 My name's Andrew McIntyre, I'm Dean of the College of Art and Pacific. My pleasure to welcome everybody here, especially to people that have come from far afield, from Malaysia, from Singapore, from around the country, from across the lake, and even further still from across the canvas. It's great to have so many people here today. Let me begin in the spirit of reconciliation by acknowledging the first Australians, the traditional owners, the land on which we meet, and to pay my respects to their elders, past and present. Our meeting today, Malaysia-Singapore Update, in my mind, is really quite special for a number of reasons. First and perhaps most conspicuously, because unlike some other comparable events that we organise here in the college, this isn't organised by the professors. This is organised primarily by the students. So I'd like to pay a special tribute to Jessica Avalon, Greg Lopez, and their colleagues. One goes through all the names, but their colleagues in the Asian Pacific Learning Community, I just think this is a really wonderful initiative, and professors have their place, but let's be clear, if it wasn't for this group of students, we wouldn't be here today. Thank you. Let me just also note in passing that what Jessica, Greg and their colleagues are doing today with this initiative is very much consistent with some other initiatives that are cooking across the college at the moment, to try and connect up all our students, our PhD students, our master students, our undergraduate students with the full array of research work that goes on across the place. So this is very much in that spirit, and I'm really pleased about that. But that's just one of the reasons this meeting is special. It occurs to me there's another reason for this special, and that is I gather it's about ten years since we last had a variant of this meeting. And that's what is reflecting on that, and why that might be the case. I mean, if I think back to the history of this university, which you've been doing increasingly in recent times, and the growth of work on Asia and the Pacific here, and specifically the evolution of work on Southeast Asia. If you go back to those very early decades, it was heavily focused on Malaya, as it then was. And over the intervening decades, it's shifted. And to me that sort of connects to a broader point. And that's the way in which our three countries, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, think about each other, and relate to each other. These days, compared to several decades ago, when we all had, I think it's fair to say, more regard for each other, paid more attention to each other, these days we're all paying more attention to the various really big countries in the region. The Indonesia's, the China, the Japan, the India. All of us are paying more attention to those really big countries than we used to. And it seems to me that while that's completely understandable, and we all can pretty easily figure out the reasons that are driving that in each case, if we're not careful, there's something quite precious to all three of our countries, which will be, if not lost, just progressively diminished. And I think the world of ideas, universities, gatherings like this, can play a significant role in bringing to the fore, bringing to public consciousness, bringing to policy consciousness, bringing to community consciousness the sorts of things that we can be learning from each other these days. And they're different to the sorts of things we could be learning from each other several decades ago. And the sorts of things our three countries can be doing together can be helping each other with, locally, regionally, and globally. So I'm particularly pleased that this meeting's happening. Jessica, Greg, I have you and your colleagues here to keep all these wonderful professors engaged and get the new momentum into thinking and public discussion of issues relating to the three of our countries. Now, my job as dean is just to be here and cut the ribbon then I get kicked out and Jessica takes over. That's been nice to meet you. And this is where Jessica does get her gala. I hope the rest of it goes well and I look forward to seeing you all later in the day. Thank you. Thank you very much, Andrew Rickinser. And it's a pleasure to have this conference open by our dean. I would remind you all before we get started, please turn off all your mobile phones. We don't want to interrupt some of our esteemed guests here today and we do have a fantastic panel. Today we'll firstly start with about 10 minute presentations from our guests here, Professor Anthony Milner, Professor Clive Kessler, Dr. Amanda Whiting, Professor Harhill, and finally Dr. Mazuki Mohamed. So first up we will be starting with Professor Anthony Milner who was our previous dean of Asia Pacific Studies here at the Australian National University. Tony amongst other things is the co-chair of the Australian Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific region and he will be talking today about Malaysia's federal constitution. So I will let him explain to you more. Please welcome Tony Milner. Thank you. Well I'm a historian and it's probably appropriate to start with a little bit of history. I'll be talking about the constitution, not just the constitution. In 1957, of course we have the beginnings of Malaysia and Malaya and then expanded Malaysia in 1963. And this was still in the post-war years when the Western, especially those on the winning side of the war too, continued to have much prestige. Malaya gained independence relatively easily, relatively peacefully. It's a real contrast to other countries in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Vietnam. Thus Malaysia seemed less analytically exciting in those years. It's surprising when you think of it, to take Andrew's point in so much research when I talk to him, given that fact. The constitution of the country was prepared with the help of the British Commonwealth Commission including a former Governor General of Australia and provided for a Westminster government, a federal system with some similarities with Australia. The constitution stressed fundamental liberties and the assurance that all persons are equal before the law entitled to equal protection of the law. The legal system was very much British influenced drawing upon British common law. The Prime Minister took over the Raman as a charming Cambridge educated prince who won the respect of many in the departing British leadership and pursued a foreign policy largely supported with Western interests. With its particular strengths in rubber and tin production Malaya struck many a casual observer as being on a fairly secure path of development. Now in some senses such optimism was justified. Malaya of course has grown from 7 million people at that stage to some 29 million now bigger than Australia. Has a GDP and PPP terms which is almost half the size of Australia's. The third largest economy in ASEAN the HSBC World in 2150 survey suggests that it's going to become a economy more or less the size of Australia's by the middle of the century. With its spectacular architecture it's a new administrative capital and it's a world class highway. Strong exports, large trade surplus it's got something to boast of. The country also has regular federal and state elections and although the same parties continued in power federally there have been two real changes in state governance. So far so good that when we go back again to the creation of the new Malayan and the new Malaysian states when we look at the constitution of the new country more closely there were issues and challenges but it was unfinished business. So I'm going back to colonial period and earlier. Unfinished business would inevitably dole the new state and it in some ways continues to be of concern today. Let me just give a few examples of that. I'll be brief. These issues might arise again in our discussion this afternoon. The very territorial definition of the new state was highly artificial, colonial determined. The cooperation and the separation of Singapore the tensions with Indonesia and the Philippines over the Borneo territories the tension too with Indonesia over cultural heritage the suspicion operating between the Indonesian and Malaysian people problems in southern Thailand too. All of this is shaped by arbitrary decisions and it would be unwise to assume that the nation building phase of Malaysian history is now completed. Looking in a little detail at the constitution of the new Malaysian Malayan state another issue for the country was and is the sharp defining of a race paradigm. Despite the talk of equality in the constitution the special position of the Malays and the rights and privileges there to enjoy are clearly stated. These Malays were about half the population in the 1950s with the Chinese at 37% and the Indians at over 11% This population mix was partly a result of immigration immigration going back to colonial and to pre-colonial terms but also it's a product of British ideological construction. The European racial categorization of the late 18th and the early 19th century has left its mark and the self-definition in Malaysia as much or more than in many other countries. The struggle in the 1940s about how not whether how a new independent state might be constructed the separation of Singapore forming of an alliance of Malay, Chinese, Indian parties the 1969 riots all of these are part of the Malaysian race narrative. This continued passionate discussion today about race including about whether the constitutional fathers intended Malay privileges to be reviewed after a period of 15 years whether privileges intended to be tampered just to help overcome the economic imbalance between the Malay and non Malay communities as it was perceived. Against this view some have spoken particularly since the 1980s of Malay dominance continuing Malay dominance of Malayu as a continuing feature of the country others again including a World Bank report last year have seen the Malay bias as distorting and damaging the economy responsible for instance for a massive brain drain of Chinese and Indians and for failures to encourage non Malay business enterprises in a way that might have helped the whole country economically. It's true that there's increasing political talk of the riot with people in general as well as a particular race of Malay, Chinese, Indian. The opposition has called for the replacing of Keduanan Malayu and Malay supremacy with Keduanan Rakyat people's supremacy. Anwar leads the party Kadyalan Rakyat the people's justice party. On its part the government has spoken often of one Malaysia and also at least in some context it explains the reformist programs in terms of many of which have introduced implementing explains those programs in terms of how they will benefit the people, the Rakyat not just individual races. In other context in the general assembly of the governing party, Anwar for instance the Prime Minister stresses Malay interests and Malay unity especially when facing the Malay advocacy group Khasa. The long-serving Prime Minister Mahathir who might be said to have another all-the-unfinished business in the Malaysian state made his own attempt to rise above race with the idea of a Bunksa Malaysia a Malaysian people but in