PKR vice-president and Padang Serai MP N Surendran has been slapped with a six-month suspension from Parliament.

Meanwhile, PKR deputy president and Gombak MP Azmin Ali was ejected from the House during a heated altercation when the motion to suspend Surendran was tabled.

Pakatan Rakyat MPs chanted "rubber stamp" loudly in protest towards the end, echoing Surendran's accusation about Parliament being a rubber stamp, which is one of the reasons the motion to suspend him was moved.

A visibly agitated Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim later told reporters, "It’s official. Parliament is indeed a rubber stamp."

Minister in charge of parliamentary affairs Shahidan Kassim read out the motion against Surendran, who irked the government with his statement at a press conference on Monday.

Azmin was ejected for refusing to apologise to a deputy minister after accusing the latter of having "an ugly attitude".

Azmin was having a lengthy altercation with Deputy Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries Minister Tajudin Abdul Rahman, who was heckling the opposition bench.

“Already a minister, but the attitude is still ugly,” he chimed.

Tajudin, in return, called Azmin a “liar”. While Tajudin retracted his remarks upon orders by deputy speaker Ronald Kiandee, Azmin refused to do so and was told to leave the House.

This was preceded by a lengthy argument in which opposition members questioned the validity of the motion, especially Hanipa Maidin (PAS-Sepang).

Ronald insisted that the motion was valid and of public interest, and thus called for a debate to take place.

Shouting matches boil over

A debate never took place as the following 30 minutes were dominated by shouting matches which finally boiled over when Azmin was ejected from the House.

At this point, all the Pakatan MPs stood up and chanted “rubber stamp” in unison.

Ronald proceeded to put the motion to a vote as the debate wasn’t taking place, and in the midst of noise, declared the motion passed even though the voice vote was hardly audible.

Anwar led the charge as all Pakatan MPs left the House in droves at 12.50pm, 10 minutes before the Parliament was set to adjourn.

Surendran, meanwhile, said that he would continue to fight for parliamentary conventions and that the second consecutive suspension would not deter him.

Ruckus adjourns Parliament

 

Following the commotion, Kiandee decided to adjourn the second meeting of the second session of the 13th Parliament that began on June 16 to a date which would be fixed later.      

The decision was made after Shahidan made the motion to postpone the meeting according to Standing Order 16(3), reported Bernama .      

 

Earlier, the second reading of the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (Amendment) Bill 2014, scheduled for today, was postponed to the next sitting.   

 

During the eight-day sitting, five bills were tabled and debated, namely the Supplementary Supply (2014) Bill 2014, Private Higher Education Institutions (Amendment) Bill 2014, Promotion of Investments (Amendment) Bill 2014, Price Control and Anti-Profiteering (Amendment) Bill 2014, and the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (Amendment) Bill 2014.      

The second reading of the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (Amendment) Bill 2014 was also postponed to the next sitting.   

Earlier, Kiandee, on behalf of Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, thanked the members of Parliament for their cooperation during the sitting.

'Dr M also called Parliament rubber stamp'