Another reform includes shortening to 10 days the 14-day notice period to submit questions to be answered in the Dewan in order to have more current questions.

These reforms were tabled by Tourism and Culture Minister Mohamed Nazri Aziz and were subsequently passed by the Parliamentary Standing Order Committee.

Nazri, who is a member of the committee, revealed that the Cabinet had rejected a proposal to set up a special committee to scrutinise government bills.

He also said more time was needed to study the need for nine select committees, as proposed by the speaker.

The nine are Committee on Transportation and Cities; Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Education, Committee on Food and Health, Committee on Energy, Environment and Water, Committee on Rural Wellbeing, Committee on Economics, Committee on Women’s Affairs and Committee on Integrity.

In his winding-up speech, Nazri said a suggestion to shorten the hours of the proceedings in a day and extend the number of days for Parliament sittings was rejected to allow MPs to focus on their professions and careers.

He said many of the MPs had their own businesses, legal firms or were practising doctors.
“We need to remember that although we are MPs, we are not dependent on our allowances to take care of our families.

“We have our own professions; some are doctors, lawyers and businessmen.

“MPs are not prohibited from being professionals,” Nazri said, adding that it was “inappropriate” to put their work on hold due to the sittings.

He said MPs were also not required to sit in the Dewan Rakyat all day since they were duty-bound to visit their voters and constituencies.

“We are not forced to come in at 10am and leave at 5.30pm. We can choose which bill we want to debate, based on the schedule and we can monitor.

“If we don’t need to be in the Dewan, then we don’t have to.”

Nazri also said the government had the last say on the proposals on the Parliament reforms and hence approval had to be sought from the Cabinet.