Tuesday, May 27, 2008

What's Wrong With Our Ministers?

The House ruptured into disorder again this morning, all within the live TV coverage as well, this morning in Parliament.

Yesterday, we had the Deputy Minister of Health, Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad creating a smaller storm by saying that doctors have the "license to kill", in describing the fact that doctors may cause fatalities via human failures. While the deputy minister in all probability didn't mean it in the literal sense, his lack of tact and respect for the medical profession caused a furore amongst many doctors sitting on the opposition bench including KEPONG, KUALA KRAI, TITIWANGSA as well as PERMATANG PAUH.

Despite the controversy and despite initial instructions from the Speaker to retract his statement, the deputy minister refused causing the proceeding to be further delayed by demands from parliamentarians who were rightly offended by the Deputy Minister. It was also not helped by the Speaker who was swung between decisions on whether to enforce the retraction or just secure a promise that the phrase will not be used again.

At the end, the Deputy Minister stood to retract his remarks, but stated that he will not apologise for the remarks made.

Today, we have the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Idris Harun, creating another unnecessary ruckus by using a obscene Tamil swear word when responding to a valid question raised by Nasir Zakaria [PAS/PADANG TERAP]. Most of us were oblivious to the term used, but M Kulasegaran [IPOH BARAT] and N Gobalakrishnan [PADANG SERAI] caught the use of the term loud and clear and demanded, rightly so, that the Deputy Minister retract and apologise for his use of the word.

The Deputy Minister gave the most thuggish of replies, despite leading the Higher Education Ministry, shouting and challenging PADANG SERAI to "repeat the word" that he allegedly used. The Speaker clearly lost control of the House then he'll always qualify his response with the excuse that he does not know the meaning of the word expressed and hence the House should move forward while he obtain the understanding of the word utilised before making a ruling subsequently.

The situation was really quite a disgrace. Unfortunately, BAGAN SERAI took matters into his own hands and chose to walk towards the Speaker to whisper the explanation of the word to him. It was unfortunate because it then created a total diversion from the unparliamentary act by the Deputy Minister, allowing the BN backbenchers to create another ruckus demanding that BAGAN SERAI be punished for breaking all decorum and showed disrespect towards the Speaker.

The party whip for PKR, Azmin Ali [GOMBAK] took the most honourable and admirable stand that BAGAN SERAI will apologise for his action to the House, which the latter did accordingly. Much less could be said for the integrity of the BN whip and parliamentarians who chose not to chastise their own colleague for bringing disrepute to the House.

As the Question time proceedings restarted, the disgraceful Deputy Higher Education Minister got away scot free, without even a need to retract his use of the word.

Are these the only people Barisan Nasional or the Prime Minister could find, who are competent enough to shoulder our Government ministries? And I'm not even referring to the quality of answers, which deserves another post altogether.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

The term used by the Dep Minister was the Tamil word meaning 'sit down'. However, as the Dep Min is not a natural Tamil speaker, his pronounciation made it sound like the vulgar term to have sex. By mis-using Tamil, he sounded condescending and in turn he looked like an idiot, which is unfortunate as he was the PMs choice for the post. Bagan Serai was wrong to move up to the speaker though and the issue went unsettled. Thuggish behaviour by the Minister, and a silly reaction by Bagan Serai. Get your act right for God's sake, both parties.

Anonymous said...

What do you expect when they let loose monkeys in parliament?
I think they should make it COMPULSORY for all the MPs to watch live how the parliamentary sessions are held in Westminster London. Or just see BBC news on ASTRO!

As I Was Saying... said...

The thing is, there should be a live telecast to cover all the Parliament proceedings for the whole day, not just a short 30 minutes from 10.00am to 10.30am live on RTM1 so that all the Malaysians could see for themselves how these "jokers" conduct and behave themselves so that all of the rakyat could have a good laugh. This is because all the MPs seems to be well behave in the 30 minutes live telecast, but let their masks out after the 30 minutes is over. We, the rakyat want to see the "colourful" behaviour of certain MPs shown live on TV. It will really brighten up our day, during our daily stressful working day.

:)

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the greatest circus in the world in bolehland !!!

BMahendran said...

ahahahahahahahhaha
i am just ahving a non stop laugh at this thing :P YB Pua, really i think the minister's word was mispronounced. LOL..a big LOL

Tamil word for 'sit' is OKKARE (ok-kaa-re) while the other word sounds simlilar albeit slight different tone n osound..a native Tamil speaker wud know the dif easily.

guess its a innocent mistake on the deputy misniter..but really is a big joke :P LOL

BMahendran.com

Samuel Goh Kim Eng said...

We don't need a parliamentary "Mind Your Language"
We're mature enough to demand solid meat and not baby sausage
Can you imagine what they are leaving behind as national heritage
When behaving worse than kids turning books page by page?

(C) Samuel Goh Kim Eng - 270508
http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
Tue. 27th May 2008.

Anonymous said...

Aiya. I thought only Malaysian police had license to kill! No one ever makes any investigations or enquiries even after someone is killed ....even in police custodylah!

Anonymous said...

Dear YB Tony,

You must take a look at this:

http://www.merdekareview.com/news.php?n=6833

Grand Saga has set up their super-heavy 'Great Wall' to prevent residents of Makhota Cheras from using the toll-free road again. Guess what, now they even hire professional hooligans to protect their 'Great Wall'.

Oh my god, I can't believe that we have this kind of blood-sucking evil BN government!! Can't wait to have another round of election to throw them into rubbish bin!

