Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore
“Sir, I had not intended to intervene in any debate. But I was doing physiotherapy just now and reading the newspapers and I thought I should bring the House back to earth. Mr Rajaratnam had great virtues in the midst of despondency after a series of race riots when we were thrown out during Independence.”
“A point of clarification, Sir. The Member has compared Singapore against Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. Can I ask him if he considers Singapore's population to resource ratio equal to Denmark, Switzerland and Finland?”
“The Member has not answered my question. Is he saying that we are comparing apples with apples? Is he saying that the system of government in Finland, Denmark and Switzerland can bring them from First World to a superpower? Can they do that?”
“I am putting a simple question and ask for his clarification. He has compared Singapore as if it were a Denmark, a Switzerland or a Finland. Their system, their governments, never produced the kind of transformation that we have had, and their system and their governments have a broader base, and can afford a mediocre government.”
“At the end of the day, that will be the same for the Malays, for the Indians and for all the others. S Rajaratnam was aiming for the stars. I went along with him with the pledge, and we must try to live up to the pledge. But to say, let us forget race, language, religion, culture, that is not doable.”
“So there is a wide range of options open and it depends on your judgment on the quality of the people you appoint, and also what is the objective of appointing people to these positions, whether you want them to stay effectively until retirement, which means you have to avoid appointing good people to these positions early which is, I thi…”
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“Mr Speaker, Sir, I have not spoken in previous debates in this Chamber since this Parliament was elected because I think the future belongs to the younger Members. But this is an old and never ending subject - education, language and culture. I have listened to the speeches made yesterday and today on my computer URL. I think we have made progress. But unlike Ms Irene Ng's idealistic approach that we should create a national consciousness and forget our ethnic origins and be Singaporeans, I think this will take us a few more generations. If you take a vote in this Chamber, never mind about going out to the constituencies, and say, "Do you agree with what Irene Ng said?", I am pretty certain that the overwhelming majority will say, "Let's stick to where we are." Race, language, religion, culture are deep in the human psyche. You cannot change your race. You can change your language. You can change your religion. You can, over time, change your culture. So there are countries which strive very hard to obliterate race, language and religion to treat all their subjects equally. At present, a leading exponent of this philosophy of government, of nation building, is the United States. It has been a white man's country. They excluded, by their Immigration Acts, immigration from Asia until the 1960s. But in recent years, because they were caught up in the Korean war, Vietnam war, they removed those Immigration Acts. They now understand that they need talent, and they are not getting it from Europe any more, so too Australia and Canada with their big, wide, open spaces that have to be filled up. So they have lifted the bar against non-white races but have a high bar for education and ability. But has the United States succeeded? If you are black?”
“So there is a wide range of options open and it depends on your judgment on the quality of the people you appoint, and also what is the objective of appointing people to these positions, whether you want them to stay effectively until retirement, which means you have to avoid appointing good people to these positions early which is, I think, undesirable. As I have explained in my speech, the reasons we have chosen to make these amendments are quite clear and I believe they are sound and correct.”
“In fact, it is precisely for this reason that the Constitution is being amended to allow access to 50% of NII in order to meet increased future spending requirements, primarily on health care. The Minister for Health has also said that we have made a start in this direction as the Government has created several buckets of funds, ie, Medifund and the Eldercare Endowment Fund in which monies are placed in anticipation of future requirements for the elderly. In the case of the Eldercare Endowment Fund, the targeted amount is $2.5 billion, of which $400 million has already been placed. We will continue to add to this Endowment Fund in future from budget surpluses and also through the NII component. I think this covers largely the issues which have been raised. Finally, I turn to the point raised by Mr Low Thia Khiang on the term of the Auditor-General. He says that he does not support the amendment because he believes that it is necessary for the Auditor-General to be appointed until retirement as this gives him independence. This is a matter of judgement. We believe that 6 years plus 6 years should provide him with sufficient independence and it is not an uncommon practice for other large countries to also limit the terms of the Auditor-General. For example, Australia has a 10-year non-renewable term; Canada also has a 10-year non-renewable term. Japan has a 7-year term. New Zealand also has a non-renewable 7-year term. In the case of the United States of America, it is a 15-year non-renewable term.”
“If they try to do this, it will show up in the accounts available to the President and his Council of Presidential Advisers. Any large scale manipulation of our reserves to focus on buying huge amounts of, say, junk bonds with high interest rates will become very obvious. And when this comes to the attention of the President and his advisers, the President has an obligation to call the Government to account for these changes and if he is not satisfied with the answer, he can take the matter to the public and to Parliament. I think it is unlikely that any significant manipulation can be achieved without attracting the President's attention. Dr Wang Kai Yuen has made some strong pleas for increased social and health spending for older citizens. The Minister for Health has addressed part of his concerns but I would like to just point out that the use of macro statistics on health expenditure is very dangerous because it depends on what you mean by "expenditure". I would rather, in looking at what we spend and what other countries spend, look at other types of statistics, such as life expectancy, percentage of life births, and other quality of life standards which we have achieved relative to other countries. That is probably a better measure of how well the money we have spent on health has achieved and, in most of these measures, I think we stand out quite well. Therefore, although what we spend looks small relative to what other countries spend, what we do spend is spent wisely and efficiently. There is no doubt that spending on health and social costs will increase rapidly as our population ages.”
“This means that if the Singapore economy continues to grow at around 4% to 5% over the longer term, we can be certain that fairly reliable estimates of operating revenue growth would be possible. On the expenditure side, long-term estimates of expenditure, especially development expenditures and, in particular, increases in health costs, are also subject to uncertainty. However, the balance of other spending requirements of Government is much more predictable as they are largely under Government control. On balance, therefore, we believe that the longer-term forecasts of operating budget balances should be fairly reliable. Finally, reasonable forecasts of future NII flows are also fairly reliable based on GIC's experience in managing past reserves in the last 20 years. Overall, therefore, it is concluded that no more than 50% of NII should be needed to supplement operating revenues in order to finance forecast expenditures through the year 2010. In fact, if GDP growth rates should exceed forecasts, and prudent control continues to be exercised over expenditures, 50% of NII may even be sufficient to ensure balanced budgets through most of the second decade of this century. The need for making frequent changes to the 50% figure is therefore unlikely. Mrs Lim is also concerned that future governments may, through the use of sophisticated financial instruments, manipulate the Government's accounts to maximise NII flows so that they would have a larger access to it. This is indeed possible, but the only way in which a profligate government can increase access to NII is to try to manipulate the investments so that you get a larger flow of interest and dividend income.”
“In any case, our proposal is that we will agree with the President which items should be included as NII and incorporate these into the principles for the protection of reserves. So, on balance, it is unlikely that disputes would arise. Mrs Lim Hwee Hua has raised several points, first of which is what is the role of Government and the public in the protection of reserves. I think the relationship is straightforward. Past reserves belong to the people, and the Government is merely a guardian and steward of these reserves. A good steward, in his role, is to protect the reserves and ensure that they are available for spending should the occasion arise. The reserves should also be efficiently managed so that the capital sum grows over time. She has also asked whether the figure of 50% to be protected was arrived at arbitrarily, because she believes that it is difficult to make accurate projections of revenue and expenditure over the long term. And, if there should be inaccuracies to these estimates, the figure of 50% may need to be amended over time, which would not be very desirable. I agree with her that the figure of 50% should not be changed too frequently as each change would require an amendment to the Constitution, which is obviously undesirable. The figure of 50% was therefore chosen after very careful consideration of the Government's long-term revenue and expenditure estimates. In the case of Singapore, on the revenue side, long-term forecasts of operating revenue have been fairly reliable. This is because we have a high degree of tax compliance in Singapore. Also, the Government's revenue income growth had shown consistent and strong correlation with GDP growth.”
