 My name's Andrew McIntyre, I'm Dean here at College of Asia and Pacific. It's my great pleasure to welcome everybody to this special lecture this afternoon by Tato Saakwini Adola, Malaysia's Deputy Minister for Higher Education. Let me begin by acknowledging the first Australians, the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting, and in my respects to their elders past and present. It's great to see so many people here on an afternoon like this. I didn't say to Douglas Saakwini as we were leaving my office, but the thought going through my head was, I wonder if anyone's going to come out in weather like this. So I'm really pleased that people have persevered to be with us. And it's my pleasure to welcome not just members of the university, but official guests who have come from across the lake. But above all, of course, Douglas Saakwini and his wife have been in the audience. It's a great pleasure to have you with us here at the university. As many people in this room will know, Malaysia has a long tradition of producing really remarkable political leaders. And for those of you who don't yet know Douglas Saakwini well, he is unambiguous, one of the very brightest and most rapidly rising stars in Malaysia's political firmament. Having been president of the influential Malaysian Youth Council, he was elected to Parliament in 2008, if I'm not mistaken, and immediately appointed to the position of Deputy Minister for Higher Education. The year after being elected to Parliament, he was made a member of Unnoticed Supreme Council, the Supreme Council's Supreme Body of his party. Prior to entering Parliament, he worked in a range of fields, including business, teaching, editing, and he's published widely. He wrote extensively, as we were remarking before, he put Boris Johnson to shame. He publishes extensively still in newspapers, and it's the author, if I'm not mistaken, of four books. I got a new job this afternoon, I signed up for a new job this afternoon, and that's to be Soul Agent, for at least half a dozen copies. So seriously, anyone who would like a copy of his most recent book, New Politics Towards a Mature Malaysian Democracy, copies here. You can have all but one, because one of them is mine. More than anything else, I would say, Datosauk Luton is known as somebody who's pushing and pushing hard from inside the system, inside the system of government to present a more democratic face of politics to younger Malaysians. I was looking at things that one might say are wrong, and I thought, well, there's no better source than what one of our own students has said about him recently, in a very dangerous place, in a blog, which is where all sorts of subversive things can sit. And one of the quite influential blogs coming out of this column is a blog called You May Know I, which focuses on particularly mainland and Southeast Asian politics. And one of our students from Malaysia had this to say in closing, a recent blog post about you. He said, will he lead a new wave of unknown leaders who returns Amra to the center? Or will he be Amra's last Malikian? Ladies and gentlemen, Datosauk Luton. Salam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh and a very good afternoon. Thank you again, Andrew and Professor Panston, for having me here. It is nearly an honor to be here. And this is actually a long-awaited new visit to Amra. We were supposed to be here like last year in November and then we postponed it to April. And finally, I am measuring the fall season in one day. Camera. The reason for the delay is because we don't know when the general election is going to be. And if you were to ask me today, when is the GE 13 coming? My answer will be very simple. We will have the GE immediately after we dissolve parliament. And if you were to continue with an additional question, when will you dissolve parliament? My answer will be just before we do the general election. Either way, politicians will want to win. We have about from here until, from now until about 4.30 or so. And I will divide my sharing this afternoon into two parts. The first part I will try and speak a little bit about what I understand as new politics and its effect or its influence rather, all its relevance on the common general election, 13. And then I will leave time for Q&A as a second part of it. New politics is not a term that I find. And this is not, I'm sure I'm not the first person who used the term new politics. At least two books or compilations of articles were published immediately after the 1999 general election and that was general election 11. One was published by UKM, National University of Malaysia. I can't remember the exact title but we have some new politics on it. Another was published by ASIAS in Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. We also have new politics as the title. Both are compilations of articles written by academics, Malaysians and non-Malaysians. And the main crux of the two books were a hope that some kind of new politics will emerge in Malaysia. And maybe one or two articles giving the signal that perhaps new politics is defined by a new set of regime or a regime change after general election 11, sorry, in 1999. I do not know why after general election trap 2004 people don't talk about new politics. At least I don't see articles being written on new politics. Is it because BISAN National won its biggest victory in local politics? Or is it because people feel that there is more