Legislators scuffle over draft NCC bill

Frustrated, the DPP walked out of the meeting, while the TSU occupied the podium.

The pan-blue camp voted in favor of pushing forward the PFP's cross-strait peace advancement bill, the condemnation motion against the premier, as well as six other bills, to the plenary legislative session for a second reading, instead of to committee for review. Among them were the draft amendments to the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute (三一九槍擊事件真相調查特別委員會條例) and the Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (中選會組織法).

Meanwhile, the pan-blue camp dubbed the Government Information Office (GIO) the government's "political hitman" for running a full-page ad in Chinese-language newspapers that slammed the NCC bill proposed by the pan-blue camp.

Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday the controversies over the draft of the NCC should be solved and evaluated by a special committee comprised of experts and academics, and political parties should keep their hands off the draft.

KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the mayor of Taipei, told reporters yesterday that the GIO's advertisement "takes my breath away in astonishment."

"I've never seen the GIO do this kind of thing before. I thought it was an advertisement posted by a political party," Ma said after a Taipei City municipal meeting yesterday morning.

Cabinet Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said the opposition parties have been abusing their legislative majority for so long that the GIO ran the ad to help make the public aware both of the government's problems and the irrationality of the opposition parties.

Additional reporting by Jewel Huang and Mo Yan-chih