OPPOSITION Senate Leader Kim Swan has called for Government to stop trying to avoid accountability by repeatedly producing the race card.

Speaking in the week after Deputy Premier Ewart Brown said he would no longer answer what he considered to be "plantation questions" from the media, Senator Swan launched a tirade of criticism against the Cabinet, saying it was time for the Government to replace the "hogwash" with leadership.

He urged the public to have the courage to stand up and demand higher standards from politicians.

And he said the Government's use of racially divisive comments went against Bermudians' inherent sense of fairness and was squandering some of the progress made during the civil rights struggle.

Last Friday, Finance Minister Paula Cox appeared to be following Dr. Brown's lead by reacting to challenging questions about the Budget from Opposition MP Grant Gibbons by saying: "What I resent is the recasting of inherent privilege and superiority of some who do not look like me."

Sen. Swan said: "The Government is continuing to rely on the 'plantation question' mentality to avoid accountability.

"We have seen it used during the election campaign to avoid scrutiny. We saw it used with regards to the development of the old Club Med, after questions were raised about why the Quorum Group and the Four Seasons people were pushed to one side and why the Government's new developer was nowhere to be seen at the press conference to unveil him.

"Those were valid questions. What annoys me is that some politicians are forgetting that they are there to serve the public. They are treating their employers with disdain. How dare they do that?

"There has to be accountability. The Works & Engineering Minister (Sen. David Burch) stood up in the Senate this week and said the Berkeley project was not $50 million over budget, it was only $27 million over budget. As if that made it acceptable!

"Berkeley is already more than two years late. But the Government is only worried about finding a way to justify its fiscal waste.

"What we keep hearing is: 'This is okay because I'm doing it ? don't listen to them because they're all Uncle Toms'. They try to shoot the messenger and discredit anyone who criticises their mistakes. We've got to move past that.

"How can we expect our children to be accountable for their own actions when they see the leaders of the country justify big mistakes in this way? It has an impact on a community which still has a lot of work to do in terms of racial reconciliation."

Sen. Swan mentioned the case of Auditor General Larry Dennis, who produced a special report on the Berkeley project in 2002. The report appeared damning at the time, predicting that the school would not be ready for its target date of September 2003 and probably not until well into 2004. With hindsight, the criticism seems mild.

At the time, Bermuda Industrial Union president and Government MP Derrick Burgess heavily implied that Mr. Dennis was a racist.

"The big loser in all this hogwash is Mr. and Mrs. Bermuda," Sen. Swan said. "The millions wasted at Berkeley could have built homes and could have gone towards really addressing the needs of the education system.

"The general public should not stand for this lack of accountability. Bermudians are people who believe in fairness. We are people who have long fought for what is right. It's time for the public to have the courage to call politicians to account."