I was shocked when I entered Dewan Rakyat at 4.45 p.m. to find the Deputy Health Minister, Datuk Rustam Ali still winding-up the Sale of Drugs (Amendment) Bill – taking some five hours since the start of the Dewan Rakyat this morning.
This has never happened in Malaysian Parliamentary history – and the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister or the Finance Minister had never taken five hours to wind up a Bill.
How then can the Deputy Health Minister be taking five hours to wind up the eight-paragraph Sale of Drugs (Amendment) Bill? Not by talking about the subjects falling directly under the amendment bill, but by allowing Barisan Nasional MPs to make long-winded and irrelevant multiple speeches under the excuse of asking for clarification – and replying to these irrelevancies.
The last two days are most disgraceful days for Parliament. Yesterday, my motion on private member’s bill for a five-year extension of the Rent Control (Repeal) Act 1997 would have been debated according to the normal parliamentary practice, as there was no government business to be debated.
To prevent my motion from being debated, the Parliamentary standing order was suspended to allow the Sale of Drugs (Amendment) Bill to be debated, although it could only be debated on the second day to comply with the requirement of giving 24-hour notice to MPs.
Today, the Deputy Health Minister, in cohoots with the Barisan Nasional MPs, dragged out five hours to ensure that my motion on the five-year extension of the Rent Control (Repeal) Act cannot be debated and is "killed".
Barisan Nasional Ministers have claimed that the Barisan Nasional had never abused its two-thirds majority, but this has been proved wrong in the first two days of Parliament this week.
Malaysians should show their protest and disgust with such gross abuse of majority of the Barisan Nasional by depriving the Barisan Nasional of its two-thirds majority in the next general election.
(19/10/99)