ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO THE CHAIR

The Leader of the House (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Speaker, Sir, on behalf of Members, I would like to thank you for chairing the Committee of Supply and also the Budget debate during the last 11 days. We have also extended our sitting hours, starting from 11.00 am, so that we can start earlier to deal with the 707 amendments, a record, that were moved in the Committee of Supply. Of these, about 9% was taken up by one Member. As a result of this, you have strictly applied the guillotine. I think some Members felt that they did not get the full answers or did not have enough time to expand on their points. Maybe I can dispense this piece of advice, ie, please do not wait until the Committee of Supply to ask all these questions. Make full use of the Question Time and during the Committee of Supply to make as many points as they want, but in a succinct and precise manner to get information that they do not normally get at other times.

If Members also do not have time to raise questions despite one-and-a-half hours of Question Time, as we have many Questions and therefore not all Questions can be answered on the same day, please feel free to move a motion. Members have all the time to make their points during the debate on the motion. If they think that one hour is too long for the motion, maybe they can move a motion of adjournment. I am sure some of us will stay behind to listen to them!

To avoid the need to be guillotined, please bear that in mind. Make full use of Question Time, motions and adjournment motions, or even at other times, to ask questions, not necessarily in this House. But if Members want to have an answer and they want to make a statement, by all means, they can also make their statement to the press without having to come to this Chamber.

On that note, Sir, I beg to move,

That Parliament do now adjourn to a date to be fixed.

Mr Speaker: Hon. Members, we live in difficult times. The economy is glum. The war has broken out in Iraq. But from my vantage position here, I could sense the gloom and anxiety in hon. Members' speeches about the state of the world and how we are affected by our regional and global economic and political conditions. But amidst the gloom and doom, I also sense a resolve among hon. Members, a gritting of the teeth, as it were, in not wanting to allow the challenges facing us overwhelm our spirit and kill our aspirations and hopes. We talked about a "wow" city, London of the East, changes in mindset. Mr Lim Swee Say even had time to hold a conversation with Mr NEWater!

We have had a gruelling session over the past two weeks. Most Members have done well in this debate, both in content and in the earnestness of their speeches. I would like to congratulate them. I especially thank those Members who gave their cooperation by keeping their speeches to within a reasonable length. I apologise profusely to those Members whose speeches I have had to guillotine, although my staff tell me that there is, in fact, a lower proportion of such speeches this year. This is of some comfort to me, hon. Members, for now I can go back to being my soft-spoken, gentle and likeable self again!

Still, being an eternal optimist and an incorrigible believer in the power of life-long learning, I hope to hear fewer long speeches next year or, preferably, none at all. I therefore look forward to an even better Budget debate in 2004. If I may borrow a phrase from Mr Khaw Boon Wan, "For us, good is not good enough."

So, let me end by thanking my Deputy Speakers, the Leader of the House and the Whip, and their deputies, and the Parliament staff for their assistance and guidance. Until the next Budget sitting, good day and thank you. [Applause].