the end he merely defines the term as meaning that the people should regard themselves first and above all as Malaysians. The county says be totally Chinese or Indian and even Malays will have to lose some of their malayness. Mahathir also insisted that Indian politicians political groups say that they're determined to push aside race as some have done since the 1940s and as Anwar's party says it's doing today these people are merely pretending to push aside race and doing this as a way of enhancing their own race. As Lee Kuan Yew pointed out decades ago there's a logic to communal politics and it's hard not to get entangled in something the current relation must have found or when in the election in Sarawak last year the swing against the government was conceptualized in terms of a hardening of Chinese opposition and when that race-based perception led to a fresh core for specifically Malay unity on the other side the race issue as we see remains highly potent. A further issue evident in the Constitution is that of monarchy. Malaysia is striking this monarchy as a king the nine rulers, the elaborate structure of titles, awards and royal ceremonies. I recall a Southeast Asian diplomat with long experience in Indonesia being struck and surprised by this monarchy as in Malaysia and by the fact that it's received so little analytic attention. The Constitution places limits on monarchy but it also states the subject to the provisions of this Constitution the sovereignty, the prerogatives the powers, the jurisdiction of the rulers as hitherto had and enjoyed shall remain unaffected. In the words of the current Sultan of Perak once a high legal official it's a mistake to think the role of a king like the other president is confined to what is what is written down in the Constitution. This role far exceeds those constitutional provisions. Mahati has sought to trim the rulers' powers in the early 1980s and early 1990s but with early partial success. Today quite a few liberal Malaysians were pleased when the last king spoke out in the lead up to a Percy demonstration in July 2011 issued his own proclamation not unwritten by the elected government calling on the government as well as the opposition to step back from open confrontation. On the other hand the intervention of a number of rulers and the choice of chief ministers for their states has caused much dissatisfaction in some quarters though evident intent in others. A recently published book has referred to a socio-political revival of Malay kingship and it suggests that this involves a rejection of the idea of Westminster style monarchy and a preference for the type of institution perfected by the ruler of Thailand since the 1970s. Now whether this judgement isn't exaggerated one or half is open to question but as a pre-colonial institution it may be worth asking whether the ideology of monarchy has anything to offer to a post-colonial Malaysia. Putting aside kingship per se the continued importance of so called feudal thinking in Malaysia should be noted the anxiety about dignity, reputation and personal shame is one aspect here Clive Kessler might elaborate. Also the way the economy is organised particularly the intertwining of business and political activities in the Malay community the importance of patronage the centrality of the national leader national leader and so called economic development the dominance of the national leader in general by most Westminster standards these things all seem to be reminiscent of the features of the pre-colonial Malay politics but let me turn now to religion Islam is another key topic marked in the constitution it's described as the religion of the federation and the phrase has caused confusion the individual rulers remain head of the Muslim religion in their respective states and Islamic Sharia courts they operate at state level the state government too may control or restrict the propagation of religious doctrine the Islamic movement of the 1970s and 80s influenced by international developments including the form of Sharia Iran caused for a far greater stress on Islamic doctrine in the Malay community and in a sense for a downplaying of the institutions and values introduced to the different Malaysian politics during the British colonial period the Islamic movement the Salafi movement called for a rolling back of colonial influence even in the arts and in education especially under the leadership of religious scholars from the early 1980s the opposition Islamic party palace has been a strong advocate of such program of religious reform but in some ways so did the Mahathir government play a role the Sharia courts appear to have gained strength but not without some counter victories on the part of the civil courts the state of Kera under a past leader today has now made it illegal to challenge in a civil or religious court a fatwa religious ruling of the state Mufti or the state fatwa committee in 2007 the refusal of the federal court Malaysia's highest judicial authority to overrule the Islamic court with respect to an issue about conversion out of Islam was seen as an ominous development on the part of those anxious to defend the civil legal system as was the 2009 case the young woman sentenced to a whipping when court drinking in the state of Bahama Islam a monarchy race all of these in the 1957 constitution potent issues unsettling ones business that would have to be attended to in the independent state or remain potent and today they must be handled in a new international context in which the constitutional principles and social values that were influential in the 1950s are no longer endorsed by a hegemonic West moderate is a word used often in Najib's Malaysia today particularly by the Prime Minister himself and it's combined with a foreign policy a foreign policy posture sympathetic to Western countries including Australia there's also an extraordinary emphasis being placed on national development and moving forward to become a high income country by the year 2020 some of those at present seeking to advise the Malaysian government on how to achieve such development aims do so in a culture free history free format they ignore the type of unfinished business I've been discussing and for this reason their advice may well be flawed looking to the future, despite the current talk about moderation and development Malaysia still has a lot to argue about including issues of 1957 let me end on the note of argument Malaysia may not be the most democratic of countries but it must be one of the most political politics attracts their passion that Australians might really reserve for sport the political debate is not just about personalities and power but also about the deeper themes which I've been discussing so much of the debate seems aggressive and divisive but the national conversation appears to encompass the whole society the advocates of numerous parties and ethnic groups all types of social movements religious leaders even royalty and for this reason encompassing the whole society in this way this political debate this intensely lively public sphere may actually be promoting a curious form of national unity so there would be a note of optimism on which to conclude Thank you very much Professor Anilma you raised some issues of race, religion, culture development and self-reception that I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about today next up we have next up we have Professor Clive Kessler who is from the University of New South Wales he received his PhD in London and enough enough enough enough enough Thank you and thanks especially to Greg and the organiser of the conference and thanks to Tony for giving the optimistic view because I think that also needs to be heard not that I buy it I'm here to deliver a different story which I'll say that I fear and I worry I fear and worry in particular that I'm no being no longer knows how to win popular support in an election and on the evidence so far does not get learned how to lose or how to live with less than decisive or satisfactory victory even that it sees it's likely to see its defeat I worry is the next election's approach what the possible outcomes might be I see five a decisive I'm no being win which I think unlikely and a decisive Pakatan opposition win which I see as being unlikely not only unlikely be that these things happened they would be seen as improbable illegitimate procured by Chikatery so we are left with the three intermediate options a narrow I'm no being victory a narrow opposition victory which I thought extremely unlikely but the more I've seen the I'm no being bungling and stumbling the less unlikely it seems to me to be and the third is some kind of indecisive outcome a hundred parliament and I need not tell anybody in Canberra what that means and by the way it is in Tony Abbott's character to kick heads I've seen it on a football field some of us do know I see those as five those things most likely outcomes any of which all of which are displeasing to important people and will not be accepted will not be lived with happily I see all of them as inherently unwelcome and dangerous for the current prime minister anything less than a decisive victory for I'm no being I think will be near fatal for him and I can't see except by extraordinary means is getting an overwhelming victory in any election as we all know the Malaysian political electoral field is not a level playing field and it would have to be even far less level than in the past for that kind of big decisive victory to occur even if that's not the case that's what many people believe and so they would not accept so in any of those circumstances I believe that Najib's position is a question and that is likely to lead to a very unpleasant civil war within the unknown I'll say something about that a Malaysian civil war within the unknown I'll come back to that when shortly but let me ask how did things come to this past well the writing has been certain on the wall since 2008 that is when among others I wrote an article whose title I've borrowed from my talk today which I said can Amnabian's last campaign can Amnabian win again and laid out that the writing was now clearly on the wall and that Malaysia's before could only effectively be governed so far as we haven't suggested by a government that's centered on a progressive centrist ethnically inclusive potentially post-ethnic Amna which were required to move to the center but if it if it's sought in the short run to shore up its position with the Malay core vote then this would be this was not a promising direction Amnab had that challenge I'll say why it declined why I think it declined it and so the challenge it's now handed to others namely the opposition the challenge of seeking to show that it can rule from the center the challenge Amnab has forsaken that it's now up to the opposition to show that it is a potential government of the center and it's also up then to Amnabian if that happens to show that it can accept and live with that situation how has this all come about we are now facing and have been since 2008 the end of the Malaysia's second post-independence dispensation and we're awaiting to see what the third will be Amnab had the chance to seize the initiative to do that to declare what it was but that's been history's gamut decline the first post-independence dispensation ended bloody following the 1969 elections which I remind you was not a story of race riots that is the convenient cliche that no respectable social scientist should accept the electoral outcome produced and showed revealed a fundamental regime crisis whose external manifestation part of it was those riots in the street but it was not a riot it was a regime crisis in response to that a second post-independence dispensation was created designed to last for 20 years from 1970 to 1990 it was based upon the NEP promo lay affirmative action to see the source of that regime crisis with a feeling of Malay marginalisation and secondly the new political order the BN the BN coalition those arrangements were designed to last until 1990 from the mid 1980s on there was a debate after NEP what well NEP went to lived on as NDP and a few people could tell the difference and how many people couldn't the form of Malay ascended government the strong Malay focus government that was necessary to drive NDP lived on and was provided with a new rationale that provided by Abdullah Ahmad from 1986 in the notion of Katwanan Malay of Malay ascendancy and this notion of Malay ascendancy was read back into the constitution as if it had been there which it had not been and as if Malay ascendancy was part of an implied or implicit social contract whereas the implicit social contract in the Mubarak agreements provided for something else but that dispensation with that the second dispensation was extended it was extended through the boom years until the Asian economic crisis the economic well the economic crisis reformasi Dr. Mahati had to show that to restore his legacy he remained in power until the political situation would be restored the economic situation would be restored and then had only then to hand over to a nominated successor Abdullah Badawi who went to an election and got a result which was not which was a reprieve and a probation issued with a great sigh of relief that a period that had been very good that perhaps perhaps lasted a little too long was now over now what I'm saying is then that the second post Mordeka dispensation because of the economic crisis and Dr. Mahati's need to stay on that second post Mordeka dispensation enjoyed an unnaturally prolonged afterlife it hung on like a ghost hung on like a ghost and a ghoul it hang on haunting the country in a sense and the significance of the 2008 elections was simply that a whole range of gathering social forces that had been developing at least since 1990 possibly since 1970 but which had up till then been contained within the overarching political framework had suddenly grown and the old dispensation becomes sufficiently problematic that the mere expression of those new forces forthright in an exuberant way showed that the old political formula was kaput kaduk defunct, exhausted, no longer serviceable how did this happen in short the conversion the redefinition of of the the redefinition of the previous political watch as Katwana Malay offended non-Malays increasingly with the florid exaggerated exhibitions symbolic affirmations of that notion with the cheating of the Chris but more than that the unknown diet of its own success we might say the success of the NEP was to produce a staggering diversification of Malay socially, culturally, educationally politically, etc a diversification that made the whole notion of omnocontinued exert dominance on the base of Malay unity problematic dubious and the two ways that were attempted to hold this political coalition the whole notion of the Malay situation and you don't have to be a post-modernist to question the the in that I mean it was a pre-post-modernist question re-questioning the the for generated for decades the way the attempt was either a notion of either religion or national culture as a way of countervailing of countervailing forces to the political diversification of Malay society okay so this is not a surprise I wrote about this in 1999 after the 1999 elections the umno was the Malay social base upon which umno base its dominance was contracting Malay society was growing beyond its reach that the umno is becoming increasingly capable of accommodating of responding and making its own the very social diversification that was the staggering success of its own best policies so what happened then was that these forces expressed themselves at the time of the election producing great optimism producing great optimism among opposition among opposition people who saw the who felt encouraged by this expression of social forces but new social forces but did not see the danger of resistance there meanwhile the basic Malay the dominant Malay reaction but this was to see the same situation to see that the old the old framework was exhausted was finished but to see it as an act of betrayal and desertion that somehow the expression of these new forces was seen as the repudiation of an entitlement to continue non Malay acceptance of the terms of Malay dominance and the Malay right to continue redefining indefinitely the terms of dominance that many Malay have become convinced because of the Ketuanan Malay reaction had been originally part of the the Mordeka deal the second Mordeka agreement I'm nearly there I think that under any of the three likely outcomes Nanjib's survival there's a big question mark the question mark is after Nanjib not simply who but what now I see the like in this I see the like list outcome let me quote a leading Malay professional I see a past unknown tire leading to an authoritarian theocratic state in other words and I said once again with much pain and agony, heartache and fearfulness I have to say I agree that unless they like this outcome and here I put this question to Dr. Murazuki if they can see the like list outcome to any significant unknown being setback is that it has always been past a strategy as I've been saying since 1969 not so much to come to power by itself by way of elections but to make itself on the popular mass Malay support that it can command and so withhold from or deny unknown so indispensable electorate to unknown that unknown will have to come to terms with past that is to say past is and has always been ready to let us rule if and so long as unknown is ready to rule on past's terms when that reconfiguration of the political kaleiscope starts to occur some of unknown will leave for others draw DPA pick our DPA whatever some of past will leave to resituate themselves with the opposition but most of past and most of unknown will come together to work out the terms in that kind of situation we know will be riding high and others presumably will have to get ready for it to adapt themselves to it we in Sydney don't worry so much about these things but I suggest that certainly people in Canberra will have to think what an Australian response to that kind of situation will give me one more second there that this then is concerned an Australian diplomat in Kuala Lumpur some years ago was trying to situate past in political policy terms he had this graph and he couldn't do it and I tried to explain it why and I said past has objectives the ultimate objective of an Islamic state Islamic law, hooded etc it has strategies it is flexible, it is opportunistic not in the pejorative sense but in the way that evolution is opportunistic it goes with the flow but past has no policies in the middle it will accommodate to whatever policies are needed in order to move in that kind of situation I say that I fear I fear for the future I fear in particular what I can call the tundra referring to the recent movie the tundra putri option this movie if those of you don't know is not simply although it's that too an attempt to a revisionist attempt to rewrite what happened in 1969 nor is it simply a partisan and selective attempt to allocate responsibility it is perspective and looking forward it is attempting to prepare people in advance should things go wrong for the idea that if once again either before, during or after instead of the elections the situation becomes untenable for umno that it may just be time for the rule of two or three good strong Malay men operating through another national operations council if that happens that and not the new democratization will be Malaysia's post Mordeka dispensation mark 3 thank you very much and next up we'll have Amanda Whiting from the Faculty of Law of the University of Melbourne Amanda is currently looking into the history of the legal profession in Malaysia and she is the Associate Director of the Asian Law Centre so please welcome Professor Amanda Whiting thank you very much you think comrades I'm speaking today as a lawyer not the historian I was trained to be but the lawyer I've recently become so what I'm doing is taking through the legal reforms I imagine scapegoats are other forms I'm going to speak very fast because I've written too much and I won't be giving examples of the horror stories that I tell you about I have a fully written paper so I won't be giving examples but I can take questions on examples if you would like some documentary evidence to support the fairly broad sweeping claims I'm about to make so until June this year Malaysia had been in an almost emergency for more than 16 years the Federal Constitution of Independent Malaysia makes express and detailed provision of the declaration of emergency in Article 150 and for Parliament to legislate against subversion and acts prejudicial to public order in Article 149 regardless of the existence of a state of emergency two separate provisions that don't lead each other to work on the proclamation of emergency is in force the executive can make ordinances and Parliament may pass acts that are inconsistent with or override any other law or the provisions of the Constitution itself including civil and political rights the only exception to this extraordinarily wide apart is that the emergency laws can't touch on the constitutional provisions that protect Islamic law citizenship for everybody language and religion under Article 149 Parliament can make laws to prevent or combat threats to public order that are inconsistent with constitutional civil and political liberties but not freedom of religion the internal security law for example was made under that provision five states of emergency have been proclaimed four of them since independence Malaysia was in a state of emergency when the Constitution was negotiated and drafted this has led to a normalization of crisis within the political and legal system and created in the words of one constitutional scholar a sense that the rule of law is simply one option rather than the entire basis of the constitutional order I would go even further than that and say that the federal constitution by permitting and entrenching emergency legality in Articles 149 and 150 contains within itself the source of permanent instability and self contradiction emergency is not an exception to the rule of law established and secured by the constitution rather the exception is for seen and enabled by the notion of the rule of law that the Malaysian constitution enshrines so any assessment of the law reform which has taken place since last September any assessment of that must take into account I think the existence of the propensity to declare states of emergency the capacity to declare states of emergency that exist in the constitution speeding up because that took too long in addition the civil and political rights in part two of the constitution contain their own exceptions and they permit parliament to derogate from them so freedom of speech assembly and association can be limited by other statutes as parliament deems speak this isn't unusual the international covenant on civil and political rights the European Convention on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms these things all accept that rights to freedom of speech and so on may need to be balanced against other rights and should be it's the way that this has taken place within Malaysia in particular the ethnic and religious sludge to those exceptions that is the cause for concern and so the draconian laws that I'm now going to quickly talk about in there in part repeal has to be understood in that context as well so draconian laws they are unjust disproportionately severe and arbitrary when Malaysians speak of the draconian laws they wish to see repealed they typically list the statutes for regulations that derogate from freedom of expression association assembly and due process apart from detention without trial and inter-security act which usually tops the list these include but are not limited to the sedition act used to restrict critical discussion of government policies and sensitive issues which is race and religion in particular and the monarchy the printing presses and publications act used to revoke the publication licenses of critical newspapers and books to ban books and to keep editors on leash the official secrets act used to punish whistleblowers the university and the university colleges act used to restrain student political activity on campus and off campus the police act which used to require permits for assemblies demonstrations the permits were often not given or revoked and the societies act which regulates political parties and non-government organisations making it difficult for them to govern themselves as well as emergency ordinances and so on what's objectionable about these laws in brief the penalties are harsh disproportionate access to justice is narrowed by so-called ouster clauses which mean that it's difficult to complain to the courts and finally the laws are arbitrarily enforced prosecutions or threats to prosecute are selective highly politicised and the laws have been historically wielded by the ruling coalition against opponents and critics in opposition political parties NGOs, student organisations, trade unions the legal profession in particular media as well as ordinary criminals many examples of that but I'm sure most of you know most of us I won't take you through them now last September as you know Prime Minister Najib announced on Malaysia Day that he would end the states of emergency that he did and repeal many of the most repressive laws what's he done so truly his word he's done this in part he has what he has arranged for the notification of the states of emergency in Malaysia as well as the state of emergency but Clive's scary story that he just told us there's the capacity for another declaration of emergency and the anti-subversion provisions in that as well as parliament to declare a need for harsh laws and to do it so quickly the law reform when I run out of time I'll just stop because there are so many pieces of legislation most importantly the first major piece of law reform was the peaceful assembly act of 2000 this was eagerly anticipated but when the peaceful assembly bill was tabled in parliament it was apparent to everybody that the new law was in very many ways worse than the provisions of the police act that it replaced it set up even a more restrictive set of provisions some of us call it the prevention of the assembly act but it's not that funny really when you see what happens to diversity supporters for example some of the restrictions only Malaysian citizens may now assemble legally in a public demonstration that means the two million foreign workers asylum seekers refugees cannot legally participate in any kind of public gathering they're simply precluded as are anyone under the age of 21 street protests are now prohibited previously they were permissible with the police permit but they are now prohibited and so on and so forth the police the police can still put conditions and we saw again I'm assuming you understand but the conditions can be observed and in any case the police capacity to overreact is still there and we know what that looks like okay there is no election law there was an election bill there was an election bill specifically withdrawn because it was apparent to everybody that had addressed none of the major grievances of the Bursan movement or anybody who paid attention to the systemic corruption and no administration of the electoral process for so long so that's in the waning but in some ways and I want to bridge it will agree with me this is the most important law reform of all if you can't actually determine in a fair and just way who your lawmakers are who sits in the legislature then bad laws are going to continue to be there so the Internal Security Act has been withdrawn it's been replaced by something which is a little bit better this is a line called it's called the Security Offences Special Measures Act like the statute it replaces the Internal Security Act the Sonsar recites that the law is necessary because Malaysia is quote threatened by a substantial body of persons who excites the affection and prejudice to public order now that's the key trigger to use the power in Article 149 of the Constitution it allows this law therefore to derogate from civil and political rights the good thing about this law is that in rolling periods of two years of detention without a trial have been abolished and that is a good thing and we should congratulate Prime Minister Najib for this but pre-trial so there were trials now not no trial and just detention for two years there will be a trial but first there is a period of investigative detention suspects can now have legal access to a lawyer but not as rapidly as people would like so the possibility that the police will coerce is still present but there must be a trial and that is a good thing however the rules of evidence are not what they should be I think everybody agrees civil liberties lawyers agree sensitive information can be sort of held in the trial defence is given on the summary of the evidence not the full case it's going to be very difficult for defence lawyers in the accused to not have a meaningful defence so that and the changes to the penal code which have brought in a new offence called the offence of acting conduct detrimental to parliamentary democracy these are the procedures around it all combined have created what civil liberties lawyer Malik Ntyasawa refers to as a kind of diabolical joke and he refers to this draconian looking at the provisions that's not really an overstatement at all okay very quickly the printing presses and publications act as something which concerns journalists anybody not the internet but anybody who purchase and publishes their books until recently the internet was reformed newspapers had to apply for an annual licence the licences were not always forthcoming they would be late therefore putting a pressing breach of the licensing provisions newspapers could be suspended by the minister and we know that opposition party organs and the mainstream press have been suspended at various times because they've done things that are critical editors are rung up by the minister and warned that the licence won't be renewed unless they spike certain stories or print stories that are more faithful to the press this is widely known now the annual licence has been replaced which is a good thing now once you apply for a licence you can hold it but until it's suspended so the minister still has the capacity to suspend newspaper publications also books can still be banned and we know what happened to the sisters in Islam book recently bizarre reasons that it was a feminist collection of academic papers is somehow prejudiced and national security the court overturned that ban rightly but it's time and expense and effort to go in court to fight this sort of thing the compressive to ban books on superior brands remains as does the clause about false news I'm sure that you all know Irene Fernandez the advocate of refugees rights and migrant worker rights was in court for tied up for 13 years in court because she spread false news the false news was what we know to be reasonably accurate a description of detention conditions in refugee camps so I'm not going to talk about this edition because I think if I wind up can I just conclude then by saying some of the draconian laws have been replaced by others which I think are equally problematic but in a more kind of flexible and difficult to see way so we'll require challenges in the courts to nuance those but there are other draconian laws which no one's even talking about one of them is faith rehabilitation Muslims who dissent from the official positions can be sent to faith rehabilitation camps for three years in the federal territories for six months that's detention when that trial will come from and also under the dangerous drugs act there's detention when that trial there are any number of other ways and migrants refugees are illegal migrants they can be detained so detention when that trial hasn't ended and my take home point is this even if the laws were framed better even if they were the best possible laws when prosecution is politicized in the way that it is when the police discretion is exercised in the violent way that it is when the press is still muscled as it will be even under the new printing presses and publications act when government agencies including the police are responsive to right-wing ethnic supremacist pressure groups as we know that they are then good wars will not be sufficient is the institutional political context the draconian mindset remains Thank you Dr Amanda Whiteing we will have plenty of time for a question and answer afterwards so please keep any questions that you may have for our speakers till afterwards next up we have Professor Harfield from the ANU and I will leave him to talk about his many books over the evening Thanks I wouldn't want to bore you with those books but thanks very much to the organisers Jessica and Greg for inviting me to speak like Amanda I think I've over prepared for my talk there is a power point with lots of tables and figures I guess economists feel naked without suggestions but I'll be naked I think and you can trust me I'm an economist so my talk draws this is a shameless fact draws on a book which has just come out I've had the pleasure of co-editing I'll thank you very much with Tom Su Yen and Regalia those are Hikmas National University in Malaysia and so I'm going to draw on some of the arguments in that book it's a book I enjoy doing mainly Malaysian authors as contributors I want to make I want to advance 5 propositions so 10 minutes 5 propositions 2 minutes per propositions I don't worry about the graphs we can come back to them if you like some of them are obvious some maybe not so obvious Malaysia is an obvious economic success story by any measure it's the capital income since independence has risen about 8 fold it's left behind all the comparison used to have at that time like Garner and Stringman and I think critics of the record in Malaysia don't actually recognize how good it has been and if you work on just one country you tend to lose sight of the fact that comparatively it is really very good now I'm going to look forward and look at the challenges and some of the challenges are pretty serious please don't lose sight of that first proposition it's a success story by any social indicators absolute poverty is more or less disappearing unless you're a migrant worker of course it handled the crisis 1997, 1998, 2008 pretty well Malaysia was the only country in 1997, 1998 not to go with the IMF that's an indication of the country's credibility and authority in economic management it's been recognized rightly in almost every major comparative study of growth success or as you know the miracle book of World Bank the growth commission, other things so the record is actually very impressive so here comes the challenges but please remember the first point Proposition 2 Malaysia's rarely been in the stellar East Asian group that is looking at East Asia comparatively since about 1960 the real standouts by decade of being Japan, the four NIS, China Malaysia hasn't normally considered that group of really outstanding performers also if you look at the frontier that is compared to the rich countries and how they've advanced Malaysia is catching up but not catching up as fast as it is by just looking at its growth rate now maybe that's unreasonable I mean the only countries which are in that group of catching up really are those NIS we thought Japan was but clearly it's not now China maybe so it's not in it's doing well but not in the stellar group Proposition 3 something is wrong with the investment environment if I have time to pick up one of my one of my slides this shows it to you something has happened if you look at the green blue line something has happened to investment in Malaysia since 1997-98 in other words it's been a real investment collapse part of the reason is not surprising you get a boom before 1997 and then you get a sort of bust out to which they get this investment decline but the trouble for Malaysia is it looks like it's a semi-permanent state of affairs in the sense that the decline in investment has been more serious in Malaysia than in most of the comparative countries so it's going to hold back growth it's the first proximate reason why Malaysia is growing a lot slower now than it did for the period through until about 1997 except for the crisis period in 1995-86 it's not a growth collapse by the way it's just a slow down but it is a significant slow down parts of the economy are doing very well my colleague Premah Chandra has got a nice paper on Penang and how Penang is holding up pretty well our former graduate Paul Chan will be talking at this university next week on the private education sector and that's doing pretty well lots of other things are doing quite well but Malaysia has slowed down it's a middle income trap primarily of the country's own making the middle income trap is not a generic condition that affix all middle and income countries it only happens if countries aren't quick enough to adjust the policy settings and so I think that's essentially the Malaysian story for the slow down in both growth and investment it's the failure to reform and keep up with the fast reforming countries in the neighbourhood and the political economy that seems to be very clear is it's related to the failure to address centrally the issue of the NEP and its successes and how that's restraining the reform agenda it's very clear if you read the NEM document there's a terrific reform agenda outline very clear and very persuasive from all accounts Prime Minister Najib also believes in it but the political economy seems to be constraining the government from adopting it so that's my proposition 3 I think there is a growth slow down in the middle income trap in general it's to do with the policy trap which is afflicting Malaysia's current political economy environment proposition 4 distribution equity no country talks more about equity than Malaysia and has been more consistent in a sense in implementing a coherent equity objective that is through the NEP and its successes and there are positives in that record I mean there has been this very sharp reduction in poverty comparatively and also over time there probably has been no increase in inequality some debate about that but certainly there hasn't been an increase of the form which has occurred for example in countries like China or Thailand or even even Indonesia recently and there certainly has been a narrowing a sharp narrowing in the gap between the average of the Ume Putra community and the China community so in that sense NEP's successes has been successful but surely the NEP has run its course it needs to be transformed into an anti-poverty programme a point eloquently made by Regaia and I co-edify in this book that it doesn't make sense to run an Affirmative Action programme when you're typing two thirds of the population not a very small minority and there seems to be also as you'd expect rising intra-Ume Putra inequality which is of course what you'd expect when you get this distribution of large S which in some ways is of course politically connected the strategy as part of that reform would clearly be to keep the good things that have been part of the NEP that is the commitment to education although some issues with the education sector the commitment to rural development and so on but then reform the bits which are being abused and clearly the bits which are being abused relate to the share allocations system and so on so that's long distribution it's a glazer to glass, half empty or half full as a matter of conjecture Proposition 5 it's an important point for the thinking about Malaysia's long term development dynamics and it draws on an excellent chapter in the book by Sir Ayesha Narayanan and Kamang is Malaysia's always been a fairly good macroeconomic manager in the sense that it's always been able to pull back and manage crises quite effectively that was evident in 1985-86 in 1997-98 and in 2008-9 but it now has a problem and the problem is essentially that quite large fiscal deficits that is government deficits running on public debt have become embedded in the system in both good times and in bad times so you want them in bad times that is when you've got a severe economic slowdown that makes sense to run a fiscal stimulus and run a deficit the trouble is that Malaysia has now been running continuous fiscal deficits since about 2000 since about 1998 since the Asian economic crisis in fact now there's no immediate crisis on the horizon Malaysia's public debt it's not Greek kind of devils and has its own exchange rate as well unlike Greece but it's becoming more serious and it's only domestically held like Japan actually Japan has very large debt public debt but it's held domestically so it's not yet at a crisis level but it's mounting a mounting steadily and in a way it does point to some of the broader issues to do with the budget free management system in the country for example the budget is riddled with subsidies about 20% of total revenue they're rather misdirected they're heavily dependent on declining petroleum revenue which is such an important part of the government's revenue base there's a large GLC government link sector very large actually but a sort of black box we don't know much about how it operates in terms of its efficiencies the objectives they don't seem to assert much in the way of national development objectives more broadly so within that fiscal system there are some issues there's also been a very rapid expansion of the civil service and they get points party to the education system reducing graduates which other ones have trouble in the labour market and there's of course extensive cost padding and institutional leakages in the contacting system so I think that that longer term fiscal public debt issue is going to be very important it's going to happen by the way at a time where as demographers remind us Malaysia is going through this period where the population is still quite youthful that is it has a several demographic bonus at the moment there's quite a serious issue for Malaysia within about a decade so there will be an aging issue to handle in addition to these other public debt and budget management issues so summing up how would I conclude point one don't lose sight of the big picture Malaysia is still an enviable success story there's lots to admire about the record in spite of the slowdown over the past 14 years a lot of other countries would actually like to have Malaysia's problems certainly positive about the country and it's economic management which you wouldn't want to change it's openness it's good monetary policy central bank but Nagaro a very credible institution it's fending on education infrastructure but to regain it's form of dynamism and to meet it's 2020 graduation targets there's going to have to be fairly major policy reform policy reform which is inherently difficult politically but not all that difficult to do on economic policy I mean other countries have done this sort of thing so it's not rocket science interesting question also just to leave you with is what now would be the obvious comparative country for Malaysia since we haven't got Ghana or Sweden anchor and the others in the mix anymore well probably the most relevant country now in fact the long term in the last 20 or 30 years has been Thailand Thailand and Malaysia sort of have very similar development trajectories of that development and they're both facing quite serious economic slow down both for political economy reasons but of course very different political economy reasons so it is part of the Malaysia Thailand story is part of south east Asia sort of losing it's economic last two of you and the success stories at the moment don't laugh are actually Indonesian and the Philippines thank you thank you very much for that speech and lastly we'll have Dr. Mazuki Mohammed who is the special officer to the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and so we'll be getting more of an internal view of Malaysia so thank you very much for coming all this way and thank you first of all I would like to thank you for inviting me to participate in this Malaysia's CMA course I'm very happy to see you all for supervisor this year today and well this event is very timely for Malaysia for two reasons number one the action is just around the corner secondly we just celebrated our 55 years of independence on the 31st of August so when I talk about today transformation in Malaysia that what transpired in Malaysia politically socially in the past 55 years before I do that I think I would like to respond quickly to what Professor Kassela said just now it's about past and unknown cooperation I think people have been talking about this for I think for ages after past left by Malaysia but in that it didn't materialize it never materialized normally when elections just around the corner people would just talk about this unknown past and unknown past but it never materialized now however if it ever materialized if it ever passed it would work with unknown and be in the government but my question is this past has been working with DAP past has been working with PKR past already government in Kedah past already government in Kelantan if you are okay with past working with PKR and DAP why are we so worried past working with Amno, MIC, MC, APP and all national component parties why I don't think that there will be major a blood change it's not that tomorrow there will be suddenly a theocratic republic of Islamic theocratic republic of Malaysia I don't think so past has been running in Kedah still conform to that democratic constitution the constitution is there past respect constitution I don't think past has been in Kedah I doubt it so that will be my response to professor Kedah but don't ask me that there will be past post electoral past this is very mysterious we even don't know even though we are in that black box black box is always mysterious but within that black box there are so many small boxes that are also mysterious comment on that but if that happen for me there is no reason for Australia to be worried things will be as it is there will be normalcy now come back to my topic of special day if you look back 55 years ago we can see that Malaysia today is totally different from Malaysia then for example in terms of education back then less than half of Malaysian population went to school or get formal schooling but now talk about primary enrollment is nearly universal level of 96% literacy rate for half of Malaysian population back then but now we talk about adult literacy is about 93% teenage literacy is 99% I don't know where that 1% goes but it's 99. percent and you talk about what he shows the graph just now compared to education of poverty for example and really pretty well during independence I mean less than half of Malaysian population live above the poverty line but now talk about poverty is less than 4% it is a great achievement and you look at politics yeah you look at 1955 you have Amanda just now talk about a lot of emergency laws emergency rules what not sedition act all these are the legacy of the British colonial colonial rule well at that time as we all know the threat of communist incidences well in terms of the ethnic relations the soul race this world called the possibility of ethnic conflicts and violence and more importantly the communist threat that the law was there I did my PhD thesis my topic is law and political control you say that law and control politics but now I think I doubt it I doubt that law can control politics right say for example now when the government decided to do away with what the district presidents act previously there is something wrong it is very difficult for the authority to prove it you just put that in a suspect of criminals put say for example in remote areas but today in Malaysia you go to Malaysia very hard to find remote areas connected with wifi they can even communicate with each other see do you think that law restricted residence act is the law to control in that case is a criminal activity but politics as well you say that 60 days detention under ASA can control politics I don't think so so partly because of this thinking on the part of the government when prime minister Najib took over the first statement he made was the day government knows back is over that means the government no longer monopolize wisdom the government no longer monopolize wisdom of course in the in the 60s in the 70s you have this strong government rapid growth kind of model you need a strong government the government take lead in the development process you have a state-led economic development you have to control labour you have to control student movement and you have all those laws but nowadays I would say that because of the the result of this social and economic progress that has been there over the past 55 years we find that relations now are more educated the middle class is expanding then you think you need a new way of managing the government and the society where these laws become exhausted already so when prime minister announced the abolition of bias a took it in place with a law that basically deals with a real threat to national security I mean we need that kind of there must be strike a balance between number one human rights and civil liberties but number two you also have to balance it with the need for to protect the citizens from all sorts of threat the need to maintain peace and security there must be a balance between two so if I say for example really controls politics you see for example today rule the country because of these munitions at its disposal the sooner you will find after I see it was not there the government will not be there the government is still still there now what does this changes I would say that the political social the economic changes that unfold within the society what is the real impact does it make to the way the government handles it I would say that the government has to be responsive to people's wishes and demands when you talk about government in relation now it's not only by the national government you have also state governments which are ruled by the opposition political parties at the federal level so when I say the government must be responsive it's not only by the national government but also the pakathans government slango keda impenay they also have to be transparent they also have to be more open they also have to take into consideration the various factors the various voices coming from the society and I give an example how this particular process of changes of the society that cause of citizens of the elite government to more or less change the way that it works last yesterday the prime minister launched the national education blueprint previously it could be that 20 or 30 over people would sit down and come up with a plan to be rolled out for the whole country we would think about two weeks, three weeks four weeks, seven months to do that blueprint master plan but in the process of coming up with this national education blueprint it involves national dynamics about thousands of people in those meetings giving their views about our education system and how did our education system should be in the future and all of this has to be taken into consideration I have not to mention hundreds of memorandums coming from organizations on the one hand you have Don Jauzon coming up with memorandums on the other hand you have Percasa coming up with their memorandums and giving their views about what our education system should be and the government is promised to be more responsive the government is promised to put people first of course we have to look at all these views coming up from the people from within the society so it changed the way the government it changed the way the policy is made it changed the way the politics is perceived by the people and by those in the government and I will say that this process this process has driven not only the society but also the government the democratic direction of course there are a lot more to be done the changes doesn't happen in one or two days but the process has started so with that I end my presentation and a lot more will come during the question session I guess thank you very much thank you very much I will now open the floor for questions we have half an hour for questions before we break for afternoon tea so I will ask everybody to just ask one question pick your best question and keep it succinct and if you can please direct it to a particular person in the panel yes so I would like to ask a question about panelists I have a question I would like to ask Dr. Matsuki when the election is going to be called why are you saying I don't know can the two cookies the thing up there? one of the things that I see about Malaysia is that we are unable to define like what is right and what is wrong and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the sense that the rules of the game is not set and it changes but beyond that also we are unable to establish facts who is correct in doing certain things and who is wrong and I just wonder is this normal like I would like to ask the experts whether the reforms the law reforms were protected something as simple as this and it goes beyond increasing political violence against opposition members so I'm just wondering is this an expected thing in as society evolves or is there a way to put a stop to this and the panel's views on this it's yours let me have a go at that by saying that perhaps another way of putting what you are saying is my fear for the future of constitutionalism in Malaysia and this is my getting ready to hand the baton on to Amanda what I mean by that is as follows that constitutionalism and the rule of law is a question of courts it's a question of having a public civic culture a culture of citizenship and a culture of dialogue or engagement of recognition of being being what worries me about one of the things that worries me about Malaysia at the moment is that not only that there is this absence of this public dialogue but all these different voices are being heard in Malaysia they are talking past one another and shouting at one another and basically impugning and repudiating and disvalidating morally abhorring one another that is not a national conversation to put this another way I see all sorts of important constitutional issues as not being decided by the courts not being decided by the public conversation that the courts may hear and respond to there are all sorts of things such as the meaning of the 1957 constitution and the Brodeka agreements at Katwana Malayaw that these are now decided on the street on a level on a street that is not a leveled surface where some people shout and are allowed to declare certain things to be the case other people are silenced and have police reports made against them for daring to demur and cumulatively what is announced in the streets what is made to prevail in the streets and I dare say with the encouragement of UMNO to whom the UMNO outsources and contracts this particular job so that the national leaders can stay take the high road a bit more the way those things are decided is on the basis of is on the basis of an absence of civil discussion and on the basis of intimidation and the basis of the fact that that the courts have lost their ability to declare and to be the authoritative voice of major constitutional issues with that I hand over to Amanda Thank you very much Clive and I are often in a heated agreement about most things so I'll just say yes but I'd like to say something slightly different in response which is I think with Dr. Mazuki and I are actually in a heated agreement about one point or something he said several times that law can't control politics now what I think, please correct me if I'm wrong but what I take you to mean is to endorse what Prime Minister Najib said when he said we're getting rid of the ISA and like it's of no use anymore we misused it in the past but we can't use it this way now we're getting rid of the restricted residents exactly because these people have all got cell phones we can't internally banish people we don't like or triads or whoever because they can all be in contact with each