Baey Yam Keng says this will allow Singaporeans to be plugged in fully to the debates
| By Clarissa Oon, Senior Political Correspondent |
Mr Baey Yam Keng (Tanjong Pagar GRC) proposed this on Thursday, as he and two other PAP MPs rose in support of changes to give opposition parties and non-PAP representatives a larger share of Parliament after the next election.
The changes, announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday, will guarantee the opposition nine seats, up from the current three. These may be elected or Non-Constituency MPs.
Nominated MPs, who are unelected representatives from different sectors of society, will also become a permanent fixture in the House.
There will also be smaller group representation constituencies (GRCs) and more single-member wards, which will give more room for smaller parties and independent candidates to contest elections.
Having more voices in the chamber will create a 'more diverse platform for the making of the country's policies', said Mr Baey.
But the electorate 'will need to navigate through the different viewpoints expressed and form its own judgment'. To do that, they must have access to the full text of the speeches, he stressed.
The public can currently search for speeches through the Hansard - the verbatim reports of proceedings - on Parliament's website (www.parliament.gov.sg).
But free online access is limited to speeches made in the current term of Parliament, from 2006. To get speeches made before that, one has to pay a high fee, such as law firms do to access them on the LawNet site run by the Singapore Academy of Law.
The alternative is to plough through hard copies of the speeches at the Central Library, said Mr Baey.
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