Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,
First and foremost, I wish to extend my sincere sympathy and heartfelt condolences to The Right Honourable Premier of Sarawak on the passing of his beloved wife, Puan Sri Datuk Amar Juma\u2019ani Tuanku Bujang. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this time of profound sorrow. May her soul rest in eternal peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,
Thank you for the opportunity to debate this important Bill tabled by member for N. 15 Asajaya, Minister for Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts, and Minister for Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development.
I rise in full support of the Dewan Undangan Negeri Composition of Membership Bill 2025 to increase the number of elected members in this August House from 82 to 99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under Article 113(2) of the Federal Constitution, a delineation exercise may be conducted once every eight years \u2014 and Sarawak is now eligible, as our last exercise was completed in 2015. This Bill provides the legal foundation for the Election Commission to begin that important process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the largest expansion in Sarawak\u2019s legislative history \u2014 a 20% increase in representation \u2014 and it comes at the right time, reflecting the steady growth of our population, the pace of development, and the evolving needs of our people across the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Bill, made under Article 14(1)(b) of the Sarawak Constitution, empowers this Legislature to determine the number of elected members by law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 14(2) sets the number at 48 as the default \u2014 unless changed by law. And we have changed it many times, most recently in 2015, when we increased it to 82.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, we continue that same constitutional process. This Bill does not require an amendment to the Sarawak Constitution. We are simply updating the DUN (Composition of Membership) Ordinance 2014 [Chapter 70], as we have done before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Bill matters because it reflects real, on-the-ground changes:
\u2022 A steady increase in electors,
\u2022 The emergence of new semi-urban and remote communities,
\u2022 And rising public expectations for stronger, more accessible representation and service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,
\u2022 In PRN 2011, Sarawak had 979,796 registered voters.
\u2022 In PRN 2016, after adding 11 new seats, the number rose to 1,138,650.
\u2022 By PRN 2021, it reached 1,252,014.
\u2022 With the implementation of automatic voter registration (gazetted 17 January 2022), the electoral roll surged to 1,927,750.
\u2022 And as of the most recent gazette on 21 May 2025, Sarawak now has 2,015,859 registered voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a more than 100% increase of registered voters in just over a decade \u2014 and yet, the number of seats in this Assembly has remained unchanged since 2014. It is clearly time for an update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,
It is extremely disappointing to observe that Honourable Members for Pending and Padungan do not support this Bill and oppose the proposed increase in seats. This is astounding.
It appears that Pending and Padungan do not want Sarawak and Sabah to have \u2153 representation in parliament in accordance to MA63. Member for Padungan says he supports increasing Sarawak\u2019s parliamentary seats \u2014 yet he refuses to support increasing state seats right here in Sarawak.
How can we achieve demand for more representation in Parliament, if we won\u2019t even increase seat representation in our own DUN? To quote member for Bawang Assan, there is no such thing as one state seat for one parliament seat.
Once again, we see the typical double standard from DAP. Their arguments are not only inconsistent \u2014 they are fundamentally flawed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia and Canada<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Member for Padungan\u2019s comparisons to Australia and Canada completely miss the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia and Canada don\u2019t have MA63. They don\u2019t have the situation of Sarawak and Sabah. Australia and Canada are entirely different from Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sarawak is not just another state \u2014 we are a founding partner in the Malaysian federation bound by the Malaysia Agreement 1963. That agreement promised equal partnership and fair representation, not permanent underrepresentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More seats mean better service delivery, faster response to community needs, and more local voices in law-making \u2014 not just more politicians. We\u2019re not copying Canada or Australia; we\u2019re responding to Sarawak\u2019s unique needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Sarawak, many rural constituencies are the size of small states in Malaya, with poor road access, scattered longhouses, and limited telecommunications. One ADUN is expected to cover vast terrains, multiple languages, and serious development gaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If member for Padungan truly believes in serving people well, he should support what helps Sarawakians most \u2014 not cite foreign models to block local solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Member for Pending talk about more development, more facilities but objected to more seats for sarawak. For the information of member of Pending, Sarawak under our YAB Premier today has built more than 16 major bridges and hundreds of kilometres of roads costing billions of ringgit despite curtailment of major allocations by PKR when they rose to power. Most corners of Sarawak now has water and electricity supplies since GPS formed the backbone of this government. GPS has managed to tax Petronas bringing in the biggest income to sarawak compared to the rest of Malaysia while the promises made by member of Padungan to return 20% oil royalty and 50% of all taxes collected, the return of autonomy on health and education to Sarawak is still a joke and a big lie. GPS under YAB Premier has been pouring billions into our rural consituencies to bring about progress and development to all corners of Sarawak. It is therefore imperative for Sarawak to increase our Numbers of ADUNS to serve the vast areas of Sarawak and most importantly, to achieve \u2153 parliamentary representation in the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here in Sarawak, fair representation must consider more than just numbers. We must also factor in geography, infrastructure, accessibility, and the realities of serving remote populations.
This increase to 99 seats helps address that imbalance. It ensures that more Sarawakians \u2014 especially those in hard-to-reach and underserved areas \u2014 have a genuine voice in this House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,
This Bill is not only lawful \u2014 it is necessary. It strengthens our democratic process, enhances representation, and enables more effective governance. I fully support this Dewan Undangan Sarawak (Composition of Membership) Bill, 2025 and I urge all Honourable Members of this August House to support it with unity and conviction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,First and foremost, I wish to extend my sincere sympathy and heartfelt condolences to The Right Honourable Premier of Sarawak on the passing of his beloved wife, Puan Sri Datuk Amar Juma\u2019ani Tuanku Bujang. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this time of profound sorrow. May her soul rest in eternal peace. Tan Sri Datuk Amar Speaker,Thank you for the opportunity to debate this important Bill tabled by member for N. 15 Asajaya, Minister for Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts,Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33185,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33184\/revisions\/33185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}