The New Power Party (NPP) yesterday put forward a list of priority bills to be reviewed in the new legislative session, with pension reform, labor rights protection and Aboriginal transitional justice taking center stage.
The party is to propose a draft bill on recognizing the seniority of personnel transferring between political parties, government agencies and public schools, as well as draft amendments to the Act Governing the Recompense for the Discharge of Special Political Appointees (政務人員退職撫卹條例), aimed at reforming a privileged pension system enjoyed by the likes of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), NPP Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
Lien’s term of service in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is counted toward his seniority in the government, and he is eligible to receive an 18 percent preferential savings interest rate, Hsu said.
While the particulars of the draft bill and amendments are being discussed, these aim to reform the seniority system and the preferential savings interest rate, he said.
“There is social consensus for the proposed reforms and we are calling on ‘Lien Chans’ to cooperate,” Hsu said.
The proposals are also aimed at initiating the first pension reform before the Cabinet tables an official reform plan, Hsu added.
Other priority bills proposed by the NPP included draft amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法); a draft minimum wages act; amendments to the Estate and Gift Tax Act (遺產及贈與稅法); a draft taxpayer protection act; amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法); a draft act on the freedom of assembly; a draft Aboriginal transitional justice act; a draft Aboriginal land and sea rights act; amendments to the Education Act for Indigenous Peoples (原住民族教育法); a draft act on citizen participation in the court system; amendments to Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) and the State Compensation Act (國家賠償法), among others.
Meanwhile, NPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) criticized the Executive Yuan, which proposed a plan to allow Chinese investors to purchase stock-based funds in Taiwan, but tried to avoid bringing the plan to legislative review.
“The government’s sudden and unilateral move has left Sunflower movement supporters dumbfounded,” he said, adding that the NPP will mobilize the legislature to put the plan under review.
The party will continue to push for a cross-strait agreements oversight bill in line with the proposals put forward during the Sunflower movement in 2014, Huang said.
China has attempted to coerce Taiwan by manipulating the tourism market and Taiwan’s economy, and should the Democratic Progressive Party government cave in to Chinese pressure and accept the “one China” principle, Taiwan would lose its sovereignty and national security, Huang said.
The nation can navigate the crisis in the tourism industry amid a steep decline in the number of Chinese tourists if the government can use the downturn as an opportunity to improve the tourism sector, Hsu said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS