Leon Perera
Singapore
“I thank the Nominated Member, Mr Mark Chay, for his clarification. I did, in my speech, allude to my awareness of the existence of sports scholarships and I mentioned a few, nor in my speech did I claim that there is no Government support for these less well-known sports.”
“Sorry, again. I acknowledge that, of course, no system is perfect. I think we all acknowledge that. My colleague Assoc Prof Jamus Lim presented data on the performance of different countries in sporting excellence, government spending relative to gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like to ask one short supplementary question. I am wondering if the Government will consider requiring or mandating private companies to provide an elderly or parent care leave to some extent, or flexible work arrangements that will allow for time for eldercare and parent care duties?”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just one supplementary question for the Senior Minister of State. He referred to the service quality framework that the Government uses vis-à-vis SingPost because SingPost is a Government licencee.”
“I was suggesting that the determination of consistency of the Ministerial Code of Conduct be done by an independent organisation. It could be the AGO, it could be a judge or retired judge or someone else to put that imprimatur of independence. I was not suggesting either or. You may disagree with that.”
“At the end of the day, healthcare is, and will remain, must remain, a profoundly human endeavour. There is no more important goal in healthcare than attracting, retaining and bringing out the best from our great healthcare workers.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,226 lines we hold for Leon Perera, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 22 of 25.
“During the debate, what I did call for was for the Government to explain its strategy for managing the politicisation risk and I felt that whatever had been explained up to that point in time were not sufficient safeguards to manage the politicisation risk. I alluded to Ms Rahayu Mahzam's comments as being one attempt to explain the strategy, but I pointed to the fact that there had not been a proper strategy explained at that time. I think some of the procedural changes that have been suggested today are an attempt to manage that politicisation risk but my statements then cannot be construed to mean that I support an Elected Presidency with procedural changes. What I am saying is that an Elected Presidency inherently has that risk, there is that inevitable tendency. There was no comprehensive strategy to manage that, and you can make procedural changes, you can make tweaks here and there but, at the end of the day, an election still runs the risk of becoming politicised even if you make all kinds of procedural changes. That is why an Appointed Presidency is still a better solution and the Constitutional Commission itself actually pointed that out. My statements in the November debate did not constitute support of an Elected Presidency with procedural safeguards.”
“I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his comment, but I think the totality of all that I said during the debate does not support a position that we should have an Elected President but make procedural changes, such as the ones that have been announced today. The position that I articulated then, and I hold the same position now is that we should revert to an Appointed President because whatever procedural changes you make, you do not eliminate the political risk. So, I was not arguing that we should go down the path of procedural changes.”
“I thank the Minister for sharing the extract from Hansard. But I think even as your own extract makes clear, referring back to the debate that Deputy Prime Minister Teo cited, I did not support the idea of an Elected Presidency and making procedural changes to reduce the politicisation risk in the election. I and my colleagues argued for the idea of an Appointed President because we argued and we still maintain that if you have an election, inevitably, that politicisation risk will emerge. There are various scenarios. I think one of them was touched on in the extract but, inevitably, there will be that risk. You can introduce procedural changes to campaign rules and so on and so forth and Minister Chan has shared some of those procedural changes today but it will not eliminate the procedural risk, that is why we argued then and we argue now that an Appointed President, like we had in the past, like President Yusof Ishak, is the best solution for Singapore.”
“I certainly agree with the goal. I think we do not disagree on the goal of having a unifying President as a symbol for Singapore. But what we disagreed about is the Elected Presidency. We argued then and we argue again that an election inevitably has a tendency to politicise the office of the President. An Appointed President, like what we had in the past, with President Yusof Ishak, like what the Constitutional Commission itself called for, is a better thing for Singapore.”
“Not only is it correct, it is what we have argued all along. That was what we argued in November.”
“The Workers' Party's proposal was for an Appointed President and an Elected Senate to exercise the custodial powers over Civil Service appointments and the Reserves that the Elected President currently holds. So, in fact, you are setting that out as a contradiction when there is no contradiction at all. We argued then for a reversion to an Appointed President and an Elected Senate to handle the custodial role and —”
“I would just like to make a point of clarification to Minister Chan in relation to what he just said. The speeches I made in November when we had the debate on the Constitution amendment were speeches in support of the Workers' Party's position for an Appointed President, for reverting to an Appointed President and an elected Senate. They were not offering specific suggestions about campaigning procedures for an Elected President. I was not agreeing with the notion that we should continue to elect the President, and here are my suggestions for the procedures to run that campaign. It was for supporting an Appointed President. And I would make the point, since it was brought up by Minster Chan who had made the observation, that the Constitutional Commission agreed with that point as well.”
“Just one question. In relation to the skills shortages that we have discussed, is the Government looking into the possibility of establishing in Singapore a basic degree course in special needs education? Based on my understanding, there is a Master's degree course and an Advanced Degree course, but not a basic degree course in special needs education.”
“Madam, just one supplementary question: does the withdrawal of the US from TPP set back any prospect of reviving the Doha Round of WTO negotiations? How does the Minister assess any prospect of advancing the Doha Round in the current context?”
“Madam, just one supplementary question for the Senior Minister of State. Does MOH currently benchmark the level of professional training, specifically for nursing home staff, such as ENs and nursing aides, against other countries that may have a best practice in this area, like Japan, for example, which I think is known for high standards for eldercare and care in nursing homes, to see if there is scope to further improve the level of training and continuous training that nursing staff receive in Singapore nursing homes? I suspect the level of training is rather uneven at the present moment when we look at the nursing home space.”
“Madam, just two supplementary questions for the Parliamentary Secretary. Does MOE play some role in reviewing the programmes that the SCCs run to level up in terms of the quality of their programmes and to share learnings as to the quality of the programmes? My second question is on students with special needs. Are teachers in at least some of these SCCs trained to provide the appropriate care for students with different types of special needs?”
