EVERYBODY has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Graphic, Mr. Editor, but if you stay with me, apt. It was Mike Tyson who apparently delivered the line. You remember him, the former heavyweight boxing champ, a bruiser in and out of the ring, who could deliver a devastating blow or two without blinking and whose bite matched his bark.

The Mike Tyson line came to my attention following our meeting last Friday in the House on the Hill when I started to think about the economy and what lies ahead for us- and here you were, thinking I was going to go on about fisticuffs of the verbal variety like that recent bout between Zane DeSilva and Patricia Gordon-Pamplin.

What's Mike Tyson got do with the economy?

Here's what: I don't know how you see next year shaping up but it looks like it will be a bad one already. All signs are that we are in for more than just a couple of body blows that are going to bite into our lifestyles. Seriously. Starting with the early warning from out-going US Consul General Gregory Slayton a few weeks back to that recently of former Premier and entrepreneur extraordinaire Sir John Swan who has declared we are about to experience a recession like none other we have experienced in recent times.

Here I was wondering, out loud, last week on the motion to adjourn, whether our Government will even have the necessary money to fund a plan to tackle the challenges coming our way, assuming there is a plan or one in the making. The cupboard looked pretty bare the last time I looked and we're deep in debt already.

But if there is an economic crisis on the horizon - and there is - you would not have been able to tell from the agenda last Friday on the Hill.

It was pretty well business as usual.

There was a hotel concession order for one of the two Princesses. But that was for work already done. The issue now is who is going to fill the refurbished rooms. We're not into next year and already visitors are down - and so is their spending. Conventions, our stock and trade, especially ones held abroad, are falling out of corporate fashion. Bermuda will be no exception.

Secondly, we put through more proceeds of crime regulation, supervision and enforcement. This is a growth industry for those who supervise business. It's not actually a contributing business unless you have businesses to supervise and regulate and those are the kinds of business we need more of, but they're shrinking and disappearing, already.

Thirdly, Government also put through amendments to the Bermuda Bar Act which will allow lawyers who are undischarged bankrupts to practice law, again - which may turn out to be a real godsend for people like me (lawyers, Mr. Editor) if things really do go south around here.

Jokes aside though, the way in which this Bill was "rushed" in and out of the House on the Hill, highlighted the drawbacks not to the Westminster system, but to the way in which the system can be used, misused and/or abused (take your pick) by those in power. The proposed amendments had been shared in advance with the Bermuda Bar Council (good move) which in turn indicated unanimous approval in principle. But the actual draft of what was proposed was not seen until it was tabled in the House, only two weeks before it was taken up. Two weeks may be the normal time frame, but in this instance it was hardly sufficient time to review and consider - and tp research options and legislation from other jurisdictions, which means doing your homework - especially at this time of year, and with three sittings in seven days.(Assuming the Bermuda Bar even cares: about which there has to be some doubt given the interest members have shown to date).

Sadly, a motion to delay the Bill was lost. It was defeated when on a 13-13 tie the presiding chairperson, Dame Jennifer Smith, chose to vote with Government (surprise, surprise).

Somebody later accused me of playing political games in even putting forward the motion.

Nonsense.

Anybody who has been following along, Mr. Editor, knows that I have been a constant critic, yes, but also an advocate for parliamentary reform.

We're well into the 21st century and we need to modernise. Consultation means giving people meaningful opportunity to review and consider legislation. A website for the Legislature, where draft bills could be posted, is a must, and is long overdue. It may also mean giving people more time than just two weeks. Heck, we gave our business partners months and more months when it came to reviewing in advance the proceeds of crime regulations. It's a practice that ought to become standard operating procedure.

The fact that the vote to delay was so close may have been surprising (to some), but the narrow loss may also be a sign for some hope.

Pushing legislation through the House when there is no real emergency tends to sow seeds of division where there are no differences - which, I believe, was the case here - and where there are differences such action tends to exacerbate division.

Need I say it but the same old, same old, produces the same old, same old.

Now back to the economy and how things are shaping up for next year - but staying with my theme of parliamentary reform.

The way things currently stand we were adjourned by the Government until February the 6th: no House on the Hill for eight weeks and an impending economic crisis and the challenges it will bring. You might say that they went down on the Hill for the holidays not with a bang but a whimper. Pity.

The bang will come when we return, but here's hoping Bermuda's challenges will lead us to do things differently and better) on the Hill. We'll need to.

When we do come back in February it will be for the Budget Debate. It should be one of the more important Government Budgets, and Budget debates, that we have had around here in a long, long time.

I hope we can spare the people of Bermuda the usual charade of a lengthy Budget debate followed by limited and shallow examination of the proposed revenue and expenditure. We do not need dueling soliloquies - shadows following Ministers who read from interminable briefs that are anything but. The people of Bermuda deserve real and close examination of what Government is proposing to do, and the debate should provide an opportunity for searching questions and answers on the floor of the House, in real time, none of this ten day delay nonsense, please.

Be prepared. Come prepared. It is time to step up our game, our practices and our standards on the Hill. Government must be called upon to show leadership by example - and the Opposition must work harder to make it happen.

We could all probably do with less hype, and less gripe, and instead concentrate on a more focused look at what's real. Our economic challenges will make this the worst time to continue to resort to the same old, same old, replete with political gamesmanship.

There should also be plenty of scope here for more bi-partisanship -as well as a more active and robust Public Accounts Committee which is bi-partisan in composition, and a joint select committee or two.

I hate to mention him again but … but we could do no better than take a leaf out the playbook of US President-elect Barack Obama - the man to whom many lay claim, but whose candidacy gets mired here in the usual, predictable prism of race and racial politics.

But it wasn't about race there, it was about a vision that was in time with the times: post-partisan and post-ideological. Now it's about the economy, stupid. Again.

His appeal surely was - and is - taking a post-partisan approach that seeks to build bridges and bring people together to address the economic crisis in the United States of America and to tackle them with pragmatic solutions rather than to just score political points and entrench differences with division.

Refreshing, isn't it?

Call it the audacity of hope. Oh well, it is Christmas. Have a merry, Mr. Editor. Like the bank manager said on his way out the door for the holidays: Cheer up, for the worst is still to come.