Speech Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Petaling, at the Petaling Jaya DAP branch to celebrate the Party 15th anniversary held at Petaling Jaya Civil Centre on Sunday, 26th January 1981 at 8 p.m.
DAP calls for government to set up a special Task Force III to check and control the inflow over 100,000 illegal Indonesia immigration into Johore
A few years ago, when Vietnamese in their hundreds of thousand sought escape from Vietnam, resulting in large numbers of them landing on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, the Government set up a Special Task Force III (‘Vietnamese Illegal Immigrants’) to deal with the problem. Malaysians still can remember the announcement at one stage by the Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamed, that if any more Vietnamese refugees land in Malaysia without proper international resettlement arrangements, then Malaysia will adopt the policy ‘shoot to kill’.
For quite some time, there has been large-scale illegal entry of immigrants from another direction, namely Indonesian Illegal Immigrants into Johore numbering now some 100,000.
But the government authorities have taken an indifferent attitude, making no attempt to check, control or regulate this flow of illegal immigration.
The illegal Indonesian immigrants in Johore and neighbouring state have started to create law-and-order problems, and the Government will be remiss in its duty and responsibility if it continues to pretend that such a problem does not exist.
It is no true the Government authorities making a show of rounding up a few hundred Indonesian illegal immigrants when public complaints become very loud, only to relapse into indifference and inactivity after a spate of name publicity.
The DAP calls on the Government to set up a Special Task Force patterned after the Task Force VII, this time, the Task Force III (standing for ‘Illegal Indonesia Immigrants’) to check and control the ever increasingly grave problem of illegal Indonesia immigration.
Government should greatly increase intake of non-Malay student in local universities
The question of higher education opportunities for Malaysian students has become the greatest ‘agony’ of Malaysian parents. With ever-mounting costs of education and living aboard, large numbers of brilliant Malaysian students would be denied of higher education opportunities if they could not find university places locally.
The basic cause of the problem of inequality of higher education opportunities for Malaysian children must be found in the Barisan Nasional education system, for it is clearly impossible for the Barisan Nasional government to argue that the Government could not afford to establish another two or three universities when the people see the government squandering away hundred of million of dollars every now and there on projects of dubious value.
The DAP calls on the Education Minister, Datuk Musa Hitam, to convene a special meeting of his Ministry of officials to present a special paper and recommendation to Cabinet to fulfil the higher education needs of Malaysian students by establishing another two or three new universities under the Fourth Malaysia Plan.
Higher education opportunities have become the greatest cause of national disunity in the country, and to remove this primary cause of national disunity and racial disharmony, the Government should urgently take step to greatly increase the intake of non-Malay students. This could only be done with the expansion of existing five local universities and the establishment of new ones.
Dr Tan Seng Giaw to head DAP Committee on Chinese primary schools
At the Teluk Anson DAP Branch Dinner last week, I announced that the DAP will form a Special Committee on Chinese Primary Schools to spearhead the fight share of development funds and government attention.
This is because over the years under the various Five Year Plans, Chinese Primary Schools and Indian Primary Schools have been given a step-child treatment, denied proper development fund and expansion facilities.
The DAP Committee on Chinese primary schools headed by the Acting National Publicity Secretary, Sdr. Tan Seng Giaw, will collect all relevant data and information about the Chinese primary schools on the country to equip itself with more material to demand for Chinese primary schools their rightful share of the national education budget.
The DAP Chinese Primary Schools Committee will start its work with the Chinese primary schools in Selangor, for the time has come for Malaysian to demand that Chinese primary schools should not continue to be discriminated against, whether in terms of development funds, teacher allocation, or general educational development.
The DAP will set up a similar Committee to deal specially with Tamil primary schools to ensure that Tamil primary schools get their deserved share of the Education budget and government attention under the Fourth Malaysia Plan.