Jek Yeun Thong
Singapore
“Would the Minister now consider it wrong to allow CPF members to use their CPF money to buy shares in the stock exchange, people whom the Howe Yoon Chong Report not so long ago would like us to believe that they could not be trusted to look after their own savings and yet they are now allowed to participate in the stock exchange casino, s…”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, could I ask a supplementary question which either Minister can reply? Is the Minister surprised that the Voice of America, an organ created by the US government to counter Communist propaganda world wide, has been used to cast critical views on a non-Communist government such as the Singapore Government which is, in fact,…”
“Mr Chairman, Sir, the Minister has not touched on my point regarding the tuition fees of University students. I do not know whether he would like to take this opportunity to answer or he would want to leave it to others to answer it.”
“Also, there is no danger that the students having taken the loans would abscond or not come back since at the moment all the male students going overseas are providing bonds because of national service. And as for female students, if we are still having too many of them, we can easily arrange bonds for those who intend to take the loan.”
“Yes, of course. I think the trouble with the press is that they missed my point on Education. The style they happened to like is what the Chinese call - wan shi bu gong (playful and not taking things seriously). So they really do not know what to do with me - I mean the press, not the Government.”
“Sir, since the Government is encouraging the people to have more babies now, the likelihood of these 3-room flats being unsold will be greater. Is it not a good point for the Ministry of National Development to try to convert these 3-room flats into, say, 6-room flats so that more babies could be accommodated?”
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“However, there is one which I think the Government should tread very, very carefully. In this, I would like to join my other colleagues, notably the Member for Boon Lay, in making reservation on this other tax, ie, the indirect tax. The Committee has proposed to switch from direct taxation to indirect taxation. In this respect, I think the Committee seems to be contradictory in its approach. On the one hand they advocate the scrapping of "the existing small number of import duties and tariffs on non-revenue generating items" in order to promote Singa- pore's free trade city image, but on the other hand they call for the introduction of indirect taxes soon. This would have the effect of putting taxes back on the very same goods item for which tariffs, import duties, taxes, or whatever name you want to call them, have been removed in the first instance. The Committee thinks that personal income tax tends to be inequitable. I feel that indirect taxation is even more inequitable because it spreads out across the board and applies to every one without regard to whether or not the individual can afford to pay. What would happen is that a small group of people who are now above the 40% bracket will pay less tax, but a great number of people who hitherto pay very little or no tax will have to pay more in the form of consumption tax. I think it is socially unjust and politically unwise. That is why I am rather disappointed to hear that the Government has decided to accept this form of taxation and it is going ahead to set up the necessary infrastructure for its collection. Sir, this is not the first time we have come across indirect tax. The last time we heard about it was 22 years ago when we were in Malaysia.”
“The size of our economic scale. The Dutch factory is producing the soft drink for a much bigger market than ours. They are supplying to the whole of the EEC with 300 million people and the Member for Clementi is only supplying a population of 2(r) million. 3. The import duty on such commodity as sugar which makes the cost of production higher for our manufacturers. Fortunately, this has been rectified last year. 4. The strong Singapore currency makes it cheaper for us to buy the soft drink shipped from the factory in Amsterdam than from the one in River Valley Road. 5. The Dutch salesmen are more aggressive than the Singapore specie. They are prepared to go to Saudi Arabia, hence the Arabic words on the cans, to sell a can of Coca Cola whereas the Singaporeans are contented with selling it just outside their shops on the five-foot way. Sir, making soft drink is comparatively a simple job. You put in the formula syrup, add water, and Voila! you get the drink. Now, if our manufacturers cannot compete with others in such an unsophisticated product as soft drink in our own market, then how can we expect them to compete with others in more sophisticated products in other people's market? I can list out many more reasons than those I have mentioned to explain why we are not competitive but I will be wasting the time of this House, and many other reasons have already been covered by my colleagues in this House. But it is important that the Economic Committee should recognize them and recognize them they did, and have accordingly made recommendations to rectify them. What remains for us to be done is to put words into action. Most of the recommendations of the Committee are good and timely and worthy of our support.”
“In any case, the economists are having conflicting views themselves and their words are not to be believed, as the Prime Minister has pointed out in his Chinese New Year Message, though not in so many words. Then somebody, notably the eminent Member for Whampoa, has suggested that we should engage even more economists, preferably from different schools to give different views and interpretations. Sir, have you heard of the saying: Too many cooks spoil the soup? My fear is that too many economists may land us in hot soup. We do not have to go into all sorts of economic theories and analyses to look for the signs of uncompetitiveness in our industries. All you have to do is simply to walk into any super market and buy, as I did in 1984 when I came back from England, a can of soft drink, be it Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola or Seven Up. On the can you will find, more often than not, the printed words: "Bottled and prepared in Amsterdam, Holland". Sir, the Member for Clementi is running a modern factory which has the local franchise to bottle Coca Cola and other similar brands of soft drinks and it has an efficient distribution network all over Singapore. Yet container after container of similar soft drinks are being imported from countries thousands of miles away, like Holland, Australia, Hong Kong and Germany. Why? The answer is that every imported can is selling at 5 to 10 cents below the price of that supplied by F&N. This small can of soft drink, and very often it has Arabic words printed on the surface, in a very simple way, demonstrates the dilemma, difficulties and defects of our economic development which can be summed up as follows: 1. High overhead and labour cost. As has been pointed out by the Committee, the high CPF contribution rate is one of the culprits. 2.”
“Because land fetched good prices and gave high returns on Government revenue, so more was acquired, prepared and thrown in for auction. There was a competition to see who put up what first. So in the process many soft jobs with unduly high rewards had been created and the other industries had been denied talents who came out of our university and polytechnics. After all who wants to sit in a laboratory and spend long hours trying to invent something or doing R & D, if one can make thousands of dollars in a few days by simply buying and reselling a piece of land? Who wants to go to Saudi Arabia, or even Latin America, to look for new markets if one can just sit in an air-conditioned office in Singapore, make a few phone calls, manipulating the stock market, doing some wheeling and dealings and make a lot of money, and after that take one's constant companion to lunch? One does not have to run a business or a factory to be an employer to feel the pinch of the high CPF contribution rate. If you employ a servant at home, you are already considered an employer, and it hurts you, as it did to me, to find that you have to pay 25% over and above the wage of the servant to the CPF Board every month. Of course, I am not paying it now but I am not contravening the CPF rules. It is simply because it is too costly to find a local maid, and I have to resort to a Filipino maid, as it does not incur any CPF contribution. But it hurts as well because I have to pay $120 levy a month which, I think again, is unfair and painful because now with these changes in the CPF rules I would rather pay my maid the CPF so that she would be happy and I would be happy. So one does not have to be an economist to know that our economy is in a bad shape and that our industries are not competitive.”
