Leong Mun Wai
Singapore
“Okay, yes, Mr Chairman. So, first question, can I confirm that MOM still does not track the change in work pass holders that turned to PRs in the resident PME statistics?”
“Yes. Third question, the increase in part-time workers and contract work are also examples of underemployment. Can the Minister explain why we do not need to be concerned that the proportion of part-time workers out of all employed residents has increased from 8.4% in 2009 to 10.1% in 2023, and can the Minister quote the corresponding inc…”
“Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I have four clarifications for the Minister. First of all, I would like to thank the Minister for his energetic response to my arguments. I have always respected him for that. However, because I think our views are still very different, I have —”
“For those who do not have a university degree, the prospects are even dimmer and younger workers also face the prospects of skills-related underemployment later in their career. Mr Chairman, let me conclude.”
“And I have three more. To many Singaporeans, including myself, the new policy does not make sense in certain areas. I agree with the Government that NRIC numbers, full or masked, should not be used as authentication, and that must be impressed on Singaporeans. Next question, why is there a need to do away with the masked NRIC policy?”
“In paragraph 40 of the report, it was stated that this July 2024 CM was also emailed to senior Public Service Leaders, including those with key responsibilities in IT and data matters within their agencies. Can I ask the Senior Minister whether any of these senior leaders have voiced concerns over the CM?”
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“How much is the incremental benefit, from a set of data that exists only for 25 days? Besides I find it quite unbelievable that such criminals would carry their TraceTogether tokens when committing such crimes, especially now that the Government has announced the TT data is accessible by the Police. Sir, the challenge of a democratic Government is to use innovative technology for public safety, but at the same time, not intruding into the privacy of its citizens too much, not in using any technology that is available. The Government's biggest priority now should be to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and persuade as many people as possible to use TraceTogether. This must be the call and primary purpose. Any other purpose that compromises on this primary purpose and cause people to reconsider using TraceTogether must be set aside. Sir, the PSP is not objecting to this Bill for the sake of objecting. We have thought of supporting it with some changes, but to trade off public trust in public health measures, which must be of utmost priority in a pandemic crisis, for public safety, is too much to give for us, after much consideration. And the complete ring-fencing of contact tracing data, keeping it solely for public health objective, is not unprecedented. The Australian government has publicly committed that the data collected by the contact tracing application cannot be accessed by the Police and is to be used only for contact tracing purposes, and has already passed legislation to that effect. We must also keep in mind that the COVID-19 pandemic will neither be the first nor the last pandemic that our country will have to deal with.”
“These five questions apply with equal force to the data collector under the SafeEntry programme, which has so far attracted less attention. To proceed with this Bill, without answering these questions will leave serious doubts in the public's mind over whether this Bill is truly to rebuild public trust in a Government or to rubber stamp the Police actions after the fact. It is therefore in the spirit of rebuilding public trust that the Progress Singapore Party rises in opposition to this Bill. Allow me to elaborate. As the PSP Secretary-General, Dr Tan Cheng Bock has stated, backtracking is not good politics and it erodes the confidence and social compact of our citizens in our political institutions. At this point in the pandemic, the last thing we need is for our citizens to lose faith in the Government and start second-guessing the Government's motives whenever in announces new measures to control the COVID-19 virus, especially when other countries around the world are experiencing new outbreaks. The Government is compromising public health and public trust for some benefit in public safety by passing this Bill. Public trust in TraceTogether has been eroded by this broken promise. What I found when speaking to residents is that they are now leaving their TraceTogether tokens at home when they go out. And some are now refusing to use TraceTogether altogether. This will compromise the effectiveness of contact tracing efforts, and this is exceptionally dangerous in light of the uptick in community cases since Singapore's move into Phase Three. The SPF has already broad powers to assess documents, things, data, computers and even decryption data under the Criminal Procedure Code for the purposes of investigating crimes.”
