PARLIAMENT Budget 2017 passed through the policy stage today, with 117 votes in favour and 70 votes against.

Eleven lawmakers, all from PAS, abstained from voting. The party has 14 MPs in total.

Mahfuz Omar (PAS-Pokok Sena) voted against the budget, while party president Abdul Hadi Awang (PAS-Marang) and Wan Hassan Mohd Ramli (PAS-Dungun) were absent.

Asked why they did not vote, Nasrudin Hassan (PAS-Temerloh) said they abstained because they agreed with certain things on the budget, and opposed other elements.

"PAS takes its own stand. There are things we oppose and we already opposed it during the debate... this includes the GST. 1MDB, too.

"(But) we don't want to reject the budget in total. There are good things in the budget that need to reach the people, such as the emoluments," Nasrudin said when met at the Parliament lobby.

Nasrudin, who is also party information chief, said they will discuss what action to take when Budget 2017 comes to the committee stage vote.

The budget policy stage debate went on to a bloc vote after nine days of debate.

It will now proceed to the committee stage of debates.

Budget 2017 was tabled by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on Oct 21.

Najib was in Parliament tonight during the last winding up speech by Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani, but was not seen on the House floor.

He left Parliament just as Johari ended his speech and the bloc vote was called.

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