Do you know how your MP votes?

The short answer is : No.

Do you know why no media outlet ever tells you the margin each bill passed by? For example, how many MPs actually opposed the Budget?

The reason is that the voting record for each bill is not on the official Singapore Parliament Reports.

Instead, this is what they record (in summarised form) when a bill passes:

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill.

Bill considered in Committee.

Bill reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.

The only indication we get on whether a MP supports or opposes a bill is from his public statements or his comments during parliamentary debate (which do get recorded).

Now, I’m not a lawyer or an expert in the workings of Parliament. Perhaps there are other ways to obtain the voting record of an MP.

But, compared to other countries like the UK and Canada, where voting records are freely available for others to compile and compare, I can say that it is exceedingly difficult to do so in Singapore.

And that is one of the most harmful things that undermine confidence in our government.

Afterall, what is the point of electing MPs when we have absolutely no idea how they would vote?

I know that this is a rather unsexy issue compared to the more emotive topics of immigration and housing prices. However, we cannot and should not expect our MPs to address our issues fully if they are only held accountable during elections.

When we say we live in a representative democracy, what do we really mean? We mean a place where your MP cares , serves and believes in your interests. Yet the status quo means we have no way to

Previously, I said that the gravest threat facing our nation is letting others do our thinking for us. It is time for us to start thinking about what sort of government do we really want.