As with rock concerts, watching something on TV never beats watching it live – right there, right then.
This is what motivated me to attend one of the Parliament Committee of Supplies debate for Budget 2009. I chose the day when the budget Ministry of Education was slated to be discussed, since I have a 5-yr-old who will be most directly impacted by the recommendations laid out by the recent Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee report.
It is not my first time attending the Parliament debates, so I took note of some things before going, so that I won’t be turned away. Dressing is important, as I had a friend who was once rejected by the staff from entry because she was wearing jeans. From my observations, office wear like business shirts and pants will do, and sometimes I also see some men wear short-sleeved shirts with collar. I also remembered to remove my little Swiss Army knife from my keychain and leave it at home, while switching my phone to a non-camera phone. Previous experience tells me that I had to deposit these items at the counter before being allowed into the building. I understand the Swiss Army knife part, since I cannot go on an airplane with that too, but I am always wondering why they don’t allow camera phones. It is not as if the area accessible by the public has any sensitive information that cannot be leaked out.
However, the most important thing to bring is an identification document – NRIC or driver’s license. With that, I was issued with a pass indicating which seat number in which row to take.
After going through the necessary security check at the ground floor, I took the lift to level 3, walked along a long corridor until I reached another security checkpoint. Past this second checkpoint, are some staff who guided me to my seat.
From my understanding, there are two sides of the Parliament, one with the front row occupied by the Cabinet and back rows occupied by the various SMS, SPS, MS etc; the other side has Mr Low Thia Khiang occupying the middle seat, “eyeball-to-eyeball” with the PM (the exact words I hear from a staff leading a student tour of the Parliament), and other MPs (usually chairpersons of GPCs – the Government Parliamentary Committee – who will also take the respective Ministers to task on policies). Mr Chiam See Tong sits on one side of the first row, and Ms Sylvia Lim is allocated a seat on the last row, alongside PAP back-benchers and Nominated MPs.
Similarly, the public gallery is divided into 2 sides, and I am glad that I am usually allocated the side facing the opposition MPs. After entering the public gallery, one has to bow to the Speaker, if Parliament is in session, and take one’s allocated seat as soon as possible. Anyone can leave anytime, as long as he bows to the Speaker before leaving the gallery.
On this particular day, 10 Feb 2009, the public gallery was quite crowded. Part of the reason, I understand later from a teacher I know, is that some teachers are asked to attend the session where the Ministry of Education’s budget is debated, so that they have a better understanding of the policies. Other than the groups of teachers, I observed the usual crowd of retirees who has nothing to do, civil servants who are there to listen to the debates about their own Ministries, students on a tour of the Parliament (and usually causes the most commotion when they enter and leave the public gallery) and a handful of people like me who are interested in watching the debates live.
Other than the actual serious atmosphere experienced, there are a few other things that cannot be observed by simply reading the papers or watching TV news on Parliament.
One thing that striked me time and again, is how big the Parliament chamber seems to me. It is not about the actual size of the building, but mainly because of the high level of absence I see even when Parliament is in session. On this particular day, at 1400hrs, I counted that the side of the Parliament I was facing had 12 seats occupied, out of 46 seats in total. Out of the 12 seats, 3 were the opposition MPs. At 1500hrs I did another count, this time it was 20 occupied seats. Although it is common for MPs to walk in and out the chambers, to attend to other matters or take a break, I really think that maybe they should be spending more time within the chambers, even to just listen to the points of other MPs. If they really has something to attend to, maybe they should take a leave of absence, rather than “mark attendence” and disappear for a large part of the day’s session.
There was also one incident which I witnessed, which is a bad reflection of the personality of a particular MP: Dr Ong Seh Hong. When he entered the chamber, he did the same thing as others, take a bow, and moved to his seat. As he was sitting down, I saw that he popped a candy into his mouth, and with a very fluid action, flicked his left hand towards the back of his seat. When his left hand returned to meet his right, I saw a clear wrapper sitting on the wooden platform behind his seat! About an hour later, I checked to see if the wrapper was still there, this time I think I saw 2 wrappers instead! So maybe that’s why camera phones are not allowed in the public gallery!
Other little interesting things to watch out for are the body languages, tones, accents and bad-hair days for the MPs. There was a very passionate speech by MP Denise Phua about her observation of the village model in which normal students and special ed students can integrate very well. When read from the papers, this passion is not adequately conveyed. As for bad-hair day, it suffices for me to say that I guess many of the MPs would also see a “pointy-hair boss” that day.
The un-reported Lim Hwee Hua – GIC episode
Of course, these little observations are what spiced up the trip to the Parliament, but the main thing I get from being there, instead of relying on mainstream media, are the un-reported stuff.
That day happened to be the day when the budget for Ministry of Finance was debated. Many MPs, including Ms Sylvia Lim, filed ‘cuts’ asking the Ministry of Finance to disclose how much reserve Singapore still has, and how much losses have the 2 SWFs – GIC and Temasek incurred.
Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, SMS (Senior Minister of State, and yes, they used this acronym there) for Finance, read her reply from her file, and gave a fluent answer (re-hashing) of the Government’s stand on why we should not disclose the amount of reserves we have, and that the SWFs did not do as badly as the various indices tracking the similiar markets.
She also added that Temasek Holding’s portfolio fell 31%. When it was time for clarification questions, Ms Sylvia Lim rose to ask about the exact figure for losses incurred by GIC, since no specific number was quoted, while the 31% was disclosed for Temasek. Mrs Lim Hwee Hua was stumped for words for a few seconds, stammered a little, mumbled something about “it was reported during the budget debate last week”, while frantically flipping her file infront of her to look for an answer. Sylvia Lim spread her hands in a gesture asking “what number”, and Lim Hwee Hua, after not being able to give a specific number, suddenly succumbed and threw out a number, “41%”. The Speaker was nice to Lim Hwee Hua, seeing that she was not very sure of the number herself, and asked if she wants to clarify the number later. She took the opportunity, and since it was also time for the recess at 1520hrs, the Speaker declared that the Parliament go into recess.
As I stood up to walk out the public gallery to a much needed toilet break, I saw Minister of Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam walk towards Lim Hwee Hua. He did not look fierce, but I assume she must be getting her earful from him right there.
I scoured Straits Times, Zaobao, Channel News Asia, Today, and found no mention of this incident. So if I did not attend the Parliament live that day, I would not have known such an episode happened.
In any case, I am still eagerly waiting for Mrs Lim Hwee Hua to clarify the figure, the amount that GIC has lost last year.
[Update: see Is the Hansard verbatim, or near-verbatim? for a follow up to this post]