“If there is anyone there who says he has a formula which guarantees to put us back to our economic health, I will be the first to support his pay rise, no matter whether it is two times or 10 times. Because we have $25 billion in our reserves. What is wrong in giving $1 or $2 million in order to bring us back to the good old days? So the Economic Committee's Report is only a bundle of paper. If the people are not prepared to make their sacrifice, its recommendations, no matter how good they are, and there are one or two bad ones unfortunately, will remain recommendations if we do not take positive action to implement them. It used to be said: ( ) mou shi zai ren, cheng shi zai tian (man proposes, heaven disposes). If we want something to happen, we must set ourselves the goal and actively pursue it. We cannot just simply sit down and wait for something good to happen. It will never happen. The Report tells us nothing new which we do not know. All the unhappy signs and defects of our economy are there for us to see. But no one is blinder than he who refuses to see. We do not need a 200-page report to tell us that we are choked with unwanted office space, empty hotel rooms and vacant shopping centres. They are all there. It is a sad story of wrong priorities and policy makers not coordinating. Perhaps they were intoxicated by the superficial success from the boom created by them out of the construction industry. The developers, the estate agents and the stockbrokers and the rest have never had it so good in the years 1980 to 1983. Property prices and share prices were on the rise all the time and our greatest mistake was to believe that this could carry on forever.”
“Do we have to bring back the riotous, violent and disorderly days in order to teach the younger generation a lesson? For those of you who have not personally experienced what it means to live under siege of a rioting crowd, or how it feels to move about in a city of empty streets where a curfew has been imposed, all you have to do is to see what is happening in Manila for the last two or three months and transpose the situation there to Singapore and you will get some idea of what it is like. Well, the Filipinos may sing and they may cheer now but very soon they will have to pick up the pieces and they will find that it is more difficult to organize the economy and make it running again than to organize mass rallies and demonstrations. The Filipinos are behind us by more than 20 years. They have wasted 20 years. We have seen and experienced it more than 20 years ago what they are now going through. We wish them luck. But certainly we will not want to see what has happened there to happen again in Singapore. It would be over my dead body! The Member for Anson talked about unemployment benefits. Is it a solution? I said just now that we are prepared to take medicine. But this suggestion by the Member for Anson is not even a medicine. It is a poison. It is opium, trying to numb the reflexes of our people. In the past two weeks after the Economic Committee's Report was published, I was often asked by people whether after implementing all the recommendations of the Committee, there is any guarantee that things would be back to normal and we would return to the good old days in two years' time. Well, I told them there is no guarantee. The Government leaders, though smart and clever people they are, are no miracle workers.”
“I am proud of my Party. Aren't you? Why can you not talk about your own Party? I am proud of my own. Are you not proud of yours? People just refuse to learn! This is the time for our people to show their true colours. This is a time to prove either we are, a hard working and pragmatic people like other people say we are, or that we were just lucky all these years. In an adverse situation, we must be brave and prepared to take bold decisions. If it is decided that we should take the medicine in order to get well, then take it we must, no matter how bitter the medicine is. Have you heard of the saying, good medicine is bitter to the mouth but it cures the disease. So if it is decided that we must tighten our belt for 18 months or two years or even more, then tighten it we must, for the alternative is joblessness and starvation. The Member for Anson talked about unemployment. Does he know the true meaning of that word? Has he ever faced a crowd of unemployed, frustrated, and really miserable people? He talked about the 100-odd retrenched workers in the PWD. Well, what is 100-odd retrenched workers compared with a massive unemployment in the '50s and the '60s when the unemployment figures reached 12%. Sir, when I was in the Labour Ministry more than 20 years ago, every morning I virtually had to wade through a human sea of unemployed people before I could get through to my office. At least those who have registered with the Labour Ministry now have a choice. But in those days, there was no choice. They just had to wait and we could not tell them how long they had to wait. That is the true meaning of unemployment. But do we have to bring back all those unpleasant days in order to score points?”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, for many of us, 1985 is a year we would like to forget. What with all the gloomy economic forecasts and the talks about the year of the fiery tiger and the Haley's Comet, 1986 does not promise to be a good one either. But we must not lose heart. This is not the end of the world. We have seen worse times. We have been through worse situations. When times are hard, we must work harder to overcome the obstacles in front of us. This is not a time to grumble, to complain or to apportion blame. This is a time to work and take action. Remember, our Party's name is still the People's Action Party. The people are behind us and they expect us to take action and we must stimulate the people to take action.”
