Thursday, September 08, 2016



No demand for the "lost luggage" bill

Last month, Nuk Korako's Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill was drawn from the member's ballot. The bill has been widely criticised as ballot-spam, a waste of the House's time, and the worst member's bill ever, all of which is true. And thanks to an OIA request Andrew Geddis made via FYI, the public OIA request system, we also now know that it was completely unnecessary. Asked whether there had been any submissions or complaints on the lost property auction powers purportedly modified by the bill, the Ministry of Transport admitted that there hadn't been any. In other words, there was no demand for the change the bill is supposed to make.

Which really does make you wonder why Korako put it in the ballot in the first place. But I guess we know the answer to that: simply to take up space and prevent a more worthy bill being drawn. He's a spammer, pure and simple.