“I guess, in this case, the balance could well go either way, but perhaps six years may indeed be a little short. The term of a Parliament is five years and the term of an Elected President is six years. It could possibly be argued that perhaps six years may be too short, perhaps it should be 10 years, which is two terms of Parliament, or 15 years, which is three terms of Parliament. Fifteen years is also arguable because if an Auditor-General comes into his position, he would have had several years of experience and he would be round about 45 to 50 years. And add another 15 years to his term, he retires at a good old age anyway. But, ultimately, Mr Speaker, Sir, it comes down to balance, and it is a judgement call. Six years, 10 years, 15 years, I believe the Government has made a judgement call and we can wait for our time to make the judgement whether this is a correct number or not. With that, Sir, I support the Bill. Dr Richard Hu Tsu Tau: Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank the Members who have supported the Amendment Bill although some have expressed reservations on particular issues which I will touch on. Mr Leong Horn Kee generally supports the amendment to the Constitution, for which I thank him. However, he has raised the point that, in the proposed amendment, the Minister for Finance has the final say on the amount of NII that the Government would lock up and, if in the event the President does not agree with this, there might be an issue of conflict. I believe that this is unlikely to happen because the President has full access to the Government's accounts and these accounts are audited by the Auditor-General. And if he does not agree to the statements, including the NII projections, he can raise any issues with the Government at any time.”
“The Senior Minister has said that he is the Chairman of the GIC and, certainly, a lot of our NII would have come from the skills that he has exercised in the management of the GIC and the NII. I would therefore say that, actually, the current Government has every right to spend every single cent of the NII. But it has exercised restraint. And it is a very commendable self-restraint that, in this case, instead of spending all of the NII, it is saying that up to 50% would be locked up. I therefore support this amendment. Mr Low Thia Khiang has also raised another issue, which, I believe, again boils down to balance. On the one hand, you have this argument that a person who is appointed until he retires has security of tenure and, therefore, he will not be looking for re-appointment and doing things to get his re-appointment. On the other hand, I think the real question is how do we make this Auditor-General independent and, if he is independent, he would not be looking to the clock or to the new appointment he is hoping to get. In our system now, the elected President is a person directly elected by the electorate and, therefore, if he does not act in the interests of the Singapore nation, he would not be elected. And under this system, the Auditor-General reports to the elected President, who is also independent of the parties in Parliament. I believe this is good enough as a check-and-balance, and I believe too that the Auditor-General, in reporting to Parliament, which is a House composed of ruling and opposition parties, would want to act independently and, in fact, would want to preserve his professional reputation as a neutral, dependable and credible Auditor-General.”
“Not just to the present; certainly not to the past. If you want to talk about merits and what people deserve, then with every certificate or medal that we give, we ought to give a huge sum either in annuity or in a capital grant. That is what the British used to do. When Nelson won at the Battle of Trafalgar, he was made a Lord and a large piece of land was bequeathed on him. So you can go down the list of British history. That is one reason why they have all this trouble in Ireland. Every time the British won a battle, they distributed large chunks of land in Ireland, which was their colony, to the generals who fought these battles because, without those generals winning those battles, there would be no empire. That is the way they did it. But do not mortgage the future. If you do, your children and your grandchildren will pay for it. Assoc. Prof. Toh See Kiat: Mr Speaker, Sir, speaking after the Senior Minister is an anti-climax, but I do not rise to be anti anything. I wish to support the Bill. Listening to the debate on the NII, I believe that, actually, it comes down to a question of balance. And the balance is, on the one hand, you have this argument that the NII comes from reserves that had been accumulated by past governments and the income from these past reserves should, therefore, be locked up accordingly. On the other hand, there can well be an argument that the NII that comes out from past reserves is actually managed by the current Government. How much we get out, as income from past reserves, is as much a question of the skill of the current Government as it is of the current Government earning money all by itself from new budget surpluses and so on.”
“Well, I decided to use my car and write it off. But can we write off human beings? We cannot. So, there comes a time when the bills become phenomenal. That is the problem that all developed countries are facing. If we were not developed, if we did not have this health service, we would not be facing this problem. The longevity, their lifespan, would be around 65, or, as in India, around 50. There is no old age problem. But we have a geriatric problem, and gerontology is going to be, increasingly, a large part of our medical practice. With cars, you can say, right, we will change the engine, change the axle, so we will just keep the chassis. Then you have dents, wrinkles, crumples, but a new engine. Can you do that with a human being? With each stage, it becomes prohibitive. So we have put NII out of reach, out of bounds. The PAP may lose. Somebody may win the elections, some party which says, "Unlock it". Well, they will have to win two-thirds to change the Constitution or they will be in conflict with the President. I do not say it is foolproof. My old colleagues told me I was trying the impossible in locking up the reserves. So when an old experienced Member like Dr Wang Kai Yuen, says this, I am reminded of their advice to me. Maybe it is impossible, but I hope, because I have this chance to tell you why I think what I think and what made me think this way to you MPs, it would not happen. It gives us enormous confidence. It gives us that flexibility to manage our economic affairs in a way we could not do if we did not have these reserves. Do you want to raid it? I can find even more compelling and more heart-rending reasons why we should spend it. But I suggest, no. At the end of the day, whom do we owe our deepest obligation to as a government? To the future.”
“They taught the speculators a lesson. That was a high risk exercise and they are still holding large amounts of shares. Why did they not do that in Singapore? Because relative to our different position they know we have quite a lot of ammunition. And this guarantees that nobody's CPF will ever be brought low by depreciation of our currency. Therefore, the Prime Minister decided to move this Constitutional Amendment. We have spent a long time arguing it in the 1980s; finally passed it after 1990, that we would not touch the reserves. And here comes an experienced PAP MP who says, "Let us have three buckets." I will tell you what will happen. We will all kick the bucket! Yes, to make the argument attractive he said it is 1% for health, 5% for defence. Defence just evaporates our resources. Health, look at the poor old people. I am one of them. My colleagues are among them and the frequency with which I meet them in the hospital, because orthopaedic problems and X-ray screening increase with age. It is inevitable. But argue it within the context of the present Budget. I would like to hear the Member argue why we should not spend 5% on defence and take away, say, 1 1/2% from defence to spend it on the old. If he can make that argument, that we should cut down on defence from 5% to 3 1/2%, and, with that extra 1 1/2%, as in the case of Florida between President-elect George W Bush and Vice-President Al Gore, we can argue about the most expensive drugs for the old. As we get older, it gets more and more expensive. For cars, I am told, with the COE, there is an optimum point - probably about four or five years - at which you decide whether you sell the car while you can still get good value and change to a new car, or you carry on to the end, till 10 years, and write it off.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I had anticipated in the 1980s that inevitably, sometime, somewhere, somebody is going to come up with compelling reason why we should use up our reserves. Singapore is very rich - I would not deny that. Who made us rich? The people of Singapore. Who led the people of Singapore? This government. Who will lead it to perdition? Those who abandon the principles that made Singapore. You can always present a sentimental approach to hard cases which will touch everybody's heartstrings, and then they will lose their sense of objectivity. Some child came from Nepal with some disease, and they raised half a million dollars because of the sympathy generated by the publicity. I do not deny that we should have sympathy and that we should demonstrate our compassion. But when we are talking about the future of Singapore and the future of the children and grandchildren of these old people, let us pause and think. One position I have continued to hold, although I am not the Prime Minister, is that of Chairman of the Government Investment Corporation. The Prime Minister asked me to carry on because he had enough to concentrate on. Yes, we have over US$100 billion invested all over the world. The market knows that, and the market considers it carefully before they attack the Singapore dollar. We can be brought down to our knees if they feel that you are unable to defend it. Hong Kong was in peril in 1998 when they aggressively attacked the stock market, they had to prevent themselves from being brought down. They attacked the dollar and forced interest rates up. When the interest rate goes up, the stock market goes down. They sold the stock market short, and eventually they bring Hong Kong down. So the government bought aggressively to push the stock index up.”
