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KMT pushes sunshine bill

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus took further action yesterday to push sunshine bills by proposing two amendments to the Legislators' Conduct Act (立法委員行為法), aiming to ban all legislators from serving positions in state-run enterprises and in profit and non-profit organizations.

Acting caucus secretary-general Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said he and other KMT legislators had submitted the proposals because many voters cared about parliamentary reform, adding that they welcomed all legislators to participate in future reviews of the proposals.

However, he said he would not accept putting the proposals for cross-party negotiation.

"We oppose chamber politics during the reviews of sunshine bills. We hope that all sunshine bills can be reviewed under the sun," he told a press conference.

Hsieh's proposals were similar to another amendment proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party, but his sought to impose stricter regulations on lawmakers by barring them from assuming any positions in non-profit organizations or to profit from organizations and state-run corporations.

Hsieh's proposals also stipulated that legislators would not be paid their salaries - except for their assistants' paychecks - before they show up for work.

Hsieh said that he also hoped to turn the Legislative Yuan's Discipline Committee into a working organization.

"Over the past decade, our Discipline Committee has failed to function properly. It did not mete out punishment in the previous legislature - even when some legislators misbehaved," he said.

Hsieh's proposals said the committee should hold meetings every other week rather than every month as stated in the act and should administer punishments for legislators who do not behave.
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