Lim Swee Say
Singapore
“The number of reports received via the Snap@MOM app, number of valid reports and number of companies issued with enforcement actions between 2015 and 2017 are shown in the table below: All valid reports have resulted in warnings or enforcement actions.”
“In the case of students from ITE, polytechnics or autonomous universities, employers do not need to contribute CPF if the student is employed by them for training that is approved by their institutions.”
“Together with our tripartite partners at the national and sector levels, we have to do our best to transform across all sectors, for our economy to transform and grow, pervasively, as One Singapore Unlimited.”
“Between April and December 2017, the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) and the Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) concluded 3,750 employee salary claims where the employer was ordered to make payment to the worker. Salaries were fully recovered in about 92% of these orders. The remaining claims involved 139 employers.”
“The number of employed residents aged 62 and over, and 67 and over has increased over the last five years (see Table 1 below). Of all employed residents aged 67 and over in 2017, 64% were males; 80% held secondary and below qualifications, 9% had post-secondary qualifications, while 11% were tertiary-educated; 52% of this group of older w…”
“The proportion of full-time resident employees earning below $2,000 who received bonuses, including the Annual Wage Supplement, has remained stable at about 50% over the last decade. Employers and unions share the flexibility in structuring staff remuneration together under our Flexible and Performance Based wage systems.”
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“That reminded me of a story. One day, my son asked me, "Daddy, there are three ants lining up in a straight line, all facing the same direction. The first ant said, "There is one ant behind me." The second ant said, "Yes, there is an ant behind me." The third ant said, "There is also an ant behind me."" My son said, "Daddy, how do you explain?" I tried to give all kinds of theories like the world is round, therefore, the first ant is behind the last ant. My son said, "No, daddy, the answer is very simple. Because the third ant didn't tell the truth." Sir, having listened to Mr J B Jeyaretnam, I came to the same conclusion. Mr Jeyaretnam, basically, painted that kind of scenario which is, in my mind, highly illogical. And the only possible explanation is that he was not telling the truth. I like to quote a few examples because from these few examples, we can see whether he actually told the truth. He quoted Secretary-General Lim Boon Heng, who is absent, and said that Secretary-General Lim mentioned that our Government policy is to keep wages down, and that the Secretary-General said that we should not increase wages, and to keep wages down. That obviously cannot be the case. I know what the Secretary-General said. Secretary-General Lim Boon Heng said that during times when the economic growth is slower, we have to keep our wage increase down. There is a big difference between keeping wages down and keeping wage increase down. For example, if a worker is earning $1,000 today and last year the wage increase was 7%. This year, we tell the worker that the economy is not doing as well as last year, competition is stronger and so on, therefore, accept maybe 5%-6% wage increase. What it means is that this year, with a $1,000 salary, go for $1,050.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I did not intend to speak but since Mr Jeyaretnam mentioned that our Secretary-General, Mr Lim Boon Heng (Minister without portfolio), has said some things relating to workers, I feel compelled to respond. Sir, as a new MP, I come to this House to try to do my best to serve the people and, at the same time, to learn from the other MPs on how we can do even better. So whenever any MP speaks, I will listen very intensely to see what I can learn from him. When Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam spoke just now, I paid a lot of attention because I wanted to know exactly what is his concern and whether there is any valid ground for his concern. The picture that Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam painted is one whereby the lives of the people have not gotten better, salary is low and the Secretary-General of NTUC has called on everybody to keep wages low. He said that we take in more foreign students at the expense of our local students, our public transport companies operate on the basis of profitability, we do not care about the people, the Government accumulates all the surpluses so that we can boast to the world that we have the highest budget surplus, and so on. When I listened to the way he described Singapore it really puzzles me. If Singaporeans today were to live in such a sad state of development, how come every four or five years when there is a general election, the people still return the PAP into power. And that reminded me of a story -”
“The Ministry may wish to consider conducting organisational climate survey to have a better understanding of how our teachers in general feel about themselves, about the students, about the curriculum, about the technology in school. I feel it is important to know how they feel about the direction and pace of change, and make them feel that they are part of the driving force behind this new vision "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation". Sir, let me end by saying that the Ministry of Education, as the employer of teachers, and we as the parents of the students must care more for our teachers, if we expect them to care more for our children.”