“But in the end, our people trusted both Minister Balakrishnan's and Senior Minister Teo's promises that the collected data would only be used for contact tracing, which was why TraceTogether adoption finally surpassed 70% in December 2020. This trust was broken during the January parliamentary session, when not only did the Government admitted that TraceTogether data was accessible to the Singapore Police Force for the purposes of criminal investigations, it was already actually assessed by the Police to investigate a murder. Sir, trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair. This broken promise has broken the public's trust in the Government. It is because of this broken trust that we are gathered here today debating a Bill that has to be passed under a Certificate of Urgency, which means that all the three Readings of the Bill would have to be done in this Parliament Sitting and there will be little time to consider its implications carefully. Actually, to start repairing the broken trust, the Government must first answer questions about the follow-up process around this episode. Like when did the Police first access the TT data? When the TT data was accessed, did the Police consider that they will be breaking the promise that the Government gave to not use the TT data for anything other than for the purposes of fighting the pandemic? Has the TT data been accessed only once as Minister Balakrishnan has stated in the previous sitting, or more than once? If more than once, how many cases exactly has the Police actually accessed? When was Cabinet first informed that TT data was accessed in a direct breach of the promise they gave? Did Cabinet then gave instructions to the Police not to access TT data in light of their repeated and public promises?”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, we all know by now that the merit of this Bill rests on tradeoff between public trust and public health on one side and public safety on the other. Public trust in the Government is the cornerstone of Singapore's political system. Our people's trust in the Government enabled the first-generation leaders to transform Singapore from a third-world country to a first-world country. This very same trust enabled the Government to combat and curtail the SARS crisis in 2003 and the H1N1 crisis in 2009. Sir, I would like to state that the Progress Singapore Party, or PSP, fully supports the Government's efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and we were among the first to urge the Government to make mask-wearing mandatory in the early stages of the pandemic. However, it would be remiss of me not to state that our contact tracing programmes intrude extensively upon our people's privacy. SafeEntry collects an individual's NRIC, contact number, their location, whenever they enter a building and even how long an individual stays in a location, while TraceTogether collects who that individual was in close proximity to and for how long. The two programmes together allow the Government to easily create a map where an individual goes and who he associates with. Singaporeans have long accepted some erosion over their civil rights and by extension their privacy, in order to ensure public safety. However, when the Government announced the TraceTogether token in June 2020, there was a public backlash against TraceTogether. Over concerns that TraceTogether will invade their privacy and the collected data will be used for non-contact tracing purposes.”
“(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] I thank Member Mr Don Wee for the question. I think the tight situation of the BTO market is not a result of not cutting down trees fast enough. Because the HDB could tweak its policies in various aspects. Now demand for BTO flats has increased, perhaps HDB could step up the building of these flats. The land is already there, and even if you cut down the trees now, they will not turn into BTO flats immediately. These are two different matters. We should understand this. Thank you.”
“(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] I thank Member Mr Don Wee for the questions. Regarding the first question, even though our greenery coverage is about 47%, much of the greenery is man-made. Much of our natural greenery has been lost. That is why we should try to preserve our natural greenery. This is the first point. On the second question regarding the 10 million figure, this is a projection based on the growth rate of our population, not a figure that I have read in some report. So, this is a figure which I have deduced based on our population growth rate. Thank you.”
“This should be the true spirit for including Climate Defence into our Total Defence, not just lip service or for education purposes. Sir, today, sustainability is not just an abstract economic or social concept. It is a necessity for human survival and the flourishing of societies. There is strong expectation that sustainability should embody all the human aspirations that the market system cannot effectively deliver. Sustainability has grown out of the painful experience that an economic development comes with a heavy social cost when the scale of environmental damage caused by pollution became a huge problem in the 1970s. When I was studying in Japan in the 1980s, there were still many victims of the "itai itai" disease inflicted by chemical pollution in Japan. And today, sustainability is not just about localised problems but have become a global crisis. With that knowledge, allowing the market system to dictate our path towards sustainable progress is unwise and will have dire long-term consequences. In the same way, we should not allow the market system to dictate the degree of social inequality in our society. It is just not sustainable that way. Sir, in conclusion, we should not allow immigration and excessive property demand dictate the continued deforestation of our nature resources. We express our support of the preservation of our forests. We propose that the cutting down of the Ulu Pandan forest should be put on hold immediately until we are clear what our post-COVID development roadmap will be. Sir, we support the Motion with the Workers' Party's amendments. We note also that as of December 2020, at least 38 countries have already declared a state of climate emergency and it is time that Singapore should take resolute action as well.”