“I thank the Senior Minister of State for the detailed answer. Would the Ministry consider a campaign to put up posters in some of these wet markets to educate consumers that stallholders are expected to display these prices and perhaps to have a hotline number they can call, if there are stallholders who are consistently not displaying prices?”
“I thank the Minister for his answers. Just a few brief clarification questions. First, with regard to the possibility of discriminatory employment practices, the Minister cited an example of ageism, everything going bad in the last three years and how the employee in that case can go to MOM. My question is: what will MOM do at that point? I suppose MOM will look at the case and see if it contravenes the Retirement and Re-employment Act. Would MOM also look at that company in a more systematic way? The reason I mention this is because of the "double weak companies". For those who discriminate against Singaporeans, there is a so-called framework where you look for other evidence or a pattern of discrimination, who are the people they have hired over time and so on. Does MOM do that now in cases of ageist discrimination and other kinds of discrimination, or will it consider doing so in the future if it does not do so now? The second and last question is: the Minister talked about the link between countries which have a higher or no retirement age and the labour force participation of those aged 65-plus. I am wondering: why do the tripartite partners feel that raising the retirement age or eliminating the retirement age reduces the labour force participation? I am wondering if there is really a causation or could it just be a correlation. There could be other reasons countries like the UK and the US may have lower post-65 labour force participation; they could have more generous defined benefits and pension schemes, for example. It may not be just the raising of the retirement age that is the thing that lowered the labour force participation.”
“Further down the road, depending on the effectiveness of these measures, as surveys reveal, we could consider introducing sticks against proven and repeated discriminators, as my colleague Mr Faisal Manap argued during the 2016 Committee of Supply debate. Right now, we have a system where employees can complain to TAFEP and TAFEP can then escalate complaints to MOM which can wield the stick of employment and work pass access as well as moral suasion. However, for companies that are not open to moral exhortations or which do not require Employment Passes or Work Permits, these sticks may be ineffective. Moreover, going further upstream, there could be many employees who know or suspect that they have been on the receiving end of discriminatory practices but who would not want to complain to TAFEP for many reasons, not only a lack of confidence or timidity but also perhaps a lack of confidence that they could prove their case in a "my word against yours" sort of situation. As a country, we have a long way to go to shift our labour market norms towards embracing the idea of people working till well into their 60s and perhaps older, if they choose to do so. Such work opens up a crucial vista for self-fulfilment for older Singaporeans who might otherwise be at risk of social isolation. It also gives older people a fair chance to enhance their incomes by earning an honest pay. As a country, it allows us to raise our total labour force participation and thus staff our industries without adding to the population as much. To move down this path, we need to go much further than this Bill.”
“But it is worth noting that this law does not address this possibility. It is a possibility that faces a huge number of workers who may be forcibly retired and, hence, thrown onto a job market where finding good permanent employment for someone in their late 40s or 50s, let alone older, is extremely hard, especially in the current economic climate. This points to a huge gap which the law does not address. In 2015, there were 8,700 discouraged workers in Singapore who would like to work but had given up looking for a job because they feel that their chances are almost nil, according to the 2015 Labour Force Survey. Sixty-nine percent of those discouraged were aged 50 and over. I suspect that many of these workers would have undergone countless ordeals of sending in applications with no reply, or going for interviews only to be met with rejections or a stone wall of silence until they decided to give up the unequal struggle. To meet this gap, we should relook at the framework for tackling discriminatory employment practices in general, not only for ageist prejudice but for other forms of prejudice on grounds of gender, race, religion, disability status or ex-offender status, for example. A good starting point would be to get good data from a comprehensive survey of employees, not only of employers, and this is a subject we have discussed in this House last year. We could then look at better carrots for employers who can demonstrate robust and auditable hiring and firing practices that give no quarter to prejudice of any kind.”
“What if an employer decides to terminate an employee just before she hits the age of 62 or even earlier, on the grounds of ageist prejudice, without invoking the reason of retirement at all, or without invoking the reason of age at all, but simply because they have decided that they can hire someone younger and more cheaply? There may be safeguards against employers doing this in the case of companies that have collective bargaining employment contracts. But most employees do not fall into this category. For most employees, there is no need for an employer to wait for the retirement age or re-employment age. Legally, they can terminate an employee with notice at any time. In other words, they can involuntarily retire their employees as and when they feel they have become too old. For most employees, there is no protection against such termination with notice or reasons of ageist prejudice unless it is very easy to prove that. This is because the law does not require the employer to state the reason nor is it easily challenged at MOM if the termination is a legal employment contract termination with notice period paid. To be sure, I am not arguing that employers should have the ability to terminate with notice eliminated. Employers need to be able to eliminate unnecessary positions as a last resort so as to protect the survival of the company and the jobs of the remaining workers under certain circumstances. Employers also need this in cases of legitimate employee performance issues. My concern is with employers who exercise this right for the wrong reasons − for reasons of ageist prejudice. No doubt, this is an issue that goes beyond the scope of the current changes to the Act and touches on our framework for dealing with discriminatory employment practices in general.”
