Spotlight: Honourable members at work
2008/05/04
Excerpts of some exchanges in Parliament. Translated from Malay in the Hansard, taken from www.parlimen.gov.my/hansard.php LIKE OTHER human beings, it's quiet easy for Parliamentarians to get distracted from what they are doing, even when discussing a serious issue like the leaking roof of Parliament.
Here, in the May 5, 2007 Dewan Rakyat sitting, the MPs are trying to find out whether the ceiling of Parliament is safe, following a recent leak.
However, the issue of the roof and the leak stray on to another type of 'leak'.
Later, the exchange involving "eye" is in reference to "close-one-eye Jasin" (where the MP for Jasin had allegedly asked Customs officers to close one eye to a consignment of timber that he had been importing into the county).
Datuk Mohd Said Yusof (Jasin): I would like to continue with my speech.
Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin (Kinabatangan): Enough!
Deputy Speaker (Datuk Lim Si Cheng): Honourable Member, if you ask me, it is not leaking here.
Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin: It leaks here and there! DAP leaks too.
Datuk Che Min Che Ahmad (Pasir Puteh): Nothing better to say.
M. Kula Segaran (Ipoh Barat): Everything leaks.
Deputy Speaker: Now where is the leak? Honourable Member...
Some MPs: (Interjecting)
Deputy Speaker: Where? It's not leaking now. There is no leak.
Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin: Where's the leak, where?
Datuk Mohd Said Yusof: The Honourable Member for Batu Gajah leaks every month.
Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin: The Honourable Member for Batu Gajah leaks every month.
Datuk Che Min Che Ahmad: Idiot!
Deputy Speaker: Honourable Members, the Dewan is not leaking now. Enough. Continue.
M. Kula Segaran: This is the place to discuss important issues.
Deputy Speaker: Enough, enough, enough.
Datuk Mohd Said Yusof: Enough.
Deputy Speaker: I do not deny that this is an important matter. It is important, and action has already been taken.
Datuk Mohd Said Yusof: Action has already been taken.
Deputy Speaker: The relevant authorities have already been informed.
Lim Kit Siang (Ipoh Timur): One-eyed jack! One-eyed jack!
Some MPs: (Interjecting) (Dewan in uproar)
Deputy Speaker: Honourable Member for Ipoh Barat, if there is no eye, that would also not be good.
M. Kula Segaran: There has to be. With eyes, we can see. He says close (the eye). How can we close it?
Deputy Speaker: Honourable Member.
M. Kula Segaran: The Honourable Member for Jasin is like that. He has half an eye.
Datuk Mohd Said Yusof: Be quiet. We have many more things (to discuss). Mr Speaker, don't entertain any of this.
IN 2005, while answering a question on the issue of the backlog of cases in court and why cases are delayed, deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk M. Kayveas brought in the word "monkey", initially against the opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.
(In instances when Lim is speaking without a microphone, this is because the deputy minister would not give way to Lim, and therefore, the microphone remains automatically locked onto the deputy minister.)
M. Kayveas: Please sit down. Don't know anything, please sit down. What you are asking, I do not know.
Lim Kit Siang: (Interjecting)
M. Kayveas: You don't know how to ask questions. This question I know as how long the oldest case is.
Fong Poh Kuan: Please answer how many cases are delayed.
Lim Kit Siang: (Interjecting)
Mr Speaker: Would the Honourable Member sit down.
M. Kayveas: Please sit down. You don't have anything to do.
Fong Poh Kuan: Please answer: how many cases are delayed?
M. Kayveas: People from overseas have come - like a monkey only...
Mr Speaker: Please give way.
M. Kayveas: You are embarrassing our country. Sit down.
Lim Kit Siang: (Speaking without a microphone)
M. Kayveas: Sit down!
Lim Kit Siang: (Speaking without a microphone)
M. Kayveas: Like a monkey. Look, like a monkey.
Mr Speaker: Would the Honourable Member please give way.
Lim Kit Siang: (Speaking without a microphone)
M. Kayveas: Sit down. One monkey behind, one monkey in front. (Dewan erupts in laughter) When people want to answer, you don't want to listen.
Lim Kit Siang: (Speaking without a microphone)
M. Kayveas: Mr Speaker, I don't understand. From way back when until now, when people want to answer, he doesn't want people to answer. When the answer is being given, he wants to get up... ha, see, the monkey has got up again. Sit down!
Lim Kit Siang: (Speaking without a microphone) ... Wasting of time.
(and this goes on for some time)
M. Kayveas: Mr Speaker, I am answering... (Interjection) Hey, sit down! Like a...
Lim Kit Siang: Failed lawyer, failed politician.
M. Kayveas: This is a terrible monkey. Sit down!
Fong Po Kuan: (Holding the Standing Orders) Point of Order. Point of Order.
M. Kayveas: Hey, you sit down too!
Lim Kit Siang: (Speaking without a microphone)
(and it continues)
M. Kayveas: Mr Speaker, I didn't say he was a monkey. I said he was like a monkey. But he wants to be a monkey.
Fong Poh Kuan: Please retract that statement.
M. Kayveas: I'm not the one who said it.
A few MPs: (Interjecting)
Lim Kit Siang: We have a few visitors from the European Union - we are becoming a circus because of him.
M. Kayveas: You are becoming the circus. You are becoming the circus.
(and continues)
Datuk Paduka Badruddin Amiruldin: Ipoh Timor (MP) is the tauke of the circus. (Laughs)
(and continues)
M. Kayveas: Sit down, one more monkey gets up.
Fong Poh Kuan: That's very bad. That's a very bad assumption.
The altercation goes on for much longer, in which various members of both sides of the House join the fray and the entire proceeding is over whether Kayveas said Lim was a monkey, or that he was behaving "like a monkey".
Calls are also made for Kayveas to retract his statement. In the meantime, the entire proceeding is being witnessed by six members of the European Parliament.
The altercation on Nov 23 takes up eight pages of Hansard, while the continuation of the monkey issue the next day takes up six pages, and the third altercation on Dec 7 takes up seven pages. All over the use of the word "monkey".
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