“For Proposal 6 on electric cars, for example, has it been conclusively proven that they will be carbon neutral under our fossil fuel energy infrastructure? Is there a change in our country's energy strategy? Looking at the bigger picture, our climate mitigation commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement fall far short in comparison to many other countries. Singapore's climate commitments allow for a net increase of emissions up to 2030, and merely promise a slight reduction from a hypothetically projected "business-as-usual" benchmark. On the other hand, many European countries have committed to a net decrease in emissions, and even China has committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. We hope the 10 proposals are intended to enable us to achieve more than what we have committed at the Paris Climate Agreement. Another feature of the 10 proposals is that they are all climate mitigation actions and no climate adaptation actions although both mitigation and adaptation are mentioned in the Motion. Probably as a result of that, population and forest were left out in their proposals, or at least the proposals that I have seen. Climate Defence was mentioned in Proposal 8 but there were no proposal on how we can defend ourselves against climate change. Adapting to climate change will require many natural and man-made solutions, the so-called "green and grey solutions", such as protecting and restoring forests and wetlands to reduce heat and flooding risks, as well as building physical infrastructure, such as dykes to prevent sea level rise and canals to mitigate flooding. Having a smaller population and retaining a larger reserve of undeveloped land can better help us to implement these solutions when the need arises.”
“Any discussion on sustainability in our country necessarily entails a discussion in our population growth. Do we want to still pursue high population growth at the cost of our environment? If we choose to hold our population constant at around 5.7 million by only awarding enough new citizenships to maintain but not increase our current population, the pressure on providing more housing will ease immediately and there is no need to cut down more forests to increase land supply. We should therefore be in no hurry to destroy our forests. Slower population growth offers us a better foundation to pursue our sustainability agenda meaningfully. On that note, I thank the hon Members of the GPC for Sustainability and the Environment for their Motion and the 10 proposals that they have put up, which I am broadly in agreement with. However, there should be mention as to how these piecemeal proposals can be integrated into a future socio-economic development roadmap. Under Proposal 3, creating a sustainability sector is good in encouraging professionalism. But we must bear in mind that we do not want a lot of auditors and consultants running around, who will just impose a lot of additional costs and pressures on other industry sectors. This sustainability sector should be about technology and not regulation. We do not want to be a climate change technology consumer all the time but the transformation roadmap must make us a technology leader. To that end, I would like to know how the sustainability sector will create more opportunities for our SMEs and more jobs for our Singaporeans. It is also unclear as to how carbon neutral or reducing some of the proposals are.”
“While a steady rise in property values is generally good for the economy, we have also created too much housing demand. Many Singaporeans understandably want to leave the wage-earning class and join the property-owning capitalist class to make passive income, and developers would like to have more land to satisfy that demand. On top of this, there is a huge demand for housing from foreign investors who do not even stay in Singapore. If we continue to try to satisfy the strong investment demand for housing as a means to drive economic growth, we will definitely need to remove more of our green spaces. But we need to ask ourselves: is this truly what we want? So long as each Singaporean family has a decent place to call home, should we not restrain housing demand? In fact, evidence is mounting that the current property policies are affecting the future of our younger Singaporeans negatively. The long-term repercussions of having less green spaces in Singapore would affect them even more. It is not be sustainable to allow property prices and property demand to continue to go up at the current rate. Before we rush to cut down more of our forests, we should do a comprehensive review of what is a sustainable economy and society to us. Singapore has made great strides in economic growth since Independence, moving from Third World to First. We have also experienced massive changes during the recent pandemic. It is a good time for us to sit down and think carefully about the future direction of our country. Do we want to build a compassionate and sustainable society, or do we want to continue bulldozing through with our current unsustainable strategy of growing through immigration and property value increases?”
“In order to maintain growth, we need to increase our population size and we need to clear our forests as a result to house the growing population. We act as if the deforestation of our precious natural green spaces is an inevitability when we actually have other options. The Government has engineered high population growth by allowing a high level of immigration over the past two decades. Our population grew from 4 million in the year 2000 to 5.7 million in 2019, an increase of 41% over 20 years. This is a compounded average annual growth of 1.7% which is in line with that of many developing countries facing population pressures now. This population policy is a conscious choice of the Government and is not necessarily supported by most Singaporeans. While the Government has reduced immigration growth somewhat since 2011 and promises that it has no population target to achieve, it has continued to award about 25,000 new citizenships and 30,000 permanent residencies every year. Even assuming no increase in the non-resident foreigner population, the 55,000 new citizens and PRs will increase our population by about 0.8% a year. At that rate, we will still reach 6 million people by 2030, and 10 million in 2095! I pause at this juncture to note that population growth is actually not the main driver of the immediate demand for land to build housing. Housing demand depends on the Government policies in the property market. We all know that housing demand in Singapore is largely driven by investment and speculation. This is the result of the many conscious policies of the Government to create a sustained increase in housing prices so that the HDB flat is an appreciating asset and the buoyant property market can contribute to economic growth.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to begin by first saying thank you to our youths. While the growing environmental awareness and advocacy among Singaporeans have not gone unnoticed, it is especially our youths in Singapore and also around the world who have been speaking up tirelessly through movements such as Straw Free Singapore, Bring Your Own Bottle Singapore, SG Climate Rally and many more, in the struggle to institutionalise greater environmental protections – a struggle that they should not have to do alone. My generation was lucky to grow up playing in "longkangs" or drains, climbing trees and catching grasshoppers in natural environments. The access to natural eco-systems, flora and fauna had a very positive physical and psychological impact on our development. Research worldwide has shown a strong link between green space availability, and physical and mental health. Moreover, nature provides much intrinsic and spiritual value. The declining opportunities for human-nature interactions has been termed by conservationists as the "extinction of experience". The absence of such opportunities today in Singapore bears testament to the cost of solely focusing on economic development and treating GDP growth as the sole indicator of social progress. The recent public discourse on the Ulu Pandan and Clementi forests confirmed again our Government's growth priorities. The Government continues to zone Clementi forest for future housing needs while Ulu Pandan forest may be slated for deforestation and development sooner. Many other forest patches have already been cleared in recent years, such as in Tengah and Pasir Ris. The Government's past strategy was very clear.”