“There in the main streets of any town centre, you will find bingo halls, Mecca and Ladbrooke gaming houses side by side with supermarkets and boutiques and prestigious restaurants. They call themselves bookmakers, but they do not make books. They only make money out of the punters. They also call themselves turf accountants, but they do not do accounts except fiddling theirs so that the inland revenue officers find it difficult to squeeze more tax out of them. What I have described may or may not be practicable in our environment. The Chinese may prove to be cleverer cheaters than the British and eventually life for our enforcement officers may be hell in those circumstances. But whether or not this is the right approach only time will tell, but it costs us next to nothing to explore and to find out. Some of us on this side of the House may be old. A few chips in our memory might have burst. Sometimes we forget things, sometimes we say the wrong things. But the system is basically intact. The way of thinking and finding out things is still functioning well. And not all what we say is garbage. I remember it was only a few months ago when the Member for Rochore first suggested in this House to reduce the rate of contribution in the CPF. That drew an immediate rebuttal from the Acting Minister for Labour and there were even calls for the Member to take further tuitions on economics from the Member for Leng Kee. Now, everyone on the other side or shall I say, our side, seems to be harping on the same tune wanting to reduce the CPF contribution. I am not sure whether the Member for Rochore is giving tuition on economics. If he is, I am sure there should be no lack of pupils. 4.24 pm”
“That is what is so wonderful about Chinese characters. That is why I always tell the Parliamentary Secretary for Education not to fiddle with them too much. The four characters convey the whole concept, strategy, philosophy and policy, of dissuading, restraining and inhibiting people from doing certain anti-social acts by imposing heavy taxes on such acts. We do not approve of people drinking. So we impose heavy duties on liquor. We want to dissuade people from smoking. So we have heavy duties on tobacco. Similarly we impose heavy duties and taxes on petrol and the purchase of motorcars. But at the moment although we do not approve of people gambling there seems to be a lack of ways, or at least the present provision is inadequate, for heavy taxes to be imposed on it to restrain people from doing so. What we are doing is simply to close down the centres, fine the operators and put them in jail if they persist. This seems to be a negative way of doing things. A vacuum will undoubtedly be created but the people's instinctive urge to gamble has yet to be satisfied. In the end, the operators would go underground or go over the Causeway to Johore Baru, if what I heard from the grapevine is correct. What we are doing is like the great prohibition in the United States. They simply closed down the breweries and locked up the brewers without satisfying the need of some people to drink. So in the end they encountered all sorts of irregularities and criminal activities, culminating in the abolition of the prohibition. What I have said or suggested just now is nothing out of this world. It has been practised in other countries, notably in the United Kingdom.”
“What I mean is that apart from the 4-digit and betting centres run by the Turf Club and the Singapore Pools, the Government may consider licensing out certain places to some syndicators to run as 4-digit or horse-betting centres, at the payment, of course, of a huge licence fee by the licensee plus the payment of a large cash deposit to safeguard against defaulting, plus whatever tax we want to impose on them from time to time. This may work out to be to the satisfaction of every one. The gamblers and punters will be happy. They will eventually lose their money. I have no doubt about it. But at least they will have the satisfaction of losing it in peace and in air-conditioned comfort. Later on, when they look back in time they can always console themselves by seeing their losses turned into flyovers, expressways and parks, in which they also enjoy. We, the non-gamblers, will be happy because we will enjoy the fringe benefit of paying less tax, hopefully. The Minister for Finance will be more than happy as this move would effectively have created a new revenue source for him to tap whenever he cannot balance the books. This may prove to be one of the remedies for our present economic woes. Later on when we find the system slightly getting out of control or that the syndicators have made too much money, we can always fine-tune it by increasing the licence fee or the tax or both. What we need is to impose heavy taxes on gambling in the hope to cure the gamblers out of their habit to gamble, to throw away money. The ancient Chinese have a phrase for it, and it is contained in only four characters. It is called yu jin yu zeng, ( ) Impose heavy taxes in order to prohibit certain undesirable activities. Just four characters. Very economical use of words and syntax.”
“But usually negotiations would take place and settlement would be arrived at for a certain percentage of the winnings to be paid, to the satisfaction of all parties, and life would go on. As far as I know, not many people have been put into financial straitjackets as a result of betting in these centres, legal or otherwise. And no lifeboat fund was ever heard of. The pattern of behaviour of a gambler is such that if he has surplus cash, or what the economist calls "disposable income", he would bet and cherish a dream. If he has not got the money, he would just stand by the side and watch other people make money, hoping to share in the feast that would come at the end of the session in Happy Valley or in whatever place that is in vogue at the time. In the end, as the saying goes, fools and their money are soon parted. I am not arguing for the merits or demerits of these illegal gambling centres. My view is that they should be closed down. But so should those run by the Turf Club and the Singapore Pools, if our policies are to be logical and consistent. But since it is not possible to do so, we will have to find a way out. My point is that since so many people patronize these centres voluntarily and at risk of being caught red-handed and locked up, there seems to be a demand by many people for their money to be parted. If that is the case, I think it is not beyond the ingenuity of the officials in the Treasury to devise a foolproof method in which this disposable cash can be systematically and effectively skimmed off and paid into the Consolidated Fund.”
“But in the case of gambling and betting, very curiously the Government is trying to suppress them on the one hand, but it is also going hand in hand with someone to set up more betting shops on the other. I think the right solution to this problem lies in proper regulation and control and, if necessary, heavy taxation, because I believe mere suppression will not work. The tragedy of human nature is such that it is always striving to seek excitement, to want to escape from the harshness of reality and to indulge in some sort of a dream. Every nation has its own form of gambling. The Spanish have their bull-fighting. The British have their races. The Filipinos and the Indonesians have their cock fighting. The Thais have their fish fighting. The Chinese have their mahjong. And even the hardworking Japanese have their pachingko. We in Singapore seem to have taken up horse racing and 4-digit betting in a big way, not, unfortunately, without some encouragement from the Government. Remember, Toto and Singapore Pools were set up for just that purpose. Over the years, judging from the number of people going to these illegal gambling centres, such as hawker centres, markets and provision shops, there seems to be a demand for these forms of gambling as a pastime. Otherwise, it is not possible to explain why so many people at a given time are prepared to endure the noise and discomfort such as we find in these places. And I do not believe there is any major swindling going on. If there is, it will soon be discovered and discredited. The worst scenario would be when someone gets too lucky and he has placed an unusually large bet and the operator cannot pay up. In that circumstance, the operator would either go bust or abscond.”
“Sir, let me continue. Now we are faced with a very curious situation in which we are asked to pass laws to put the small operators in the hawker centres and coffee shops under heavy fines, and even to lock them up. But at the same time the Government-backed Singapore Pools and the Singapore Turf Club are busily putting up plans to set up even more betting shops all over Singapore. If you say this is logic, then you can say that black is white and white is black and no one would want to argue with you. What I cannot understand is that when one places a bet in a hawker centre, one is perpetuating, abetting, or even potentially committing a crime. But when one does it in a Government-backed or Turf Club run betting shop, no crime is committed. There seems to be no valid explanation why one is condemned and the other is condoned. I cannot understand it. The Chinese have a proverb for this. It says: Zhi xu zhou guan fang huo, bu zun bai xing dian deng ( ) The county official can set a blaze to the town but the common people are not allowed to light even a lamp. Gambling like other forms of human vices such as prostitution and alcoholism, should ideally be stamped out. But we all know that it is not possible to do so unless everyone is a saint, which no one is. So we tend to adopt the next best thing to do, ie, to try to control them and prevent them from getting out of hand. In the case of prostitution, I am sure the Anti-Vice Squad knows exactly in what districts it is most prevalent. But they prefer to keep all ears open and one eye closed! They know it is a waste of time to try to track down every prostitute and every brothel keeper in town. But neither will they go hand in hand with brothel keepers to run brothels.”