“Our market-based pay and allowances will give no excuse for any slippage, and it is the duty of all of us - MPs of all parties and ministers - to be alert, to make sure that no KKN incidents take place without proper investigation and punishment, and to set the example by maintaining high standards in protecting the integrity of our institutions. And you need two things for Singapore's continued well-being - strong institutions and good men to run them. [Applause]. 4.50 pm”
“Sit down, ask yourself, was that doing what comes naturally? What needs to be done to achieve that? A working system, good policies, anticipating problems before they hit you. The question really is: can we afford not to increase the $28 million paid to office holders last year by a further $6 million, which the revisions cost? See it in proportion to what is at stake. Pay the judges what we used to pay them and ask whether Chief Justice Yong could have done what he has done in the last 10 years. I knew the problems with the Bar and with the courts. Work was piling up. The problem could not be solved. It could only be solved by a complete change of system. I looked for a man who was a lawyer, whom I have known since we were in university together, who had gone into private practice and become a top banker. I asked him to take on this job. He has a real grasp of the outside world. I gave him the support. I said, "Change it," and he has. And in 10 years, it is a totally different judiciary, a totally different system, because he has been able to persuade good men to take up these jobs. The sum total increase which we are talking about is $400 million a year, and they involve billions in the GDP every year. Finally, do not believe that we have escaped the problems that have plagued our neighbours and the region - KKN for corruption, collusion and nepotism, which have caused so much damage. If we believe that we are immune from it, we are really risking our future. It is a world-wide disease and especially endemic in Asia, and we can be easily striken by it. Only constant vigilance has kept it down.”
“People need time to gauge and assess who has the qualities best suited for what jobs that can make Singapore grow and thrive. The danger for Singapore is one of sudden change, a new school term with new pupils, new prefects, new head prefect, and a new school principal. Many things can go awry. And I cannot over-emphasise the importance of continuity. The virtuous cycle that we have established, which the prime minister spoke about earlier today, is a cycle of good government making for high growth and social progress, leading to the re-election of good government, leading to the ability to renew that good government by recruiting more good men to continue the work. That cycle could be broken. If it does, it will probably never be re-established. You just look at the travail of the LDP in Japan. After 40 years in office, in the last decade, they have suffered from decreasing voter support. One factor which will help prevent that happening in Singapore is to have elections without money politics - no money to win elections, even to fight elections, and to pay ministers, judges, permanent secretaries, CEOs of companies and all those in the Government two-thirds of the market rate for the job. The issue is a simple one, whether the public sector should adopt the market rate. Big corporations give their top CEO share options, worth multi-millions, to attract the best. When they fail, they are out. Proctor & Gamble had two bad quarters, and the CEO resigned, and they looked for another one. This government has raised Singapore's per capita GDP from third world to first world levels. 1959, per capita, $1,300, when I first took office. 1990, 30 years later when I stepped down, $22,000, from $1,300. Ten years later, after Prime Minister Goh took over, it is now $37,000.”
“No great addition to your bio-data that will get you into a higher job. Maybe you can become a human resource or a trade union contact man. But from a good government point of view, NTUC is absolutely crucial because your policies have got to be sensitive to the large mass of the semi-skilled and the unskilled and somehow you must be able to craft your solutions so that they also have a place under the sun. Quietly, he built up rapport with union leaders and workers and won their confidence by his sincerity. Eleven years later, in 1991, he became senior minister of state for trade and industry, to test his decision-making power as an administrator. Then in 1993, he went back to NTUC as secretary-general and minister without portfolio in the PMO. When a difficult measure like cutting the CPF by 10% was necessary two years ago, he played a major part in persuading workers and union leaders to agree to this rational but emotionally very difficult cut. The point I want to make simply is this. It takes many years of quiet work to build up relationships and establish trust. Those in the NTUC doing this job, they are a crucial part of good government. As I have said, one flaw of the democratic system is that voters do not have a proper assessment of the real person behind a first-time candidate - his character, his steadfastness, his trustworthiness. They only know him after several years and it is true of ministers, of the Speaker and of every MP, including the opposition. Both Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang have been re-elected because their electorate has seen them as consistent and steady and are prepared to continue to have them represent them. Hence, it is important that MPs are suitably remunerated.”
“He had worked closely with me when we tried to help the Singapore Monitor get started to compete against the Straits Times and halfway through he told me, "Look, we can't. It will lose because of the grip of the Straits Times on all sources of news. They've bought out all the agencies, all the cartoons, everything. You cannot beat them." I decided that this man has judgement. So we fielded him in 1984 and only after another 10 years, now 16 years, that people have a different impression of him. They know that he is competent and effective. Look at the ministries that he has handled. So the prime minister now gives him National Development. Next, you take Teo Chee Hean. He stood in the by-election in Marine Parade in 1992 - tall, lean, lanky, a bit gawky - as against Dr Chee Soon Juan, voluble, exuberant. If it was not a GRC, one-to-one, he may well have lost. Because what was the basis for judging? A short note about his CV and you see the physical person and you judge him on what he says at a few rallies. But eight years later, from the things he has done, from the difficult problems he is setting out to solve, people recognise that this is a thinking man and a very serious man who gets things done and he is going to get the schools up to a different level, and the teachers too. They have seen the quality in the man, the depth of his commitment and that he can deliver. You take Lim Boon Heng, a Colombo Plan scholar, did naval architecture in the University of Newcastle. He worked in NOL in 1971 but because Goh Chok Tong had worked with him, he knew that this man can do things. He persuaded him to stand for election as MP in 1980, then sent him to NTUC to work with the secretary-general, Ong Teng Cheong. The NTUC is not a glamour sector.”
“But if you see the millions being made and you want to join in those millions, you will fail. The whole system will collapse." That is the problem. Look around and ask yourself: why has it failed? Because your authority to sign or not to sign a licence decides whether you will make him a millionaire or a billionaire or not, so why not make yourself one incidentally? It is not very difficult. In many countries, like America, people take on a job for a short period and then they go out to the private sector - where having served their country is a valuable addition to their bio-data, apart from the important connections that they will have. You look at one of the most successful American treasury secretaries since World War II, Robert Rubin - (Goldman Sachs, chairman) gave it up. For six years the market knew that they had a professional and a very able professional, and they had confidence in him. The boom in the Clinton years is partly due to him and to Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Fed. But he wanted to leave after the first term. He was persuaded to stay on. He stayed on another 11/2 years and now he is co-chairman of the Citigroup. Let me point out how long it takes to get an MP to learn to be a minister and have the public recognise him as such, especially when he is not a natural crowd puller or a mobiliser. There are two kinds of ministers in Singapore - the doer and the mobiliser. The ideal is to be able to do both. When Mah Bow Tan contested against Chiam See Tong in Potong Pasir, you would not believe it, in 1980, he lost. Because you stand in a crowd, watch two chaps performing, and say, "I think this chap looks reasonable. He is bright, energetic," and so they voted for him. But I happened to know Mah Bow Tan and I knew his career.”
