ARE we getting a new breed of ministers? Perhaps. Pen-pushers take note. Consider two examples.
Begin with Transport Minister Anthony Loke. On Monday, fresh out of the first cabinet meeting, he took a ride on Rapid KL's Light Rail Transit to get a sense of what difficulties commuters face on a daily basis.
It was a surprise visit. Neither Prasarana Malaysia Bhd, the entity that runs the LRT, nor the press was notified. It is good Loke didn't inform Prasarana's top management, otherwise they would have made everything look good for him.
The crowd on the train must have reminded him of sardine cans on the move. Because it was and always is at peak hours, twice a day with the regularity of clockwork.
The picture on his Facebook post said it all. Now that he has got the "commuting experience", let's see how he shakes up and shapes up Prasarana. It is a long overdue move.
Ditto everything that moves us from point A to point B. Truth be told, Prasarana, like its trains, needs lots of repair.
The top management from the board downwards were strangers to the commuting experience. And so, they "saw" the trains move or stop from the safe distance of their cooled office.
Let's be blunt. This is not the way to know your trains nor commuters. Many have advised them so but they chose not to listen. Then came the Nov 9 incident when 16 LRT stations along the Kelana Jaya line were forced to be closed for days.
Did they learn anything? Let's wait for Loke to tell us when he meets them next week.
The transport minister's first task is to make sure that there are no square pegs in round holes. He should start with Prasarana's board.
The government must review a bad habit that we have inherited from the past. Chairmen, board members, and at times, top management, especially the chief executives, of government-linked companies are drawn from the same pool of retired civil servants.
Retired doesn't necessarily mean that they have the experience. It just means they have the years.
Now for the second example. Foreign Minister Senator Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir is getting some positive bromides from an unlikely source: former newscaster Norzie Pak Wan Chek.
It appears that Norzie's niece and friends were attacked on Saturday by a group of teenagers in Dublin, Ireland, when they were holidaying there.
We do not know the nature of the help rendered, but Norzie managed to get our embassy in Dublin to help put through a call to Zambry.
The two examples may or may not be signs of good things to come from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar's cabinet, but the standard has been set, for themselves and other ministers.
If there are still pen-pushing politicians in the cabinet, the message of the two is: the times are a-changin' and politicians must, too.
People want accessibility to politicians. And they want them on the ground where the people are.
Politics doesn't get done in air-cooled offices of the ministers, but where the people live out their lives. Remember this: the quality of the tyre is only tested when the rubber meets the road. Because the stamp of approval of the rubber is with the road.
Likewise, in politics, the stamp of approval is with the people. Politicians who forget this will do so at their peril.