other anyway so technologically these laws are redundant all that means to me and that's the end of our agreement I think all that means to me is that we've got to find other laws that we can use politically I don't think he thinks laws control politics and I don't either I think these laws are highly political politics is driving the lawmaking and it's bad lawmaking I don't think laws can be made without politics I'm not that naive I think it's highly political the socialist realist of me thinks it's highly political but it's not a rational kind of politics and it's not a fair kind of politics and I don't think that there's been sufficient consultation in the legal transformation so I'm heartened when you say that this education revolution is going to involve many consultation papers and points of view that's so important for the future of your country which I also love that's fantastic I'm really pleased but the consultation for the laws that I described was very poor people I know who claim who say that we were consulted but we weren't we were rung up on the phone and told about the law the de facto law minister Nasri said we were drawing the election law because we didn't look at it the electoral commission wrote it brackets it's crap we're just he said cabinet is just the postman we just tabled this in parliament for discussion now that's not consultation that's not consultation Suhaq Khan National Human Rights Commission said they weren't shown any laws before they were tabled because they were shown the peaceful assembly bill and they said no this isn't fair this isn't right it doesn't conform to anything it's worse than the old law the government was offended so they can that they have not been sure now unless they lie they're not being sure there's no consultation in the lawmaking process until that gets better you can't even have a conversation about the rules of conversation that's what I think is going on can I come back to your question for a minute because I thought that's a really good question what's right or what's wrong it's a really simple question but what's the criteria that we bring to bear when we're looking at Malaysia what are the models, the paradigms what's a civilised discourse where you get your notions of a civilised discourse and judge the debates that go on within Malaysia so I think I mean the follow up question to that is the changing geopolitical context in which we're making these judgments is that relevant will the sort of criteria we've been using for quite some time continue to apply in the next decades so there are questions for us as analysts and not just judgments about Malaysia tough judgments that they've got to respond to only this quickly on the consultation process but it's not true that there's no consultation at all there are consultations but a different level of degrees of consultation you see, for example, education transformation involves about 15,000 people coming in the town halls all over the countries, different states there are people coming in through what are called focus group discussions and memorandums and whatnot so in the end there's about 50,000 people involved in the process and when the prime minister unveiled the blueprint yesterday the consultation process still ongoing it is just a preliminary report where people can see what is there and they can give their feedback whether they think it is good or not this is just a whole process of what I said just a different way that the government works the government has to be responsive to the people engage to the people our experience, the government is there when you start engaging early then you can reduce the problem later when there is no engagement then you put the policy there and there will be some in Malaysia they call it Rumah Siap Tuku Masih Berbun Bahat Masih Berbun you got a policy there but you still hear voices what are called this unhappy with that policy but it is a new way of doing things we go to the people and see what the people want and we come up with the policy so and on Greg's question I think there are differences of views in the society of course the society is very diverse I think in the socio-legal context you talk about legal meanings what you think is right must not be perceived as right by others this is quite natural in the society but when it comes to a democratic government or a democratic society or system now you have to go to the process if the majority think that this is right then it becomes law it becomes policy so let's not be judgmental at the very beginning you have to go to the process and of course when you talk about the government constitution as the guiding principles whatever you do must not be contrary to the principles of the constitution the spirit the intent and the letter of the constitution and even if the parliament do something which is construed as not in line with the constitution you still have the call let's say for example the ISA obviously judicial review judicial review is only for our own procedural matters but with the new ISA you can bring haber scoppers and you can also the detainee can also bring to the court to review not only the procedural matters but also the substantive matters of the detention so I think this is a great what you call this great change and what more I talk to some those who work on this and what they say this is a great test of power because the government has the power and you want to do away with the power and this is a great thing people who doesn't have the power they can talk about sun, moon and stars but they can't do anything but the Barsat national government have the power but say we don't need this this law anymore so for me I look at it from a positive perspective probably this glass whether it is half full or half empty I would like to say it's half full for almost full of this glass of course very empty so this is just a process we'll talk about transformation it just happens in a in fact a case of independence so for me it is a great achievement that's the question in the middle here let me read in your presentation you hinted that Malaysia's international borders might be subject to change in the foreseeable future was that a serious suggestion and if so in what circumstances do you think those changes might take place I don't think I said that clearly at all I said that I thought the nation building we couldn't assume was actually done with I think what's going on with Singapore is very interesting isn't it the Iskander I don't know if anybody here knows more about the Iskander project than I do but I suspect that it's really very interesting just as the Singapore relations with Bataan etc is interesting for all the talk about the preoccupation with sovereignty in Southeast Asia and how that holds up Asia and stops developing well it's one level there's a relaxed view of sovereignty isn't there that Indonesia is accepting Singapore currency the islands of Indonesia the growth triangles seem to me to be an interesting development which again haven't had so much analysis in some ways I just would not take for granted that we have these units they're all firmly in place I also think it's quite interesting the role of the cities and the regional centres in the region interesting to see how that develops too Southeast Asia not so much by territorial borders but happens looking ahead by some great and spectacular cities with the regular people movement around this I don't mean that we draw the borders necessarily but in real life the borders are redrawn that's enough of an answer he reversed the exemplary centre model well it's a bit around isn't it Singapore clearly likes it see that spot one in Syria and then three Tony you were politics in Malaysia aroused this sort of passion I might associate with football in Australia I think it's actually probably a pretty good analogy because the role of football supporters is to be a supporter and the role of the ruckus is to be a supporter and there is this what I'm alluding to is there is this very personal sort of form of allegiance that permits all of politics in Malaysia the political dynasties of course prime ministers often being related to each other and that sort of thing also I remembered we heard a list of five state governments that are held by the opposition at the moment there was a fifth and it fell by defections and other splits in unknown have been handled by defections and re-defections and there was speculation that opposition Barasan parties might defect to Anwar at one point this raises a lot of questions you can ask about that the simplest one is is this not another scenario of post election an alternative post election scenario with what we're facing in the next 12 months could there indeed be a fall of the government only to see victory snatched through defections buying off and the electorate intend to just keep following their personal affiliation their personal loyalties rather than actually making political judgments which is actually a reflection on the maturity of the polity which is two questions there's probably more to it probably azugian it is what you say is what's striking about that is that the democracy in that scenario ceases to be important as the politics the politicking but the politicking that follows could be a critical thing and we saw a little bit of that in Australia last federal election but it's much more active by everything in Malaysia and I think it's a simple point for all the problems of democracy there it really is striking the passion with which politics is talked about but not just the passion it's just constantly talked about and that factionism that patronage systems your real question I think comes to what might happen after the election it should to climate said more about that scenario what do you think of that well I long ago commented that for all the literature in Malaysia on leadership what was really important was followership but followers made leaders and not the other people jump out and say I am your leader generally don't become leaders what do you think about a situation following the election where in fact you have the sorts of leaders that went on in Pera so in a way the both matters much less than the politicking the politics if the old permanent governing team finds itself in a precarious position and it has that option to consolidate itself it will but it has been quite clear that what happened in Pera was not defections it was a John Kerr situation where the the elected prime minister rightly or wrongly under the constitutional principles that were believed to hold I may wish to test my numbers on the floor but I am not confident that I wish to exercise my prerogative to put the issue back to the people and was denied that opportunity was the difference that Kerr held an election straight after this Kerr put in a Kerr put in a Kerr take a government to do just that under transform conditions the point was that Kerr acted we won't talk about my form of chance Kerr acted exerting royal powers that the Queen herself would not exist whereas to come back to your point was that the Sultan of Pera insisted on the even though as a Lord President he'd been an exemplary constitutionalist as a king he was an exemplary divine like monarchist who then said there is more to the constitutional role of the