Teresa Kok

Life has been sooooo busy in the last few days. I spent last Friday and Saturday attending the international conference on Good Governance, Democracy and ASEAN organised by ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) at the Prince Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. I am the secretary of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus and we have worked very hard to make sure that international conference can be succeeded.

After the conference, I dragged my tired, fast-aging body to attend another series of meetings on Saturday and Sunday.

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On Sunday afternoon, I spent a few hours trying to persuade a few Iranians to come forward to tell their stories of police misconduct to the media in Parliament. I promised them I will arrange for them to meet with ministers. They were very hesitant at the start although they were angry with the corrupt practise of the police. When I went to meet them for second time at about 10pm, I helped them write police reports to tell their stories in brief. When we finished lodging police reports, it was about 12.30am. Huh, what a day.

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Both Kit Siang and I presented our RM10 pay cut motion during the debate on Internal Security Ministry on Monday, December 5. My motion was targeted at the IGP whereas Kit’s motion was to deal with the blunder by Noh Omar in asking foreigners to leave Malaysia if they are not happy with the police and the government. Frankly speaking, I just managed to prepare my speech on Monday itself as I was too tied up by the weekend programmes.

I didn’t expect Parliament to rush through the series of ministries’ debates till midnight on Monday. I also did not expect both Kit’s and my RM10 pay cut motions only came at about 10.30pm.

Kit’s motion and speech provoked a big fight that went on for close to an hour. After his motion was rejected by the house, it was my turn to read out my motion speech on the IGP at about 11.15pm.

When my name was called by the speaker to read my speech, I stood up and smiled tantalizingly at the naughty boys from BN. After the shouting match with DAP MPs over Kit’s speech, these guys looked at me with a bit of surprise and tiredness and asked, “Apa lagi lah, Seputeh?” So when I finished reading my speech in a calm and slow manner, there were not that much disturbances from the BN side.

As the debate has to end at midnight, the Deputy Speaker Lim Hsi Cheng only allowed for seconder of my motion and each BN chap a few minutes to go through the formalities of opposing my motion. These guys seem have no real objection as they have run out of ammo in the earlier fight. They, like us, were tired as midnight approaches.

What a day!! I can do with a glass of wine. Please?