and more hope for new politics? Or people tend to wait for another general election before they talk again about new politics? I must confess that may not be the right way to look at new politics in BISAN years in Malaysia but the reason why I am starting this debt note is simply because there is really not much of discussion, serious discussion rather on politics except discussing on election, the results of election, what it means to me and what it means to me. And I believe that politics is smaller than the rest of it. So I have my own column in one of the local newspapers starting in 2005 or I think it was in 2006 and I started writing about new politics. But I don't have a definition except saying that we need new, more healthy, more fresh, cleaner politics. We need a new kind of political culture. We need to bring the conversation to another level. We need a political discourse that is more healthy. That's how I look at new politics. Beyond that I tried and this is what I did in my book which was published in 2008 and launched by Dr. Srinagarit when he was deputy prime minister in 2009. No, I don't pay commission to Dean Andrew for the commission. To me there are at least two things which makes new politics in this country or in Malaysia. Firstly it's about integrity, about political integrity. And this to my mind is more about my party rather than the government as such. We went through a long history of winning elections and I wrote this before 2008. It's published after the general election of 2008. The content of the book was written early on starting 2006 and 2008. So it's not about 2008 results. I've already been talking about it before, since 2008. We have done well. I think we have formed government for more than 50 years now, 50 years at a time when I started writing. But I thought the party needs a lot of revivalism. Both in its idealism, the principles that party members adhere to. And more importantly I sense and I know for a fact that there are some practices within the party which needs to be improved in particular in relation to corrupt politics, money politics to the exact. And my understanding of political integrity is that politics must be based on certain principles as you say in Manila. Idealism, well you can call it whatever but you must have a good reason why you join politics. And definitely you don't join politics because of vested interests. You think you can become rich, you can become wealthy because you join politics and after that you hold certain positions. Fortunately after GE 2008 and in particular after Najib become President of Amno, he started talking about claiming the party from bad practices and to cut the long story short, he amended the constitution of the party. Among others, it used to be less than 3,000 delegates decide who becomes president and members of the Supreme Council. I came in because I have 1,700, I secured 1,9 votes from about 2,800 delegates so I become a member of the Supreme Council member. But after the amendment in 2009, our next party election, which will come after the general election, you will see 150,000 members voting and they come from the 191, 191 divisions all throughout the country except Sarawak because we don't have Amno in Sarawak. What does this mean? How is this relevant to money politics? Well in the past, all you need to do is to ensure you know how many votes you need to get in a seat. You know who the delegates are because they are less than 3,000 people so if you know them well, you send enough signals online or offline, you get their votes. I mean, you can buy 1,700 and I didn't, of course I didn't buy 2,000. No, I was one of those. You know we have this SK and SA handshake during the campaign. This is the Malay acronym. If I were to translate it into English, it would be what we call EEH and EEH means empty handshake, empty, nothing inside. The other one would be what? Field? Yeah, half-hash. So they will ask you, Saifuddin is coming to see delegates from Farah. You see an EEH or FH. So some delegates will say, because he said EEH, I'm not going to see him. You know, empty handshake, you don't get anything except for the food. Food is okay. Malaysians like food, food, eating is our national hobby. It's okay for politicians to throw parties, but we don't pay. I don't. But now, for the coming party election, well, if you think you have money and you can buy votes, you have to buy 150,000 delegates and you have to be no less than delegates or Warren Buffet to become a non-president. Now, I'm very happy that something concrete has been passed. But integrity is not just about money politics or combating money politics. I think integrity or political integrity is also about bringing the political discourse to a higher level. Conversations on politics must entail more than just about results, about more, I mean the election results, but more about service, about knowledge politics and so on and so forth. The second thing I wrote in the book is about the need for us in Malaysia to come up with a new governance framework. We are normally familiar with the term good governance. Now, I'm a strong supporter of the governance and I would consider good governance as part and parcel of integrity or political integrity, but here I'm talking about a governance framework. I think we all know that in any modern democracy like Malaysia, it is not only the government that make decisions on national building matters. There are also the other