Premier Lin Chuan (林全) should issue a clear explanation for any delay in passing amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said, while renewing calls for a committee-centric review of legislation.
“The amendments have already received substantive committee review and could be quickly passed by arranging for their second and third readings, but now he is saying this is not a priority — there needs to be an explanation for his change in attitude,” Huang said during an interview on SuperFM 98.5 on Friday.
He said any delay would raise questions over whether the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was responding to Chinese pressure, calling for a final vote to be held on revisions by the end of the current legislative session.
While revisions to reduce the high turnout threshold and other restrictions on referendums were one of the “priority bills” announced by the DPP legislative caucus’ internal administration working group in September, rumors have since surfaced that the amendments have been shelved following a controversial local referendum to legalize casino gambling in Penghu, which was opposed by the DPP leadership.
Immediately prior to the referendum, DPP Penghu County Commissioner Chen Kuang-fu (陳光復) called for the amendment or abolition of related legal provisions in the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例), which exempted Penghu’s referendum from the Referendum Act’s turnout threshold requirements.
Lin in recent weeks has given evasive answers over whether changes to the Referendum Act is still a “priority,” adding that his administration has yet to discuss the matter with the DPP legislative caucus and hopes to arrive at a consensus.
Meanwhile, Huang also renewed calls for a committee review of controversial amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which were dismissed without a committee review last month.
“Today you are turning in a different policy direction and at the very minimum, you should give a clear explanation through formal procedural mechanisms,” he said, adding that many DPP legislators opposed holiday cuts under the previous Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration.
“You will win as soon as you raise your hand to vote, so why is it cannot you allow everyone to have a full discussion and complete a thorough review?” he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater