There are six possible scenarios as to what could happen to the PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill motion in the 25-day Budget Parliament beginning on Monday, viz:

1. Hadi’s private member’s bill motion comes up for debate in the first week of Parliament, whether on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and passed with simple majority support.

2. Hadi’s private member’s bill motion debated in the first week of Parliament and rejected with simple majority vote.

3. Hadi’s private member’s bill motion not debated in the first week of Parliament and deferred until after the 2017 Budget’s debate and passage in the last week of Parliamentary meeting from Nov. 21-24.

4. Hadi’s private member’s bill motion debated in Parliament’s last week and passed by simple majority.

5. Hadi’s private member’s bill motion debated in Parliament’s last week and rejected by simple majority.

6. Hadi’s private member’s bill motion not debated and deferred to next year’s Parliamentary meeting.

I am quite perplexed by the statements which the MCA President and the MCA Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, had been making in the past two days about the possibility of Hadi’s private member’s bill motion coming up for debate and vote in next week’s Parliament.

For instance, at the Terengganu MCA convention in Kuala Terengganu yesterday, Liow repeated what he said a day earlier in Putrajaya, that there is now a 13-party Barisan Nasional “consensus” that the Barisan Nasional government would not allow Hadi’s private member’s bill motion to have priority over government’s official parliamentary business, as happened in the May meeting of Parliament.

Was this the “consensus” that was reached at the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council meeting on 23rd September 2016, and was this what the UMNO and Barisan Nasional secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor meant when he said early this month that BN had arrived at a “consensus” regarding Hadi’s private member’s bill motion?

If so, this should be a very simple and straightforward matter, and Barisan Nasional leader should not find any difficulty in announcing the nature of such a Barisan Nasional “consensus”.

Why should the Barisan Nasional leaders be involved in a “cloak-and-dagger operation” to hide what was the Barisan Nasional “consensus” on Hadi’s private member’s bill motion – unless the Barisan Nasional leaders have something to hide preventing them from acting in an honest, upright and transparent manner as they have some political trickery and chicanery up the sleeve on the issue?

Would Adnan and the other BN leaders confirm that the Barisan Nasional has decided on a “consensus” that no priority would be given to Hadi’s private member’s bill over official government business in the forthcoming Parliament, and furthermore, what disciplinary action had been taken against the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, for violating the 43-year BN stand and consensus that PAS’ hudud proposal was not appropriate for Malaysia’s plural society, and against the fundamental provisions of the 1957 Merdeka Constitution and 1963 Malaysia Agreement?

There is a further cause for befuddlement whether about MCA or BN stand on Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.

Why was Liow’s announcement about the Barisan Nasional’s new “consensus” that BN would not give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion over official business in Parliament published only in the Chinese media, but not even in the MCA-owned English-language daily?

Is this because Liow is not telling the truth?

Will there be clarifications by Liow, Adnan and the other BN leaders on the Barisan Nasional “consensus” on Hadi’s private member’s bill motion?

Or is there a possibility that the parliamentary business next week would be arranged in such a manner whereby Hadi’s private member’s bill motion would come up for debate as the fourth item of parliamentary business, without any priority being given to it over official government business, as after the disposal of the first three parliamentary items of official business, there are no other official business on the Parliamentary Order Paper after Hadi’s private member’s bill motion?