“Or see their MPs. That way, the handful of genuine culprits will receive their just deserts without the rest of their innocent, conscientious colleagues being tarred wrongly with the same brush.' Sir, we need to have some of the best brains and the best hearts in Singapore in the education service, because investing in and nurturing our young is key to the future success and survival of Singapore. We must recognise that we can only attract the best to join this vocation if, and only if, we are able to uphold the image of teachers and instill greater respect for and pride in teaching in our society. Complaints against some errant teachers must be put in the proper perspective and balanced with recognition and appreciation for those who give much of themselves to our children. If we are not able to attract and retain the best, over time, teaching will degenerate into just another profession. This will be disastrous for our future. Sir, I thank the Minister for his commitment to give more support, time and training to our teachers, and to give them more autonomy to tailor solutions and devise new programmes to suit their students' needs. On top of all these, I hope the Minister will find ways to give more recognition to our teachers which I feel they rightly deserve. For example, we publish this book to talk about the success of the students. How about publishing another book on our own version of mentors, masters, not Mrs MacGregor, but maybe Mrs Tan, Mrs Lim, Mrs Wong, for what they have done to change the life of our students, and to remind all Singaporeans that the teachers are indeed a great, powerful social force in our society. Sir, I hope the Ministry will pay much more attention to our teachers, help them to grow, and to recognise their contribution.”
“So I worked even harder to make the grade and to live out my goal." Sir, this kid who was labelled educationally subnormal later on became a well-known author. His name is Les Brown, and one of his best sellers is titled - Live your Dreams. A good friend of mine shared this story with me via the e-mail. It is taken from a book titled "Mentors, Masters and Mrs MacGregor". It contains many real life stories on how teachers are remembered by their students for having changed their lives. My friend went on to write in her e-mail that "Good teachers are best remembered not for the contents they teach. They are remembered for the values they share, for giving a little bit of themselves to the children, for showing the child that he or she matters, and for having faith in and believing in the children so that they reach for something higher than they thought possible. If each teacher for each year can just commit to making a difference to the lives of one or two children, they will be the strongest social force in the land." Sir, I agree wholeheartedly when the Minister said yesterday that teachers are not just mere facilitators. Teaching is more than just a job. It is a vocation, one that requires strong feelings of service, commitment and total dedication. But for our teachers to serve with pride and self-respect, we, the parents and the public, must in the first instance take pride in them and respect them for the difference they have made, and continue to make, to our children and generations of Singapore. 2.45 pm Sir, going back to the article in the Straits Times, I am grateful to Ms Tan for ending her article with this plea: ` . unhappy parents . instead of airing their grievances in public, should consider going to the relevant ministries to lay out their complaints.”
“Sir, I would like to speak on the topic of professionalism. A few days ago, there was an article in the Straits Times and the title was "Teachers and Doctors Under Fire - The Innocent Ones Get Tarred Too". In the opening, Ms Tan Sai Siong wrote, "One after the other, they came in quick succession. I am referring to letters which our Forum page ran last Wednesday and Thursday, complaining of teachers' handling of students. I told myself, Aha, another round of song and dance about teachers' inadequacy has begun." Sir, Ms Tan wrote this article because she was concerned that this could be another round of song and dance against teachers. I share her concern and like to take this opportunity to speak out for the many teachers in Singapore who deserve to be recognised, not criticised. Sir, please allow me to share a true life story. "I was identified as educationally subnormal when I was in the fifth grade. I was put back into the fourth grade, and I failed again when I was in the eighth grade. When I was in my 11th Grade, a teacher of mine told me that "Somebody's opinion of you does not have to become your reality." This teacher became my mentor, and gave me the feeling that he had good and high expectations of me. Encouraged by this, I strived to live up to these expectations. One day, this teacher told his students that each one of us had greatness, something special within us. If we could glimpse this larger vision of ourselves, we would make ourselves, our parents and our community proud, and we would touch millions of lives. I was inspired but unsure because I did not do well in my examination. This teacher told me that it didn't matter; that just meant I had to work harder. "Your grades don't determine who you are or what you can produce in your life.”