“The first is that of an employer who does not wish to offer re-employment on grounds of performance, which is allowed under the Bill, and the second is that of an employer who terminates an employee with notice on ageist grounds because they have become too old but does not state this reason or leave any evidence of this being the reason. Let me first discuss the first scenario. It would seem to be an escape clause for the employer who wants to invoke the retirement age against the reluctant employee and not offer her re-employment. Clause 4 states that "where an employer does not intend to re-employ an employee past the retirement age because the employee does not either have satisfactory work performance or is not medically fit, the employer must give the employee written notice as far as is reasonably practicable before termination." Section 8 of the current Act provides some remedies, which is, for the employee to write in to MOM and let MOM decide if they have been unfairly dismissed or denied re-employment. Take, for example, their performance was satisfactory or if the reasonable notice was not provided. I would like to ask what safeguards are in place to ensure that an employee in such a situation will get assistance in presenting her case and that the burden of proof will actually lie with the employer. To be realistic, if an employer does not offer re-employment on grounds of performance, it may be hard for many employees to defend themselves to MOM, particularly if the company does not practise a system of regular performance reviews with documentary proof of the same, which is the case with many small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The second scenario I would like to discuss is even more likely and, hence, even more worrying.”
“Mdm Speaker, the Retirement and Re-employment Bill seeks to amend the existing law to raise the re-employment age up to 67 years and to repeal the section which allows employers to reduce the salaries of older workers once they reach 60, among other things. My colleague, Assoc Prof Daniel Goh, will speak more broadly about this Bill. I would like to confine my comments to one aspect of the employment of older persons which this Bill does not seem to sufficiently address and which is a gap in our current framework of law, regulation and norms in the labour market and, that is, how can we reduce instances of employers legally terminating employees but in a covert way as a result of ageist prejudice. I would like to ask: if an employee who does not have a mandatory retirement age specified in her employment contract has her employment terminated by the employer, with notice period paid, for the reason that she has reached retirement age, will the provisions of the Bill apply? The language of clause 4, Part I, suggests that this is the case since it states that notwithstanding any law, contract of service or collective agreement, the retirement age should not be less than 62 years and up to 67 years, as prescribed by the Minister. Section 4, Part II, of the existing Act also says that no employer shall dismiss on the ground of age any employee who is below 62 years of age or the prescribed minimum retirement age. However, this makes it all the more likely that an employer who is terminating an employee for reasons of ageism will not tell this to the employee or leave any paper trail as to the grounds for the termination. There are two scenarios I would like to highlight here.”
“Thirdly, the S$1 million threshold presumably includes bond holdings, but some bonds may be illiquid in practical terms, because it is either extremely difficult or impossible to sell such bonds to the secondary markets, for example, the bonds of companies undergoing some debt restructuring exercise or companies that are undergoing liquidation. Are illiquid bonds included in the definition of "financial assets" or should we differentiate between illiquid and liquid bonds to be considered within the S$1 million financial asset threshold? As these questions demonstrate, it may be necessary for MAS to be more prescriptive about how these legislative changes to the definition of an AI will, in practice, be operationalised.”
“With the passage of this Bill, the wealth criteria for an individual to qualify as an AI will be tightened, such that the net equity of the individual's primary residence can only contribute up to S$1 million of the current S$2 million net personal assets threshold. Alternatively, individuals will be able to qualify as an AI if they have S$1 million of financial assets, net of any related liabilities. Individuals whose wealth is concentrated in their primary residence and have little liquid assets otherwise, will no longer qualify as AIs. The aim of this change seems to be to ensure that AIs have at least S$1 million in liquid assets, that is, financial assets net of the property they reside in, which is a reasonable intent, and one that I agree with. I would like to ask a few questions about how these definitions will be operationalised so as to best realise this intent. Firstly, does the S$1 million financial asset threshold include the value of insurance policies? If so, how is this value calculated? By virtue of total premiums paid, maturity value of the policy or some other criteria? Secondly, should mark-to-market prices be used to determine the value of the property as well as the value of the more liquid assets? At the moment, some banks depend on investors' self-declaration in form filling. Will financial service institutions (FSIs) be required to ascertain mark-to-market prices for the properties and financial assets that the investors declare? If so, this may saddle FSIs with higher compliance costs, costs which may get passed on to their customers to some extent. But in any case, it would be important and useful for the position to be clarified so that FSIs are held to the same standard and are consistent in their practices.”
“The reason I ask this is that good systems for generating intelligence will be useless if the staff who have to sieve through the data are overwhelmed. Lastly, on this subject, I would like to pose a question about the robustness of our enforcement regime that is broader. What steps are being taken to prevent conflicts of interest between the regulator and the industry? And specifically, are there rules in place to control the ease with which Government employees with financial industry oversight responsibilities can join financial institutions immediately after they leave Government service? Are there rules in place which require such employees to exercise a cooling-off period, before they can join industries that they used to help regulate? In other countries, this matter has been a subject of some debate. The concern fuelling such debates is easy to see. If a tendency takes root whereby regulators often leave their Civil Service jobs to take up positions in the industries they used to regulate, sometimes with the expressed responsibility to manage communications with the Government, there is the possibility that serving regulators may be at risk of industry capture. What this means is that the regulators may tend to keep one eye on the interests of the industry that they are regulating, knowing that they may one day, sooner or later, join the employer of that industry. For example – and this example does not relate to the financial services industry or indeed to regulation per se, but the principle is the same – on 9 December 2016, US President-elect Donald Trump floated the idea that US military procurement officials should be banned for life from ever joining defence contractors. Next, I would like to query the changes made to the definition of an AI.”
“Referring to the penny stocks incident and the time it took to resolve, he was very concerned that insufficient enforcement would lead to retail investors like him losing money to rich market-movers, who may or may not be breaking the law. I recently filed a Parliamentary Question on this and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam replied that the resources that Singapore has devoted to investigating market misconduct offences are commensurate with the capitalisation and number of listed companies in our securities market, and comparable with other developed markets, such as Hong Kong and Australia. However, numbers were not cited for the level of investment that we put into enforcement, either in terms of budget or staffing. Specifically, I would like to ask a few questions. Firstly, will resources be expanded to cope with the expanded scope of the legislation and how will this be done? Secondly, are the numbers of civil penalty actions and prosecutions under this Act, which were cited in the Deputy Prime Minister's reply to my Parliamentary Question, commensurate with what is seen in other developed cities with a large stock exchange, like London, New York, Hong Kong, Chicago and Frankfurt, for example? Thirdly, does MAS monitor the ratio between the number of incoming leads for possible breaches of the Act on the one hand, from suspicious transaction reports, electronic meta-data analysis, public feedback and so on, and the number of staff analysing those leads, on the other hand? Is this ratio commensurate with what we see in other enforcement agencies, like the British Serious Fraud Office or the American Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance?”
