An opposition day is a day in a legislature using the Westminster System in which an opposition party sets the agenda. Most days the parliamentary agenda is set by the government; opposition days allow the smaller parties to choose the subject for debate. The number of days varies between parliaments. In the United Kingdom there are twenty opposition days per parliamentary session, and in Canada there are twenty-two. The days are divided among opposition parties with the Official Opposition allotted the most; In the UK, the Official Opposition party is given 17 opposition days, and the second biggest opposition party given 3 days. Canadian opposition parties are allocated days, which are also called "allotted" or "supply" days, in proportion to their membership in the House. There are no opposition days in Australian jurisdictions.
Originally, opposition days were associated with debates over supply and held prior to the estimates and the budget and were created so that opposition parties could advance ideas for what should and should not be funded. In modern politics, opposition days are most often used to bring up issues that the government would rather ignore.
On 29 April 2009, the British Government was defeated in an opposition day vote on the subject of settlement rights for Veterans of the Gurkhas. This is the first time since January 1978 that the government has lost an opposition day vote.
Famous quotes containing the words opposition and/or day:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The fox, he felt, had never seen his past disposed of like a fall of water. He had never measured off his day in moments: another—another—another. But now, thrown down so deeply in himself, into the darkness of the well, surprised by pain and hunger, might he not revert to an earlier condition, regain capacities which formerly were useless to him, pass from animal to Henry, become human in his prison, X his days, count, wait, listen for another—another—another—another?”
—William Gass (b. 1924)