“For example, when GST was introduced in 1994, the Government started to reduce personal income tax and corporate income tax from 30% to 20% by 2007. The Government abolished estate duty in 2008 and, at the same time, took out tax on interest income, in addition to the absence of capital gains tax and other forms of wealth taxes. There are also no additional taxes on foreigners although they do not need to contribute to CPF or pay premiums to the MediShield and CareShield schemes. In conclusion, I urge the Government to make use of the COVID-19 recovery year of 2021 as a starting point to review our fiscal policies, strategies and processes, to achieve greater financial efficiency for building a stronger financial foundation for the future. If the Government believes that we are in a new normal, then old policies and extension of them will no longer be the answer of the future. I have thus made several recommendations or ask various questions on how to make use of debt prudently, tighten up budget allocation to increase financial discipline and reintroduce multiple tax collection avenues to boost our financial standing which I hope the Government will reconsider in totality. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion.”
“So, my next question is whether the Government will go one step further and soak up the “excess cash” of the Statutory Boards and deploy the cash to longer term investments to yield a higher return. Excess cash is defined as cash over and above what is required to run the operations of the Statutory Boards. As of March 2020, my estimate of the excess cash held by the Statutory Boards totalled about $50 billion. This is not currently included in our national reserves. I would also like to ask whether the Government will be tightening up the budgeting process a little more. The Government currently employs a block-budgeting process where the whole budget is allocated to the Ministries in blocks, with the quantum increasing every year in line with GDP growth. Each Ministry then uses its discretion to re-allocate the “block” to its individual projects and uses. A zero-based budgeting process should be adopted instead whereby each project is re-evaluated every year by MOF. Projects which have outlived their usefulness should be closed or scaled down promptly. On-going projects after reaching maturity should reduce their spending gradually every year to reinforce the importance of achieving efficiency gains. These practices are common in the private sector and can also be adopted in the public sector. Lastly, I would like to ask whether the Government will look at increasing taxes to further boost our financial standing. However, for the global capital markets, we should not give the impression that the GST is the only source. In the past, the Government has taken many conscious decisions to do away with many taxes, especially those related to the progressive tax regime.”
“In line with that, I ask whether the Government will consider to institutionalise a new borrowing limit which may be called the Development and Contingency Limit (DC Limit) to give more flexibility in fiscal management and to take advantage of the historically low interest rates. This DC Limit should be separate from the current borrowing limits. Using debt prudently yields many advantages. First, debt, in itself, is good for instilling financial discipline. It is a well-researched fact that cash-rich companies perform badly in terms of financial efficiency and the same arguably applies to the management of a country’s finances. Injecting debt into our public projects will improve financial efficiency and, more importantly, transparency and accountability. Secondly, when there is a need to make huge unforeseen spending like the drawdown to fight the COVID-19, it is better to allow for some “bridge financing” through the issuance of Government Securities so as not to disrupt the investment process of GIC. For example, to draw down $52 billion in a short period of time may mean that GIC needs to liquidate some of its investments at unfavourable prices. On the other hand, not tapping GIC may allow it to realise an investment return higher than our borrowing cost, which gives us additional financial benefits. Needless to say, before we deploy more debt, we should ensure that all the cash in the public sector are properly managed in the first place. I noted that the Government has already put in place the Centralised Liquidity Management scheme in November 2009 to centrally manage the cash of all Statutory Boards and Ministries and the weighted average yield from the scheme for the year ended 31 March 2020 was 1.93% per annum.”
“Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion. Beyond the current borrowing limits, I also urge the Government to expand its financial management tools while keeping tight fiscal discipline to achieve better financial efficiency. The current round of $270 billion and $45 billion limit increases for Government Securities and Treasury Bills respectively will bring the combined borrowing limit to $1.065 trillion. However, as the Minister has said, these borrowings are actually not spent but managed and re-invested by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Our Government does not need the funds because it has been running Budget surpluses since 1968, except for a few years. The surpluses are attributed to profitable land sales, steady economic growth, high domestic savings through the CPF scheme and seigniorage from the Singapore dollar. As a result, we have accumulated $1.35 trillion of financial assets as of March 2020; and with our financial assets way in excess of our liabilities, our country enjoys the Triple A Sovereign Credit Rating. As the Minister has also said, the issuance of Government Securities is actually for the development of the local bond and money markets, and for providing a safe investment instrument for the CPF funds. As of March 2020, about $136 billion of Government Securities is held by the public, of mainly Singaporeans and local financial institutions and $433 billion held by the CPF Board. I note that in Budget 2019, the Government has announced that it would study the option of using Government debt as part of the financing mix for long-term infrastructure projects that the Government would be taking on directly.”
“Thank you, Speaker. I have two questions for Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. Firstly, how many instances are there where the Police has tapped the data from the TraceTogether app? Secondly, I would like to thank the Minister for making his statement, because since yesterday, there has been a lot of responses from the public. However, I would also like the Minister to clarify further. One, when did he discover that his statement that he made before, is going to be affected by the CPC? Two, his message today, is it that he wants to apologise that the Government or the Minister had made an oversight? Or is his message telling us that in Singapore, we should just take it that the CPC will be able to access all the information that they have on us in Singapore?”
“Mr Speaker, I thank the Ministers for giving us so much information today. To the Minister for Education, I like to clarify that I am not trivialising the effort that the Government has put in from bringing us from Phase Two to Phase Three. However, I am also reflecting some sentiments of many Singaporeans that since there is not much change from Phase Two to Phase Three, we would like to know a longer roadmap whereby we will get closer to the pre-COVID-19 situation. Although it is a new normal, we would like to see this new normal to be far more liberal than before. So, we would like to know – we would like the Minister to enlighten us on that. Some areas that perhaps we would like to ask is that, one, if we attain a certain level of vaccinations, are we going to open up? Two, if we attain a certain level of testing capability, especially in the rapid test capability, are we going to open up? Three, can we upgrade further the way we use our tracing technology? For example, just now we were talking about the token, why the Government actually introduced token when we could have push everybody into smartphone, in the first place? So, there are all these questions that on the mind of many Singaporeans. And to open up, can any of these conditions be satisfied or a combination of these conditions will allow us to be closer to the full opening up?”
“Okay, Minister. We thought that the systemic faults alone are enough to be a basis for the inquiry. But after your explanation, okay, we are prepared to accept that you have done a thorough investigation of the situation already, then we will withdraw our proposal for the inquiry.”
“Okay. Like you said just now, Minister, in an organisation, when we do a cross-department investigation, sometimes, in the organisation when things like, for example, the Operations Department makes a mistake and the Finance Department—”
“Okay. Then this senior officer made a mistake, this whole thing goes to AGC.”
“Like what I have said, Minister, if a junior officer had done something, why was it not checked by a senior officer, and then the senior officer—”
“I am not saying that that is definitely the case.”
“You actually mentioned that there were some lapses in the treatment of the evidence. So, the five weeks. When this five-week thing happened, why did the superior officer in the Police force, for example, not identify the problem? And when this moved to AGC to make the prosecution—”
“Basically, from the Police, it went on to the AGC.”
“The systemic failure is like what I have explained just now – why, in the process, was there no stopper? It just goes on and on. So, if this poor policeman makes the wrong investigation—”
“Okay. We think that the systemic failures that I have—”
“I thank the Minister for giving me the chance to learn further. When we look at this case, basically, it is a case where there are a number of possible systematic faults across this case. For example, from the Police to the AGC – you admitted there were lapses. And the AGC, there is a case that is still in the Courts now. And now, you have also disclosed or have said that the behaviour of some of the plaintiffs is not credible. So, there are all these things. If there are so many of these problems, at every stage of the process, there is supposed to be a check on the problem. The way I listened to what you have said, now it seems that the problem is like being drilled down to a poor guy in the Police force. That cannot be the case. If one person makes a mistake, the next stage of the process is supposed to check on that and then stop the mistake from carrying on. So, to a layman like me – as I have said, I am not a legal expert – and probably the average Singaporean in society, we will think that, eh, the whole process, why nothing stops this process from carrying on, making the poor Ms Liyani suffer for four years?”