“And the whole social climate has changed. I was looking through the latest Forbes magazine which I have got by courtesy of SIA because I am a frequent flyer. One whole copy lists out all the billionaires in the world with short descriptions of how they became what they are. I am quite sure they sell a few hundreds, if not a few thousand copies in Singapore. So all our top minds are reading and saying, "Surely he can do it, why not I try?" So we have a qualitative change in aspirations. And it affects the old guards too. Some of them meet me and say, "Look at my pension. This is what we are worth." So I looked at them and I said, "But that is the rules we made." They said, "Yes." So from time to time, I persuade the prime minister. I said, "Give the pensioners a bonus because we are doing well. But for them, we would not be doing well." But many of them, if I were to go back and ask them all again, and they knew the progress that Singapore would make, they would tell me, "You carry on. I will stay out." This is the real world. We are not talking of a hypothetical situation. These are real people who are going through a tremendous global revolution in values. You open up Fortune magazine, what is it all about? They also have their list of billionaires. Perhaps, if I were a young man of 35 or even 45, I will pause and ask myself, "Why not? Is it so difficult? Somebody else can do this job." But the plain fact is that very few people can do this job. I was explaining to the party secretary of Shenzhen when it was getting started in the 1980s, I said, "You have to be satisfied to run a system that enables many millionaires to flourish, and you are not a millionaire. And if you can do that, then you can succeed.”
“It is the opposite of the Japanese system, where top civil servants shape policy. Therefore, if Singapore does not have high calibre ministers, our performance will degrade and our economic growth will stumble and social problems will increase. That we have adequate salaries for ministers removes only one of the factors that stand in the way of recruiting talent. Since the last revision to this formula, the prime minister has tried to get many from the private sector to join - top bankers, top CEOs. He ended up only with one - Peter Chen from Shell. Why did the others decline? Some have moved on and become venture capitalists. Because they are bright enough and shrewd enough to see, "Look, I am 40-plus. If I join you, I will be asked to stay on and on and on, if I am successful. If I am not, I am out. By that time, I have lost my connections." Some declined because they sized up the ministers and decided they may not quite measure up. So it is a difficult task. It removes only one obstacle, but not an insignificant factor. Politically, it is not possible for any minister, or any MP, or any person to say at the outset that he would not have taken on the task of being a minister if he knew he would not be adequately compensated. But what he would do is, do it for a short term and then excuse himself. I can say this because I have been at it for over 40 years and anyway I am approaching the end of my career. So I can tell you the blunt truth. That period of revolutionary change that threw up people with deep convictions and overpowering motivations is over. That is a fact. We are in an era of high growth with fortunes being made by the enterprising, whether in a dot.com company or in finance or fund management, or in the professions.”
“I leave you to judge. But the point is that all the present cabinet members, including Lim Hng Kiang and Teo Chee Hean, were selected before 1990, before I stepped down. And since then, only three had made it to ministers of state - Peter Chen, Lim Swee Say, David Lim. The last intake of MPs was the highest average we ever had. But there is a difference between a good player and a Pele. That is what we have to look for, a striker. If the present team does not get more good men to join them in the next election in 2002, there will be a hiatus down the road. Good government did not happen by doing things naturally in Singapore. It was a thorough and meticulous process of selection and testing. Finally, I learned how the big MNCs did it in America, using psychologists and psychiatrists to recruit and to test before promotion. And we became better also at assessing character. The ability is simple to judge, but the character element is very difficult. But we have assembled together the best persons available and willing. And there is no alternative team, or group of people outside the government, who can replace this present team. I say this without wanting to discourage those who are outside. There are some probably star players outside, but you have got to form a team and work as a team. If this government should fall, standards of government would go down, because from the very start in 1959, Singapore has had a government which is led by ministers, not by civil servants. The permanent secretaries do not settle policy. They do not innovate. It is the ministers who strike out. It was Goh Keng Swee who started the Economic Development Board; Hon Sui Sen started NOL; SIA, DBS, so many things. They are creative men.”
“And at one time, we were so short of ministers to hold big ministries, that I persuaded two senior civil servants, top men, proven administrative ability, to contest elections and become ministers - Howe Yoon Chong, who was head of civil service, to become minister for defence, and Teh Cheang Wan, head of HDB, to become minister for national development. So it was an unending quest for the right man to put in the job. It takes many years for a person to be tried and tested as a minister, and to develop that judgement and trust. Every cabinet has its core members of the team, goal shooters and goalkeepers. Not all 11 players can have the same star quality. And it is the prerogative of the prime minister to pick his men and, having picked his men, it is his responsibility to get them jell into a team and, as a team, to deliver. I have grappled with this problem. And were it possible, I would have liked to pay the ministers the way football clubs pay their players. When you have a star player and you change clubs, hundreds of millions of pounds change hands. Could I do it? I would cause so much public discomfiture for the other ministers who are not goal scorers, that team would soon be unable to function as a team. So a certain balance must be kept, solidarity of the team and recognition by the captain that he is a scorer and he is a first-class goalkeeper. Somehow, you have got to get them to share not only the glory but also the remuneration. My core members for 25 years, they are well known to the public - Goh Keng Swee, S. Rajaratnam, Hon Sui Sen, Lim Kim San. Prime Minister Goh's core team must be obvious to all those who have watched how his government has performed, who have scored the goals, or have prevented them from being shot into our goal.”
“Nobody can predict which profession would be the high flying profession when it comes to maturity. Today it's the law. Tomorrow, it could be something else. At one time, the architects in the building boom had the best returns. So we now have decided, as a result of abolishing pensions, that we have to go with the rate for the market in that profession. We have new multi-faceted problems, because the global environment has changed and the best, our best whom we send abroad, are being recruited by top MNCs, also chasing talent and prepared to pay off their bonds. What is $200,000-$300,000 when you can get a good mind already proven? You can watch his school record, you can watch his college record, you can see his capabilities in argument, in presentation, and you have a ready-made winner. Whether he is a big winner or a small winner, it does not matter. But you know this is first league. Let me now take you to how we are now placed. The present team in the government was selected and had worked with the old guards long before 1990. The selection started in the 1960s was not very successful because, as I said, we did not know how to spot who would make a good minister. So we chose people who sympathised with our views, and had good minds. But they lacked the quality of making the right decisions. We started to succeed only in the 1970s, after 10 years of error. And in 1972, I persuaded Ong Teng Cheong, then an architect, to give up his lucrative practice to join us. He took several years to wind up his practice first. He had commitments. Then 1976, Goh Chok Tong, S. Dhanabalan, and 1979, Tony Tan, and so it went on. There were many others. But, as I said, the attrition rate was still considerable.”
“That means 10, 15 years down the road, we may not have the same quality at the top echelon. Hon Sui Sen recognised these changed circumstances and the altered values of our young. So he persuaded me in the 1970s to abandon this handcuffing of government officers by their pensions. We were losing, he said, too many good top men who are quite prepared to give up their pensions because they were attracted to lucrative careers in the private sector. So if we did not pay them pension, we could up their salary and compete. I was uneasy because we were departing from an age-old system. The British ran an empire for 200 years based on lifetime employment in the government service. But Hon Sui Sen himself had spent his whole life in government service and, at the end, he told me, "Look at my pension!" It was a pittance because inflation plus growth meant a pension was worth little. And he was convinced, and finally convinced me, that younger officers no longer considered their pensions a strong pull factor when deciding whether to stay or to leave. They wanted to be paid their worth immediately and so wanted to go on CPF. After much hesitation and reflection, I accepted the change and agreed to abandon pensions in favour of CPF. This led to the next series of other changes where salaries have to be regularly adjusted to match their counterparts in the private sector, or we would end up with the second and third best. It is a continuous series of exercises. In the old system, the British recruited straight from the universities; whether you are a law graduate, doctor, accountant, surveyor, architect, they all have similar salary scales. We inherited that. We carried that on. But it was unrelated to reality.”
