The cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment took place with all the pomp and glit­ter that such an oc­ca­sion re­quires. Now, with all the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans ful­ly sworn in and seat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate, it is time to get down to the se­ri­ous work of mak­ing and amend­ing laws.

Al­most a month af­ter be­ing giv­en the man­date to gov­ern, the new­ly in­stalled UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, can now be­gin work on the com­pre­hen­sive leg­isla­tive over­haul need­ed to ad­dress this coun­try’s many long­stand­ing chal­lenges.

Promis­es made on the cam­paign trail that this ad­min­is­tra­tion will be a trans­for­ma­tive force must now be trans­lat­ed in­to work­able poli­cies, pro­grammes and leg­is­la­tion in the ar­eas of health­care, se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy, so­cial eq­ui­ty and pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The ex­ten­sive over­haul of T&T’s health­care sys­tem, de­tailed in “UNC Plans for Health­care Re­form 2025 to 2030”, will like­ly re­quire leg­is­la­tion to se­cure sus­tain­able fund­ing, im­prove in­fra­struc­ture and ser­vice qual­i­ty and stream­line reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight.

How­ev­er, more ur­gent in­ter­ven­tions are need­ed in the ar­eas of se­cu­ri­ty and jus­tice to ad­dress the coun­try’s crime cri­sis.

In op­po­si­tion, the UNC was crit­i­cal of leg­isla­tive changes in­tro­duced by the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion and called for a dif­fer­ent ap­proach in­volv­ing the mod­erni­sa­tion of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and re­form of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Now in gov­ern­ment with a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty that pro­vides more el­bow room for up­dat­ing the le­gal frame­works that gov­ern law en­force­ment and se­cu­ri­ty in­sti­tu­tions, the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion can im­me­di­ate­ly set in mo­tion its plans to make T&T more se­cure.

In terms of eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy, there is al­so the op­por­tu­ni­ty to trans­form the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment by in­tro­duc­ing re­forms that ease bu­reau­crat­ic process­es and cre­ate a more invit­ing reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape for the lo­cal and for­eign in­vest­ments this coun­try des­per­ate­ly needs.

High on the gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da should be re­forms to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic growth and cre­ate jobs.

With trade unions now rep­re­sent­ed on the gov­ern­ment bench­es in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the ex­pec­ta­tion is that the up­grad­ing of labour laws to bet­ter pro­tect work­ers’ rights will be a pri­or­i­ty.

Re­forms in ed­u­ca­tion, hous­ing and oth­er ar­eas of ben­e­fit to cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who feel mar­gin­alised, will de­liv­er on the promise that “every­body wins” un­der this new UNC regime.

Laws should al­so be im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing this new par­lia­men­tary term to en­sure im­proved over­sight for in­fra­struc­ture projects — road re­pairs, wa­ter and en­er­gy sup­ply — with more ag­ile and trans­par­ent de­liv­ery of ser­vices in re­sponse to the needs of the pub­lic.

This is no sim­ple un­der­tak­ing but the UNC, like every oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty that oc­cu­pies the cor­ri­dors of pow­er in this coun­try, was elect­ed to take on the hard work of ad­vanc­ing T&T’s de­vel­op­ment.

That is a task that re­quires much more than the draft­ing of a hand­ful of bills. The le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape needs to be re­shaped. Out­dat­ed prac­tices must be re­placed with a frame­work that pro­motes ac­count­abil­i­ty, growth and progress.

Look­ing ahead, prospects for dig­i­tal gov­er­nance and en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion should al­so be ex­plored, en­sur­ing that T&T keeps pace with glob­al trends, em­pow­ered with leg­is­la­tion that bal­ances in­no­va­tion with pro­tec­tion. This might make for a packed leg­isla­tive agen­da but these are chal­leng­ing times and this coun­try needs a ro­bust le­gal frame­work to nav­i­gate com­plex eco­nom­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal con­di­tions.

For the new par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, the hard work be­gins now.