by Augustine Low
Let’s call a spade a spade – when Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin said “f**king populist,” it was not simply unparliamentary language, it was an expletive, an F-bomb.
An expletive is a swear word. Some call it obscenity, vulgarity or profanity.
In recent memory, what comes closest to it in the Singapore Parliament is a notorious incident in 1995.
Singapore Democratic Party Member of Parliament, the late Ling How Doong, said “don’t talk cock” in the midst of a Parliamentary debate.
He was responding to something his fellow opposition MP Chiam See Tong had whispered in his ear.
For uttering those infamous three words, Ling was formally censured by Parliament.
Will the Speaker of Parliament get hauled up for his expletive?
It could be argued that coming from the Speaker, the F-bomb is worse than an MP saying “don’t talk cock.”
The Speaker is supposed to enforce the orderly conduct of parliamentary business. So when the Speaker himself is out of order, how is he expected to maintain order?
We might also consider the Speaker a referee, one who has to be neutral and impartial to do his job properly and professionally.
In the case of Tan Chuan-Jin, he has often shown himself to be a referee kayu – the Singlish chant to scold a referee for making biased decisions.
However, this time around, he went way beyond being referee kayu – he was verbally offensive to a player.
Have you heard of a referee throwing an F-bomb at a player? This should earn the referee a straight red card, making him unfit for the role.
The Speaker made a lame and somewhat ludicrous attempt at justification when he said he was muttering to himself his “private thoughts.”
Private thoughts remain private thoughts. If private thoughts can be heard, how can they still be called private thoughts?
The very least the Speaker of Parliament deserves is to be formally censured by Parliament.
But the more appropriate thing to do would be to give him the red card – he needs to be banished from the Speaker’s chair.
The ball is in the court of Leader of the House Indranee Rajah.