“The right balance is smart regulations. I would like to speak on two areas: firstly, on our capabilities and safeguards for the enforcement of these and other financial services industry regulations; and secondly, I have some queries on the changes to the "accredited investor" definition, which I fear is insufficiently prescriptive. Complex regulations are only as good as the regulator's ability to enforce those regulations, lest they become, in Shakespeare's words, "rules more honoured in the breach than the observance". Insider trading is a good example of this. Insider trading crimes are difficult to prove in Court and require strong expertise and capabilities on the part of investigators and prosecutors. Given this widening of the scope of our securities and futures regulation that this Bill embodies, I would like to ask the Ministry what steps are being taken to beef up the enforcement capabilities of MAS and other agencies to proactively enforce adherence to these new rules. Of course, no regulator and no policing regime can be perfect, but what measures are being put in place to ensure a reasonably robust regime for detecting possible breaches, investigating them and, where warranted, bringing them to the Courts? It took several years for the authorities to bring charges, in the case of the penny stocks saga. This episode, which saw share prices see-saw, has unnerved retail investors. In my grassroots work, I met a retired resident who lived in a 3-room flat, who had invested small amounts of his money in the local stock market.”
“Mdm Speaker, the Securities and Futures (Amendment) Bill seeks to update and broaden regulations that apply to the trading of capital market products, the operation of approved exchanges, the disclosure requirements for certain types of trades and so on. On the whole, these changes are positive and, in fact, overdue. While I do not oppose the Bill, I would like to seek clarifications on some aspects of the Bill and make some comments on gaps that remain unaddressed. Madam, it is crucial that our business ecosystem for the trading of securities, derivatives, fixed income and other financial products achieve several things. We must be seen to be progressive and advanced, taking into consideration global best practices and leading edge developments in technology and business models. This is, of course, necessary to attract investments and create jobs in our financial services industry. It is also necessary to broaden investment options for Singaporeans. At the same time, our ecosystem must be seen to be fair and transparent. We should never allow it to be seen as a rigged game, which insiders can exploit for unfair advantages over the smaller players or retail investors. To allow this, is to risk weakening the viability of our financial services industry and, indeed, our social fabric. We have seen in other countries how there can be a public backlash against traders and market-movers who can make personal incomes of up to $100 million a year or more, seemingly, by not creating anything of value to society. So, we need to get the balance right. Too much regulation, and we risk strangling business, investment job creation and wealth creation. Too little regulation, and we risk feeding the perception that the markets are a rigged game.”
“I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply. I have just a few supplementary questions. Firstly, does the Minister have the data for the last three years so that we will know the trend for the total number of successful job placements from the totality of all the schemes for the last three years? Secondly, specifically on the Government-supported job fairs, does the Ministry actually track outcome specifically from that mechanism from the job fairs? A few other questions from that. For these job fairs, is there a mechanism to ensure that employers who participate have a minimum number of jobs that are up for offer before they are actually allowed to participate in these fairs? Those are my supplementary questions.”
“Mdm Speaker, I thank the Senior Minister of State for his replies. Just a quick point of clarification on the denial of registration of impermissible names because of character limit or other reasons. The Senior Minister of State mentioned that this is very rare. Would the Senior Minister of State be able to share with us his broad ballpark estimate, based on the number of cases ICA has seen of the number of names that are likely not to be approved to be registered each year under these new rules, very broadly speaking?”
“Next, the amendment to section 16(2A) allows a national registration officer to break open property, forcefully remove obstruction and take possession of documents found during a search. This gives search, seizure and use of force powers to national registration officers, which the Senior Minister of State would confirm would be ICA officers only and not private sector persons, but, nevertheless, therefore, extending Police powers to another group of personnel outside of the Police. I would like to record my concern on this point. Is this extension of Police powers really necessary or desirable? Can Police officers simply perform these tasks on behalf of national registration agencies? Lastly, and in conclusion, I have a technical question. The explanatory note to this Bill states that "no extra financial expenditure would be entailed by this Bill". If iris scanning technology is to be purchased and deployed on a considerable scale, would this not result in a considerable increase in financial expenditure? Thank you, Madam. 2.00 pm”
“Next, Madam, section 3(4)(c) allows the employee of a prescribed institution to act as a registration officer. This opens the way for private corporations to perform national registration tasks on contract. Would national registration officers working with private contractors, as with their public sector counterparts, be asked to sign the usual undertakings under the Official Secrets Act regarding the safeguarding of official information? Also – and here I return to an issue I have raised in the House in another context – would the Ministry conduct a privacy impact assessment, or PIA, before outsourcing national registration functions to companies, given the highly sensitive nature of personal identifier information, including possibly iris scan information? And how highly sought after such data would be by criminal syndicates? Also, the Bill does not expressly deal with contracts with the outsourcing contractors themselves. Unlike private organisations, the Government is not bound by the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). In previous parliamentary debates over the PDPA, the Government has said that it is bound by its own internal rules. The PDPA requires private organisations to ensure that organisations which process data on their behalf, or data intermediaries, comply with the PDPA protection and retention obligations. To ensure a minimum standard of protection and reduce the compliance complexity for its outsourcers, I would like to suggest that MHA should, at the minimum, treat all organisations it is contracting with for the purpose of national registration, like data intermediaries, under the PDPA. Terms and conditions in its tenders should also take into account the PDPC's guidelines on this issue for private organisations.”
