Gail Alexan­der

?Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, ex­pect­ed back by week­end from over­seas, will miss Fri­day's de­bate on the Prop­er­ty tax leg­is­la­tion. Man­ning left yes­ter­day for Copen­hagen to at­tend the UN's Cli­mate Change sum­mit. The sum­mit ends on Fri­day–the same day that the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will de­bate the prop­er­ty tax amend­ment bill. World lead­ers in Copen­hagen are due to cli­max the sum­mit with a num­ber of far-reach­ing de­ci­sions on cli­mate change is­sues. Com­mon­wealth lead­ers meet­ing in T&T last, month agreed on a com­mon po­si­tion re­gard­ing a fund to as­sist coun­tries af­fect­ed by cli­mate change.

Man­ning re­turns af­ter the Copen­hagen sum­mit. A Gov­ern­ment spokesman said yes­ter­day that the prop­er­ty tax bill re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote and there­fore could be passed with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port or with­out a full com­ple­ment of Gov­ern­ment MPs. Fol­low­ing de­bate of the bill, the Par­lia­ment takes a Christ­mas re­cess. The Sen­ate is ex­pect­ed to re­sume around Jan­u­ary 6 to pass the prop­er­ty tax bill for it to be ef­fec­tive from Jan­u­ary 2010. (GA)