Politics

Parliament: Holding MPs to account as part of mature democracy


Mr Murali Pillai (Bukit Batok) has proposed that Parliament invest in a new IT system that tracks the number of parliamentary questions raised by an MP as well as the attendance record for sittings.

Such information would make it easier for people to hold MPs to account, he said yesterday during the debate on the President’s Address.

This information is already public and can be obtained today, but not without some effort, including manual counting, he said.

Said Mr Murali: “I urge such records to be available more easily with an online search platform.”

The proposal is among several he made to improve parliamentary processes, as part of his call for increased consensus among MPs for a more stable and mature democracy.

Another of his ideas is to establish a parliamentary record of the outcome of MPs’ proposals that ministers had agreed to study.

He said: “The Hansard is replete with examples of frontbenchers providing holding replies without the ability to check if there are any updates. Members of the public reading the Hansard will not be able to tell if the loop has been closed.”

The Hansard is a written record of all parliamentary proceedings.

Mr Murali said: “We should also entrench a practice of expressly acknowledging MPs in Parliament, should their proposals be accepted by the Government. This, too, should be accessible by members of public.”

Another suggestion he made is for Parliament to provide the option of taking an MP’s speech as read and to be made public.

This, he added, would boost the efficiency of the process, so that time in the House is spent on genuine debate and points of clarification or disagreement.

Voters are maturing, more demanding, and very rightly so, in terms of what they can and should expect from all of us in this House. They are also discerning, attentive, rational and fair. They hold all of us up to high standards and see beyond political colours to the real impact we make in their lives.

This would also avoid repetition of points, which is time-wasting.

Mr Murali said: “The minister should feel free to berate members who try to debate without having read the speech.” The debate during the second reading of proposed legislations is now comprised largely of MPs reading out their speeches when their turn comes, with little time to react to what was said by others, he added.

Mr Murali also called for the civil service to publish and present a paper in Parliament regularly, with details such as the number of letters the civil service and statutory boards receive from MPs petitioning on behalf of their constituents.

The paper should indicate if the substantive response to the MP was within the time period stipulated in the Government Instruction Manual, which specifies policies, standards, regulations and codes of practice.

Said Mr Murali: “Voters are maturing, more demanding, and very rightly so, in terms of what they can and should expect from all of us in this House. They are also discerning, attentive, rational and fair. They hold all of us up to high standards and see beyond political colours to the real impact we make in their lives.”

His proposals, Mr Murali said, will help ensure constituents have access to information, to make informed political choices and decisions.

“Through this process, it would then be easier to assess the full diversity of views expressed by all MPs, ascertain, as a matter of record, where the consensus lies and the points of disagreement, if any.

“This will also hold MPs to account, and for our constituents to see if we do indeed put in our time and attention to parliamentary matters, or whether we are simply going through the motions.”





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