“Since every act of legislation should be a response to a real-world problem or a problem that is likely to happen, my question is: have there been a significant or an increasing number of persons wanting to register their names that might be deemed to contain an impermissible reference to a rank or an award or deemed to be offensive or contrary to the national interest? I would also like to question the terms "offensive" and "contrary to the public interest". These are broad-sweeping terms that will give ICA very broad latitude in denying the registration of a name, setting up a tension with the right of individuals to choose their names and their children's names. Could the Senior Minister of State cite some examples of names that will be contrary to the national interest that it has encountered or, at least, indicate broadly what types of names will these be? Will these be, for example, names that contain expletives? Clause 14 allows the Minister to collect new personal identifiers, such as an iris scan which reflects developments in personal identification technology. I would just like to confirm − I believe I heard this earlier − with the Senior Minister of State that the intention is for the Government to eventually migrate everyone, all Singaporeans and Permanent Residents, to this new iris scan identification and collection. If that is the case, if my understanding is correct, then, no doubt, this is possible when people replace their NRICs and passports. But for those who are not replacing their NRICs and passports Page: 40 anytime soon, what would be the logistics or undertaking in such a massive exercise of collecting iris scans from every Singaporean and PR? What would be the schedule associated with that?”
“Similarly, can ICA publicly say or message that while certain penalties may apply on a case-by-case basis, no one will be denied an NRIC replacement because he cannot pay? Next, Madam, I would like to speak about clause 5 which places some limitations on what names can be registered. One of these rules is that the name cannot exceed the number of characters permitted by the electronic form of the national register, which the Senior Minister of State confirmed is 66 characters. As a matter of practical reality, of course, very few people would want to register a name longer than 66 characters. I fully recognise that, but there would be some individuals and families who want to. If a family wants to give their child a name that is too long or someone wants to do a deed poll to the same effect, will they be given sufficient time to consider how to abbreviate their officially registered name to 66 characters? Madam, I think back to the British colonial period, when registration officers in Singapore would often misrecord people's names because they did not understand the language of the person whose name they were recording, resulting in names that were worded in strange ways that were at odds with the intentions of the parents or the person. In those days, people had to live with the results of that. I hope that parents and individuals doing deed polls who find themselves on the wrong side of these new rules would have enough time and space to discuss alternatives with the registration officer, rather than being pressured to agree to an officially approved abbreviated version of their name, on the spot, as it were. Madam, also on clause 5, I would like to ask for some contextual information.”
“Mdm Speaker, the National Registration (Amendment) Bill seeks to make changes to the law governing the national register and NRIC in light of current realities and technology developments. I do not oppose the thrust of the Bill but I have a number of queries about the context for the amendments and a few requests for clarification and assurance on how these provisions will be implemented. Firstly, under the amendments to section 19, under clause 13, punishment for destruction of an identity card is $3,000, although the imprisonment term can be up to two years and can be implemented together with a $3,000 fine. Furthermore, the existing rules – and this is independent of the current Bill – are that replacing a lost NRIC costs $100 for the first loss and $300 for the second loss. These penalties are relevant to low-income, multi-problem households. Madam, I am sure many of us in this House have encountered low-income residents who sought to appeal for a deduction or waiver of those NRIC replacement costs on compassionate grounds. As an FSC volunteer in the past, I have met a number of low-income Singaporeans who have long lost their NRICs and who were deterred from seeking help from social work agencies and Government agencies by the prospect of having to pay for replacing their NRICs or, worse yet, Page: 39 charged with an offence they and their families will suffer as a result. An NRIC is crucial to interact with Government agencies to exercise the rights and responsibilities of a citizen. Rather than risk deterring at-risk persons from coming forward to ask for help, would ICA consider adopting a similar approach to that taken by our public healthcare institutions? And that approach is that no one will be denied medical help because they cannot pay.”
“I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. I just have two supplementary questions. In cases where a tree is replaced because it is in ill health or for some other reason, in some cases, I believe that a different species of tree is planted from the species that was planted before. I just wish to know what are the considerations behind that. Are there biodiversity considerations, or aesthetic or residents' feedback considerations? And where species switch is made in the replacement, is there some consultation aspect? Just as context, I received this feedback from a resident in East Coast, who noticed there was some change in the species mix of trees in the area, and that is why I am asking the question.”
“In other countries, similar kinds of bodies have full-time staff, independent staff, public finance specialists, economists and researchers, and they have budgets to engage such specialists. Will the Government make available resources and budgets and staffing to the President or the CPA to help them to make the decisions that they make, and to have an independent source of research from what the Government provides? And my last question was the question that I ended off my speech with, which is, in relation to the NCMP provisions within this Bill. If these provisions are passed, is it really the goal of the Government to take back 100% of elected seats and leave the Opposition only as NCMPs? I know that it is ultimately up to the Singaporean people, but my question is: is this the goal of the Ruling Party in the next election?”
