The Budget Speech and the Progressive Labour Party reply were heavily debated in the House of Assembly on Friday.Government said the budget was an honest assessment of the state of the Island, but the Opposition said it lacked the bold thinking required to bring Bermuda out of recession.OBA’s Grant Gibbons said the Government has to work to stem the “haemorrhaging” of jobs, saying: “The first issue is to focus on the current job creators and sort them out.”And he said several suggestions put forward by Shadow Finance Minister David Burt had already been broached by the PLP Government without any action being taken.“It’s this inability to get things done which I believe has hurt the country over the last several years,” he said.Shadow Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert said the Government’s budget statement largely continued PLP ideas and didn’t say enough about how the country was going to move forward.“I would have expected them to come with some ideas, but they haven’t,” Mr Furbert said.Shadow Attorney General Kim Wilson said something should be done to require banks to lower domestic and commercial lending rates, saying that while many in the community suffer the banks are “making out like bandits.”She also said more needs to be done to remedy the growing economic gap between in the community, and was disappointed that neither the budget speech or the throne speech addressed the issue.Health Minister Patricia Gordon Pamplin said while she was pleased to hear the opposion leader offer an “olive branch” to the Government, she noted Mr Bean had even called the OBA “demonic”.She called the budget “hard, fast and honest”, and said while she was not comfortable with rolling back the free vehicle licencing for seniors, she said it was a mistake to implement the policy in the first place.She also noted that the reopening of the indigent clinic is hoped to relieve some of the pressure from King Edward VII Memorial Hospital while providing lower costs for patients.Shadow Public Safety Minister Michael Scott noted the payroll tax holiday and the changes of licensing fees for those purchasing homes, but said no other mentions to stimulate growth were mentioned.“A budget that was more bold, more confidence inspiring would have insulated himself [Finance Minister Bob Richards], insulated the government.”However he said the opposition reply was replete with potential strategies to stimulate growth.Tourism Minister Shawn Crockwell said: “All of this hooplah and euphoria about the abolition of Term Limits is politicking.“Sixty-five percent of international business workers are Bermudian, so two Bermudians hired for every non-Bermudian.”Regarding his own Ministry, he openly thanked the PLP for developing a tourism plan and creating a tourism board, but said the tourism authority being created will be “completely separate and different”.And while Mr Crockwell said the PLP Government had caused the number of hotel beds to drop, Shadow Public Works Minister Derrek Burgess said that even more beds were lost while the UBP was in power.He also stressed the importance of adopting a new economic model and looking at new possibilities.Mr Burgess encouraged the Government to consider the ideas put forward in the budget reply, saying: “Yes, they may have been born by the enthusiasm of the PLP, but they can be owned by the country, and that’s where they should go.”OBA MP Jeanne Atherden said that many of the suggestions put forward in the budget reply were “questionable”, but admitted others have potential and expressed hope the PLP would continue to offer suggestions and constructive criticism.She also said that the Budget Speech did not detail all of the programmes to be implemented, saying: “We have, in all of the ministries, put together programs that will make sure Bermudian people are taken care of. We are going to be the government that delivers on its promises.”Shadow Health Minister Zane DeSilva said that rather than targeting Term Limits right off the bat, they should have approached banks about helping the hundreds of Bermudians in arrears.He also said that tax breaks being offered to retailers and hotels should be examined, saying not all businesses in the categories require the assistance.“If you have hotels issuing dividends to their shareholders,” he said. “They’re getting break after break after break and their giving dividends? That has to be looked at.”Opposition Leader Marc Bean reiterated that the Government needs to look at other means to turn Bermuda around and provide innovative solutions.He said that he would support a motion on gaming, noting that would-be hotel developers have said they are waiting for such legislation, and that Government needs to have a discussion on the legal status of cannabis.“Looking at the demand in Bermuda, excluding tourists, you’re looking at a five million dollar a year industry. And another 5,000 tourists coming in,” Mr Bean said. “Let’s have a mature, non-partisan discussion on that issue.”