Parliament fun house

Well it's certainly been an interesting few weeks politically. There has been, I am sure, lots of motions tabled and debates held, all in the process of our good politicians leading the country. However, I must confess to not remembering any of the motions passed or decisions reached in parliament, except perhaps the Anti-Corruption Bill that's supposed to replace the Anti-Corruption Act (Plan B after Plan A has failed? Maybe we'll have an Anti-Corruption Charter next).

Instead, I remember Karpal Singh being suspended for two days for insulting Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia. I remember Anwar leading the Pakatan MPs out of the House when Najib refused to take questions in the middle of his speech and I remember them refusing to debate the budget at the committee stage the next day, forcing proceedings to be suspended. I remember Tian Chua being suspended for refusing to sit down during Najib's winding up speech and I remember Fong Po Kuan and Chong Chien Jen being suspended for disobedience, after the former protested Pandikar Amin's decision to wind up the committee stage before she had gotten a chance to speak. Give us a break, Pandikar, the poor girl has been standing for a whole day and you didn't see her?

I also remember thinking that isn't it interesting that all these disciplinary actions are taken against the opposition MPs but when a BN MP used the word "bastard", or as the newspapers put it, "b******", all he was asked to do was to retract the word.

It seems like we are a country led by a bunch of children, and children with highly disrespectful vocabulary at that. At times like these, when we are facing a global economic meltdown, it seems like all our leaders can do, leaders that we have voted for because we believe in their ability to guide us and our country to greater heights, is either decline to speak or refuse to shut up.

And of course, who can forget the hilarious episode of MPs chasing each other to Taiwan and back just before Anwar's threat to overthrow the government, which turned out to be all hot air and no substance?

In my eyes, our MPs, the leaders of our country, should be intelligent, principled, someone we can look up to. Someone with unquestionable morals whose integrity means more to him than something as crass as money. Someone who respects the laws of this country because he and his brethren were responsible for passing those laws in the first place.

Instead, we have MPs who flaunt the laws, blatantly in some cases. Case in point, on Nov 3rd, the newspapers warned us to "snuff out in air-cond areas" as the Health Ministry would be stepping up their enforcement of the ban. A day later, we were told that even our MPs are happily flaunting the law, and in such a (supposedly) august institution as the Parliament, no less. The best part is that even the "No Smoking" signs have disappeared, so it seems that our MPs are vandals and thieves as well.

Since the Health Dept is cracking down on smokers, starting with the 67 summonses issued in one day, perhaps their next target should be the parliament. After all, with all the money politics going on, I'm sure they are sufficiently rolling in it that they can afford to pay for it.