1 March 2023
This afternoon, President Renny finally reached a decision on four bills passed by last Friday's National Assembly session. The most important of those bills was authored by Minister Cooper Norfolk and proposed a complete restructure of Phillip's administrative subdivisions. The bill, named the "Regional Restructuring Act", would combine all of Phillip's district and several of its territories into four separate administrative regions. It would also abolish all cities located in the affected subdivisions and turn the pre-existing districts into cities. According to Minister Norfolk, the bill was written in an attempt to centralize the nation's government and "unite citizens". The bill was able to barely pass the assembly with support from more than 60% of representatives. The biggest opponent of the bill was Rep. Iyan Seeker, as it would remove another one of his seats. Below is a list of the new administrative regions and the districts that were combined to create them:
Port Phillip Region: Consists of only Port Phillip
Greater Lukous Region: Consists of Origen, Bolston, Lukous, and the Traqueto Territory
North Phillip Region: Consists of Orue, Calabaza, and the North Hillsborough Territory
Alemana Region: Consists of Estado Libre, Tarkis, and the Phillip del Sur Territory
This bill will take effect just before the 2nd General Election in April to prevent a special election being called in order to appoint new representatives. Each region will be able to elect two representatives to send to the National Assembly, with the exception of the Alemana Region which is only allowed to send one. This measure was put in place due to how low the population of the regionis going to be. Because of this decision, the National Assembly will lose a seat, going down to eight. Regions will also be able to elect their own governor, instead of being appointed by the President.
Another extremely important bill that was approved by President Renny added a new seat to the Assembly. The bill in question is called the "Phillip National Assembly Business Balance Bill" and was written by Minister Owen Itzen with assistance from Minister Nick DeVorb. Along with placing multiple restrictions on conglomerates and nationalizing multiple of Itzen's own companies, the bill would create a seat for the "Representative of Commerce" in the Assembly. According to the bill, the Representative of Commerce was created in order to "maintain cooperation between the National Assembly and business owners." The seat is elected by the shareholders of all companies and whoever wins that election can hold the position indefinitely. This bill was extremely controversial, only passing the Assembly by a single vote. Despite the bill's extremely controversial nature, President Renny decided to sign it into law.
Only leaders of conglomerates are allowed to run for this seat, meaning that Minister Itzen, who is in charge of Phillip's single conglomerate, is the only viable candidate. Many Assembly representatives, such as Minister Norfolk, have expressed their disdain for the new seat. He stated that it is "extremely unfair that a member of the Assembly can be elected by a small group of people and stay in office indefinitely." Most other representatives do not care as much as him, though. The seat will not be affiliated with any political parties in the Assembly as that would go against the purpose of the seat.
Two other smaller bills were passed by President Renny today, the first of which was the Traqueto Day Bill. The Traqueto Day Bill makes the 15th of January a national holiday in celebration of Phillip's first ever successful military operation, the Invasion of Traqueto. This bill was proposed by Minister Norfolk and passed unanimously in the Assembly. The last bill passed by President Renny today was one that decided the salaries of the Minister of Mint and the members of the Jolly Parliament. After careful calculations done by Vice President Luke Fitzgibbins, it was determined that the Minister of Mint should receive D20 per month in their term and the members of the Jolly Parliament should receive D10 per month.