“Madam, just four clarifying questions to the hon Deputy Prime Minister. My first question is in relation to the idea of taking this Bill to a referendum. It appears to be that this is a Constitutional amendment. It was not made clear to the electorate before the GE. So, it was not a campaign issue and yet the Government does not wish to take this to a referendum. So, my question is: is it the view of the Government that any kind of Constitutional amendment need not be put to a referendum, need not be campaigned on during a GE, and it can still be done without a referendum? If that is not the position of the Government, what types of issues would be brought up for referendum? That is my first question. My second question pertains to a question we have repeated a few times: what are the strategies that the Government has to mitigate the risks of politicising the unifying office of the Presidency? No doubt that politicisation may not have fully materialised for the past Executive Presidents that we have, but there is good reason to believe that in future Presidential elections, if, let us say, there are 10 candidates and the winner gets 5% of the votes or the campaign ends up becoming bitterly partisan, the Office of the President could be politicised. I have not heard any strategy from any Member of the PAP on how this can be managed. I think Ms Rahayu Mahzam came closest to that. To her credit, she talked about tightening up the rules for partisanship during the Presidential election campaign. So, what would be the Government's strategy to mitigate that? That is my second question. My third question is in relation to staffing and resources for the President and the CPA under this Bill.”
“Many voters still do not believe this. Madam, I would like to conclude with a single, very simple question to the Government. With this amendment to the NCMP scheme, is it your goal that your party wins 100% of elected seats in Parliament? This is not a question about whether the people will ultimately determine the outcome of elections, and not the Government and not the PAP. I know they will and I do not need to be told that. It is a question about your goal as a Ruling Party for the next GE. And it is a "yes" or "no" question.”
“The PAP will say that the WP would not have accepted NCMP seats unless it benefited the WP. By the same token, we should conclude that the PAP would not have offered NCMP seats unless it benefited the PAP. What if the Ruling Party fails in the future? This is not an academic question. This is not a trivial question. This is not an unimportant question. This is a crucial question. What if we wind up with an erratic Prime Minister of the PAP one day in the future and there is no credible, rational and electable Opposition ready to provide an alternative government or even an effective check? Some countries are in this position today. What if we get another mismatch between population and infrastructure, such as what happened during the decade of the 2000s, when our trains, hospitals and housing stock were severely stressed and Singaporeans suffered, necessitating policy reversals after the GE of 2011 to repair the damage? Would those policy corrections have happened if the Ruling Party faced no risk of losing even a single seat in a GE? I do not think so. Is this the legacy we want to leave for Singapore? A politically imbalanced one party-dominant system that buys international respectability with a token, unelectable Opposition of only NCMPs? Rather than focus on the NCMP scheme as the solution to Singaporeans' desire for alternative voices, we should enhance our existing Parliamentary democracy to make it truly contestable. Delink the PA from the Ruling Party. Reform the regulation of the media to allow for regulated but free competition in broadsheet newspapers, television and radio. Set electoral boundaries transparently and consultatively. Educate every voter aggressively from the classroom onwards that their votes are, in fact, secret.”
“NCMPs cannot use public facilities or draw on the People's Association's (PA) lavish resources to fund grassroots activities in the wards they contested, as my colleague, Mr Dennis Tan, observed. The NCMP scheme allows the PAP to ask voters to vote out all Opposition from elected Parliamentary seats and leave only NCMPs. The likely effect of this is to cap Opposition presence in this Chamber at 12, but more importantly, much more importantly, if this scheme is fully exploited by the Ruling Party and fully embraced by voters in the way that the PAP hopes, it would be 12 unelectable Opposition MPs, and that is a crucial difference. Such NCMPs would not play the balancing role that a healthy democracy needs. If the Opposition is no more than token, unelectable NCMPs, the ruling party need never fear losing in any elected seat. It can then do what it likes, never mind what the people think. It can steamroll alternative voices, it can amend the Constitution willy-nilly, it can force Singapore into a never-ending dependence on only one party for generations to come, like a computer with no back-up. This is good for the PAP. But is this good for Singapore? I am sure some hon Members of this House will say later that if the NCMP scheme is so bad, why did you accept the NCMP position? Because this is not a choice between rejecting an NCMP seat and accepting it with gratitude and praise to the Ruling Party, as the PAP would have us believe. Because I decided, rightly or wrongly, that being in Parliament and arguing for what I believe is right, outweighed the risk of damage to our politics from accepting this NCMP position. Whether that was the right call to make, whether I am indeed contributing positively by being here, is best left to others to judge.”
“I suspect that the minority races in Singapore are more concerned with everyday issues, for instance, the possibility of facing discrimination at work or difficulties that may be encountered when selling their flats due to the ethnic quota imposed by HDB, rather than the debate on the race of the Singapore President. The WP's suggestion to revert to the system of an Appointed President is a valid suggestion, because through this system of an Appointed President, Parliament can ensure that every race is given a chance to be appointed as President, as we have done before. Parliament can also ensure that the Appointed President is someone who has integrity and is respected by all Singaporeans. There is no need for us to elect a President through an election that is reserved only for candidates from a certain race. I hope that the WP's views will not be twisted by anyone, and portrayed to mean that the WP's will not support a Malay President. We will not accept such an allegation because anyone who makes such an allegation would be using the issue of race for political ends. The fact is, we felt that a Malay who has integrity and is respected should have been appointed as President before this. (In English): Let me now say a few words about the NCMP scheme. The hon Member, Mr Cedric Foo, told me after my maiden speech in this Chamber that my presence here as an NCMP was effectively a gift from the PAP, that it proved the PAP's commitment to political diversity. If indeed it is a gift, it is a Trojan horse. Every NCMP in history, other than Ms Sylvia Lim, my party Chairman, has gone on to lose the next GE they contested. The PAP knows this.”