two sectors which are equally important, i.e. the business sector and the civil society. What we have is we have a government and then we have the business sector and the civil society working together, but my wish is if we can work together better as real, genuine partners in development and partners in decision making. What is currently happening, perhaps now slightly better than when I started writing about it, is that if I can use three circles to represent the three sectors, you will have the government at the top and then you will have business and civil society. They do work together, but if only we can bring it to a new level where the three circles are interlocked like the Olympic rings where you really work together as partners. I don't see them interlocking as yet, but I think we are slowly moving towards that, where government genuinely that canines the other two sectors as equal partners in decision making structures and processes right from the federal level down to the state or rather right from the grassroots to the state and to the federal level. I don't see them interlocking yet but it's moving slightly slowly but surely towards that direction and why do I see that? I'll give you an example. I'm sure you're very familiar with one Malaysia. Sorry, the GTP, the Government Transformation Program. During Mahadev's time, his most famous policy would be Region 2020. When he wants to do a Region 2020, he appointed someone and that someone happens to be the late Nordin Sofi, the leading intellectual, the director of ISIS Malaysia at the time. And he called a few people and they wrote the text of the speech. The title of the speech was Malaysia in the way forward. It was delivered in one seminar, in one conference. The media gave it a new name, Region 2020. So that's how it came. One team, one speech, one seminar, one policy. Very quick, very fast. When Abul Abad Ali was Prime Minister, his most famous policy would be Islam, how about you? But he chose a different way in launching the project. It was not one person, one team, one seminar, it was a few teams working on it. And a few seminars, conferences, who organized, there were some debates in the newspaper. And after a couple of months, then only Islam Abad Ali came up as a policy. When Prime Minister Najib wanted to do the GTP, he took another path which I thought is more democratic, more progressive. He started with the team, he formed a team, and they looked at all the letters that were sent to local newspapers for the last few years, thousands of them. They looked at the many research that was done before he became Prime Minister. Including the research that tells you the kind of professions or work or jobs that Malaysians trust and Malaysians don't trust. And you know the profession that Malaysians trust most, medical doctor. The one that they don't trust most, politicians. And then he formed Pemangdu, which is actually a steering committee, or rather it's a department, a full-fledged department, led by Grace Jalla, not a politician, a technocrat, a very successful technocrat. His last posting was as the CEO of Mass Other National Carrier. About 900 people were appointed or were invited to sit on the Pemangdu committees. And they come from all the three sectors, the state including political parties, the business and the civil society. They spent about three months going through the six national key areas. And then I thought Prime Minister would then launch the GTP, but no. Instead he insisted that we do some more consulting with the people, with the Rakyat. And exhibitions were held in Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kota Kinabadi. About 25,000 people came. Oh yes, there was the website and there was the SMS and all kinds of social media activities pertaining to the GTP. All in all, more than 200,000 Malaysians from all walks of life, from representing all stakeholders, of course from the three major sectors, were directly or indirectly involved. It took him, it took the Prime Minister almost six months before he actually officially launched the GTP, the Government Transformation Program. Whether it is effective, whether the implementation is right or wrong, that's question number 21. But the point is, there was consultation among the three major stakeholders. And that is his way of walking his talk. What was his talk? He is the first Malaysian Prime Minister that I can remember of, in more than two or three occasions, telling the people that gone are the days when the Government used to be all and they know all and they do all. I thought that was a very symbolic gesture from a Prime Minister who understand the position and the role and the contribution of the other sectors, i.e. the business and the civil society. I cannot claim that he take it from me, but as I said, I wrote it in 2006, 2007. I published it in 2008, he launched it in 2009, before he became Prime Minister. I'm looking on two other things now, and that's supposed to be the next book by politicians. I have 1,001 excuses why it's not being written yet. The other two would be innovations in democracy and progressive political thoughts. Innovations in democracy is, I must confess, is also the title of the book. I bump into Graham Smith book by the same title, so even when I write my book, I don't know when, I will have to use another title or I have to be, at least being sued by Graham Smith. But I share many of the things that he wrote in his book. For