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Secondly, in dealing with the rights to oppose all forms of injustices, I am only quoting the rights to bodily safety such as the safe level of toxic chemicals on local and imported vegetables, fruits and other types of food.We have often discussed this in Parliament. Agriculture, Health and Consumer Affairs Ministries always

try to give good answers, saying that monitoring agricultural chemicals are done through the enforcement of the Pesticides Act 1974 and Food Act 1983. However, there are weaknesses such as the ways random samplings and tests are done.

Thirdly, does the Government effectively safeguard the consumers? The people have to fight for their rights ceaselessly. We continue to see infringements on consumers' rights in many fields such as food prices and quality, environmental pollution, Internet and K-economy. The enforcement of the existing law is not enough to uphold the rights of consumers. For example, the haze in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and Johor Bahru has been attributed to Indonesian forest fires. While this is true, we must also look at internal factors like open burning, our own forest fires, factory smokes and car exhaust fumes. We can see people polluting the environment daily. Driving along highways, we can witness factories belching black smokes and rubbish thrown from occasional vehicles.

We shall continue to bring up consumer issues within and outside Parliament, pursuing studies of individual cases, monitoring law and its enforcement and encouraging consumer education. The consumer Association of Penang, CAP, has been playing its part.

Dr Tan Seng Giaw