KUCHING: The honour of being appointed deputy peaker of Parliament has quickly become something of a poisoned chalice to Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

He said members of parliament playing to the media were giving him "a miserable time".

"For the sake of media attention, particularly the television, these few so-called 'mature, intelligent and very well-educated' MPs are not only making my life, but that of the Speaker (Pandikar Amin Mulia) and the other Deputy Speaker (Datuk Ronald Kiandee) miserable," Wan Junaidi said.

He was sharing his experience in his two-month-old job in Kampung Siru Dayak where he was attending the ngiling tikai (rolling up the mats) ceremony to mark the end of the Gawai Dayak festivities.

The "robust" and peculiar behaviour of these MPs, he added, was not in keeping with their role as representatives of the people who should be steering the country.
He said the antics, the brickbats and bickering over rules and procedures of some MPs were depriving other MPs the opportunity to pose questions during question and answer (Q & A) time, or to debate.

"The perceived technical glitches should not become the focus of our attention.

"We (Parliament) lose so much time arguing among ourselves over procedures, some too minor to deserve attention in the first place, rather than focusing on our role as MPs."

Wan Junaidi said that even though the time for Q & A had now been lengthened by half an hour, Parliament could not handle more than 13 questions.

"In 1990, when I first became an MP, we had only an hour for Q & A.

"Then we could deal with 14 questions.

"Now even with half an hour more, we still cannot reach question number 14. The highest we have achieved so far on one day is 13, when we should be answering 20."

On the quality of debates, Wan Junaidi said only a few MPs were good.

"Their views are not partisan and they do away with political rhetoric."

He singled out the MPs for Sungai Siput, Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj (PKR); Mohd Puad Zarkashi (Batu Pahat-BN); and Saifuddin Nasution Ismail (Machang-PKR) as those who were "really good".

He said even though there were more MPs in Parliament now who were highly educated, "they don't make good use of their intelligence to produce good quality debates".