Businesses should get used to the idea that term limits for work permits are here to stay, as Home Affairs Minister Sen. David Burch made clear last week, and simply try to soften the effect of them as much as possible.

That's not because the policy is a good one – it has several flaws – but because this is a policy on which the Progressive Labour Party government cannot backtrack. The party's unhappiness with non-Bermudian workers staying too long and then having a claim on Bermudians "birthright" is hard-wired into its DNA.

There is some sound reasoning behind the current policy, which was a quid pro quo for granting permanent residence to several hundred (so far) non-Bermudians who had a claim for residence having been on the Island for decades.

In effect, then-Home Affairs Minister Paula Cox was saying: "We will settle this question now for those people who have been living here for decades, but we will never allow it to happen again." And the current Government will not let it happen, but it will not moderate the policy either.

That's too bad, because, as has been noted here and elsewhere, the policy's greatest flaw is that it discourages non-Bermudians from becoming involved in the community and encourages them instead to be fly-by-nighters who will take what they can get from the community, give nothing back and leave in six years.

That's to Bermuda's long-term loss as well. Why, some may ask, when the Island surely cannot take on any more people? The reason is that the Island's population make-up is changing quickly; Bermudians' birth rates are and have been among the lowest in the world, and the proportion of Bermudians over the retirement age of 65 is growing rapidly. That means there will be fewer and fewer Bermudians of working age to support a growing number of senior citizens over the next few decades.

Still, that is not enough reason for the Government to change, especially when the majority (though by no means all) of those who might gain permanent resident status or full status are white, and unlikely to vote for the PLP.

Sen. Burch did question the value of some employers submitting the names of "pot washers" for key employee status under the term limits policy, and if this was the case, it would be strange.

But the Government policy, most recently enunciated under Sen. Burch's predecessor Derrick Burgess, was that anyone could be entered for an extension or an exemption, and while it seems unlikely that "the best potwasher in the world" is in Bermuda, it is not impossible that the best waiter or the best gardener is. The major point, which Sen. Burch has muddied, is that you don't have to be a chief executive officer or an actuary to be eligible for an extension or exemption to the six-year limit.

Instead, employers, where justified, should seek exemptions where they believe they have staff who meet the criteria sensibly laid out by Ms Cox and her many successors at Home Affairs and live with the fact that the policy will exist.

And they should also recall that the policy also means that where there is a qualified Bermudian for a post, extensions and exemptions are irrelevant; that policy is still overriding, and rightly so.

Still, Sen. Burch has not helped his cause with his intemperate attack on Chamber of Commerce president Phil Barnett yesterday.

Mr. Barnett was asked his reaction to Sen. Burch's speech and gave it. Sen. Burch thinks that Mr. Barnett should have made his concerns known to Sen. Burch privately, but this suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how a democracy works.

Sen. Burch, whose abilities no one questions, appears to be saying that public policy should be decided privately and then handed down to the public without fear of contradiction or debate. Mr. Barnett and others differ, and rightly so – there is no harm in discussing issues publicly, and there can be much good.