“I would like to ask the Minister what proportion of the industrial land in Singapore has achieved a reasonably high plot ratio of, say, between 2 and 2.5. I believe the Ministry of National Development has introduced 50% discount in development charges to encourage more intensive development of industrial land. Would MTI consider exploring the possibility of offering 50% discount in differential premium as well with the Land Office, to encourage more intensive development of industrial land in Singapore?”
“The only way for our workers to earn better wages in the future is for them to upgrade their skills so that they can take on higher value-added jobs and enjoy higher salaries. I would therefore like to ask the Minister whether the Government will take another major step forward to increase our investment in the not-so-young workers to enhance their employability so that they can live a better life in the 21st century. As an idea, I hope the Minister will examine the need to set up a Skills Redevelopment Fund (SRF) to complement the existing Skills Development Fund (SDF). The SRF can be funded by the Government with the specific purpose of helping mature workers with less than NTC-2 qualification to gain post-secondary skills certification that is recognised at the national and industry levels. If we start with an initial fund of $200 million, I believe we will be able to support 40,000 to 50,000 workers and help them stay employable and live a better life in the 21st century. Sir, I now move on to the topic on optimising the use of water and industrial land. Water and industrial land are both scarce resources in Singapore. Industry uses account for a fairly sizeable portion of our daily consumption of water. I would like to ask the Minister what is the current level of water recycling in the industry. Has the Ministry set itself any target level for recycling in the industry? Would the Ministry consider introducing new incentives to encourage more water recycling in the industry, bearing in mind that the opportunity cost of not recycling water has gone up by eight times now that we intend to try out desalination soon. Industrial land is of limited supply in Singapore.”
“Sir, this morning on the way to work I was inspired by a song over the radio. It is a song by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). The title of the song is "Hold on tight to your dream". At the end of the song, the DJ, Joo Kim's voice came over. She said, "I wish all of you out there will hold on tight to your dream and live your dream every day, and may today be the day that will bring you one day closer to your dream." Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, please allow me to touch on one of the very important dreams of the labour MPs in this House, which is the life long employability of our workers. Over the last two days, several MPs have spoken on the need to upgrade and update the skills of the workers, especially the mature and the under-educated workers. We were reassured by the Minister for Finance in his speech yesterday that the Government is already spending more on workers' training through new programmes such as the TCPT, SRP and back-to-work. Even so, I am still very concerned by the real possibility of structural unemployment happening in Singapore. This is because, on the one hand, the pace of restructuring in our economy is moving very fast. Last year, the rate of retrenchment had reached a 10-year high of almost 11,000 workers. And there is no sign at all that this pace of restructuring will slow down in the coming years. At the same time, new jobs that are being created in the economy now tend to be more technology-driven, skill-intensive and capital-intensive. Yet, on the other hand, we have a large number of workers who have less than secondary education and our workforce is aging. In addition to that, we have an abundant supply of unskilled workers in the region. The wage level of our unskilled workers in Singapore will be kept low.”
“Is there any additional assistance the promising SMEs and the promising local enterprises can look forward to in the coming years? As for the SMEs in general, I feel that one way of helping them is to restructure some of the domestic sectors to help enhance their overall productivity and performance. Therefore, besides helping individual companies to make incremental improvement at the company level, I feel that the Ministry may want to consider setting up an Economic Restructuring Assistance Scheme (ERAS) to help some of the domestic sectors to gain quantum improvement through business re-engineering and technology deployment at the sectoral level. I believe this is the best way of revitalising these domestic sectors for more sustainable growth in the future.”