instance, many young people are very cynical and skeptical towards politics and politicians and political parties and political institutions. Why they are cynical and skeptical? There is plenty. Fortunately, they still have faith in democracy, provided democracy is reform. All the practice of democracy is reform. One of the reforms, besides integrity and the framework, is also about innovations in decision-making processes or structures. The GTP process, I thought, is quite an innovative way of doing things, of making a decision. As a rookie MP from the Mulu, I start my own grassroots parliament, I call it. You see, we don't have elections for all of the council. So I have to think of a way of getting voices from the grassroots into decision-making process. There are two important committees at the grassroots level, in every district in Malaysia. One is the district, the district action committee, chaired by the district officer, the leader. The members comprises the district officer, his senior officers, politicians from the ruling party of that state, unfortunately only from the ruling party of that state, and heads of departments, the Mulu departments. No representation from either the business order or civil society. The other important committee is the local council. The councillors are appointed by the state, minimum of, I think, 12 maximum of 24 or 22, I remember exactly, and they represent the party from the state. If there is a young member who becomes a councillor, it is more often than not, he is the youth leader or the youth wing leader of the ruling party from that district. He is not the youth leader elected by the youth from the civil society. And if there is a woman as a councillor, chances is she is the leader of the women's wing of the party and not representing the women as they understand it in civil society. If there is a businessman as a councillor, chances is he happens to be a businessman, he is the party, so he is the party, he is not representing the business sector. So what I do is I form, I call this the Temerlo Parliamentary Consultative Council. I chair, we meet twice a year or half a day. We started with 60 members coming from all the three stakeholders. Now the number has grown to 160. We have met six times, we have, we should have met eight times, but you see, my problem is I'm the only one doing this thing and there is no template that I can borrow from any other MPs in Malaysia. So it's very difficult, it's through trial and error. The first meeting becomes like a complaint bureau. People don't think they come here to make a decision, but here is the MP, first time some more, so that fires some good questions. So the first meeting was not like a parliament, it was like a Q&A. But by the time we reached the second, the third meeting, it becomes like a parliament or something like a parliament where members actually speak up on issues. And the reason for me was very simple, it's a two-way communication platform. On the one hand, here I am representing the government, this is what the government is spending to do for Temelow and for our state Pahang and for Malaysia, blah, blah, blah. But more importantly, the second point is, look, I'm supposed to represent you in parliament. As a deputy minister, I don't debate, but I can fend, I can relay your messages to my colleagues who can speak on my behalf because I'm sure your issues are not peculiar only to Temelow. They also have the same issues, so I do that. And this is the best platform. We need to improve the setup because most people, they come to the meeting not really prepared but some do have their own meetings because they represent their own constituent. So by the time they come to the meetings, they're quite prepared, some newspapers and here, here, here, said to them, these are things that we need to be done, needs to be done in this district or in this parliament in that constituency. The second one is about progressive political talks. Again, talks sound so heavy, but what you really mean is conversations on a new level or a new discourse, a new level of discourse of politics. Say for instance, for Malaysians in this hall, we talk a lot about one Malaysia, but I believe one Malaysia is not just as long as one. I think it is even more important for us to talk about the good society, what is a good society for Malaysia and what are the trusts? Yes, we have to record the material. We have many principles as enshrined in the constitution, but we need to review, we need to revisit, we need to debate it, we need to come up with fresh ideas. And since the Prime Minister has already said the gone are the days when the government is the no-for and the the other, or means please come out and speak out and bring this conversation to a higher level. I give you one or two simple examples why we need to bring the political discourse to a higher level. Some politicians don't even know that there is such thing as non-partisan politics or by partisan politics. So the moment someone, and I'm not being personal here, but the moment someone speaks slightly different than the official party line, then you are considered a traitor. Or treason, some people cannot differentiate between okay, I'm going to use very bland words here, my English is not very good, between bringing down the country and bringing down the government. So if you think, if you want to bring down the government, you will be accused of being unpatriotic. In my last