“Well, I don't know if it is alleged. But is it true or not true that the newspaper has reported such a story? Tell me, is it true or not true that a story has been published in the Straits Times on that particular day?”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I have not got the right of a dictator who can do what the Member for Anson said I was doing. What I merely said, and if he has the ear to listen and understand it, is that this was what was reported in the newspaper. I did not say that he was guilty or not guilty. I said that it was reported in the papers that a former Workers' Party candidate had done this. It was reported in the newspaper.”
“Ask any houseowner who has the misfortune of having his bungalow situated in the vicinity of the Turf Club, and he will tell you the nuisance he has to put up with on a race day when all accesses to his house are blocked by illegally parked motor vehicles belonging to racegoers. Millions of dollars of public money has been spent to improve roads leading to the Club, money which should have been better spent elsewhere. If this is not nuisance, what is? And every year we witness the scene of the Chairman or President of the Club playing Santa Claus by giving away cheques to charitable organizations from money which should rightly belong to the Government because the Government gave it the franchise to run races, which is almost equivalent to the right to print money. Of course, not exactly in the way which a former Workers' Party candidate was reported to have done - printing counterfeit American dollars. Now we are faced with a very curious situation.”
“And the hawkers and the shopkeepers very sensibly had also decided to cut losses and to close shop because they knew that with the bookies gone, there would be less customers to serve and they did not want to waste their time. Of course, there were red faces among us all round. But it was an eye-opener for me to see how illegal gambling had taken over and changed the daily pattern of life in the housing estates. The Government is not entirely blameless in allowing this state of affairs to develop into such a ridiculous situation. The Singapore Turf Club, of course, is the biggest culprit, without which the illegal bookies would not have a base to operate. The other arm of the Government does not help by backing the Singapore Pools Pte Ltd in setting up 4-D centres all over the island. In March last year, the Ministry of Home Affairs was reported by the Straits Times to have called in the representatives of the Turf Club and the Singapore Pools to find out ways and means of making the best out of the punters. The Turf Club's General Manager, Mr Tim Thompson, was later reported to have said that his Club would do its best to help the authorities stop the illegal betting nuisance. Nuisance? Has he got the right to say that word? His Club is causing more nuisance to the public than all the others put together. Ask any motorist who has to return home on a Saturday afternoon after work, and he will tell you the nuisance of the long traffic jam he has to endure along Bukit Timah Road when it is a race day.”
“I became aware of this phenomenon only in the year before last when, after a long spell of absence from the scene of Singapore, I was asked to organize a reception party for the walkabout of the First Deputy Prime Minister in my constituency. For weeks before the event, I was touring the area quietly myself and sometimes with the CCC members. We went to the hawker centres, markets and shopping areas. We found that even on Sundays at the designated time when the walkabout was supposed to take place, these places were actually bustling with activities. People were shouting, eating, and generally enjoying themselves. So we decided to stage reception points at these very crowded places, hoping to attract the biggest possible crowd for the welcoming ceremony. I thought we could never fail. The places were so packed with people and if we threw in a few lion dances to pull in an even bigger crowd, it would be an instant success. But came the day of the walkabout, I was shocked to find that the places which I expected to be packed with people were actually deserted as if a curfew had been declared earlier on. There were only some small children running about. Throughout my term as an MP over the last 20-odd years, I have never known these places to be so quiet and peaceful and so lack of fellow human beings. Of course, it did not mean that the First DPM and I had suddenly become unpopular overnight and that people were avoiding us like the plague. It simply meant that the bookies and the 4-digit operators who had been using these places to stage their operations had decided to pack up and declare a holiday for themselves as a gesture of respect for the walkabout. Well, whichever way you want to interpret it.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I am basically not a gambler. I do not have any fondness for any form of gambling. I do not like to see my hard earned money taken away from me, neither do I welcome money which comes the easy way. However, I must also confess that I am not entirely stainless and innocent in this particular form of human vice. From time to time, I would have a go at the Singapore Stock Exchange known by many to be the biggest casino of all in Singapore. But that is more for the fun and the excitement of it than for actually making money; the idea being to prove that I am not a born loser and that I too could be as smart as the economist and the city analyst in making forecasts and investment decisions. But I would be boasting if I said that I was making money from the Exchange all the time. Only the other day, I had the misfortune of backing the SIA at the wrong time. I applied for and was actually allotted a few thousand shares. For weeks I have been licking my wounds when its price plunged below the issue price. But now I learn that my fortune has turned and that the SIA is finally taking off. Illegal horse betting and 4-digit gambling have grown at an alarming speed over the years. They permeate every nook and corner of Singapore. I fully support the argument that this form of gambling, if uncontrolled, would erode and finally destroy the moral fabric of our society and turn our people into a mass of heartless and senseless human beings. It creates a deceptive sense of prosperity and wellbeing when everything is, in fact, not going on well.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I have not much experience in the law and neither have I any personal experience in appearing before the Subordinate Courts as the Member for Anson does. But can I take this opportunity to seek some clarification? With the passage of this Bill, does it mean that if, for instance, some political party owes us Members of Parliament money as a result of a libel action or otherwise, we are able to get judgment faster and get paid sooner, and not like the former Member for Paya Lebar who has to wait for years before he can see his money?”
“Discredit me. I would be quite happy, more than happy, because if the Government can prove that I was wrong, I was telling lies, then naturally the Government has made the point and the people would be happy. And if the people are happy, I would be happy too. Why should I worry about being discredited and debunked? So, Mr Speaker, Sir, my view on this matter may sound like those of the Opposition, but rest assured that I would not go along with this one. It is the last thing I would do - to follow the way of these two feeble beings. I will vote with the Government. This may sound like politics of hypocrisy. Well, this is the rule of the game of this House.”
