Legislative caucuses yesterday announced their priority lists of bills and amendments for the new legislative session that begins today.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said it has prioritized bills covering food safety, tax reforms and anti-drug efforts.
As the Legislative Yuan has just one month to concentrate on the passage of legislation, the KMT altered its strategy and decided to focus on select issues, KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) said.
Photo: CNA
The KMT would focus on pushing important bills during the session, and it would scrutinize budget proposals for the 2018 fiscal year.
Citing several food-safety incidents — such as fipronil-tainted eggs, Lin said KMT legislators, including Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), have tabled a draft to amend the School Health Act (學校衛生法) to ban schools from using foodstuffs containing leanness-enhancement drugs.
The KMT caucus plans to propose an amendment to the Income Tax Act (所得稅法) that would raise the personal deduction for salaries from NT$128,000 to NT$200,000.
The KMT will also propose amendments to regulations on the classification of narcotics, Lin said.
Meanwhile, following a cross-party negotiation yesterday, the Executive Yuan and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus agreed that 72 bills would be given priority status.
The bills and proposed amendments falls into eight categories: policies to boost the economy; to increase the use of “smart” technology; to increase the production of “green energy” nationwide and to establish centers of technology; promotion of Taiwanese culture; establishing a just society; increasing happiness in the nation; boosting governmental efficiency; and improving cross-strait relations.
The DPP caucus said that amending the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) to change the “one fixed day off and one flexible rest day” policy, reforming the pensions of retired military personnel and tax reforms are its top priorities, adding that it hopes to pass the amendments by the end of the year.
Budget proposals for the current fiscal year, special budgets for the third phase of the Water Resource Agency’s flood remediation project and budgets for state-run businesses have also been listed as priority bills that should be passed this year, it said.
The New Power Party said it would focus its efforts on amending the Referendum Act (公民投票法), promoting transitional justice, protecting whistle-blowers, facilitating collaborations between the financial and technology sectors, reforming the criminal justice system, establishing a channel for workers to file complaints and ensuring minimum wage requirements are met.
The People First Party said that it is working on a draft act for the development of education in rural areas, an amendment to the Primary and Junior High School Act (國民教育法) and a draft act for supporting innovative developments in digital finance.
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