article, as I wrote something like this, I said look, there is a difference between someone who wants to bring down the government and someone who wants to bring down the country. Something else, you take out arms or you do something that is really violent and you are really, you know, you actually bring down the country in real way, in the real meaning of it. So bringing down the country is unpatriotic, but bringing down the government is democratic. Of course I have to add up by saying I'm still a BN man and I want BN to win. I'm simply clarifying that you don't just simply accuse people as unpatriotic, simply because they say something else or they say something against you. Our politics is too adversarial. It is, I mean, I don't mind if it is either me or you, but it's like either you are with us or you are with them, that's not too bad, because sometimes loyalty is so important. But it doesn't mean that if you are with them, then therefore you are bad. And it doesn't mean that whenever you are with us, then you are good. I don't think politics is just black and white. There's more to politics. There's more to political stand than just being with them or with us. But beyond that, which is even more important, we have to, I mean, especially for Malaysians, we really have to think through this and contribute in whatever ways to bring democracy, to make democracy in Malaysia work better, to make it more mature, more progressive. My last project is called His Wama Deka, translated into English will mean independent university student. It was organized in conjunction with the independent day and Malaysia Day, Malaysia Days, two days ago, 16th of September. It is actually an online competition for Malaysian university students, both in Malaysia and abroad. In three categories, slogan on Twitter. No, it has nothing to do with the official Malaysian government's slogan for the independent day. Nothing to do with that. Second is Instagram pictures. And third is vlog or short videos. Why we choose online? Because this is the medium that is closest to students. It is cheap, easily accessible. You can also engage overseas students and you do get some kind of contributions and participation. And for those of you who Malaysians today who know Anwar Hadi, Anwar Hadi is one of the jury for vlog, I met him yesterday my first vlog was Anwar Hadi. But what is more important is independent day celebration need not be limited to only the official ceremonies. The official ceremonies are important, they are symbolic, you have to do it. But young people may have their other ways of celebrating independent and Malaysia Day. They may have their own expression, they may have their own interpretation about the meaning of independence and the meaning of nationalism. And when we look at the entries into the competition and that's exactly what we found out. The slogans, they are fresh. Of course it's sometimes quite lengthy, it's 20 words. But they are fresh. Of course we get a few which are totally out of this world. Of course they don't win the prize but it's okay. We are right to speak up. The pictures that they send, some are very good. The re-locks at least one or two, the one that got first prize and second prize, I think they can be sent to our mainstream television and for consideration for next year's independent day celebration. That's not objective. The idea is, I think we need to celebrate independent and whatever in different ways to enhance participation and more importantly to empower the young to participate in ways that they like and we don't have to spend a lot of money. So now what are all these, are they going to be relevant for the GE13? Yes and no. Depending on your overview and depending on your understanding of the issues that are being debated prior to GE13. But I will simply summarize it by giving you this analogy. For the first 11 general elections, the issues debated or not debated but the issues that were important for the electorates were great embattled issues employment, education, welfare, development. Of course on issues on democracy like human rights and so on and so forth. But it is more of the bare embattled issue. GE13 is going to be the first general election where issues on democracy will take centre station to many of the electorates. And many here, if I were to use the University of Malaya Centre for Election and Democracies Research, many here is like 30% of the electorates. And when I talked to other researchers from local universities they were telling though they have different numbers that the middle ground meaning to say people who are not going to people who don't conventionally work for either the end of Akhetan Raya, the middle ground, on the fence. I don't really like to use on the fence. I would rather use middle ground or middle Malaysia or people with their own political independent thinking. At Asparga in Malay sounds like you are lalaam you don't insult people's intelligence just because you don't support this or that. So middle ground is probably a better way of saying it. This is probably the general election is the biggest number of the electorates belonging to the middle ground. 