“I just want to register my views about N on-Constituency and Non-Elected Members. I feel that if a man is good and if the people want him, let him come in by the front door. Why do we have to humiliate him by making him come in through the back door? Who are we here to give away seats in this Parliament and to decide how many seats the Opposition should have? Let the people decide. The people have just decided that we should only have two Opposition Members, no matter how miserable they are. So let it stay that way. Why should we upset their decision. The newspaper this morning has said that some of the Back-benchers have taken the role of the Opposition and even outshine the Opposition. So why do we need an extra Opposition Member? Would he make any difference to the arguments, to the substance and to everything that we are going to bring up in this House? Criticism is what you decide it to be, and true criticism can only come from the heart of the Members speaking with their conscience clear. No one should stand here telling Members what criticisms they should make and what criticisms they should not make. You will make a mockery of this House if that is the way you behave and if that is the way you want this Parliament to behave. You can win arguments by better, sounder arguments. You cannot win arguments by stuffing words into other people's mouth and make a fantastic story out of it and say that you have won the case. I have brought up many points in my speech previously and I was waiting to be discredited. I was like Noah sitting there, waiting for the torrential downpour to drown me. And what did I get? What I got was drips and sprays from the other side. So I was waiting to be debunked. If my arguments are wrong, go ahead; debunk them. Slaughter me.”
“Point of clarification. (In Mandarin) The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education has made a long speech on the use of hanyu pinyin and the simplified forms of Chinese. But he has not told us in what direction are we heading, in using simplified Chinese. I did not suggest that we go backwards. So let us know whether we are going forward, or staying put, or going back. In what direction are we going? Therefore, I hope those knowledgeable" Ju Gon" ( ) here would tell me. "Ju Gon" here in the Chinese term, I use refers to something noble and not the term "ju gon" used in combination with the word "ju" ( ) boar.”
“You have again put words into my mouth. It is a good one though. 4.25 pm”
“Since the Member for Potong Pasir is seeking his clarification, may I have mine too? I never said that it was wrong for Ministers to be paid and to have high pay. I never said that. What I did was to show a comparison.”
“Is it so difficult to tell how much is the pay of a Minister now?”
“I didn't say that. On a point of clarification. I think the Minister is putting a lot of words into my mouth.”
“On a point of clarification, Sir. I did not say what the Member for Bukit Timah says that the man is only interested in seeing what is happening here. I did not say that they are interested only in seeing things here. I said that the small man can only see things around himself.”
“A point of elucidation, Sir. The Member for Alexandra said that over 4,000 workers were queuing for 400 jobs in a hotel. "Does this not tell us something?" Does this not tell us that our young people are now going only for the soft jobs in hotels? On the other hand, we were told this morning that over 150,000 work permits have been issued to guest workers. Should the Government not do something about this, to tell and educate our people that there is pride in jobs in any particular profession, whether it is in hotels, in the construction industry or anything?”
“All these values are there in the Chinese operas, but they say this is not culture, and therefore it is not worth showing in the Culture Channel. But it is still not too late to try and win back the support and confidence of the common man. We must not antagonize and alienate them. We must treat them as our friends. They may not have good paper qualifications but they have feelings. Even in China (it was once said in this House) they believe more in chopping heads than in counting heads. There is this old saying which likens the rulers of the country to a "boat", and the people to "water". Water can carry a boat but it can also sink the boat - " " Respect them and attend to their needs at all times, and the people will carry you very far. Otherwise, you will be sunk by them. 3.52 p.m.”
“They have done very good work and they have given very good, enjoyable programmes. We have Tchaikovsky ballets and Verdi operas and we have Beethoven symphonies. We have everything which we can call "culture" - good culture, good civilization. But what I want to quarrel with them is their mentality in classifying the programmes which they call "culture and good-taste programmes". Whatever that is, Western culture, according to them, is good and is suitable to be used in Channel 12. Whatever is not, it would not use. So we have these operas, whether it is sung in Italian, or German, or French, they would telecast because this is "culture". But an opera that is sung in Cantonese, or in the Peking dialect, is not culture; so it is not telecast, not used there. This is the mentality behind it. We have the vast, the very rich Asian culture right under our nose, and yet they ignore them. Some of them, can only be shown, a very, very small part of them, shown only on occasions like Chinese New Year and so on. But I think it is this sort of thing that makes Singapore what it is, it gives us the values, the culture. It is no use giving them a good culture if they cannot understand all these operas sung in Italian. And the other operas in Italian, in German, and in French. I enjoy it, I like it. But what about all the old folks? The operas in Cantonese and in other dialects have hundreds of years of history, and they impart to us their values in a story. It is not just an opera. It gives you all the history of China, the literature, the poems of the Tang period, the Sung period. All these are being reflected in these operas; how to teach our children to be filial to their parents and be loyal to their friends.”
“I really do not know because I have nobody there in that village. But it tells a history of blood and tears, of how the overseas Chinese had gone overseas to make their fortune and be bullied. Then there is this mad scramble to change the traditional place names into hanyu pinyin. I thought once upon a time we had decided as a matter of principle not to change any place names, whether these names bear colonial colours or traditional history because these names carry with them a piece of our nation's background and history. And yet we see this attempt to change them all, sometimes with very laughable outcome. Tekkah market, for instance, has become Zhujiao ( ) market. Well, whether it is "Zhujiao" a place where it is under the bamboo tree, or whether it is Zhujiao ( ) - a pig's trotter, also pronounced as Zhujiao. Whether it is this or that, nobody knows, so that if you tell a taxi driver to take you to Tekkah market, to Zhujiao, he might think that you want to have a bowl of pig's trotters or something else. I do not know what. Then we have this place called Seletar. This was a Malay name, and the Chinese cannot pronounce Seletar properly, so they have to render it into Chinese characters and call it " ". And then our city planners, they have very wise idea, change this " " into a Hanyu Pinyin, Now it becomes Shilida. They have completely forgotten what it is all about, and I wonder why they have not bothered to change Mangka Kah into Wen Yao Jiao ( ). Maybe it is not very pronounceable because in Chinese " " means "a mosquito biting your leg". Are we going to have a place named like that? I now come to this other point about the programmes in Channel 12 by the SBC. They have made a very admirable effort.”