“We did not know that when we started. We recruited them in the 1970s, but we knew them only in the 1980s. Each year, we also selected 20 to 30 (later we increased it to 100 to 120) of our best students for scholarships to study in the best universities and bonded them to serve the government for eight years. Parents were poorer then, and scholarships were few. So we had the pick of the crop. And it is from that generation of the 1960s and 70s that we have today the present leaders of the civil service and the statutory boards, and quite a number of ministers, scholars and SAF scholars. But since the middle-80s, especially in the 90s, our economic conditions changed and social attitudes altered. Now scholarships are numerous and commonplace. I read the Straits Times supplement on scholarships. Hundreds of them every year, because they had seen how we had succeeded - the private sector, the banks, even foreign multi-nationals in Singapore. So the Straits Times devotes a whole supplement to the scholarships on offer, describing, tabulating and comparing them in detail. Statutory boards, GLCs, all the big banks, major companies, like NatSteel, MNCs like Exxon Mobil, KPMG and American Insurance (AIA), they all give scholarships. They are all chasing a limited pool of scarce talent. Moreover, many parents now earn enough to send their children abroad to the best universities and do the subjects of their choice and have their children sign no bond, except to the father and mother, who would agree to whatever they want to do. This has changed the whole system of early recruitment and nurturing and career development of the best for higher appointments. For the last few years, the government and statutory boards no longer have the pick of the crop.”
“Only after 1990, when we had made radical salary revisions, and implemented them, has there been a full panoply of High Court judges. And it is an unending struggle now between the private sector, which includes multi-national legal corporations in Singapore, and the attorney-general's office and the legal service to compete for top talent. Let me now explain how we have done it in this chamber. To self-renew, MPs and ministers, besides the civil servants, we had to recruit at every election able younger people. For ministers, I persuaded, and my colleagues too, able academics with PhDs and professionals to run as MPs, then appointed them as ministers. Many did not make it. The attrition rate was high. These scholars had good minds and the ability to marshal facts and figures, and to present them. But they did not have that quality necessary for a minister - "judgement" - making a decision, the right decision, on the basis of complex and incomplete data. You cannot wait until you have got all the facts in and then decide. It is a moving situation. You have to decide where the trend is, what should we do. So I cast around with my colleagues and tried out successful men, never mind whether they got PhDs or not, but whether they had succeeded in the real world, men who have been successful in their professions and business and in their own fields. The results were better. Some of my ministers were very good at judging people. Hon Sui Sen, who was one of our best civil servants, permanent secretary, head of Economic Development Board, and later on I persuaded him to become an MP and then finance minister. He recommended several, among them people whom he had worked with - Goh Chok Tong, S Dhanabalan, Tony Tan. They were three heavyweight ministers.”
“The earnings of our top earners will continue to go up with the growth of our economy and so must ministerial salaries. This is a very strong trend. Let me give the growth in the last 10 years: average of the top 24 in six professions in 1989 (which is for 1990 income tax) was $1 million. Five years later, in 1994 it became $1.4 million, an increase of over a third. In 1999, it was $2.5 million, an increase of three-quarters, just in the last 10 years. So had we not had this formula, the prime minister would be faced with the awful dilemma of taking the 1994 salary and saying, "Can we revise it by 76%?" There are lawyers and doctors in this House - Shanmugam, Davinder Singh, Dr Michael Lim. They are in the private sector and they can confirm by how much the earnings of top lawyers and top doctors in the private sector have gone up in the last five years. In tandem with ministerial salaries, and the ministers form the benchmark, are the salaries of those in the higher echelons in the public service, and they are absolutely crucial officers of the State. Without good men occupying these positions, we would be unable to maintain our present standards - the Chief Justice, judges, attorney-general, auditor-general, accountant-general, permanent secretaries, CEOs of statutory boards. When we took over in 1959, we inherited a civil service recruited by the British with very few locals whom they picked from the best of a small pool of local talent. And it has been one unending process of improvisation and adjustment ever since. For years, we could not get good lawyers to be judges, because the disproportionate earnings in the private sector which they have to give up to become a judge make it unrealistic.”
“As I have said, the first Cabinet was unusual because it consisted of men who had been drawn together by the forces of history. We were young men in our 30s and 40s, who had been through the sufferings of the war and the Japanese Occupation. And we were tempered by that experience. We wanted independence, and were strongly driven to change the economy and our society. My colleagues were outstanding men, a core group that stayed together from the 1950s to the 1980s, when they retired. They provided Singapore with 30 years of stability, solid growth and finally a transformed society. But during that period, every few years I came to this House to revise their salaries to catch up with the fast growth economy and the ever higher salaries in the private sector. As we raced ahead and became part of the global economy, the salaries of our top people have been pulled up by those of their counterparts in the advanced countries and vice versa for those in the lower ranges. This trend is not likely to be reversed, unless we go into decline, in which case, the highly-trained and highly-skilled will leave, accelerating our fall. Of course, there is no extrapolation to its logical conclusion, as sometimes it would stabilise and plateau, because you cannot have a society which keeps on diverging. You can see from the protests in the developed countries - in America, now in France - that they also are protesting against a globalised economy because their lower end and their middle end earners are hurt by the export of industries, services and jobs; and they are really working against the interest of the developing world that needs these industries and jobs. So I advised the Prime Minister, and finally persuaded him to take this formula of an automatic adjustment to Parliament.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, there are no new arguments for the salary increases. They are obvious. They have been debated thoroughly but it is a popular issue which hits a popular imagination and it is not the norm in other countries to pay the market rate for the job. We have decided to do this and we know - I know and the prime minister knows - that wherever we go, we are greatly envied because they would like to do likewise. They just do not have the political strength. The events of the last five years, since the debate on ministerial salaries working out this formula, have only shown that the formula is a practical method. Otherwise in a fast-changing globalised economy - we would be repeatedly debating the need for salary revisions. Instead, we are now fine-tuning the formula from the average of the top four earners to the top eight earners, in six professions. I have grappled with this problem for over 30 years from 1959 to 1990. I had argued this question of ministerial salaries when I was in the opposition in 1955/56, 45 years ago. I then urged the chief minister of the day, David Marshall, to be realistic. His monthly salary then was a princely sum of $3,500 when as a leading lawyer he was making $10,000 to $20,000 a month. I recommended a realistic pay, appropriate to his earnings. But he did not have the political strength to do it and he left it at $3,500. So it remained until I developed sufficient political standing to be able to tackle the question and raise ministerial salaries in the 1970s when the economy had taken off. Allow me to recount briefly how we managed in the last 40 years since 1959 so that you will understand where did we start, how have we arrived at where we are.”
“I do not find any profit in this exchange. If I had not lived and learned, I would have failed, and Singapore would have failed. Every day that I live, I learn something new. The world changes. I keep abreast of it. And we are abreast of it because I have never stopped learning. I am not static and I hope never will be. The trouble with the Non-Constituency Member is that his mind froze. I have ceased to want to listen to him because I hear nothing new. It is frozen in time, which is a pity for him and for those who have to report him.”
