Which States Members talk the most?

Wednesday 07 October 2020

Which States Members are the most inquisitive? Which Constable can’t stop putting forward plans? And just who is the Minister that all the others want a piece of?

These are just some of the questions answered in the 2019 States Assembly Annual Report, a newly released round-up of all of 2019’s facts and figures.

On a broad level, the report outlines the general statistics for the Assembly’s 2019 sessions, showing how in total, 190 hours and 7 minutes were spent across 35 Assembly meetings last year, with 133 of those hours spent debating proposals and legislation.

In terms of asking the most questions, Deputy Montfort Tadier and Deputy Rob Ward tied for the title, both with 126 questions.

The only other States Members to pass 100 questions were Deputies Kirsten Morel and Geoff Southern.

Pictured: Deputies Rob Ward and Montfort Tadier both asked the most amount of questions for 2019's States Assemblies, with 126 each.

Deputy Tadier was also the States Member who made the most speeches during debates, with a sum of 96 speeches to his name.

In contrast, the Chief Minister had the most questions to answer, taking 46 oral questions with notice, 2 hours and 34 minutes of questions without notice, and 65 written questions.

Breaking a two-year trend, on written questions alone, it was not the Chief Minister who received the most, but in fact the Health and Social Services Minister, Richard Renouf, whose queries nearly tripled from 2018’s 29 up to a total of 84.

The politician who put forward the most proposals for debate was Home Affairs Minister Constable Len Norman, who put 14 to the Assembly across the year. 

Pictured: 17 out of the 49 States Members sit within the 60-65 age bracket.

Alongside the questions and proposals, the report’s figures also highlight the continued disproportionate levels of representation within the Assembly, with women making up just over a quarter of the Assembly’s overall membership.

Meanwhile, 63% of States members falling into the over-60 demographic, a stark contrast to the 12% of under-40s.

Another key takeaway of the report was how engagement with the States’ online presence has increased over the last two years, with its Twitter impressions expanding “from 444,000 in 2017 to over 1.7million in 2019, in part due to incorporating scrutiny into the States Assembly Twitter account.”

Retweets also doubled from 1,600 to 3,200 from 2018 to 2019.

Pictured: The report also found online engagement had increased substantially since 2017. 

Subsequently, as a result of increased live-tweeting, it noted a particular rise in traffic on States meeting days, with 30,000 visiting the website daily, and its webcasts pulling in 23,314 views - a 17% rise on 2017.

It follows the introduction of webcasts of both Scrutiny Panel and the Public Accounts Committee public hearings in 2018, which the report notes have "now become an important feature of public engagement."