“Sir, manufacturing today is the largest sector in our economy. It accounts for more than 24% of our GDP and more than 23% of employment in 1996. It also contributes directly and indirectly to various services sectors, such as transportation, communications, logistics, warehousing, finance, banking and so on. Sir, as we move forward to become a developed economy, I feel it is important that we continue to grow and to strengthen the manufacturing sector as a key pillar of our economy. However, because 75% of investments into manufacturing comes from foreign direct investment, I feel it is very important that we pay special attention to build new and better capabilities all the time in order to remain competitive. Sir, I would therefore like to ask the Minister how committed are we to sustain the growth of manufacturing in the Singapore economy, and what are our strategies to enhance our long term competitiveness in manufacturing. Sir, I will move on to the topic of growth of local enterprises. There are 90,000 SMEs in our economy. They operate in a highly competitive and very challenging environment, because our domestic market is small, labour market is very tight, business cost is high and, at the same time, there are many international companies operating in our open market. Sir, I feel that one of the best ways of helping our SMEs is to help them to grow bigger. For the promising ones, we should help them to grow into promising SMEs. For the promising SMEs, we should help them to grow into promising local enterprises. And then some of them eventually into Asian SMEs. I would therefore like to ask the Minister what is the current status of nurturing SMEs into promising SMEs and promising local enterprises. What are our near term targets?”
“And we hope that in future budgets, the Government can consider setting aside more resources to support programmes, such as the SRP. Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to conclude by emphasising that the way forward for Singapore is very exciting. We have Singapore 21 to make Singapore our Best Home in the 21st century. It is very important that we make sure that every Singaporean, young and old, is given a chance, given the assistance and given all the facilitation to participate in the creation of wealth in the economy, to share success in the society and to move forward together as one united people. On this note, I would like to appeal to the Government to invest not only in the young but also the not-so-young Singaporeans so that the 21st century can lead to a better life for all workers in Singapore. ADJOURNMENT OF DEBATE”
“On top of that, the total expenditure in training last year stood at about 3.6% of the payroll, one of the highest in the world. In fact, our long-term target is 4%. We are well on our way to achieving that. Mr Speaker, Sir, even though I talk so passionately about this threat of structural unemployment and about the need to retrain our workers, my point is different from Mr Chiam's or the NCMP's. My point is not that we have been sleeping, the Government has been sleeping or the labour movement has been sleeping for the last many years. My point is that we have been working so hard and we do not take any chances. Even though much has been done up till now, we should continue to do even more because if we are affected by structural unemployment, the implication can be very serious. I would like to offer one suggestion. The NTUC, in formulating our vision for the 21st century, known as the "NTUC 21 - A Better Life", has in fact indentified life-long employability as the most important pillar in enabling our workers in Singapore to live a better life in the future. In that regard, the NTUC, working with the Government, has introduced various programmes to make sure that workers are being retrained so that they can be kept up to date. One such programme is the Skills Redevelopment Programme (SRP) whereby at this moment, 3,000 workers from 27 companies have already signed up for this programme and they are now going back to school to gain skills certification. We have gone beyond training. We are talking about skills certification where workers can now receive skills which will make them employable in the next century. These are skills which should be transferable across companies and industries.”
“Some are willing to work, whereas some are willing to let other people do the work, whereas they only do all the talking. Mr Speaker, Sir, in the case of labour MPs present in this House, we are very willing people. We see the problem of structural unemployment, of employability, and we take action to solve the problem. But earlier I heard Mr Chiam See Tong and Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam say that in Singapore, the Government is not concerned at all - of course he did not say that the labour movement was not concerned at all - about this problem of under-educated workers. This cannot be the case. I would like to share some statistics to show that the labour movement and the Government have been working on this issue not in the last one year, or last three years, but, in fact, we have been working on this problem for the last 10-20 years. For example, in 1983, the Government introduced the BEST programme. In 1987, we introduced the WISE programme. And the union movement has worked together with the Government to make sure that the BEST and WISE programmes reach out to those workers who are under-educated. As of now, after 14 years of implementation, 212,000 workers in Singapore have gone through the BEST programme. Another 75,000 workers have participated in the WISE programme. So from these numbers, you can see that, in fact, the Government and the labour movement have been taking this issue of training of workers very seriously for the last 20 years. On top of that, the Skills Development Fund (SDF) has been supporting and encouraging training in the economy. Last year, I was told that SDF had created one training place for every three workers which means that one out of three workers last year took part in training.”
