Friday May 30, 2008

Parliament may follow British system, says Deputy Speaker

By SIM LEOI LEOI, LOONG MENG YEE and PAUL CHOO

KUALA LUMPUR: Parliament should sit for the whole year to give MPs more time to debate and pass Bills.

This was the suggestion of Deputy Speaker Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar who said that in the new Parliament, more MPs were taking their time to debate Bills.

“For this meeting, we have had to postpone several Bills which were supposed to be debated to the next meeting because of time constraint.

“Maybe we will have to do a Westminster-style Parliament which sits for the whole year with holidays in between,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby here yesterday.

He said that in Malaysia, Parliament meetings are fixed for three times a year.

Parliament had to struggle to finish debating and passing the Supplementary Supply Bill and the Pensions (Amendment) Bill despite the Dewan sitting for an extra two days.

This was in addition of the Government choosing to postpone several Bills such as the Geologists Bill and the Tourism Promotion Board (Amendment) Bill.

However, Wan Junaidi said that this was a proposal that the parliamentary select committee would have to consider and propose to the Government later.

However, Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia said that having more Parliament meetings or extending the number of days would not solve anything if MPs did not discipline themselves when debating.

“That’s one school of thought. In fact, when we first decided on the number of days, there was a suggestion that we allow for more time.

“But now even with the extra two days, we still can’t finish. In the West, it’s rare even for the Prime Minister or a Minister to take 30 minutes to deliver his speech. Here, some MPs spoke for two days,” he said.

Pandikar Amin said that in future, he would like MPs to restrict themselves to just 15 minutes.

The Labuan Offshore Financial Services Authority (Amendment) Bill 2008, Judges Remuneration (Amendment) Bill and the National Service Training (Amendment) Bill were among Bills scheduled for debate yesterday, that will now be discussed at the next meeting.

At the lobby, Wan Junaidi said the House needed to complete debating the Supplementary Supply Bill related to the additional expenditure for eight ministries by yesterday.

MPs generally agreed that it was impractical to have Parliament sittings all year long.

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Kong Cho Ha said the proposal would mean that MPs would have to forsake all their other duties.

“Besides their parliamentary duties, MPs also have a responsibility towards their respective constituencies.

“We must also consider the inconvenience to MPs from Sabah, Sarawak and even states such as Kelantan and Terengganu,” he said.

Opposition Leader Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said the move would give MPs much needed participation time but would cause a huge burden to support staff.

“In any case there has to be a balance,” she said.

First-time parliamentarian Jeff Ooi (DAP–Jelutong) said: “It would be a big burden for MPs who are not holding any government post, because some have chosen to do so in order to indulge in other things such as businesses to finance various causes.”