30% is probably the safest number that I can code coming from the end. So for either party for them to win they cannot win without the middle ground. And what are the issues debated among the electorates to belong to the middle ground? Among them are the four issues that I was trying to evaluate. Thank you so much. Thank you. We just stand here and they will throw questions. The floor is open, questions, comments and could I just ask people to briefly identify themselves? Yes, please. My pleasure. I am from Malaysia. Firstly, I would like to congratulate and thank you for being a progressive politician in Malaysia because I really respect your open-minded opinions in many issues. I have two very specific questions. The first one is about the amendment of the Universities and University Colleges Act. I just want to know how this actually impacts the election results in this coming general election because now students in universities can participate in politics. My second question is, I know you hold a very noble principle which is the superiority of a general does not lie on how many enemies he slays. You are cutting from my words. But it lies on how many enemies that become his companions. So with regards to the amendment of section 114A Evidence Act about the censorship for the internet users I would just like to know what is your opinion about that. Does it with the amendment mean that the government is making a situation where the people become its enemies and how about the rights of the internet users that express themselves and as what you mentioned, now this our prime minister is going to rise up once you listen from the people. So I would just like to know your opinion. Thank you very much. In universities, when you see for an exam you don't have to answer all questions. That's good news for you. This is not an exam. I spoke too soon. The University and University College Act was amended quite recently. It now allows students to be a member of any political parties of their choice. But there is a lot which I'm not very happy about. But for the time being, political party activities are not allowed on campus. And the place probably Casualty was the KFIC seminar which was supposed to be organized in IAUM on the 15th of September but somehow I think the university read the amendment differently and because of that the conference has to be organized outside but it's not organized by students it's organized by a company a business a corporate entity. It's not an issue for them to move the venue but it was debated a couple of days ago. How would it influence the running of the general election campaign in particular? Well, to be a voter to be an electorate you don't have to amend the Act even before the amendment students can vote so it's not a problem. But now students can freely campaign because they are allowed to. So that is going to be quite impactful when students for the first time are legally allowed to campaign in elections because this is a party activity outside campus what is not allowed inside campus so it will be. As far as I'm concerned I'm happy about the amendment to that extent if only the amendment went further including some other sections but it's better than nothing. Doing things from inside sometimes can be very difficult. Section 114A basically the government amended the evidence act to include a new section 114A 114A is actually about going after cyber criminals and cyber terrorists and what have you which is needful, which is needed but myself and many others supported the idea that yes we have to have a law we have to have a mechanism we have to have an instrument to go after all these culprits but myself, Kairi Jamaludian and Gunting Siro even though this amendment was passed by parliament but we were of the opinion that the government need to review it and amend it further to make it better simply because of the wording of S114A which can actually make people who facilitates because the sections you play say people who are the editors or sub-editors, the publisher or co-publishers in whatever manner including people who facilitate that word facilitate is open to abuse can be misuse and there's a lot of debate about it and the three of us we may step fast that we should look at it and now I think the government has asked one of the minister one of the senior minister to talk to the stakeholders the bar council and people in the IT business to explain why S114A has to be done that way but I think the feeling on the ground is that we still have to amend it that is good yes please and then I come to you any more on the queue this side here and here tell you what I say do you believe that your rapid ascent to the upper echelons of power with a reform minded agenda would pave the way for new progressive politicians with a new political culture not just within the party but within the product political landscape so to revisit Greg Lopez's comment in a sense you think that perhaps you're not the last Mohican you'll be the only Mohican for a while longer yeah it can be very quiet let's put it this way if not okay I'm doing very candid probably if not I was sharing this remember probably if not because we didn't do very well in 2008 I'm not here I may be an NMP but not as a Deputy Minister but because we didn't do very well so there are vacancies so I'll be some time but if we win general election very very big then I'm afraid it's not about me it's about Prime Minister Najib's progressive ideas may may face some hiccups because there are many people in the party who thought that we are doing this as a reaction to the 2008 general election results and we are doing this because we need to do it in order for us to win GE13 I'm doing it because I feel strongly about it we got