“No. It has a history of blood and tears. My forefathers or my father must have gone to Indonesia as a coolie. In those days the Dutch were in control. "J" is spelt for "Y". That is why this name was given to my father and to me. Maj Fong Sip Chee: Will the Member for Queenstown declare that his affinity is more close to the village in China which is pronounced as "Y", or to Indonesia, or to what is Singapore now?”
“A very good question. This gives me a very good opportunity to explain why it is spelt "Jek" and not "Yek". Maj Fong Sip Chee: Has it got anything to do with Jekyll?”
“I could be wrong but I beg forgiveness. Although there are only three syllables in a Chinese name, but from the way they spell it, the way they use it, you can not only identify where he comes from but you can also tell where his forefathers came from, which village his father came from, and which generation --- Maj Fong Sip Chee (Kampong Chai Chee): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I seek a point of clarification? Would the Member for Queenstown explain his own name "Jek" which is typically not Cantonese, and I do know that he is a Cantonese? I think it should be "Yek".”
“In Hong Kong, he would spell it as "Hui", and those in Peking or Taiwan would spell it as "Shui". So it is all different. In London, in the bigger metropolitan area, I used to meet Chinese from all parts of the world, and I often wonder how is it that I could very easily tell and identify where he came from, which part of China and which part of Southeast Asia. An Englishman once asked me how I could tell the difference between a man from China and a man from Singapore. Frankly, I did not know it myself. I told him that it was instinct. It could be the smell or something. Then one day when I faced several people from different places with different names but with the same Chinese characters, I found the answer. If a man, say, Koh, comes from Indonesia, then he would be obliged now to spell it as "Hoswala". And if he comes from the Philippines, it would be spelt as ". . palingco", with "co" at the end, and so on and so forth. It all makes sense. And all this comes back to me. The way we spell our names separates us from the rest of the Chinese world. Do we want to remain distinct, or do we want to submerge into the ocean of obscurity? Is it not better for us to remain a separate entity, no matter how small that entity is? Or does Mr Tang See Chim want to link up with Deng Hsiao Peng and become the long lost relative and change his name to Deng Xi Chen? For instance, the Member for Potong Pasir, if I can have a very quick intelligent guess, from the way he spells his name, Chiam See Tong, maybe he is a Hainanese. Am I right? An hon. Member: Teochew.”
“For the first time, since the 1915 May 4th Movement, the Chinese found a tool which would efficiently and accurately transcribe the sound of Mandarin on paper. Nevertheless, it is only a tool for transcription of Mandarin sounds. It cannot and will not replace the Chinese characters. But because it can translate the sounds accurately, I am sure it will help to speed up the teaching and learning of Mandarin. My advice to the new MPs who are now struggling to improve their Mandarin is this: they should take up the learning of hanyu pinyin seriously. I am sure they can master it in one or two weeks, and after that the mystery of the ancient oriental world will be gradually opened to them. However, we must not allow the enthusiasm for spreading the use of hanyu pinyin to overtake us and make us do something foolish, which is what is happening now. I am told that we are now in the process of transforming all the names of our children into hanyu pinyin, so that in one stroke we separate them from their ancestral names. One fine day when we wake up, we may not know how to write their names correctly. This, again, is a move which will lead us into many imponderables. The way we spell our names carries with it a piece of our own history. Whether we spell it in the Cantonese way, the Hokkien way, the Teochew way, or the Hainanese way, it tells the story of how our forefathers had gone to the various parts of Southeast Asia to seek their fortunes and then converged in Singapore and made Singapore what it is today. From the way a Chinese spells his name, you can easily tell where his father or he came from. If it is "Koh Lam Son" straightaway I know that he is a Hokkien and he comes from Singapore, because nowhere else would a Chinese with the same surname spell it that way.”
“No one in his right mind has suggested, or will ever suggest, dropping a few English letters here and there from the word "beautiful" in order to make it more easily taught and understood. The Americans have tried it, and we have words like "color", "favor", and so on and so forth, but we are not following that system here. So why should the Chinese characters be chopped and changed and castrated? As a result of that, there has been more confusion. Instead of simplifying it, they make it more complicated. And as a result of that, the word "hair", for instance, in Chinese "fa" ( ) and the word for "development" - "fa" ( ) are now indistinguishable. The word for "history", for instance, "li" ( ) and the Chinese character for "calendar" ( ) are also indistinguishable, and many other words have been made indistinguishable. As a result of that, our own children can now only read what has been fed to them and cannot gain access to the vast knowledge stored in the hundreds of thousands of books which were written in the non-simplified form. The tragedy now is that the simplification process is done only half way and has ground to a halt, and it has been left hanging ever since, in mid-air. The Chinese in the mainland must have now awakened to the damage that has been done to this very valuable writing script, and they have virtually called a halt to it. For many years now, no one has ever talked about the subject. No one has ever issued any new simplified characters. Nothing has been done. It is just left like that. No objectives, nothing. Can you believe it? I suppose this will also leave us dangling for quite some time too. Let me now come to the other subject, hanyu pinyin. At the outset, I must say that as a form of spelling for Mandarin, it has my wholehearted support.”
“It must have its inherent values, otherwise it could not have lasted so many thousand years and not being discarded. The Chinese are an intelligent people. The Japanese are also an intelligent people. After so many hundred years of searching and experimenting, they have yet to find another script which can satisfactorily replace these characters. It is part of the Asian culture. It is a legacy to all the east Asian people. With a legacy like this, one should value it and should not allow it to be tampered with or modified lightly. Yet the characters have suffered more damage in the last 20 years under the hands of the so-called "language reformers" than in the last 2,000 years under the hands of tyrannical emperors and warlords. The "reformers" ie, the language experts say that it takes too many strokes to form a Chinese character and that it is difficult to teach the young children to read and write them. I say, balderdash. The English language is just as difficult to write. It is also difficult to pronounce. It is also difficult to spell, but no one has suggested that the English words should be simplified. Take the English word "beautiful", for instance, and the Chinese character mei ( ). They both convey the same meaning. The English word "beautiful" takes nine letters to form and so it can be said to have nine writing strokes. The Chinese character "mei" also takes nine strokes to form. While the strokes in "mei" are dashes and dots written in different directions, the strokes in "beautiful" consist of different letters or alphabets, as you call them. It takes nine strokes to form the word "beautiful" and it also takes nine strokes to form the character "mei".”