“But this kind of unemployment, known as a cyclical unemployment, is nothing of great concern to these countries because in the near future, when the economy moves again, I think the workers are likely to be able to go back to the job market. But what is of greater concern to these countries is that the majority of the workers are out of job not because the economy is going through a bad patch but because there are structural weaknesses in the economy. In the case of Switzerland, for example, 3% of the unemployment are structural unemployment. In the case of France, it is about 9.7%; in the case of Germany, it is about 8.8%, which means 70% or so of the unemployed in Europe today are due to structural unemployment. And the scary thing about structural unemployment is that it is due to a mis-match between cost and capability. So to solve structural unemployment, either cost must come down or capability must move up, or preferably both. But in reality, cost cannot come down overnight because of a rigid labour market and high social contribution. At the same time workers cannot acquire new skills overnight. As a result of this, European countries have accepted that they will have to live with structural unemployment at least in the near term. Therefore, unemployment in Europe is not likely to decline very rapidly in the near future. Mr Speaker, Sir, judging from the experience of European countries today, we recognise that we must never take full employment in Singapore for granted. The point about the need to upgrade the skills of workers has been discussed by various Members here. Here, I would like to point out that in this world, there are many willing people.”
“Altogether, these two sources of supply can contribute 50,000-75,000 more workers in the near term. In fact, over the long term, the number is likely to grow even bigger because of the aging population in Singapore. The Ministry of Labour, the PSD, the SNEF and the NTUC have already started doing this. They are trying to bring the housewives and the retirees back to the workforce. So far, the response has been positive. More than 4,000 workers have already signed up. But the success rate in terms of matching them to jobs is still fairly low, at about 20%. My point therefore is that maybe the Government should consider giving this programme a stronger push through some incentives. For example, the Government can help to defray the cost of job design, or to introduce some new measures, for example, for companies which want to employ more foreign workers, one of the conditions attached is for them to employ some of these housewives and retirees, so that on the one hand, while we continue to bring in foreign workers to supplement the shortage of workers in Singapore, at the same time, we make sure that we maximise the participation of Singaporeans and PRs in our workforce. The second issue is even more important. This is regarding the employability of our mature and lower educated workers. Mr Speaker, Sir, last month I visited three countries in Europe together with my fellow unionists. We went to Europe to study the unemployment situation in Switzerland, France and Germany. 18 million workers are now jobless in Europe. In Switzerland, unemployment today is 5.3%; in France, 12.6%; Germany, 11.1%. Some of these workers are out of job because the economy is going through a bad patch and as a result, workers are out of job.”
“So, while we should continue to bring in more foreign talents and foreign workers to supplement and complement the shortage of workers in Singapore, I think we must recognise that there is a limit to which we can do this because of the social, political and economic implications, if we are overly dependent on the foreign workers. Therefore, a more desirable and sustainable approach is really to expand our workforce by bringing back Singaporeans, Permanent Residents (PRs) who, for whatever reasons, have left the workforce. According to the Department of Statistics, the labour force participation rate in Singapore today is 64.6%. Given our small population, this is actually a very low rate, compared to, say, 67% in USA. One of the reasons why the labour force participation rate in Singapore is low is because among the female Singaporeans and PRs, only 51.5% participated in the workforce. For women aged between 40 and 49, our participation rate is only 52% compared to 71% in Japan, 76% in USA, 79% in UK. And for those aged 50 and above, our participation rate is only 41%. So one of the reasons could be that many of the Singaporean women left the workforce to look after their children when they are young, but did not re-enter the workforce. I feel that if we can find ways to bring them back, we can increase the workforce by maybe 30,000 to 50,000 if we can increase the workforce participation rate comparable to that of other developed economies. Likewise, the group of older Singaporeans who are in their 50s and 60s can also be an additional source of workforce. Again the number is quite big and I will not go into it. But the bottomline is that if we increase the participation rate by 10% to 15%, again, we can increase the workforce by 15,000 to 25,000.”
