Nurul had said that male MPs should be allowed to wear batik shirts, and pointed out how Indonesian ministers had worn the traditional floral design when President Joko Widodo announced his Cabinet line-up recently.

“But we are faced with rules in the Dewan Rakyat that do not allow male MPs to wear Malaysian batik. I hope this can be addressed because this is the sort of awareness that can help our batik industry,” she said.

Stating his support for Nurul, Khairy said Singapore was no longer rigid with its parliamentary dress code.

“Even the Singapore parliament has relaxed the dress code because we are here to speak based on content and not on form,” he said.

Tourism, Arts and Culture Deputy Minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik agreed that wearing batik would promote the local textile industry.

“We accept your suggestion even though we have not received a positive answer (from the speaker),” he said.

To Khairy’s claim that Malaysian batik was more expensive than Indonesian batik, Bakhtiar said there were cheap batik products which were just printed patterns.