“We wanted to keep our sense of proportion. The importance of this Chamber did not, and does not, depend upon its size and its grandeur, but upon the quality of the men and women who occupy it as representatives of the people. We must have that sense of proportion. When I heard Sidek Saniff saying that perhaps we should be one of the memorable tribes that Kotkin wrote about, I say, if only that were true. It is beyond our reach. But the premises we are moving to is within our sense of proportion. It is better furnished, more spacious, but not the magnificent and awe inspiring edifice that many new nations put up. By the standards of other public and private buildings in Singapore, it is modest by comparison. But that is a virtue. Behind the understatement lie great strengths of character, integrity and determination. That is what will see Singapore through, not the grand statements and monuments in brick and mortar or steel and concrete, with which so many other new nations try to impress themselves and their followers. [Applause.]”
“" Six weeks later in April, in London, when I attended a constitutional conference, I opened the Straits Times, and Mr Chan Yuen Tong had resigned. I thought, God, a man, wanted by the police, hiding somewhere, is able, without messengers, telephones, office, no bells, to get this man to resign. I was dealing with a real leader. We were to meet again three times before the elections. They were momentous meetings, because they decided how the Communists would act against the PAP, when it formed the Government. I was privileged to be present at the opening of this Assembly and fortunate to be present today at our last sitting. Like much of Singapore, we have to move out and on. But with this change, something is lost, and not just for me. There is a reason why the British, and other people with long histories, keep a certain sense of continuity of place. So people never allow a city to be completely demolished and forgotten. When Warsaw was bombed and destroyed in World War II, first by the Germans, and then by the Russians coming back, they laboriously rebuilt Warsaw on their old plans that they dug up, because a people must have a certain sense of place. We do not have the privilege of rebuilding around this Chamber to keep our sense of place. The building is not capacious enough, or sturdy enough, to allow us that privilege. Remember, when the British House of Commons was bombed during the War, they decided to rebuild it in exactly the same place, and kept as much of the old as was possible, so that they can say there Lloyd George, Gladstone or Disraeli, made their momentous speeches. When we became an independent republic in 1965, my colleagues and I considered whether we should move Parliament into a more handsome building like the City Hall. We decided against it.”
“But when I go to the Members' Room or what is now the Members' Room and used to be the Select Committee room, I am reminded of the time in March 1958 when I took a communist underground leader, the Plen as I call him, into that same room, for our first encounter. It played a not insignificant part in the history of Singapore, as did many other encounters I have had in this Chamber, but none more momentous and more exciting than that one. I had a message from a pro-communist trade unionist who used to converse with me in Mandarin to improve my Mandarin. This was in 1958 and he said, "Would I meet an important person?" I said, "Yes." He said, "It had to be very secret." I said, "Why?" Because he was wanted and he had to be very careful. So I thought, "What if I am caught with him?" I said, "Yes, I will meet him if he will meet me at the road between the Victoria Memorial Hall and Empress Place." And we agreed that we would meet there at half-past eleven. He said that the man would have his glasses placed in his shirt pocket. He would hold a Chinese newspaper. I said fine. He was there. I said, "Come with me." We came up and I took him to the Committee Room. The staff allowed him in because I brought him in. If the police were to descend on me, I would have said, "He is a constituent. He wants to see me." The staff did not know who he was. So I had prepared what I thought was a credible defence. He said, "I am the leader." I said, "How do I know?" He said, "You've got to take my word for it." I said, "Well, if you are the leader, then you order Chan Yuen Tong, who is a Workers' Party City Councillor, to resign. Then I'll believe you are the leader." He said to me, "Give me time.”
“Had he tried to pretend that he was a mathematician, Potong Pasir would have written him off; but Potong Pasir liked the sincerity of this man. I believe that this is a better system for choosing a leader because the selectors have a better knowledge of the person they will support as against those voting for a presidential candidate whom they know little about except what they see on television and what the mass media reports him to have said. Therefore, Parliamentary debates will remain important, not just as a forum for the clash of ideas, but the frequent exchanges that allow Members to get insights into whether this or that MP will make a good leader and deserves to lead them in the next elections, because the leader in the next elections will decide whether you win your seat easily or whether you are clinging to the ledge of the cliff. Sir, as we close our proceedings in this old Chamber, allow me, as the oldest Member, a moment of nostalgia. When I came up the stairs today, probably for the last time, I recall the different era when so much depended on how the votes would go at the division, the temper of the fierce opponents who used to frequent this Chamber and the Members' Room. They all played their part in keeping Singapore's parliamentary system alive and well. I do not just remember the people who are now before me, but more vividly in my mind's eyes are those who, by the accident of circumstances and the speeches they have made, etched themselves indelibly in my memory. They are ghosts that only I see.”
“You will notice that in Britain, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, regularly uses television settings outside Parliament, because his parliamentary setting is too raucous, too noisy, too disorderly, everybody wants to catch the eyes of the Speaker to appear on television, a television opportunity to project themselves. At a reception you gave, Mr Speaker, Sir, a few years ago, you invited a former Speaker of the House of Commons, George Thomas (later Lord Tonypandy). And over drinks, the Prime Minister and I asked him whether the introduction of television was a good thing for Parliament. He said it was inevitable but he did not think so, because it had lowered standards of behaviour in Parliament and standards of debate. They were speaking for a wider audience. But it has to happen, and we have to live with it. However Parliament as an arena for the contest of wits and wills over matters of policies will always remain important because of our system of parliamentary democracy, where the Prime Minister has to command the support of the majority in this House, not outside. He is elected not by the general electorate but by Members of this House, and there is a profound difference. As a voter outside, you only know Mr Chiam or Mr Low Thia Khiang from his speeches in print or from the bits you catch of him on television or from listening to him at mass rallies. But in this House, with constant interaction, you get the measure of the man, his character, his ability, his integrity, the quickness with which he is able to seize a point or the charm with which he laughs away and says, "Well, I am not very good in arithmetic." And for that reason, Mr Chiam got re-elected.”
“What would be cause for despair, and this is the reason for the Elected Presidency, if a transient mood of disappointment among the people as a result of some setback or mishap just before an election and it were to lead them to reject the PAP and vote in a motley crew of incompetents and adventurers. That could end up in tragedy. Hence it is important for us to expose opportunists and incompetents before they can pass themselves off as possible replacements for the PAP. There is a reason behind the sharp replies that we give. If you allow someone who is an adventurer, who is incompetent, who is a liar, to pass off as a credible person, then we are in trouble. And for that reason, when I look at Dr Vasoo there, I feel proud that we have such a Member because when Dr Chee came out in the 1992 by-elections and I found that he was his subordinate, I asked Vasoo what sort of man he was. He said, "Well, so-so, not so bad." But after Dr Chee's conduct in the elections, he decided, on his own, that he would expose the man as a charlatan, a petty liar and a thief. You can imagine the amount of problems we would have once he is elected and allowed to become a Minister. The spin doctors that would be at work that have surrounded themselves around his office. So there is a serious purpose which the foreign press of course thinks is dictatorial and authoritarian. But look at their countries. They do not discover the character of their leader until after he has gone into office, then they wring their hands. Is that wise? Parliament's chamber does not stand unchallenged as a pulpit to get your views across. With television, the pre-eminence of this Chamber as a forum, has been challenged by many other settings. It is not just for Singapore.”
“This will surely happen if the PAP does not self-renew by attracting some of the brightest and the best of each year's cohort to become MPs and later Ministers, men and women committed to improving the lives of their fellow citizens. Even more important is that the PAP must never be foolish in refusing, or failing to include on its side, able and dedicated men of strong political convictions, whether because of differences of personality or unwillingness to adjust to PAP policies, and that drives them to the Opposition benches. Because a few sincere and capable leaders could be the spearhead of a group of men and women, able in one or two election terms, to present the voters with a shadow cabinet, an alternative team that can match the PAP's. I was able to build up a credible team in one election term, four years after getting elected into this Chamber in 1955, just four years, because I had a group of talented colleagues outside the Chamber to plan and implement our strategy and I could present at election time a credible government of people with experience in administration and business who could be trusted to govern the country. Apart from barbers, farmers and trade unionists for grassroots support, we presented a team with a programme that is still available in print called The Tasks Ahead. If such a turn of events were to happen, where the PAP is displaced by a leaner, keener and shrewder team, I would not shed any tears over such an ouster. I would say that they deserved to be ousted. For this would be one way to renew the political leadership of Singapore.”