“Singaporeans do not understand why a seemingly simple theft case involving a person belonging to the vulnerable group took more than four years to see the light of the day. The effect that there are so much resources are needed to go to Court means that our judicial system is unfair to the disadvantaged group. We have to give the disadvantaged a fairer chance. Despite the fact that the law is based on procedures and evidence, it is difficult for Singaporeans to understand why our legal system is almost completely unsympathetic towards the disadvantaged groups. In particular in the Liyani's case, parties are at an extreme opposite of the society, with one party at the highest echelon of society and the other at the lower end. In his judgment, High Court Judge Chan Seng Onn also expressed doubts about the motive of the plaintiff in reporting the case. This had led many to suspect that our system is only lacking in compassion but also that the rich and powerful may use the power of the State to seek welfare for themselves. So, we must do all we can to dispel these doubts. As Han Fook Kwang said that people can accept huge welfare between a business tycoon and his servant because it is reality in Singapore, a capitalist country. But if there is a gap of privileges beyond this welfare between the rich and the poor which separates the elites from the people, then the people will definitely revolt. The best way to dispel any doubt is to set up independent committee of inquiry and broadcast the proceedings live. This will prove to our people that our country will uphold justice. (In English): Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.”
“Although the legal process is based on evidence, Singaporeans are also looking for answers as to why there was little compassion shown to the underprivileged in our society. Especially in this case, both parties were on opposite ends of society, one party living in the highest echelons of society and the other the complete opposite. In his appeal judgment, Justice Chan Seng Onn has also raised some questions about the plaintiffs’ motive in filing their Police report. So it is not just the lack of compassion but there is also a perception of favouritism among some segments of Singaporeans, where the rich and powerful can directly or indirectly enjoy the power of the state to their benefit. This has to to addressed seriously. As Han Fook Kwang put it, “People can accept huge differences in wealth, say, between a business tycoon and his servant. This is the reality of a capitalist society like Singapore. But they will revolt if, on top of this wealth gap, there is a privilege and entitlement divide that separates the elites from the masses.” Convening an independent inquiry with hearings that are open to the public, or live-streamed, would go a long way to show our citizens that justice is being done. Mr Speaker, Chinese please. (In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The Singapore Progressive Party calls on the Government to set up an independent committee of inquiry as soon as possible for further investigation if there are systemic problems in our criminal justice system. Internal investigation by the various criminal justice agencies are not enough to restore people's confidence in the impartiality of the Judiciary.”
“I would like to draw the House’s attention to an example of an independent inquiry and that was the Committee of Inquiry or COI into the MRT breakdowns of 2011. In the wake of the two consecutive breakdowns in December 2011, then Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew convened the COI which ran in parallel to SMRT and LTA’s own internal investigations as concerns were raised about possible systemic shortcomings. I quote the former Minister, “LTA and SMRT have also started their own separate internal investigations. This is to be expected. Both parties clearly have the duty and responsibility to find out what went wrong, especially for those areas that they are accountable for… The COI on the other hand is an independent party appointed by the MOT and will also look into the larger systems issues beyond that which SMRT and LTA will cover in their respective probes”. Compared to the MRT case, the systemic failure in the Parti Liyani case needed even more coordination in order to be addressed because it is not restricted to one Ministry but also involved the AGC and the State Courts. Thirdly, it is appropriate to reiterate that justice must not only be done, but it must also be seen to be done. An internal review by the relevant agencies alone, is unlikely to assuage those doubts amongst our citizens, nor that justice was seen to be done. Singaporeans like to know why a simple theft case involving an underprivileged in our society has taken four long years to see the light of day. The time and resources required in our criminal justice process means that the odds are stacked heavily against the underprivileged in our society. How can we improve the access to justice for these people?”
“Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion. Notwithstanding my exchanges with the Minister for Home Affairs just now, I would like to state my case again for an open and independent inquiry into Parti Liyani's case for further consideration by the Government. Mr Speaker, the Progress Singapore Party’s stance is very clear. We think that the wide implications of the lapses in the criminal justice system in the Parti Liyani case warrant an open and independent inquiry. I do not think it is unfair to say that there were lapses in all three major institutions of our criminal justice system – the Police, the prosecution and the State Courts. We were extremely fortunate that Ms Liyani’s counsel Mr Balchandani had an unwavering conviction to ensure that justice was done, and the High Court caught those errors and reversed them, thus preventing a miscarriage of justice. While it is of absolute importance that both MHA and AGC conduct their own internal investigations, it is frankly not enough. There are three main points of concern with merely conducting an internal review. Firstly, it is not unreasonable to say that most would want to paint the best picture of the situation when it is your organisation on the line. Are they independent enough to be completely objective in their review? Secondly, systemic issues are not going to be caught by piece-meal internal investigations since they are conducting micro and not macro level investigations. An independent inquiry would be able to examine the entire criminal justice process across all the three major institutions to ensure that systemic problems, where identified, are acknowledged by the various institutions and considered for improvement to the system.”
“Okay, Minister, I think what I am trying to drive at is that the whole case probably requires more investigation and interpretation of the facts. So, if you think that is enough then I will withdraw my proposition or recommendation for an independent inquiry.”
“Yes, but then when there is new information, coupled with the information that came out of the Court process, do we not have to get to the bottom of it? You have provided one interpretation —”
“Yes, Minister, I understand that. At the same time, you have an interpretation of the motive and you have the benefit of having new information.”
“I thank the Minister for the question. If that is the case for the five weeks, then we will take it as that. For another aspect, for example, you have been trying to interpret LML's behaviour and his family's behaviour. Their interpretation could also be further, sort of, investigated and analysed. For example, in terms of the misbehaviour, it is quite common that when we have the maid at home, we do actually have some leeway for her to do certain things, to the extent that sometimes she takes something and you know —”
“Okay, Minister, I think one issue, for example, after listening to your Statement, specifically, I was thinking, for example, you mentioned about the Police having taken five weeks to attend to the evidence. You said that there were some lapses but nevertheless, the manpower situation is very tight. I think that is my interpretation. I may be wrong. So, to me, even if the manpower situation is tight, do they need five weeks to attend to the evidence, for example. I am quoting this as an example, because I think there are many aspects as I said just now that need further investigation so that we can come up with whole integrated and overall look at the whole systemic aspect of of the criminal justice process, so that we can come up with a better solution. That is the reason why I have recommended that we have an independent inquiry.”
“All these things, I thought, are very enlightening, but I think it requires more discussion so that we can come up with a better system. It is not just influence peddling that we are talking about here. I hope that answers the question, Minister. Thank you, Speaker.”
“To answer the Minister, first of all, I am aware there is a difference between a Committee of Inquiry and a Commission of Inquiry. The reason I raised a question is to try to first establish a principle. Do we all agree that there is a need to have an independent inquiry into this case? Secondly, as to why I think it is still important to have an independent inquiry is that, the more I listened to the animated presentation and speech or Statement by the Minister, the more I found that there are a lot of information regarding the case that could be further investigated and further interpreted, and come up with a more informed judgement of the whole situation. Of course, the Minister had provided a lot more information today, which I fully appreciate. I did not have those information when I raised this question and proposition but still, after listening to the Minister, I think that there is still a need to have an independent inquiry. As to what form it takes, I think the Minister has explained. Maybe we have to go to the level of the Commission of Inquiry. I think Singaporeans are expecting that we do further investigation into this case, not just about the influence peddling but also about the systemic aspect of the whole criminal justice system, that maybe we need to look at various aspects which, actually, the Minister has enlightened us tremendously today. For example, the evidence gathering, contamination and when the Court refers to – I am not a lawyer, no legal training but I was told by lawyers it could be called evidence contamination and all those things. And also, about how AGC had made the decision and about whether there is a need to have a public defender's office and all that.”
“So, one of the key components of the financing of the scheme is that, will the Government continue to finance these pre-existing conditions going forward; and in the past five years, how much was it?”
“I thank the Senior Minister of State for his detailed information on the current situation. However, I do not think he has answered the questions we asked. I think what we are saying is that we need more transparency in the system. The Member Mr Gerald Giam has also asked for the future liabilities estimation. I would like to urge the Senior Minister of State not assume that the people outside, in our country, do not understand the calculations of the acturians. When the data is disclosed, there will be people who are able to make an informed judgement. We really need to have more information about the system in order that we come out with more ideas to arrive at a better system in our country. The situation that is described by the Senior Minister of State is still not quite — Based on the feedback we have received from the ground, the situation of our healthcare system is still a source of a lot of stress to our people. As a result, we are here to get more information. That is why disclosure and also the affordability are two very important issues. If I may ask one additional question here, is that, the various components that the Government has contributed to the MediShield Life Scheme, which was shared just now, about over $3 billion over the last five years, I think that is what the Senior Minister of State said, can we categorise them under pre-existing conditions, low-income and the ageing factor? If possible, what are the respective contribution based on these components? Because at the point when MediShield Life was brought in in 2015, the Committee said that the Government will contribute $850 million to support the pre-existing conditions.”