Anonymous said...

After 51 years of Independence, All the BN Ministers, Deputy Ministers & MPs still behave to be even worst than their own folks from respective kampung!

That's why our Malaysian Economy is way and way behind Singapore and the cost of living here in Malaysia is so much higher than own standard of living.

Unlike Malaysia, as we compared to Singapore even without the benefit of natural resources like we do a plenty, their standard of living is yet ON PAR with its living cost!

How on earth can this be explain even by an economist?

How to achieve Dr M's Vision 2020 Lah, Pak Lah?

Charlsen said...

Our ministers now all are noobs..

Anonymous said...

The kind of gentile intelligent speakers in Parliament started getting washed away in 1969 to replaced by brute politics as epitomized by Dr. M.

Do you not noticed that as Dr. M gets more brutish so does thse Pavlovian MPs? Their behaviour is not even original!!!!

Anonymous said...

stupid excuse, i can say cau hai, but then brush it off that i mean go away (cau hoi, or zhou kai) .....

he could intend to use the foul word anyway since majority of the mps are not tamil fluent (like cussing cantonese and chine vulgar words in front mat salleh).....

Pearls said...

Wahahahahaha!! What can I say?? All in a day's work?? Wahahahhaa...

Sounds like some zoo in progress to me.. Sigh... and to think these people are voted in by commoners like you and me... voted in and paid for by us! I'll be damned!

Spikeee said...

well said, denzook. it's the darned BN MPs who are so irritating because they are so darned immatured.

thank you for all these info. the more nonsense BN vomits out the more votes that will swing against them.

KinWah.lai said...

i bet Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad wont dare to admit into any local hospital, coz doctor got license to kill.

anyone can check his medical record?

looks like it is easier to hire a killer to kill....

Anonymous said...

What amazes me is the level of unprofessionalism, unpreparedness, and seeming lack of a proper education on display by the many members of the house, deputy ministers and ministers alike. Everyone likes to mouth off before even reviewing the facts of any matter in any detail, and to top it off, we all have to read about reported by equally inept reporters who fail to ask the right questions, basically to verify what they have heard and asking these guys to confirm what they have just said.

One such case if the recent flip flopping on the fuel ban for foreign cars, 50km from the country's borders. Sharir can't seem to contain his child inside in having a new toy called 'subsidies' to play with. Among his silly unresearched comments made include "But as Malaysians who are paid in Singapore dollars and who think nothing of buying S'pore cars, to save SD$20 they could go to petrol stations located outside JB, maybe during their days off, to purchase fuel." (TheStar, 3 June 08)

Malaysian who work in Singapore very often still do pay taxes back home, hence being paid in Singapore Dollars means more income for the govt to collect taxes on. So why are they not allowed to receive the same treatement as fellow malaysians? M'sian who work in Singapore and commute daily between JB and the island do so because they have family staying in JB, who still believe in the m'sian system and enjoy our citizenship status. But more and more so what exactly is the message being sent out by the govt?

Secondly malaysians who work in s'pore have to have a work permit or a PR (unless you've given up your citizenship all together). For PR holders and work permit holders, they are not allowed to by LAW to drive a m'sian registered vehicle in S'pore. So it's not that they "think nothing of buying s'pore cars", but they are forced to, if their job and circumstances mean they have to still have a private vehicle, be it motorcylce of motorcar to get around.

And lastly, it's really not about saving SD$20. It's the principle of it all! Malaysians whereever we are we are still Maaysians. If we have a passport that says Malaysians, even if we are in the US and we get into trouble, we would EXPECT to be helped by the govt. Is the govt going to say..."well, after all they are in the US, they can afford to help themselves". WHAT KIND OF SILLY COMMENT is that??

But increasingly, we have to listen to this coninuous dose of vomit (as described so aptly by SPIKEE) and if left unchecked the already engorged sense of hubris will continue growing!

Can I suggest Tony, that you set up a section in your blog to compile the endless stream of unresearched comments that's coming out from our so called, elected ministers? Then hold them accountable to every sentence and word they utter. This section of the blog can be called "UTTER NONSENSE" ...and comments reported on that are unsubstantiated and unresearched or just pure all out wrong can be compiled and used in the future. What say you? I suppose the blog itself is full of it already, but one place to collate :))

Pluboy2 said...

sigh. this is malaysia.
first class facilities, third class mentality. especially government.

NEIL said...

YB, when I watch the proceeding on tv, I feel ashame to see these umno guys can't even debate properly. they only know how to shout and say stupid things. To the DAP, a 10 for you all. Job well done!Give those goons a hard time.

Bangsa Cina Malaysia said...

i will say what is wrong with our DAP asemblymen refusing to wear the songkok. on one hand The DAP is talking about Bangsa malaysia (malaysian malaysia ) on the other hand its state assemblymen are boycotting the songkok. tony pua will you also reject the wearing of the songkok which is only an attire.
these jokers have no problem wearing tie and coat or a hat. does this make them less of a chinese ? i am really piss off
with all this narrow minded typical chinamen mentality.
i am chinese and i speak fluent
malay ( lisan dan Bertulis ) and i dont feel any less a chinese.
it is about time to eradicate all these morons from the party before they caused more damage.my email
is tonyquek1@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

i will have to disagree on the songkok issue. i don't believe its being narrow minded. why should wear the DAP assemblymen have to wear the songkok? they have a right to choose to wear it or not. i do agree that they should not bow down to the things they do not feel comfortable or wish to do.