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Dropping Tony Pua from forum will cost BN youth support, says former MCA veep

Tidak produktif haramkan semua perkataan berkaitan Islam, kata NGO

A former MCA vice-president has spoken out against the move by the Malaysia Summit Australia (MASA) Conference to drop opposition lawmaker Tony Pua from the forum, saying that it would cost Barisan Nasional crucial support from youths.

In a series of tweets, Gan Ping Sieu (pic) said barring opposition leaders from the Pakatan Rakyat pact would send the wrong message to the younger generation.

"BN or pro-BN sponsors must realise, forbidding PR leaders to attend such student forums makes them a hero and (gives the) wrong education for our youth," he tweeted from his official handle @ganpingsieu.

He warned that the move was a "self-defeating way" for BN to engage the youths.

It is estimated that youths aged 30 and below will make up 60% of new voters come the next general election, which must be called by 2018.

Gan, who is currently Kluang MCA division chief, also posted two pictures of him with PKR's Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli at last year's MASA's forum in Melbourne.

"At the same MASA forum with Rafizi in Melbourne in 2012. Was Deputy Minister then. No reason to drop Tony Pua this year," said the former youth and sports deputy minister.

Gan is the second BN leader to speak out against MASA for dumping Pua, the two-term Petaling Jaya Utara MP.

On April 14, Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had tagged Pua in a tweet saying that he was against the move as well.

"@tonypua For what it's worth I raised the matter last cabinet & said your 'disinvitation' was wrong & shouldn't happen again," Khairy tweeted, to which Pua replied with a "TQ".

Pua was told earlier that his invitation from the MASA conference had to be withdrawn as the main sponsors of the event felt “it was not in the best interest of everyone” to have him in the line-up of panellists, which included Khairy and Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, daughter of former long-serving prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In a letter to Pua, student organisers Malaysia Students Council of Australia had said: "Despite our best efforts to convince them otherwise, our main sponsors strongly feel that it was not in the best interest of everyone to have you in the line-up of panellists."

Among the event's sponsors are Shell Malaysia, Astro, Education Malaysia Australia, Ayam Brand, Malaysian Australian Alumni Council and Kelab Umno Australia.

Pua had said on his Facebook page that he did not blame the Malaysia Students Council of Australia for the cancellation.

"It is clearly our government sponsors who were intent on closing the minds of our students, so frightened of an opposition leader's one hour presence in a four-day event," he had said‎.

Despite this, the DAP lawmaker addressed Malaysian students at an alternative forum organised by non-governmental organisation Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (Australian chapter) in Melbourne yesterday.

He was also in Canberra as a panellist at a forum organised by the Malaysian Students’ Organisation of Canberra's Australia National University on Tuesday. – April 24, 2014.