by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Parliament House on Wednesday, 23.10.1985:
Barisan Nasional MPs can undo the harm they did on Monday in rejecting the PAC Report on the 1977 Federal Government Accounts by moving a new motion for rescission
The Barisan Nasional MPs and the Government has got itself into a bind because of their rejection of my motion in Parliament on Monday, which results in the rejection of the Report of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee on the 1977 Federal Government Accounts.
I am very surprised that there are Barisan MPs who dare to argue that they only rejected my motion, but not the PAC report. My motion propose the adoption of the full report of PAC for the 1977 Federal Government Accounts, and since the motion was rejected, it must mean the rejection of the PAC Report.
If before Malaysia’s formation in 1963, an Opposition Member of Parliament had moved a motion in Parliament proposing accepting the Reports of Cobbold Commission and Inter-Government Committee on the formation of Malaysia, and the Opposition motion had been rejected, it must mean the rejecting and killing of the Malaysia proposal altogether.
I understand that a very senior Barisan backbencher is even claiming that Parliament has no right to adopt the PAC report. This only shows the abysmal ignorance of Barisan MPS, including their senior backbenchers, in the Standing Orders of Dewan Rakyat.
I moved my motion proposing the adoption of the PAC report under Standing Order 86 (5), which states:
“Any Member may, after not less than two days notice, move in the House that the report of a Select Committee by adopted.”
The PAC is one of the Select Committees of Parliament. In the past, reports of other Select Committees like the Privileges Committee, had been moved by the Government members themselves, or Sdr. Fung Ket Wing, DAP MP for Sandakan, would not have been suspended for one Parliamentary meeting.
Any MP who claims that Parliament has no right to adopt the Report of a Select Committee is clearly unfit to continue to be a Member of the House.
I find Datuk Lee Boon Peng, MP for Mantin and Chairman of the Fifth PAC which submitted the Report on the 1977 Accounts, even more fantastic. He said today that the PAC report had not been rejected. He should read my motion carefully, which referred to the ‘full Report’, which means both the recommendations tabled in Dec. 1981 and the Verbatim Proceedings Report tabled on Oct. 15, 1985.
Datuk Lee Boon Peng guilty of ‘filicide in Parliament
Datuk Lee Boon Peng has unique distinction of being the only Pac Chairman, not only in Malaysia, but I Commonwealth Parliamentary history, of having voted against his own PAC report. He is guilty of Parliamentary ‘filicide’ – for killing his own ‘son’, the Fifth PAC report on the 1977 Accounts. (Note: Parricide is the killing of father, ‘matricide’ killing of mother, and ‘filicide’ killing of son or daughter.)
The Parliamentary farce of the Barisan Nasional MPs in rejecting the Fifth PAC Report on the 1977 Federal Accounts should be a lesson to them not to ‘oppose for the sake of opposition’.
The rejection of the Fifth PAC Report on the 1977 Accounts must not be allowed to stand, or it would create have in the Audit Department, the Treasury and government departments, apart from setting a bad parliamentary precedent.
The Barisan Nasional MPs can undo the harm they did on Monday in rejecting the PAC report by moving a new motion for its rescission, as indicated by Standing Order 36(3):
“It shall be out of order to attempt to reconsider any specific question upon which the House has come to a conclusion during the current session except upon a substantive motion for rescission.”
Let me state that if Barisan Nasional MPs bring a motion of rescission so that the Fifth PAC Report on the 1977 Accounts could be ‘brought back to legal life’, the DAP MPs will give full support. We will never oppose for the sake of opposing.