Instead of answering me, she sarcastically said that I took up “woman’s quota” in Parliament by replacing my predecessor and political situ, YB Chong Eng. I stood my ground and said that men in Pakatan Rakyat can also defend and uphold gender equality and that is more important. I also joked that Chong Eng has been promoted to be a state government EXCO.

Incidentally, just before the engagement with Azalina, I gave a press conference on the Budget and women together with my colleague Alice Lau, MP for Lanang.

While Budget 2014 has more money for Women, Family and Community Development Ministry – RM2.2 billion compared to RM1.9 billion in 2013, the bulk of the money goes to “hand-outs” programmes. It seems as if the Ministry has chosen to focus on charity and welfare for women rather than women empowerment.

The fundamental challenges which women face in public life are not addressed. Among others, these include, as my colleague Alice and I pointed out:

Firstly, a culture of discrimination especially gender discrimination prevails and this is not addressed. For example, contrary to popular belief, out of 155,600 women who are unemployed, 86.3% are not married nor divorced nor widowed (Source: RMK10 report). Hence, the majority of women are not in the job market not because of marriage. There are other factors namely, salary disparity, lack of opportunity especially in job promotion, and inconducive job environment. In other words, discrimination in the work place.

In 2003, the government piloted a programme to implement gender responsive budgeting (GRB) spearheaded by the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development and in partnership with UNDP. Subsequently the selected Ministries were instructed to continue to implement GRB in 2006 for other agencies to follow suit. The GRB project aims to empower women and give voice to women when it comes to the allocation of resources in all areas of the government, not just seeing women as charity beneficiaries.

Now 10 years have passed since 2003, and despite several Treasury circulars to call for the implementation of GRB and its components, we have not seen the adoption of GRB at a comprehensive level. In his 2014 Budget speech,the Prime Minister said that the government will now shift towards an Outcome Based Budgeting (OBB). On its own, this is commendable but what happened to GRB and its objectives as stated by former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, “to narrow existing disparities and re-orient public expenditure to reflect the concerns for all its citizens”?

Secondly, there is no systematic strategy to increase women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) which has stagnated around 46-47% in the last 23 years since 1990 to the targeted 55% by 2015 as stipulated by the 10th Malaysian Plan (RMK10).

The half-time, part-time, flexi-time, work from home arrangement proposal in Budget 2014 were all mentioned back in RMK6, 23 years ago. The Work Regulations (Part Time Workers) was enforced in October 2010 at the start of RMK10, yet we have not seen any substantial improvement to the current situation.

The childcare assistance is limited to 1) civil servants and 2) families earning below RM900, hence its coverage is wide enough in comparison to Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget which proposed RM1,200 annual assistance to all working mothers as childcare assistance for children under 12 of age.

Thirdly, there is no good news for women who chose to be stay-home mothers or homemakers. This category of women will receive no acknowledgement, incentive and security under Najib’s 2014 Budget. In comparison, the Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget in line with the PR GE13 Manifesto proposed a National Women’s Contribution Scheme (NWCS) as a social safety net for homemakers where the government will contribute RM600 per annum to homemakers to be complemented by contribution from the spouse at a minimum of RM120 upto RM1,200 p.a..

Fourthly, the introduction of GST at 6% will gravely affect women, especially those from single-headed household as well as low- and middle-income household. According to statistics, in 2010, there are 831,860 single mothers. They will be badly hit by the ripple effect of the sudden withdrawal of subsidies and the introduction of GST. I have highlighted early a study by the Penang Institute which showed that while high income households (with monthly earning above RM30,000) pay GST at about 1.32% of their income (GSTI), the low income households (earning about RM600 monthly) and the middle income households (about RM2500 monthly) pay 2.35% GSTI and 2.67% GSTI respectively.

I am disappointed that Prime Minister Najib Razak has consistently refused to be a bold statesman and cross partisan line to embrace the good policies highlighted in the Pakatan Rakyat Manifesto and our Alternative 2014 Budget especially on women’s affairs. The fact is, under Prime Minister Najib Razak, gender inequality has worsened. In 2008, before Najib became PM, Malaysia ranked no. 96 in the Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum. Today, four years into his premiership, Malaysia has fallen to no. 102.