less of GE13, 14 and what have you thank God I wrote about it we win big in 2004 so that's how I I answer your question yeah my name is Awidia HG student here your politics that you have explained is an ideal condition but I don't think there is new thing on Malaysian political system I mean it is still dominated by Paris National and also I don't know and there is little space for opposition to get power and then there is still ISA the Mental Security Act and also the government is you know uprising demonstration openly using demonstration so do you think that the current system is ideal for Malaysians right now I mean you know very according to freedom of speech it is still not fully free yeah now I will concur with you on the numbers and the things that we have not done if you will even under the leadership of Prime Minister Najib but let me let me put it this way first of all I think Najib is quite sincere in his going forward either by design or by default nothing is this sincere by design it's difficult to trace because you don't see much of his pronouncement before he becomes Prime Minister that seriously show that he was that genuinely or rather that that shows him seriously wanting to go the progressive way but I can understand why that happened I think in Malaysian politics you don't speak too much until and unless you are in that kind of position so I couldn't spoke too much and perhaps that's the reason why you asked me that question so I think he has been keeping it to himself very closely guided and owning and becoming Prime Minister he talked about it and he tried to do some to do as much as he could but we need to support remote he has to be supported by a team that is equally progressive if not more progressive than him and this is something that GE13 is relevant I mean this is important the kind of cabinet that he appoint after winning see I'm very confident hopefully after winning GE13 we have announced that we will abolish ISA we will replace it hopefully is with a better legislation PA2011 the peace assembly at 2011 is not an Amno language Najib is talking non-traditional Amno language the narrative is totally different abolishing EO the emergency ordinal is not Amno amending the university is not Amno language peace assembly at 2011 is not Amno language this is new language for Amno many Amno members still find it quite difficult to understand it but beyond that there are now discussions and I think I would rather pay more attention to I hope that GE we do GE quickly and get over it and start working on something else already there are now debates on certain issues for instance lowering the age of voting from 21 to 18 bringing back local council election I know Penang State government under Pakatang for whatever reason there's another story it's not happening automatic registration of voters so there are at least three and there are others but reform of the upper house the senate perhaps it would take many many years many many GE before we can actually kind of the senate members elected but I suppose it's not rocket science it's quite easy to reform the composition of the senate members and also to actually come up with some kind of better procedures of the appointment of senate members so that they actually represent the profile of the country rather than the profile of the party that is in power so those are four out of maybe many other issues that are now being debated not so much in the mainstream media unfortunately but a lot in alternative media and I think the government have to come up with a roadmap I have been telling my party members or my leaders rather that a roadmap on these issues are required as part of our manifesto for GE 13 because mind you among the people debating these issues are again people belonging to the middle ground and you can't win the general election without the support of the middle ground would you like to ask the last question yeah sure thanks I enjoyed a lot of steps with Nia and you I enjoyed your comments about lack of bipartisan politics and lack of independent debates in Malaysia making positive that perhaps one of the reasons is the lack of bipartisan media and lack of independent journalists so my question is why don't polish the PPPA altogether and see that flourish and hopefully debate well I'm for the abolishing of the ad but I don't think it would even go not in the near future but I think this is interesting that you brought the issue on about the media I think if you look at the newspaper circulation the trend now is that most mainstream media are on the way down but Sina Harian the sun and the Malay men is on the way up in terms of circulation many young people don't watch mainstream television but they watch internet TV mob TV one Malaysia TV Sina Harian online Sina Harian TV and many others and for most people I think their cup of coffee I mean their breakfast is those newspapers plus the newspaper and but the others so I think they have redefined the meaning the notion of mainstream media for some of us mainstream media means the mainstream media including the TV and the radio and what's online is alternative media but for many people who are young and most of the people that I know of who are in the middle around their mainstream media is the other media and the other media which used to be mainstream to them is out of steam or out of stream or whatever or dinosaur or whatever I mean I know many people who are bigger than me so