Inflexible party discipline prohibiting support of any opposition's motion, no matter how cogent or sensible, is an untenable and indefensible policy, if one's objective is to promote a first-class mentality and parliament as expressed by the prime minister.

I would submit that a first-class parliament has to be one in which bipartisan issues of importance determining the nation's destiny may at least be debated, evaluated, and voted upon on their merits rather than have their outcome determined by whimsical turns of events and luck as to which side beats the other to raise the motion first.

The motion raised last week by the opposition for the reference to the Committee of Rights and Privileges a media report of an MP requesting Customs officers to 'close one eye' to illegal timber is a matter of national importance as it pertains to the integrity of Parliament, an important institution. If our civil service were to follow the prime minister's call for integrity, then the higher-up role models, the parliamentarians, should first do right by example .

But for the higher integrity and caliber of parliament, what other reason is there for the prime minister to allow expressions of dissenting voices even by his own party members as evinced by some who openly dissented against the PM's commitment to the implementation of Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC)?

The PM's motive is to raise the quality of parliamentary debate and it is incongruous that BN MPs can dissent with their own president's position on IPCMC without penalties and yet are constrained under the pain of the Whip not to support an opposition's motion consistent with their own president's call for integrity and accountability of parliament.

The fact that our parliamentarians are unable to recognise the absurdity of such a consequence of applying the Whip inflexibly is a clear reflection of their inflexible mindset of being unable to distinguish the coffee from its froth and that does not augur well for whatever good intentions the PM has in raising the caliber of parliament to a higher notch.

Besides, the MP for Jasin had himself gone on record to say that he was not in the House when the privilege motion was raised last Thursday by Lim Kit Siang as otherwise, 'I might have supported the motion,' he said. He had also issued the challenge, 'Investigate me, by all means'.

This simply implies that even if one falls back on a narrow partisan position to justify the party whip on grounds of protecting one's own flock from an attack by the opposition, this excuse is of no more effect when one's own member readily submits himself to be investigated by the Rights and Privileges Committee!

Having not even this excuse of protecting one of their own for party's interest, they are left to face only one conclusion for rigidly persisting to uphold their party directive not to support opposition motions - a mindless and blind following, characteristic of sheep.