You Might Soon Be Able To Watch Parliament Live & See How Jamus Lim Performs

You’ve never had many aspirations for politics because half the time, you don’t know what’s going on.

Unless it’s time for GST Voucher, that’s when you’re most on the ball.

Then, GE2020 came and for the first time, you had no rallies to distract you, no friends willing to call you out and no school to go to.

One evening, you sat down expecting to see a rerun of VR Man and you realise your mom has the TV set to this channel, and you came across this handsome oppa talking.

“You warm the cockles of my heart.”

And from then on, you were hooked.

Not to Jamus Lim, of course, but to the blistering live-action happening right in front of your eyes.

For the first time, you understood what is a free rider even though your economics teacher has given up on you after trying to tell you about it forty-six times.

And why minimum wage isn’t just a fancy way of telling someone, “You’ve got a lousy job, time to job-hop.”

If you were wondering if this will be the last time you see of such debates until GE2024/5 comes around, I’ve got some news for you:

It might not be.

S’pore Government Agrees In Principle To Live Stream Parliament Sittings

On 4 Sep 2020, the Minister for Communications and Information S. Iswaran said that the Singapore government has agreed in principle to live stream parliament sittings to the masses

If you’re wondering what’s the in principle thingy is all about, he’s basically saying that the government agrees to the idea of live streaming parliament sittings.

Details haven’t been worked out yet and it’s not a confirmed thing.

It’s like your friend coming to tell you, “I agree, in principle, to help you earn $500.”

But if it involves him stealing from his mom, he’ll probably go, “I’ve got a better idea. I’ll report you for theft so you can go to jail and save on 3 months of food and lodging, which amounts to about $500.”

Yeah, it’s a no go.

Mr Iswaran said that his ministry will work out the details on how to make the live-stream possible.

Government Still Leery Of Live-Streaming

It was added by the minister that while the Singapore Government still have reservations about live-streaming parliament sittings, “global and technological trends” have made it commonplace.

However, he cautioned, a parliament is a place for serious debates on national issues.

While there might be some “cut and thrust” between MPs, the tone must be kept sober, and MPs must focus on the issues at hand instead of trying to showboat to an audience.

He ended off with saying that the government hopes to achieve “transparency, accountability and accessibility” while maintaining the “dignity” of the parliament.

In 2017, when the issue of broadcasting parliament sittings live were brought up, the Singapore government had said, then, that there was no great demand for such services as people don’t usually watch them live.

Workers’ Party Non-constituency MP Leon Perera, however, said that demand might pick up if such a service was to be available.

Well, all I can say is, if the past few days is an indication of what future parliament sittings will be like, there’ll be a demand, for sure.