KUALA LUMPUR: MCA Youth chief Dato’ Liow Tiong Lai has proposed for new legislation to govern racial relations, encourage greater unity and avoid discrimination among races in the country.

“The Race Relations Act I’m proposing should be looked into by the Unity, Arts, Cultural and Heritage Ministry,” he said after launching the 14th annual general meeting of the Federation of Malaysian Clans and Guilds Youth Association on Sunday. He said the Ministry should study the feasibility of such a law because it did not have any Acts currently to support its efforts to achieve greater racial unity in the country.

"Some countries have in place, such an act, where you can't discriminate or belittle other races,"

Unity, Arts, Cultural and Heritage Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal could not be reached for an immediate comment.

Liow, who is Health Minister also, said that the Internal Security Act (ISA) must be reviewed so that it was not abused by any quarters to undermine national unity, security and stability.

“The whole thing must be studied. Certain people still think that the ISA serves a certain purpose in ensuring the safety and harmony of the country,” he added.

Earlier in his speech, he said the MCA had set up a task force to work with the Public Service Department on ways to recruit more Chinese into the civil service.

He said the drastic drop in Chinese participation in the civil service -- from 21 per cent in the 1970's to 9.7 per cent in 2006 -- was worrying, and did not reflect a positive image for the government.