“The critical period, as I said, for our foundation was three years of intense stress, 1968 to 1971, when we reshaped our industrial relations. If we carried on the way we did previously with irresponsible unions calling strikes and go-slows, we would have perished. The union leaders knew that. Although they made powerful speeches why we should not go so far, nobody, no trade unionist in this House voted against amendments to the Employment Act, Trade Unions Act and the Industrial Relations Act. They have created the foundation on which our industrial relations have produced benefits for workers, in their homes, CPF, schools, clinics, hospitals, for the employers in the businesses that they have expanded, and for the Government in their repeated good returns at successive elections. There were no more moments of high drama because the Government's majority was never at risk. Even when we lost one seat in Anson to Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam in 1981, the excitement was momentary because no one expected major change. Mr Chiam See Tong created a bigger wave in Singapore when he won a second time in 1988 with a total of three seats. It carried long-term implications if the trend had continued. Unfortunately, for him, he fumbled and he got expelled from his own party. The question is: will this House see the return of an Opposition that can pose a serious challenge to the PAP? My answer: that depends on whether the governing party allows itself to go soft and flabby, and ceases to respond creatively to changing circumstances, and loses its standing with the people.”
“And Ahmad Ibrahim, a trade unionist from the Naval Base Labour Union, did not complete standard six. In 1959, 43 PAP Assemblymen, competent politically, were not highly educated, grassroots, trade unionists, two barbers, one farmer, journalists and many non-graduate teachers. With each successive election, the educational level improved, as it must. Unless this House is able to reflect the different population that is growing up outside, it will not remain relevant. Voters expect their MPs to be better educated, more energetic and effective than they themselves are, and humble and grateful that they have been voted in once every four to five years. But that is the way it is. This trend will continue. It means that MPs will have to be more knowledgeable and debate issues at a higher intellectual level. That is happening, and I am proud to say that I have contributed to this process. But all said and done, each batch of MPs met the needs of their generation of voters or the PAP MPs would not have been re-elected the next time round. Because if you have an MP who does not tend to his constituents and does not represent them well, that is a problem at the next election. Because they did, they enabled the Government to implement tough but sound policies and got us to where we now are. They were men and women of integrity. During the 40 years, since 1959, only four MPs have smudged this record of clean and honest government, only four out of over 100 MPs over a space of 40 years. Because of the absence of the opposition, we encouraged our backbenchers to play a critical role; their questioning has helped to ventilate issues which otherwise would not have been brought forward.”
“Sir, when we realised how deep and all-embracing was the grip of the communists on the ground and their determination to seize power, my mood changed. I lost my youthful innocence. The seriousness of the threat and the high stakes involved brought a more sombre tone to my speeches, reflecting my deep concerns for the future. Politics was a deadly serious business, in which all the parties, all the players, including us, were playing for keeps. Make no mistake about this. In this Chamber, we are playing for keeps. The future of Singapore and its three-plus million people is not a question for light-hearted banter. We are seeing before our eyes today what has happened in the last two years in Indonesia and what is happening right at this moment in East Timor, and yet if you cast your mind back to 1997, all was peaceful. So when I hear these speeches about liberties, freedoms, and so on, I said that is a luxury we, by our tough, hard-headed policies, have afforded them to talk about. But for us, nobody would be here today. Imagine what this place would be like. So I make no apologies either to the people, to my opponents here or to my critics abroad. Nobody believed we could make it, but we have. But there is no reason to believe that we will continue to make it. We will continue to make it only if there are tough-minded people who know the difference between the froth and the substance. Sir, as people in Singapore became better educated, our MPs reflected this change. In 1955, there were four of us. I was the only one with a university education. Goh Chew Chua, an old man, had made his way up in the world as a building contractor. Lim Chin Siong did not finish Chinese high school.”
“No. There are plenty of moments for him to clarify his thoughts.”
“I sympathise with the Member, once upon a time for Anson, now Non-Constituency. He reminds me of people in the constituencies. Whenever the Prime Minister goes walkabout, somebody would say, "Come on, join in. They are taking a photograph." It is a photo opportunity. Unless it is a point of order, I would ask ---”
“We worked hard, we worked smart, and, most important, we worked as a team. By the time the British withdrew in October 1971, we had avoided massive unemployment which we had feared because some 30,000 civilian employees, about 12% to 15% of the workforce, were discharged with redundancy benefits. And some 40,000 outside - shopkeepers, bartenders, laundrymen, those maids who serviced the families of the British servicemen - were also affected. For our defence, I think we were fortunate because, although we had an incipient, a budding little nucleus of a defence force, the British, together with the Australians and New Zealanders, decided after all, because there was a change in Government in Britain in 1970 - Labour was out, Prime Minister Edward Heath's Conservative came in - they would stay on, but in a reduced capacity. And that bought us another four years till 1975. After we rode the oil crisis in 1973, we were more confident that we could survive on our own. The final period for me, 1972 to 1990, was a time for qualitative improvements across the board, with our concerns shifting over the years and moving from fundamentals to the finer qualities of life. So my speeches in this House mirrored the changes in mood and challenge of the time. As I said, the first two years (1955 to 1957), it was light-hearted and quite enjoyable, the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate with David Marshall providing me with the sparring partner.”
“I know that that means there is calm, peace, confidence outside. The only time it was filled up was on ceremonial occasions, like the Opening of Parliament or, perhaps, today, on the final session of this House. But they were important years because in the calm, quiet and sober mood of deliberation, we laid the foundation for Singapore's future. We consolidated our young nation. I hope that for a long while yet the House will not attract the press and the public because they smell blood. It is when they smell blood - a government about to be thrown out when it loses the vote - that they would come to watch the kill. Sir, when writing my memoirs to recapture those years, I scanned the Addresses made by the Head of State, the Yang Di-Pertuan Negara, and, after 1965, the President, to this Chamber. They were all crafted by my colleagues and me, and were a barometer of our concerns over the 30 years I was in charge from 1959 to 1990. They break neatly into three distinct periods: 1959 to 1965 where we had a hectic political situation wrecked by spasms of violence and tension and when grave economic problems were piling up, but not given full attention to, because Ministers were too distracted. Then a second period of intense stress from 1965 to 1971. Then it was a deep sense of urgency, an urgency that enveloped us as we knew we had to cope on our own to build an army to defend ourselves, rushed to build an air force before the British withdrew after they announced it in 1968 for 1971, that was when it reached crisis proportions. 1968 to 1971, between the time they announced it and the time they withdrew, those four years were critical years for our young republic. We knew we either made it or we would fail.”