“Let the Senate engage public finance consultants and economists where necessary. Or let them engage non-partisan full-time staff like other legislatures have, who do not report to either party, like the Congressional Budget Office in the US or the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Officer, to provide independent research to inform these Reserves drawdown decisions independently from the civil servants who report to the Executive. The President and the CPA do not currently have these resources. All the current President and, as far as I can see, the future President, have to go on, it would seem, are his regular lunch meetings with the Prime Minister. Most importantly, let this Senate, under the Official Secrets Act, have access to the data they need to do their job – the kind of data that the late President Ong Teng Cheong requested. Rules of non-partisanship would apply to Senatorial elections as per current Presidential Elections. But can we guarantee not the slightest taint of partisanship will creep into Senatorial elections? And much has been made of this by Members on the other side of the House. No. We cannot guarantee this, but the PAP cannot guarantee that the same will not happen for Presidential Elections, as the Presidential Elections in 2011 showed, even by the admission of many leading figures in the PAP. What our system would deliver is a President seen to be above partisanship, and that is important for Singapore. That is important for Singapore. Madam, please allow me to speak briefly in Malay. (In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The Government has said that Singapore has not had a Malay President since 1970. Why did the Government not urge Malay candidates to contest in the Presidential Elections between 1992 until now?”
“By the way, this is one of those technical details that I think some Members have referred to. The Government has said that the number of eligible candidates would not decrease versus the number in 1992. This is a misleading statement to make. The number of eligible candidates has decreased from the number in 2016. Why can the pool not be too big? To exclude some individuals? Taken all together, Mdm Speaker, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the Government is making these changes to prevent an alternative, non-establishment sanctioned candidate from becoming the next President of Singapore. Madam, there is a better solution to protecting the Reserves and the Public Service. We have proposed an elected Senate which would have the clout to stand up to the Executive and say no when necessary. The PAP seems determined to oppose this proposal for the sake of opposing, trying and probing to find any detail to attack with: there would not be enough candidates; too many candidates; too elitist. But let us think, the Menon Commission suggested, and I quote, "the unbundling of the President's custodial role and its devolution to a specialist body". Our proposal for a Senate builds on their suggestion but extends it in the following ways. Why not let the public be the judge of this Council's wisdom by electing them? Why does it need to be unelected? Let them form a Senate. Let the public see them exercise their collective wisdom by deliberating publicly. Where matters are sensitive for certain Reserves matters, for example, let them discuss in camera. Let these wise men and women have the staffing and resources to really form an independent fact-based opinion about whether any executive request for Reserves drawdown really makes sense for the economy and for the country.”
“The Prime Minister is also a hugely symbolic office, possibly even more so than the Presidency as far as many Singaporeans are concerned because the Prime Minister is featured in the media on practically a daily basis, unlike the President. Should we reserve the office of the Prime Minister for some races? Rather than focusing on the ethnicity of the President, I suspect many ethnic minority Singaporeans would rather that the Government address concerns like the possible existence of labour market discrimination facing some members of these communities – a matter that has yet to be definitively studied, quantified and debated, but was recently discussed in this House. Or helping minority Singaporeans who struggle to sell their flats due to HDB's ethnic quotas. Madam, reserved elections risk creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. They may entrench the notion that Singaporean minorities need mandates to be elected because they are unelectable. A new generation of Singaporeans may grow up internalising this view. Is this what we want for Singapore? Does this help in the forging of genuine multiracialism? I hope that no one inside or outside this Chamber twists the Workers' Party position as meaning that we oppose a Malay President. Nothing could be further from the truth. As for updating the paid-up capital requirements, this Bill replaces a $100 million threshold for automatic inclusion with a $500 million one. There is a deliberative track, yes, but the bar for automatic inclusion is now raised. What is the basis for this? Why $500 million, and not $400 million or $600 million? Did the PAP designers of this system have in mind limiting automatic eligibility to some arbitrarily defined number of candidates because the pool cannot be too big?”
“Many of these concerns seem to stem from the experience of the last Presidential Elections in 2011. But here is the thing: why did the Government not moot these changes soon after that 2011 Presidential Election, if that is the case? Why was this not part of the National Conversation in 2012? Why did the Government not talk about these planned changes in GE2015? Why introduce these changes now, without a referendum? Singaporeans cannot be said to have consented to these changes at the last GE because they did not know about them. The idea of a referendum is the elephant in the room and, whenever it is raised, so far, the best response I have heard is: "Well, a referendum should be reserved for something that is a really big issue, a really big deal." To me, this is a really big deal. Madam, this is gravely troubling. What aspect of our Constitution will the Government, with its supermajority in this House, choose to amend without a referendum right after GE2020? The one-person, one-vote system itself? The Government has pointed out that we have not had a Malay President since 1970s, and we agree this is a concern. So, here is my question: why did the Government not urge a Malay candidate to run for one of the Presidential Elections between 1992 and now, as my colleague Mr Faisal Manap has argued yesterday? The PAP has controlled all of the levers of political power since 1992. What was the PAP doing all this time on this issue? Under the WP's proposal for an appointed President, we would have had a Malay President a long time before now. In fact, we would have had multiracial Presidents in succession as we did in the past. No need to reserve elections. Madam, on reserved elections, it opens up a Pandora's box of racialised, divisive politics, and where will it end?”
“As a National Serviceman, I pledged my allegiance, as did many Members here, to the President and the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, proudly. When we elect this office, inevitably, it becomes a proxy GE. I voted in the 1992 and 2011 Presidential Elections. There was a palpable sense that many Singaporeans wanted to elect a non-establishment candidate to provide an alternative voice and to balance a one-party dominant system. That explains why the late Mr Chua Kim Yeow obtained 41.3% of the vote – the national vote, mind you – although he was relatively unknown and hardly campaigned at all. What is the PAP's strategy for managing this politicisation of the Presidency? So far, no one has explained it. Is there anything wrong with a Presidential Election that is tinged with partisanship? Yes. The Constitutional Commission, the Menon Commission, recognised this. They had the courage to do so and suggested that we cast our eyes back to the time when Presidents were not elected. And I quote from their report, "The President would retain his symbolic and ceremonial role of the Head of State as it had been at independence and hold an appointed office. Parliament would abide by the convention by rotating the office among the different ethnic groups." Madam, they are right. Yet, the Government has rejected the Menon Commission's advice on this hugely important issue, which is the nub of this debate. It wants to retain Presidential Elections, but introduce changed eligibility and racial criteria. Why? Because we are told we had no Malay President for a long time, which is true. Because we are told we need to clarify the powers of the CPA. Because we are told we need to update the eligibility criteria to make them less lax because times have changed.”
