Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar verbatim on the budget, edited from Hansard records: This budget represents commitment and fulfillment of the fundamental philosophy… your Government, the people's Government, and that is to serve the people, serve the people, serve the people...
I am of the view that this 2011 budget will be recorded as a historic budget…History will record that this package of our coalition-led Government as the first move by a government of Trinidad and Tobago to restore integrity, to restore humility, to restore service, to restore compassion and a human touch to the people of our land.
History will record this budget as a restoration of the true qualities of leadership by a government of the people, by the people and for the people, and would see it as a return to a path of productivity, prosperity and progress.
History will say that this budget reflects a government and a leadership team which has the vision and conviction that a dream for the betterment of the people can be achieved, and history will record that our government, inspired through our policies, has the will power and the energy to get it done.
This, as I say, is the people's government; this is your government.
In the words of Daniel Webster said so very long ago, could be words that we can repeat today as being very apt in the circumstances, and I quote:
"The people government, made for the people; made by the people and answerable to the people. This is the people's government."
This is where we see the difference between the PNM government and the present People's Partnership Government.
Unlike the past administration, your Government took into consideration one vital element of leadership in the preparation of this fiscal package. We took into consideration the fact that in order to lead people we must first walk behind people.
We must first find out where they are going; where they want to go before we can lead them.
We took into consideration the fact that leadership should be borne out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.
That leadership is understanding people and involving people. It takes good characteristics like integrity, dedication, purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, as well as determination not to accept failure.
But we will not stop there. Leadership grows.
Stephen Covey said, and I quote:
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline carrying it out.”
We have always said we put the people first. So, what the country requires at this time is not only leadership; but effective management as well.
It is public knowledge that the former government was totally lacking in both leadership and management.
They were hasty to point out growth in revenues and GDP, but we all know that this had nothing to do with their management capability; all it had to do was with the spike in prices in the energy sector.
So they would come to this Parliament and talk about prudent fiscal management, touting the high gas and oil prices, touting the revenue and the GDP increases and, at the end of the day, as the Hon. Minister of Finance said, in spite of the billions, the ordinary man, woman and child in this country suffered.
They had thousands of pages of Vision 2020 documents, but they remained vision impaired.
They were blinded by multimillion dollar drapes, $2 million flags and private jets and could not or, more appropriately, would not see the needs of the people.
Your People's Partnership Government stands for effective leadership and for effective management.
That is why only after just about three months in office—Saturday will mark 120 days that we have been in office—your Government, for the first time in nearly a decade, has introduced a people's budget.
It is this budget which reflects the change in leadership that our citizens voted overwhelmingly for on this historic May 24 general election.
The premise of my contribution is the very same one that has been for all of us here. It is in keeping with the theme of our budget: Facing the Issues: Turning the Economy Around.
That is leadership and service to the people. It is relevant to our theme since the first responsibility of leadership is to define reality; in other words, you must face up to the issues and that is what he did...
There is a clear ideological difference between the People's Partnership and the Opposition People's National Movement (PNM).
Where we seek to build a nation, they sought self-aggrandizement; where we seek constructive criticism, they sought political picong...where we seek development of our people, they sought development of a select group; while we seek consensus, they sought to impose their beliefs on others; where we seek to do, they sought to justify failure not to do.
One of the core ideological differences between the partnership and the People's National Movement is that we unreservedly represent all the people of Trinidad and Tobago...they made it clear that they represented only the PNM.
Today, as I speak in this Chamber, I can see clearly that even now in opposition they represent only the PNM; and a very dwindled sized PNM at that. It is clear to me that they are unable now as then to differentiate between narrow political interests and being a government...
We wear the symbol of whom we represent. We are proud to wear the flag of Trinidad and Tobago. They continue to wear their party symbol around their necks, representing only the PNM; not an ounce of patriotism in any one of them,
individually or collectively.
...A former US politician, Anne Klein, had this advice, which I would like to repeat. She said: "Do not talk to the people until you have listened to the people".
So I would like them to tell us and the nation, whom they spoke with in deciding what they would speak about in this debate, whose views were they expressing?
With which groups did they consult? Did they speak to the wider community to ascertain their concerns and queries? Did they speak to a chosen few close friends and family members?
As Prime Minister, I am proud to say that I consulted with a cross-section of the national community. I know the Minister of Finance has spoken to a variety of groups and individuals and their views have been incorporated and those views inform our budget presentation.
That is what consultation is; but the other side does not seem to understand the concept of consulting...
Like the former Prime Minister, he (the leader of the Opposition) believes consultation means telling people what to think. They do not believe it is about listening.
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