Anwar-Shabery debate:

Anwar’s main points and arguments:
The fuel price hike can’t be avoided, but the hike was too steep causing much difficulty to the Malaysian people.

The old fuel price need not be increased so steep, or the current price can be reduced, because the income from the global price hike can absorb the amount of subsidy given to the Malaysian people

Said he will not respond to Shabery’s personal attacks but still retaliated on Shabery’s personal attack by saying Shabery was once a member of Semangat 46 political party

The huge amount needed to keep the current subsidy to lower the fuel prices will not be taken from Petronas but will be taken from the sum given by Petronas to the Government by way of reducing corruptions, mismanagement of the government, and the leakages.

Malaysia is net oil exporter so the high fuel price is not justified.

Malaysia can’t be compared to country like Norway since Norwegians per capita income is much higher than Malaysians

Anwar agreed that countries with low fuel price have much higher inflation rate but pointed out that Malaysia also going toward the high inflation. But the difference is other countries give low fuel price but Malaysia gives high fuel price to the people

Anwar corrected Shabery’s statement that Malaysia will run out of oil by 2015 ONLY if there is no exploration efforts to add to the reserve

Anwar pointed out that the BN Government misled the people by saying that the increase in fuel price will not affect prices of goods where as trends show that there is always an increase of prices of goods with the increase of fuel prices

Anwar pointed out that while the IPP agreements were done during his tenure as Finance Minister, he and Ani Arop did not agree with the un-unfair IPP agreements, which was one of the reasons why Ani Arop resigned.

Awar defended Petronas as good company but critises BN Government over mismanagement of Petronas fund used for bail out and political interferences into Petronas

Anwar said Nordin should ask question istead of giving lectures. Anwar also corrected Nordin who said IPP not related to petroleum.

Anwar said if the BN government willing to implement his ideas, he will support the government

Shabery’s main points and arguments:
Defended the BN goverment’s move to increase fuel price by saying the amount of subsidy is too much to be born by the government

Always compared Malaysia with other countries with high inflation but failed to highlight that these countries have much higher per capita income and the people at least benefit from low fuel prices

Argued that the government reduce the subsidy to avoid rich people and companies benefit from the subsidy. Government would like to give this money directly to the people.

Shabery said that while Tun Abdul Razak (one of the ex Prime Ministers) was building Petronas, Anwar was busy demonstrating in Baling, and yet failed to resolve Baling issues during his tenure in the BN Government

Shabery did not answer Zulkifli’s question on why the BN government failed to fulfill its promise to improve transportations system during the previous fuel price hike. He was talking something completely irrelevant to the question

Shabery asked back a question, where is Malaysia in the top 20 net oil exporter list? (Note: I am not sure what was the point of asking this question though.)

Shabery argued Anwar should be lowering the fuel price based on the pre-election fuel price, not based on the newly increased price

Shabery kept saying the money needed by Anwar to finance subsidy will be take from Petronas while Anwar insisted it will be taken from Government’s coffer i.e the royalty paid by Petronas

Attacked Anwar on organizing street demos and inappropriate concert (referring to recent embarassing incident in a concert at Protes gathering in Kelana Jaya Stadium)

Attacked Anwar for praising Mahathir during his tenure in the government during Mahathir era but yet Anwar blamed Mahathir on some of the issues. Also attacked Anwar on using IMF during economic crisis.

Shabery said despite the high fuel prices, there is still money left for people to continue feeding themselves (masih cukup makan)

High fuel price is not Malaysia’s problem only,but a global issue Shabery claimed Anwar’s arguments are populists in nature

Conclusion: Anwar managed to stay on the issues at hand most of the time and argued objectively. He knows his stuff and defended his every fact quite good despite limited time.

Shabery liked to beat around the bush and avoid discussing the issues objectively. At one time, Shabery completey did not answer a question by Zulkifli Sulong. Shabery also liked to raise personal attacks against Anwar, completely ignoring the issue at hand. This Information Minister has no idea why he was there.

excerpts from: The Kuala Lumpur Traveller