“Mr Chairman, I thank Minister of State Tan for the clarification. May I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. [(proc text) Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. (proc text)] [(proc text) The sum of $600,430,000 for Head T ordered to stand part of the Third Supplementary Main Estimates. (proc text)]”
“Mr Chairman, I beg to move, "That the total sum to be allocated for Head T of the Estimates be reduced by $100". With the number of COVID-19 infection cases declining, why is there a need to build more COVID-19-related quarantine and Stay Home Notice facilities? Following from that, what is the total expenditure on these facilities since the start of the COVID-19? And how much of that is attributable to the foreign workers? [(proc text) Question proposed. (proc text)]”
“Okay. So, I am asking do you not think that this can be a bold idea to implement during this period of very uncertainty and we have to emerge from the crisis. We can always put in new measures to support the implementation of a new Minimum Wage or living wage. This is one question. Second question is that I think the point about there being a danger of losing competitiveness or losing jobs may be a bit overblown. Because in terms of the level of competitiveness, the level of Minimum Wage or living wage that we are proposing is actually very low level. So, it would not affect the overall wage level immediately. Secondly, in terms of the loss of jobs —”
“Okay, two clarifications. One is that do you not think that the Minimum Wage that Workers' Party is proposing and PSP is also in favour of something similar called Living Wage. Do you not think this is a very bold idea or that —”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to pose four questions to the Senior Minister of State.”
“Mr Speaker, I understand that the prices of electricity need to fluctuate with crude oil prices or natural gas prices. However, in terms of pricing the electricity tariff, one question I want to ask is: did SP make a lot of profit from 2012 to 2018 when the electricity prices market collapsed but they have not passed on the benefits to the consumer?”
“Mr Speaker, thank you. I thank the Minister for his clarification of some of the points. In fact, just now, the Minister had already touched on the electricity tariffs, so, there is some understanding on that. My point in the speech is that we are generally advocating that we should be paying more attention to grooming Singaporeans to be more resilient. As a result, the pricing of all these public services is a part of it. I am just expressing an opinion that perhaps the SP Group could have waited a little bit longer. The whole pricing mechanism of the electricity market and all that – that is another topic we can deal with. For example, we know that SP has made a lot of profit when the electricity wholesale market collapsed from 2012 to 2018. They did not actually pass on the benefits to the consumer at that time because the retail market was still in the process of being liberalised. So, they had made some profits – in fact, a lot of profits – during those years. Why can they not just wait a little bit longer? This is just a general policy attitude and things that we are trying to express here – that we hope, going forward, if we want to develop a different model, we need the Singaporean to be more resilient. Of course, there are many facets to that and we can discuss more and more of that going forward.”
“The Progress Singapore Party intends to continually bring up ideas for discussion in this Parliament. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Ministerial Statement. 2.47 pm”
“The Government's role should be restricted to being a facilitator and custodian of our funds but the actual work of building our future economy should be left to entrepreneurs and experts in different fields from the private sector. Intrinsic motivation with a buy-in by our citizens will go much further and last longer than extrinsic instruction from the Government. Recently, both the Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition have commented on inter-generational equity. My humble opinion is that before we talk about equity, we must not forget that the next generation can do well only if this generation continues to do well. If we do badly, the next generation will not be able to hold on to whatever financial assets we leave behind for them. And now, there is a grave danger that this generation may not do as well as the previous one, if we leave things the way they are. We have to move away from the "one-size-fits-all" attitude and adopt a more dynamic mindset that moves with the times. In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that going forward, no strategy will be effective if Singaporeans are not convinced by the facts and figures. It is my belief that they will not be ready to participate in any governmental endeavours wholeheartedly. We have to strengthen our social safety net before we can convince and attract Singaporeans to take up the entrepreneurial challenge. This is an opportune time to rethink and to re-calibrate as we move forward post-COVID-19. I hope the information and ideas I have shared can help Singaporeans understand our current situation better and in turn help the Government to achieve a better outcome from the strategies announced by the Deputy Prime Minister.”