forced workers to work under questionable circumstances and violated covid measures, demanding workers to get to work while home work is more recommended.
So in short we need a better roadplan for re-opening, giving people again more perspective and hope again, ensuring people that they're not alone in this fight and that we haven't abandoned them. But we need to realize covid is still alive and kicking, and some measures will be there for a time, like a mandatory mouth mask measure which is one I strongly support.
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With regards to the two legislative initiatives, i both supported them and I don't see what is controversial about them, since existing legislation was quite flawed. Regarding the restriction of late-term abortions, I do believe the previous bill had it's flaws, since it basically multiple loopholes allowing abortion on demand up to the 9th month. I'm pro-choice, don't get me wrong, but pro-choice within limits. I think this initiative is still quite liberal compared to other nations. We still have a legal term of 20 weeks where abortion is legal. That's longer than in most other western countries, and if there are health problems or the patient's life is being threatened, abortion in that case to save the life of the mother or protect her health, is still allowed. With this initiative being passed, it won't affect a majority of abortions, and i'm not the kind of person who further intends to restrict abortion but this initiative closed the loophole that allowed the murder of unborn babies (and not foetuses).
I'm glad the second legislature initiative also got passed, because it bans the loophole that racist diversity training was possible. The passed initiative however doesn't ban diversity training, which I strongly encourage, but the current bill allowed racist diversity training, and from all sides. White supremacy training was possible, and i'm an opponent of that, and i'm disappointed in everyone who voted against that bill, including
my opponent. I believe no-one should feel bad, for his / her origin, gender orientation, sexual orientation, race, origin and other things. I think we should above all be an accepting society, and I think to ensure that, we had to vote for this bill, and this is why I supported it. This bill will promote more racial equality, and i'm a strong believer of that.
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Above all, we should know that we're talking about the Chinese government, not about the Chinese people. I know some Chinese people and they're very friendly people, just like us, so I don't think Chinese xenophobia or Asian xenophobia is legitimized, and we should strongly make that differentiation. The issue with the Chinese government is that it's an authoritarian state that is very controlling and spies on their own people, to keep itself in power. The recent events regarding Hong Kong and Taiwan troubles me, and are not in our interest. I'm unsure if China and Atlasia are going to be able to work well together if these issues continues to arise. I also want to highlight the currently ongoing genocide directed towards the Uyghur people and others minorities, but also the lack of autonomy from China for Tibet. I think we should continue to support our commitment to democracy and freedom in this world. And I believe China is a threat to those interests and those commitments. The values of the Chinese government differ from the values Atlasians believe in. In order to those is, i think we need more diplomatic efforts, but I also believe if cooperation at the end is not possible and China continues to be a threat, it will be time for a series of harder sanctions directed towards the Chinese government, and I also believe it will be necessary to guarantee Taiwan's independence, as well as recognizing it. But yes i'm concerned about China's evolution.
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I think the reason for the so-called perpuated legislative stagnation is that Labor lacks inspiration to know what has to be done in Atlasia, while there are a number of issues that have to be dealt with, not specifically the controversial ones, but there are a lot of things that can get done. The world keeps evolving & changing, and we shouldn't miss it. I'm seeing that a lot of legislative activity is minor, mostly amendments of existing legislations. I don't think there's necessarily a lack of legislative activity, and it requires certainly some effort to work on legislative proposals, something i'm prepared to do. I don't think my opponent Blair can be accused of not doing enough legislative work. The issue however I see is that we need more ambitious legislation that changes things in a broader way, mostly in terms of economy, development, infrastructure, the environment, space & science and mental healthcare. We also need a broader outline for how Atlasia is going to deal with foreign politics, since we need to get more involved. We also need more legislative activity in election & game reform, something all sides have been postponing so far, while i see it as a necessity to deal with this, and I propose a wider debate over the entire political spectrum and with all political parties on how we can change it.
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To understand the existence of increased off-site recruiting, we need to see it's origins. The reason why there's more off-site recruiting is because people feel like they're not able to win elections anymore, since one party is dominant federally and over two of the three regions. Atlasia is a pretty inelastic region, and even good candidates from the center and right have a hard time getting elected. But we should also note that this isn't a first, and that this is not exclusively the right that has done it in the past, perhaps more recently, but everyone has done it. If those people that are recruited off-site have shown activity on other boards and pass the existing requirements to vote in an election, i don't see the issue with off-site recruitment if they do meet the existing requirements.
I think if you want to handle off-site recruiting, you have to not look solely at the practice of off-site recruitment, you have to look at what drives it. I think the answer to deal with off-site recruiting is game reform, where there's less stagnation and more unpredictability. There are several ways to do this, but there's no consensus. I think it's important that all parties and all sides work together towards a consensus that will work best for Atlasia. Because this is what needs to done if you want to limit off-site recruiting. Creating a more fun and more engaging game and better election system and perhaps different region breakdown as well as limiting strategic region displacement is a way to do it, but i'm not the single individual who has to decide over this. We need to organize an open panel discussion, for the interest of all of us.
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I think this shouldn't be about proudest achievements. I'm merely a single individual who wants to mean something for our people and our workers. This is not about my proudest achievement. This is about what we can achieve for all of us, how we can make life a bit better for all of us. Rome isn't built in a single day, so don't expect any miracles, but we should be able to ensure that we all live freely and happy in this country, and if elected, i'll be a fighter for Atlasian's people. I can ensure you that. And if i can achieve something for Atlasians, that will be meaningful to all of us, and that's what I plan to achieve and what Atlasians can achieve.
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I've had numerous political alliances in the past - yes. But I don't see that necessarily as a bad thing. It shows that i'm rather independent-leaning, and that i'm a valuable asset to many political parties, as i'm able to criticize my leadership and the ethics of some parties, which is important to me. I don't want to be bought by a single party. I however have chosen for Democratic Alliance, as I think this party suits me best right now, and as I want to be a team player that respects my fellow members and our chairman. Democratic Alliance is commited to preserving democracy and as the name says is an alliance of many liberal-leaning members scattered over the whole spectrum. With this reasoning, i think there was certainly room to identify with this party. There are lots of legislative priorities i want to introduce, mainly to improve Atlasian worker's circumstances after the covid crisis, as well as relief for Atlasian's small businesses, laying out a roadplan for further covid measures and possible phased further re-opening of the economy and more sectors. I want to focus on game & election reform too, and open a debate about that. And I want to introduce further legislation regarding mental healthcare. I also want to focus on relocating a small part of the military budget to space missions, as we should continue to be a big player in the discovery, exploration & study of the universe. On top of that, i'm also a proponent of a single-payer healthcare system as the covid crisis have shown us this is necessary. I want to focus on introducing some legislation mainly around protection of the environment, as well as being better prepared against some environmental disasters. We should work on modernizing our infrastructure & increasing affordable public transport in Atlasia. I also want to work on affordable housing and affordable education, and I want to explore the possibility of introducing a reduced work week, starting with the active older populations. To simplify the taxation system and the burden on our social security measures, i also want to experiment with a basic income starting it with the non-active working population to combat poverty and financial uncertainty. I also want to increase efforts to decrease unemployment, and I believe the reduced work week will be part of that solution.
