Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday complained that lawmakers have been trying to prevent him from moving forward by vetoing bills and proposals ever since he took office in January.
"I have served as the premier for three months. However, none of our bills or proposals has been approved by the legislature since I started," Hsieh said.
Work it out
"I feel bad about this, because there is no confrontation between the Cabinet and the legislature. Since we do not hate each other, we should be able to work something out," he added during his opening speech at the weekly Cabinet meeting.
He said that the "2008 Taiwan Exposition Special Statute" has been pending approval for almost three years.
If the statute is approved, the exposition will be held, and if the exposition is held, it will offer the nation the opportunity to make money, Hsieh said.
However, he said, it is quite possible that there will not be enough time to prepare for the event if the statute is not passed soon.
Exposition
"If we can organize such an international event and do it well, it will definitely bring us money and fame," Hsieh said. "Being unable to hold the exposition is not the worst that could happen; the worst-case scenario is that we will not have enough time to prepare for it."
Hsieh's comments seemed to irritate Legislative Speaker and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Wang Jin-pyng (
`Ridiculous'
"This session will last until the end of May. For the first half of the session, we always ask the Cabinet to carry out a weekly administrative briefing. The second half of the session will be when we go through all the bills. I am afraid the premier has not yet figured out how the system works," Wang said.
He said Hsieh's remark that the pan-blue camp is vetoing bills proposed by the government was ridiculous.
"The pan-green camp has vetoed lots of bills, too. Maybe the premier does not know that," Wang said.
Wang said he had asked Cabinet Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
He further responded to Hsieh's complaint by saying that the pan-green camp has not engaged in active negotiations with the pan-blue camp about several bills that have remained pending since the previous legislative session.
Details
"We [the pan-green and pan-blue camps] have reached agreement on those bills already, but more details need to be worked out before we can review them for approval. However, it seems to me that they [pan-green lawmakers] do not really care, since they have done nothing ever since the beginning of current session. How can they blame us?" Wang said.
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