“Yes, eye of the needle; the needle hole! It does not matter. It is an Asian way of expressing it well, ( ). But it is useful to point out that the SDF has already amassed a huge amount of money. Even if the levy is to be suspended for a year or two, there is no danger that the training programmes under the SDF would be jeopardized. Up to March last year, the SDF has accumulated an amount of $432 million. But in the same period it has only paid out slightly more than $40 million as grants. So at this rate, if the grants do not increase substantially over the years, the fund can easily last for more than 10 years. But in any case, the argument is quite strong for the Fund to be abolished for the time being and reintroduced when the economy is in better shape. The Prime Minister has advised the younger generation against tossing overboard fixed, settled values which are part of our culture, part of our ethos." This advice should be well heeded. I cannot agree with him more. We have been helpless in seeing these good old values being eroded, compromised and dismantled for too long. But somehow I have the feeling that his officials and we ourselves have been unknowingly and unwittingly a party to this dismantling and demolishing of our traditional cultural values. I need only bring out two examples - the simplification of the Chinese characters and the cultural or high-brow programmes in SBC's Channel 12. First, the Chinese characters which we call han zhi. The Chinese characters have served not only the Chinese people but also the Japanese people, the Korean people and even the Vietnamese people for more than 2,000 years. It is still the most widely used and the oldest writing scripts in the world.”
“So at the end of the year he has to make the adjustments and pay less bonus to his workers. In the end, it is the poor workers who have lost out. It is interesting to find that even the trade unionists among here have spoken out against the SDF. Why should trade unionists speak out against it when workers are not required to contribute to it? They have lost nothing. Why? And the SDF is ostensibly meant to upgrade the skill of the workers and prepare them for better and higher paid jobs. Why, may I ask, should the trade unionists raise the matter? I think in a way the unionists have sensed, although no one has told them, that the levy has indirectly hurt the workers in the same way as it has the small employers. I know it is not the habit of this Government to abolish any levy or tax once it has got them going. It would be like to force the biblical camel through the needle hole; if I had quoted the bible correctly. I beg your pardon. The authority is not here. An hon. Member: Eye of the needle.”
“I have a feeling that the day may not be far away when we have to pay for the sea breeze in the Esplanade and for a swim in Changi Beach. No wonder they "Pay And Pay." You know what that means. In recent months, the newspapers are so full of reports about companies going bankrupt and workers being retrenched that I do not have to be an economist to tell you that things are getting very bad in our economy. High overhead cost, high labour cost and high value of the Singapore Dollar have hit our businessmen very hard, especially the small businessmen. I think the Government ought to do something to get them out of this very difficult time. I think one thing the Government can easily do in this respect without losing any revenue, and that is important, is to abolish the Skills Development Fund levy. The levy in its present form is unfair to the small employers and give tremendous advantage to the multinationals. A look at the SDF's latest annual report tells us that of the 50,405 small companies which employ less than 10 employees each, only 1.5% of them have applied and got grants from the SDF for their employees; whereas of the 217 large companies which employ more than 500 employees each, every one has applied and every one has been successful in getting grants for its employees. Some people say that the SDF levy is, in fact, an indirect tax on the workers in the lower income group, and I am inclined to agree with them. The reason is simple. If the hard-pressed small employer does not have to pay 4% of the payroll of his small low income employees into the SDF, he will have that much more money to pay to his workers. But because he has to pay to the SDF, he has less to reward them.”
“This is all very honourable and admirable and deserves our praise. But the ordinary man cannot see so far ahead. He cannot understand why certain things have to happen to him, so he gets very angry because of them. On the other hand, in places where the Government should show more care and sympathy, they are found lacking. If you are sick and if you do not have a credit balance in your Medisave account, it is too bad. If you have the misfortune to run a shop in an HDB estate, and if the HDB wants to increase your rent by 200% or 300% and if you cannot afford it, well, it is too bad. You have to move out and make way for those who are more efficient. And what happens to you is none of the Government's business. As a result of this high rental policy, many shops in the HDB estates cannot survive on legitimate business alone. [Laughter] It is an open secret. I know why Members are laughing because it is an open secret that many had to resort to doing other less legitimate business, such as running illegal 4-D operations to keep going. After an absence of more than six years from the politics of Singapore, I am naturally pleased to be back. However, I find that it is a very different Singapore that I have come back to. People are forever ready to charge you a fee for anything and for everything. The greatest shock came the other day when I found that I had to pay 50 cents to set foot on Chinatown. Can you believe it? I know you will say that nothing is for free in this world, and I subscribe to that philosophy. But in Chinatown where I used to roam freely as a boy! It is a bit much, isn't it, to have to pay 50 cents for a nostalgic stroll in Chinatown during Chinese New Year.”
“Our intentions, of course, were good. We were concerned that they were unable to manage their own money. We were worried that if we stuffed too much money into their hands they would squander it away, adding fuel to inflation which would leave them worse off than before. So it is better that part of the increase should be taken away and kept in their CPF until the time when they are old enough to handle it. But this, I think, is too caring and too paternalistic in a matter which everyone considers to be his own business and nobody else's. The same mentality prevailed when it came to tackling the problem of the old aged people. A commission was set up and the result was only too well-known. Its sweeping conclusion was that the people could not be trusted with their own money, even though they had lived for more than half a century. So it had to be retained until they get even older. Again, too caring and too paternalistic. Too much interference in areas where the common people consider them too personal and private to be regulated by the Government. The same thing happened in the case of women graduates. If you are a woman graduate and if you are not married by the age the Government thinks you should, the whole Government machinery would descend on you and devise ways and means to get you married off, and preferably producing good, brilliant babies. We tend to see too far ahead, look too deeply into problems and get worried too early. In a way, this is good and, with such people in charge, nothing much can go wrong. But what fun is there? It is also in keeping with the good old Chinese philosophy which says, "A leader should show concern and start thinking long before his people get into trouble. He should enjoy only after his people have enjoyed." ( ).”
