AMENDMENT OF STANDING ORDERS

The Leader of the House (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move,

"That this Parliament resolves that the amendments set out in Appendix I to the Report of the Standing Orders Committee contained in Paper Parl. 2 of 1992 be and are hereby made to the Standing Orders of Parliament."

Sir, under your Chairmanship, the Standing Orders Committee has proposed amendments to the Standing Orders. These amendments can roughly be divided into three categories.

One, amendments consequent upon the changes to the Constitution which provided for an Elected President. Amendments 1 to 8 of the Report refer to these. There is no need for me to go into the details as the "Remarks" paragraphs in each of the amendments gave the reasons for the amendments.

The second set of amendments (9 to 14) relates to the times stated in the Standing Orders. The amendments are to regularise the present situation. Again, there is no need for me to elaborate on them.

The third category of amendments (15 to 25) are to streamline certain Standing Orders and facilitate the conduct of business. Again, explanations are given for each of the proposed amendments and there is no need for me to explain further except for two of them, namely, Amendment No. 17 (Oath of Allegiance) and Amendment No. 19 (Procedure on Divisions). Both these amendments are to facilitate the conduct of business and improve the efficiency of the House.

As Members know, at the beginning of every Parliament, each of us has to take the Oath of Allegiance individually. The whole process took up some time. We therefore made a study of how other Members of Parliament and American Congressional Members are sworn-in. We found that in the case of Australia, the MPs are sworn-in in groups of 10 to 12 while in New Zealand the MPs take their oaths in groups of up to four each time. In the case of America, Members of the House of Representatives take their oath en masse, that means, all together at the same time. For example, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would administer the Oath in the form of a question as follows, and I quote:

'Do you solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter. So help you God?'

Then the members would just respond en masse, in the first person, singular, by saying, "I do", without even stating their names.

In the Senate, the Senators are also sworn-in in groups of 3 to 6 each time.

We should therefore improve on our present method of taking our Oath of Allegiance, hence the proposed amendment. I believe Mr Speaker would work out something for our next Parliament's swearing-in ceremony.

As regards the procedure on divisions, the present procedure is to call out individually the names of Members in alphabetical order. Again, this takes up some time of the House whenever a division is necessary. Amendment 19 therefore enables us to take the votes upon a division in a more efficient manner, either by voting slips or other means, or by electronic voting when we build our new Parliament chamber.

I therefore commend Members here to adopt the Report of the Standing Orders Committee.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this Parliament resolves that the amendments set out in Appendix I to the Report of the Standing Orders Committee contained in Paper Parl. 2 of 1992 be and are hereby made to the Standing Orders of Parliament.