Friday, in Parliament!

On Friday, I went to Parliament. It was a short distance from Funan Centre. I reached there at about 12.45pm. There were a group of students there, sitting along the way to the lobby. Straight in front of the Parliament entrance is a Parliament Cafe. Its cheesecake is nice and costs $4.50. I knew, because I ate one during one of the breaks at 3.30pm.

I went through the security checks, which was done at the lift lobby.  I had my IC changed for a security pass. Then, I had to remove my items, and go through a scanner. For many of the other visitors who brought camera handphones (which was not allowed), they had to let Security keep it during their visit. I got a copy of the Parliament proceedings from the counter.

Together, we (ie, the visitors) took the lift up to the third floor, which is where the gallery is.

At the third floor, I saw some exhibits of items used in the Parliament, such as dining sets. In addition, there was the previous Mace, which was bronze, I think. On the way to the gallery, there's another security scanner, so I had to go through that one too. Strangely, they scanned people who went in, but not people who came out. I leave you to draw your conclusions on what you can achieve with that. Frankly, that's not very security-minded, I think.

IJK is the strangers' gallery, which is where I ended up at. I ended up sitting at I-22, because that is what my security pass is.

Everyone of us was briefed by the attendants there. When anyone of us leaves the seat, one has to bow to the Speaker and when one comes back, one has to do the same. There are no exceptions. All the ministers, MP, PM and SM have to do so too.

In the gallery where we sat, on the right hand side of each seat, you can lift up the hand rest, to discover a Philips headset, which transmits the current proceedings in 4 languages, English, Chinese Mandarin, Malay and Indian Tamil. There is a volume control there.

The Parliament session started when the Mace was placed onto the table, at about 1.30pm.

Basically, whatever is going to be asked is already listed in the Parliament proceedings that I received earlier. During the session, one has to raise one's hand if one has a question, and the Speaker, who decides who can speak, will call out the name of the person allowed to speak.

During the Parliament session, the following happened.

• NMP, Eunice Olsen asked a question, and was shot down by Mr Speaker, who said the question shouldn't be directed at the entity that Eunice directed at. She then hastily added, "I stand corrected."
• PM Lee Hsien Loong came in at around 3.00pm, and SM Lee came in around 4pm [I don't have an accurate timing for this though ;o)]
• One of the MPs got the attention of the Speaker, and started to say something. At the end, the Speaker asked, "So, what's your question?" and everyone laughed. This MP wasn't Eunice Olsen, in case you're wondering.
  
• During part of his Budget speech, PM Lee said that senior citizens will get $350, and then he continued, "This will cost the Government 320 dollars", and everyone laughed, before he corrected it to "320 million dollars".
• Some of the ministers were quite firm in the way they handled their questions, even to the point of answering questions, but not answering what was asked, so this ding-dong went on for a while.
• At one point, when announcing his Budget, PM Lee said that Sports will get a boost, then he added that only "physical sports" count, and again, everyone laughed.
• The casino issue would be decided in mid-April, and no special interest groups will influence the decision. This seems to be in reference to the Family Against the Casino Threat set up by 3 Singaporeans.
  
• A call for the parent's educational level of students to be released, as results of students may not be directly related to race. It was pointed out then that categorizing results by race is a circular argument, since it was thought that race had something to do with educational results.
  

It's interesting to see a Parliament session in progress, and I think, in order to keep the attention of people, PM Lee occasionally injected humour into his speech.

The Parliament ended at about 5.30pm, and around 5.35pm, I got a copy of the Singapore Budget 2005 document by email.