monarch than the constitution says and took it upon himself to act in that way there were defections weren't there there were defections a defection is in the context where somebody declares their position on the floor of the house today there are constant rumors about more defections the point is that if if there isn't my view is that if there is a serious risk to the old permanent national management governing team then or as Amanda and others have put out whatever Malaysia may not have great experience at whatever unknown being may not be good at learning how to declare and run and manage an emergency that are very very good they've done it they know how to do it everything is already it's already there the house is already there and if it comes to that there is a group of people within the core national political directorate the party the civil service the judiciary the police and the army who have signaled this who will be prepared to exercise force major but if that extreme is not necessary if the reconciliation of the of the old regime can be done through the procuring of defections then it will obviously be done that way that seems to me to be to be not problematic in any way getting back to yes I agree with you I said also pattern leadership I said long ago Malaysia not only has as every place a political culture but Malay political culture is intensely and inherently political other cultures are preoccupied with purity or pollution or sanctity Malay culture is itself inherently political and this is part of why politics is so unforgiving and unrelenting and why people in principle can say yes you have your view and I have mine but then in the end it says but I have the power to make my view prevail and you do not have the numbers and after in the end democracy is not the right to replace the tyranny of the majority as top we'll put it with the tyranny of the majority democracy a process through which the rights the concerns the constitutional departments and the of the minority can be assured under the conditions of majority rule now again as Marazuki says there's been plenty of consultation but the consultation of the government with the right is not the only thing when people want to have a consultation about the meaning of article 11 of the constitution among themselves all about what the history of the concept of social contract is and people government supporters sanctioned with government allowed to do so by the government shut down those kinds of conversations then that is that is again not a situation in which you can claim that full public consultation has occurred that is the concern that some of us would have it is not simply that the government will be prepared to listen and consult on its own terms and getting back to another point Tony made yes the government claims to listen to the right at another context very clearly they claim to be serving very clearly in 1982 following the election you went and you saw you know it was the era of two in optimism and there were all the pictures of Mahathir Pumbela Raiat and in the west coast that and the posters on the east coast looked different red different and the Raiat was not the people the Raiat was the Malay Raiat it appeared ambiguity in the meaning of the term Raiat the way that's played out politically is essential is critical to the whole political process in Malaysia that's systematic ambiguity sorry but Marzuki you want to answer that this is very quickly to what Professor Kassel said just now it is more complex than that it's just not numbers when you are the majority race you've got a majority number in parliament it's not what you want it's not just as simple as that I'll just give an example even though that the Chinese is a I won't say minority it's a very large number of Chinese and Indians in the country you look at the Chinese education for example the government spent about 2.4 billion specifically for the SGKCs the Chinese primary schools you should say that numbers determine everything it's like zero sum game politics is about who gets what when and how the Malays will get everything because I'm no god number in parliament the government doesn't listen always to Pekasa even now I would say that the term Malay dominance is a bit outdated because in the process of consultation you consult way from Dong Jiao Zong to Pekasa and in between there are a lot of other social non-government organizations individuals that have a say in policy making so in the end when you come up with certain policy you neither listen to Dong Zong nor listen to Pekasa because you have to come up with a reasonable right? so numbers alone doesn't make the government having absolute power and absolute what about this choice to do what the government likes for me it is more complicated it is more complex than what Professor Kessler trying to so I think we need to look at the Malaysian politics more closely to to make what are called more sensible and reasonable judgment of what's going on in the country as someone involved in the policy making the process of policy making I know the intricacies I'm not saying that I know everything but the process is not as easy as as you know we portray it to be and I would say that I know that doesn't always have its own way on doing things, still have to consult MCA still have to consult MIC still have to consult TPP in coming up with what are called this, whatever decisions that the British National Government want to do and I'm sure on the other side of the political fence also the same so this is my quick response to what you said just now we might have a final quick question from Frigid Busch I wanted to ask you a question about there were two things that I thought were noticeable missing in your discussion one was the issue of corruption and the second issue was the issue of the populist measures you kind of were back-handed talking about the debt but the kind of, we've seen in the last two years a regional trend a lot of populist initiatives but particularly Malaysia as we've had election primers and budgets in the last two years and I wanted to ask you what these things were part of the challenges and in a sense I also wanted to kind of draw your attention to a very important and I think quite a serious report that's come out in the last couple of months by the Household Survey in 2009 which really shows the inequalities and why they're sharply which I think is a little bit different in your presentation and I think it's a very good report Well, thanks Frigid I'm not a Malaysia specialist but I'll quickly to answer this kind of question On the corruption issue I guess what's new is I suppose the question I have I mean if you look at these comparative rankings of transparency, international the world government's indicators I suppose Malaysia's about where you'd expected to be that is, you know, it's not bad it's about where it's per capita income in fact so I guess what's the new angle in particular which is interesting I mean if you were to stand back and think about Malaysia and corruption what would you think of the parameters which are important I suppose I'd say for a start it's a very open economy so that reduces the scope for corruption as compared to a closed economy then I'd say you had one party dominant rule forever and so therefore you've got much greater chance of no political turnover and you've got a media which I suppose is somewhat controlled and therefore checks and balances in the legal system so I'm just not sure what's the new angle which is relevant and so I don't have any to comment on On the populist measure, well I think that's part of the budget issue I learned it, I mean I only had 10 minutes very quickly but I think the budget there is a serious problem with Malaysia's budget not crisis but as I mentioned there are these embedded deficits which just occur all the time in times of economic prosperity and times of crises so I don't see anything really new in that other than the fact that it has been on the economic agenda since 1998 and doesn't seem as though to get rid of the problems I guess the contracting system has basically been embedded in Malaysia's political economy since 1971 or earlier so there's nothing really new there the GLCs as an outsider sort of worry me because they're so large and they're sort of everywhere and they don't seem to be subject to sort of the checks I mean as I understand in the new competition law the GLCs are really outsider so yeah but is there something specific on the populace I mean you know in electoral cycles they come and go you wouldn't be surprised by but is there something particular is it a trend that you mean I think there are two trends that are important one is the actual amount of money that is being spent which is really very very high and unprecedented in terms of the handouts that are going down the second is the way they're being spent there actually a lot of it is not going it's being spent first going to parliament second for approval and going through the prime minister's office where there's very little transparency and how the process is actually being doled out so I think that it is actually there have been quite changes, significant changes in governance and management of the finances which I think are new which exacerbate the issues of debt which you mentioned and that's a big challenge well one striking feature of Malaysia just thinking comparatively we know for example infrastructure is really good comparatively and we know that infrastructures everywhere Australia of course included is a corruption prone activity so you know building roads with lots of corruption I guess standing back what's the cost benefit of course you wouldn't want the corruption because with it but you do want the infrastructure and you think of say neighboring Indonesia where you get the corruption but you don't even get the infrastructure to the extent that a lot of these things are infrastructure related which I suspect they probably are at least I guess Malaysia gets the infrastructure I'd like to know I think you've got to sit down I mean I'd sit down with a project by project and together I mean you're talking federal not state I suppose actually in Malaysia's case so the main point I guess is Malaysia as I said has this sort of looming fiscal problem not a crisis but a problem that's consistent that sort of behaviour thank you very much and I think we will have to wrap it up there however please have any more questions that you have you may be able to ask our panelists in the break we will now have a break for afternoon tea before we start our Singapore session however I'd like you to involve you to come back at four o'clock for the Singapore session at three at three o'clock sorry it's not that late and also again tonight at 7.30pm at Bruce Hall we'll be having a combined forum entitled Malaysia and Singapore models for the Asian century as coordinator of the Asia Pacific Learning Community and tonight's event I'll employ you to come along to that and you'll be able to see some of our panelists together debating the comparative view of these two countries that we're looking at in today's update forum thank you very much everybody thank you to our speakers today and thank you to the people that have put so much work into organising and funding this so thank you