“I do not know what they hoped to gain by that filibuster, perhaps time to win over more PAP Assemblymen, then knock out the Government, but they did not succeed. There was an even more memorable occasion when we had debates on the Referendum Bill that they tried to procrastinate. But by then, we knew that the dice had been thrown, and they could not overthrow us. Although it was 25-25 across the aisle, we were never voted out. I calculated rightly that the Tengku would never allow Mr Lim Yew Hock to vote us out and face the prospect of having to deal with the Barisan Sosialis government. So we have never sullied our position by taking in corrupt people into our ranks. After Malaysia, in September 1963, the drama moved away from this Chamber. Because law and order, the police and armed forces, were subjects under the central government, so two race riots in July and September 1964 could not be debated here. When the centre of gravity returned after 9th August 1965, Dr Lee was not in this Chamber, because he had lost his election to Dr Toh Chin Chye by some 91 votes. They were critical votes because had he been in this Chamber, he would never have allowed his Barisan MPs to boycott it. As he was not here, he decided on their behalf that the 13 of them should boycott Parliament. It was a fateful mistake. For 16 years from 1965 till 1981, without any Opposition in this Chamber, in four successive general elections that we won, 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980. We reshaped the political landscape of Singapore. Crucial was that we never abused the trust the people placed on us. We maintained rigorous standards of propriety and honesty. There was no more exciting drama, no crowds in the Strangers' Gallery. I do not miss an audience when there is none.”
“They were still hoping that somehow they would find a way to stay in power with us. We expelled them. They went into opposition as Barisan Sosialis, with Dr Lee Siew Choh as their leader. Quite a few Members in this House will remember Dr Lee in his interlude as a Non-Constituency MP from 1988 to 1991. But what they saw was a shadow of Dr Lee, an older, much chastened man; this time without the aura and the sense of imminent power of the communists behind him. We saw a man, who Members will remember, found it difficult to take himself seriously. He would make a statement, then he would giggle at himself, because he knew it was ridiculous to say these things. He could not take himself seriously. But I remember him in the 1960s as a defiant figure, ranting at the Government Frontbenches, fervent in the belief that he was destined for greatness as the next Prime Minister. To those in this House who have not experienced those times, let me say why I call this House something like a theatre. Whenever there is a crisis, the crowd would fill up the Strangers' Gallery. It happened when there were riots in June 1955 when I was denounced by Mr David Marshall, and from time to time when there was great disorder outside and the Government was under pressure. And, of course, the most momentous was on 21st July 1961 when 13 PAP Assemblymen had moved across. The opposition, we were not sure how they would vote. And Dr Lee Siew Choh went great guns for seven hours with a team of script writers inside the Opposition Members' room, providing him with material that he read for the first time. My colleagues and I rose on points of order, but the Speaker, Sir George Oehlers, leaned over backwards, and allowed this filibustering to go on.”
“It was a toss-up between taking over since it was ours to lose or letting a bunch of incompetents and corrupt Ministers carry on for a second term, while we built up outside and became stronger, but ran the risk of the whole system - the civil service, all its institutions - becoming corrupted. We decided we had to move. The next four years, from 1959 to 1963, turned out to be even more momentous. Several crises played themselves out in this House. The most important was the day we decided to have a motion of confidence, which Ker Sin Tze had recounted. We wanted to separate the goats from the sheep. It is difficult to capture the atmosphere because today the communists are nobodies. But at that time, they believed, and many people believed, that they were the tide of history. And Assemblymen had to decide whether you go against that tide of history and get swept away or you ride the surf. We took a vote. Thirteen of them decided to ride the surf. The biggest surf rider of all was Dr Lee Siew Choh. He was no communist. We had fielded him as a candidate because Dr Goh Keng Swee knew him as a fellow student, he was in medical college, and as a chess player and a gambler. He gambled in his moves. And we said, why not, he spoke Chinese. He was promised by the Communists that he would become the Prime Minister. And one doctor who was no communist also joined them. I do not know how old Dr Ker was then. Maybe he remembered reading it in the newspapers or perhaps he looked up Hansard that after the debate, at 4.00 am, after the votes were counted, we were still the Government, and the battle began in earnest. And this time we had shrugged the albatross off our necks. We expelled the 13 pro-communist PAP Assemblymen who had abstained from voting. They did not vote against us.”
“Late in 1956 after David Marshall had resigned and Lim Yew Hock took over, Lim made a terrible mistake of ordering the Singapore Police Force, led by British officers, to clear up stay-in students of Chinese High School and Chung Cheng High School. He never recovered. He was portrayed as having destroyed Chinese language, education, culture. We learned some elementary lessons on politics. By the end of the second year (1957) after a second sweep of pro-communist union workers, after their front line leaders were removed, the second front line - when Lim Chin Siong was taken in, his brother Lim Chin Joo took over - not as bright, not as charismatic, but he carried his brother's name and regrouped the forces. This time it was portrayed as being against the workers. By the end of 1957, the ground sentiment had gone solidly against the Government and the other parties in this Assembly that supported the Government, and in favour of the PAP. The elections in 1959 was ours to lose. I made no mistakes between 1957 and 1959 and we swept to victory in the 1959 elections, winning 43 out of the 51 seats. Without the platform that this Chamber provided, the PAP could not have built up its support so quickly. Those four years also educated my colleagues and me on the realities of the problems we were going to face once we took power. Chinese chauvinism exploited by the communists - Chinese education, language, culture - the dissatisfaction of the workers who felt that they were shortchanged. Tremendous housing shortage, unemployment, lack of schools, lack of opportunities.”
“They generated enormous excitement and political agitation. We were taking our first steps away from direct rule by a Governor who presided over a mainly nominated Legislative Councillors to a partially self-governing Singapore. The Chief Minister was supposed to be in charge of the Government but key subjects, like foreign affairs and defence, were controlled by London and in Singapore, the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Attorney-General were all ex-officio British appointed officers. Re-reading Hansard, I was reminded of the light-hearted irreverence of the proceedings in this House because we were educated about the underground forces at work and how comprehensive was the hold of the communists on that dissatisfied ground. We thought it was fun and games. It was not. It is a world that has vanished. Not quite. Some areas where communist supporters had been resettled, I notice, still voted against the Government. People do not change their loyalties so easily, in spite of prosperity. That period can only be partially recaptured by those who were present and who will refresh their memory with these records. Sir, in those first four years, 1955 to 1959, this House provided me with a forum. It was the days before television. The newspapers were dead set against the PAP because we were identified as pro-communists or likely to be stooges of the communists and therefore a danger and a menace to democracy in Singapore. But they could not ignore what took place in this Chamber because they reflected what was going on outside - Hock Lee bus riots, series of strikes, go-slows which had erupted. By the end of the second year, 1955 to 1957, tumultuous events took place outside this Chamber.”
“He rose to speak and said: "Sir, I had no idea that I should rise so early in the House, but I now do so because I am delighted to learn from the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) that I only represent myself. So I think I have every right to say something." So I put him on the defensive right from the word go: we represent the people outside, he represented himself. He then quoted his Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden: "I should like to remind the House of the conditions the British Prime Minister (Sir Anthony Eden had become the Prime Minister) when he was Foreign Secretary laid down ... firstly, to suppress terrorism; secondly, to see that the people were on guard against Communist infiltration and aggression; thirdly, to develop a sound economy and administration and to achieve a durable accord between races; and fourthly, to provide a secure system of defence." He then said: "Speaking as a native of a country that has experienced seven centuries of freedom since Magna Carter, I thoroughly sympathise with the feelings of the Member for Tanjong Pagar, but I agree with the Member for Paya Lebar (Mr Lim Koon Teck, who was a banker and a Member of the Progressive Party) that the time is not yet ripe." We were not ready for independence. I believe it was not possible to predict how, from that very controlled, modulated beginning, this House went into rambunctious tumult, as strikes, go-slows and riots overtook Singapore. Because for several years before that, since the Declaration of Emergency in 1948, all was quiet. That election period let off tremendous forces that were at work, and the communist organisations directed the secret cadres in the trade unions, the Old Boys' Associations and the newspapers to come to life.”