“Mdm Speaker, yesterday saw a robust debate on the Government's Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Bill and the WP's proposal for an elected Senate. But what we saw from the PAP was a point-scoring exercise, focusing on technical aspects of our proposal, as well as casting misleading aspersions like, this will lead to a politicised Senate, rather than addressing the fundamental system design issue that this proposal raises. I would like to return to those fundamentals of what we ought to be debating. Fundamentally, the Government has not made its case on this Bill – a politicised election for President undermining the President's unifying role. That is the crux of the issue. And no, it is not something we should simply accept because it has been there for 25 years. And what is the case for giving the unelected CPA so much power, as my colleagues have argued extensively? This creates a President who is supposed to be a checker, who is prone to be check-mated by an unelected Council with both parties interacting in a black box. Arguing that the President need only to persuade four members of the CPA to support him is neither here nor there. Why should he or she have to? It seems that the PAP is afraid that it is more likely that their preferred candidate would lose in the Presidential Elections, rather than their preferred candidates in the GEs. And so, the Elected President now needs to be further checked by an unelected body. If in the future, the CPA does not return the kinds of decisions that the PAP likes, will you introduce a fourth body to check the CPA? Mdm Speaker, the Presidency, and I concur with Members who have talked about the importance of the Presidency, is the one precious unifying symbol of our national unity, above party politics.”
“You do not want to talk about that, so you said, "Oh, but with a Senate, you risk politicising that." How do you address that? No one has conclusively addressed that. And my last clarification point is, would the Minister for Law explain why he presumably is opposed to this proposal going to a referendum. I raised this question before, and I would like to ask it again. We have proposed a system design solution of a Senate, and going to a referendum would allow us time in the run-up to that referendum for that proposal to be debated, discussed with experts, with lay persons, and then the public could decide. Rather than we decide in this House, the public can actually decide on something so important.”
“Yesterday, the Minister said that there might be too few people to run for the Senate. But, today, the Minister says that our criteria ‒ which is that we refer to the directive track ‒ are too elitist. So, which one is it? Are you saying that because we have eight Senators, there would not be enough people to run, or are you saying that our criteria are too limiting and actually there are many, many people who would want to run and we are limiting it too much? Which one is it? There is a contradiction there. The second point is: the Minister talked about the Senate proposal possibly creating gridlock. This is extraordinary. The Government has proposed an unelected CPA with Byzantine provisions for staggered two-year terms and this CPA can block a President if the President wants to veto a decision of Parliament, and that does not create the risk of gridlock? But our proposal creates a gridlock? How is that? It is extraordinary. The third point is the politicisation ‒ how would we avoid the Senate being politicised. And that has been bandied about a great deal. A great deal. I would like to ask the Minister for Law that same risk of politicisation is what the Elected Presidency is now vulnerable to; how do you manage that? No one from the other side of the House has given a definitive and convincing answer to this point. You run the risk of politicising the Elected Presidency, you want to change the conversation block and bridge, do not talk about this. Focus on the technical details in the hopes of focusing public attention on that. Well, there is a problem here, there is a problem there. What about the fundamental system design? The Constitutional Commission pointed that out. You risk politicising the Elected Presidency.”
“Yes. My point is actually what seems to be a contradiction between what the Minister said yesterday and what he just said. Can I proceed with that, Madam?”
“I thank the hon Minister for Law for his comments. I have four points of clarification. Firstly, yesterday, the Minister for Law said to me, "What would you do if there were too few people, if less than eight wanted to run for the Senate?" So, the Minister for Law seemed concerned that there would not be enough people who want to come forward. May I please finish —”
“You are saying our Senate proposal is just as bad because the senatorial election could be politicised, just like the Presidential Election. But you have not addressed the elephant in the room, which is that our proposal saves the Presidency from politicisation. It allows the Presidency to rise above politics and be a unifying force, that one symbol that is non-political, unlike Dr Janil Puthucheary, unlike myself, that one symbol that is not political. That is a huge merit of this proposal. It is so huge that the Constitutional Commission argued for the same thing.”
“I think the Member talks about the Constitutional Commission. Why did we not present this view to the Constitutional Commission? Why are we presenting it now? Precisely because we read the Constitutional Commission report and we took that seriously and we allowed that to change our mind and evolve our thinking. We took that report seriously. We did not defend our past position and dig in our heels for the sake of defending. We did not defend for the sake of defending, for the sake of losing face. No, we allowed the Constitutional Commission report. We took that seriously and that led to an evolution of our position. The Member talks of a rush to a referendum. The kind of scrutiny of the WP's proposal by experts, laypeople, by the general public. That is precisely what will take place in the run-up to a referendum campaign and during a referendum campaign. As I said, again, we are not asking the House to vote on our proposal now. We want a more thorough and more inclusive process, leading Page: 123 up to an actual referendum on this particular issue which has never happened. Elected versus appointed President. It has never happened. Two last points. The point being made about the issue having been settled. This is your argument – that we should accept the Elected Presidency as a fait accompli, as a reality of Singapore's political landscape. It is a done deal. That is not an argument. That is closing down an argument. That is not an argument. That is my third point. And the last point, and really the most important one, I have to come back to these false equations between the politicisation of a Senatorial election and the politicisation of a Presidential Election.”