“A cup of coffee which cost 10 cents is now 50 cents without milk. If we measure our achievements by these criteria, then we can be perceived as having failed miserably. I am not directing this criticism solely at the present younger leadership for whom I have great respect and admiration. I am directing it at ourselves collectively for allowing it to happen and we were blind to all the signals sent back to us by the people in their agony and frustration. The Member for Anson and the Member for Potong Pasir would be flattering themselves if they for one moment believe that they have brought about this turn in their political fortunes by their own effort. It is we who, through our own lopsided policies, have put them there. It is now up to the new leadership to remedy that situation and win back the supporters. To these supporters we must show concrete proof of our sincerity. It is no use telling them the nice things that are going to happen to them in the year 1999. It is no use telling them the fun things. Fun? What fun? It is no use telling them the fun things that are going to happen to them in 1999 when they cannot get themselves above the line of subsistence living now in 1985! It is true that the people in the lower income group had their pay increased on several occasions in the past years. But unfortunately every time they had an increase, whether it be the NWC recommendations or the 13-month salary, there was always a corresponding increase in the CPF contributions, which then left them not very far from where they were before. In fact, a man who now earns $500 a month takes home less than he did before. In the past, if he earned $500 a month, then after deduction of the CPF contribution at 5%, he would take home $475. Now, he is lucky if he can take home $375.”
“However, if some eat tapioca and some eat chicken, for instance, then we will have trouble because the tapioca eaters will complain. If everyone has an equal stake in the system, then this system is worth fighting for, worth dying for. Only then is there a meaning when we ask the people to strive for the best and to work their best. ( ) This is not a system that we want to preserve or perpetuate. We have just celebrated the 25th year of the rule of our Party. It is therefore a good time for us to sit down and take stock and to ask ourselves what we have done for the common man, the small man, or ( ), for whom we have set our task to serve when we first joined the PAP. It is true that we have created a few millionaires, and a few among us here too, not surprisingly. It is true that we have given everyone better schools, better houses and better standard of living. But has the livelihood of those in the 15-20% lower income group whom the President has specifically mentioned improved very much? Not much I would say. Over the last 25 years, the allowances of Members of Parliament have increased six times, from $500 to the present $3,000-plus. The pay of Ministers has increased 10 times. It used to be $2,000. I was told now it is $20,000. I have lost touch. I have not been here for several years. That is 10 times. But the pay of the average man, the small man, in the lower income group has only increased two times or at the most three times, if he works hard enough at overtime. His pay would be increased from, say, $200 a month to the present, say, $500 a month. But during the same period, our cost of living has risen five or six times. A plate of char kway teow which cost 30 cents in those days can now be had only at $2 if we want an egg.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, politics is about giving hope to the people. The people supported us and voted for us because they have placed their hope in us. If we fail to give them hope, they will abandon us. We may have the best intentions in the world and we may have the most visible achievements to show, but if the people's perception is that they cannot get a fair deal from us and that there is no hope of improving their livelihood under our rule, then they will abandon us. This, I suspect, must be what was in the minds of some of the 33% of voters when they went to the polling stations on 22nd December and voted against us. "Perception" here is the most important word. It is no use comparing us with the people in Calcutta or Bangkok. The common people cannot see beyond his immediate horizon. He can only compare himself with those who live around the corner, in condominiums and in executive flats, those who enjoy a four-figure or five-figure income. If he thinks that there is gross unfairness in the distribution of the nation's wealth and the only way he can make us understand his despair and frustration is simply to cast a vote against us, then he will do it. An ancient Chinese philosopher was quite right when he pointed out that a country never suffered from poverty. It only suffered from the ill effects of the inequality in the distribution of its wealth. ( ) In other words, if everyone is poor, then no one can complain. The pavement sleeper in Calcutta has nothing to complain because everyone sleeps in the pavement like him, and he cannot see anything else. Similarly, if everyone eats tapioca, no one will complain because, if that is all we have, then we will have it.”
“The drop in the population of licensed hawkers has been offset by the mushrooming of new supermarkets, shopping complexes, restaurants/coffee houses, eating establishments and canteens in the recent years. More Singaporeans are patronising these new establishments and there is no over-crowding at markets and food centres. There are still 10,500 licensed hawkers on the streets and in temporary premises who need to be resited into proper premises with facilities that will satisfy standards of public health. Apart from the escalating cost of constructing markets and food centres, difficulties are also encountered in obtaining suitable sites for these projects. The existing policy has already been modified to allow issue of hawker licences to hardship cases such as shopkeepers, farmers and fishermen who have been affected by redevelopment. It is considered that even with the marginal decline in the number of licensed hawkers, the hawker population will be sufficient to serve the population in view of the provision of alternative facilities. In addition, there is no intention to liberalise the issue of hawker licences as there is an urgent problem of resiting 10,500 licensed street hawkers into proper premises and the economy demands channelling of young and able-bodied persons into more productive sectors of the economy. DETENTION OF G. RAMAN (Particulars) 21. Mr Ho See Beng asked the Minister for Home Affairs and Education whether Mr G. Raman is still under detention and, if so, whether he will be released soon since he has given a full account of his involvement and renounced the communist cause.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, the National Theatre is semi open-air and is exposed to the weather. The facilities are therefore subject to rapid wear and tear. Maintenance work and improvements are carried out continuously. The stairs leading to the National Theatre are the normal stairs that have been in use since the Theatre was built in 1963. The National Theatre Trust has plans to widen the steps as well as the entrances to the auditorium. Resurfacing of areas which are slippery will also be done. It is not practical to consider providing toilet facilities within the Theatre. It is, however, proposed to erect covered ways leading to the existing toilet areas. Proposals to provide additional sheltered areas outside the auditorium are also being considered. LICENSING OF HAWKERS (Policy) 20. Encik Mansor Haji Sukaimi asked the Minister for Law and the Environment whether there is a progressive decrease of licensed hawkers in the Republic: and, if so, whether he will revise the present policies of issuing licences to hawkers to ensure that there are sufficient hawkers to serve the population in the future years. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment (Mr Chor Yeok Eng) (for the Minister for Law and the Environment)( In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, the number of licensed hawkers has declined from approximately 31,000 in June 1973 to 27,400 in June this year. This decline in the population of licensed hawkers is due to the phasing out of the pasar malam hawkers, hawkers surrendering their licences voluntarily to go into other occupations/vocations and, to a small extent, due to the death of old licensees.”