HANNAH Yeoh has got her priorities as a new member of parliament all lined up.

She will fight to preserve Taman Rimba Kiara, provide quality education for children and lift the veil of secrecy on government data, especially those involving children.

After being the Subang Jaya assemblyman for a decade and Selangor speaker, the 39-year-old will step into parliament for the first time as a lawmaker when the new session begins on July 16.

Yeoh defeated former deputy federal territories minister Loga Balan Jaganathan from Barisan Nasional and PAS’ Mohd Solleh Ab Razak to snatch the Segambut parliamentary seat in the 14^th general election.

And it has been non-stop work for her since the campaign period.

“This is an absolutely new area for me. I have been occupied meeting residents’ associations and all other stakeholders in Segambut,” the DAP member told The Malaysian Insight.

“All their main issues are related to Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL). Better roads, well-maintained parks and overdevelopment.”

One of their main grouses is that City Hall approved development projects without considering the needs of the people.

Yeoh recently lodged a report with Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) against landowner Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan, which is chaired by former FT minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor over the proposed development of a condominium in Taman Rimba Kiara.

Quality education for children is also among the concerns which Yeoh is keen on pushing.

“The standard and quality of education must improve and so, too, the welfare of children.

“We should start addressing issues like baby-dumping, sexual abuse, children under the influence of drugs. We see this happening nationwide.”

The mother of two girls also wants to see the nation moving towards being more transparent.

“Information and data on how many kids are dropping out of school, the number of disciplinary cases, baby-dumping or suicides in Malaysia.

“Unless these information and data become public, nobody can help as they will not know where and how to start.

“We have a lot of resources in this country and charitable organisations, residents who want to help out but they just don’t know where to start. 

“When you don’t have the data, then you would have a lot of misplaced resources,” said Yeoh.

Therefore, she would like to see some laws being reviewed such as the Official Secrets Act and Anti-Fake News Act.

She will be bringing with her the experience as former speaker of Selangor, dealing with select committees, which she said should be more active with regular meetings.

“We need to get non-governmental organisations involved. We need to have that mechanism established at the federal level to fight corruption.” – July 1, 2018.