“Here, I recall what Deputy Prime Minister BG Lee mentioned, that Singapore has the potential to grow at 7% a year over the medium term. But to realise this 7% growth potential, we have to expand our workforce by 3% and achieve 4% growth in productivity. So three plus four gives us 7% potential. Therefore, I feel that our Budget should really concentrate on these two targets of how we can expand our workforce by 3% and our productivity by 4%, so that we can fully realise our potential. Firstly, in the area of expanding the workforce. Obviously we can expand the workforce by at least three ways. First is to encourage more Singaporeans to have more children; second is to bring in more foreign workers; third is to bring more Singaporeans who have left the workforce back to the workforce. On the first approach, in fact we are already encouraging Singaporeans to have more babies. If you look at the population growth, it has gone up from 1.3% in 1980 to 1.7% in 1990, to 1.9% last year, and most probably stabilises at 2% a year. That is probably as far as we can go. On the second approach of bringing in more foreign workers, again, we are already doing so. According to the Department of Statistics, there are today 568,000 foreigners living in Singapore. Of course, not all of them are foreign workers. This number includes the foreign students and dependants and so on. But the point I would like to highlight is that one in six persons in our society today and one in five workers in our economy today is already a foreigner.”
“In the case of water, I feel that the recycling of water in the industry today is still very limited. Obviously, from the industry's point of view, it does not make sense for them to put in place all these expensive recycling equipment to save water, given the relatively lower price of water. Obviously, increasing the water charges is not the solution, because they are already paying more, and to charge them more means that it will reduce our cost competitiveness. But I think one approach is to encourage the industry to do more in the area of water recycling, bearing in mind that the opportunity cost of not recycling water has gone up by eight times with the high cost of desalination. Another example is in the area of industrial land. Industrial land in Singapore is limited. It is expensive and yet at the same time, if we drive around Singapore, we see many factories in Singapore are still low-rise, only one-storey or two-storeys. Why is that so? Obviously, developers will give you many reasons. Firstly, some factories cannot go higher up because it is very process intensive. But in some cases, they will claim that it is because of logistics consideration, very cumbersome operations, and so on. But the bottomline is this. The way we charge differential premium and development charges today has to a certain extent also discouraged the intensification of industrial land. I hope that in future pricing policy, we can bear this in mind. The second area where I think we really have to pay more attention is with regard to the upgrading of the capabilities of the Singapore workforce. We have to make sure that we will continue to have one of the best workforce in the world in order to bring us forward into the future.”
“I said Budget 1997 is a good budget because I feel that it actually addressed the competitiveness of Singapore in a hard-headed way, and not taking a soft approach. All the new policies that were introduced for the financial sector, as well as the enhanced resource allocation of budget for the industrial and business sectors, like in the areas of R&D innovation, cluster development and upgrading of the local enterprises and so on, will go a long way to make sure that Singapore will continue to strengthen her position as a global hub in the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century. In that sense, Budget 1997 has been a pro-economic growth budget. At the same time, Budget 1997 is also a pro-worker budget. Because of the slower economic growth this year, workers are asked to accept moderated wage increase. Many of them are concerned that they have to live with a lower pay increase but higher transportation cost and higher water tariffs. They were all looking for some reliefs from Budget 1997, and they were not disappointed. I have consulted many of my grassroots leaders in my constituency as well as the unionists in the NTUC. Many of them have responded very positively. So, all in all, I would like to commend the Minister for giving Singaporeans such a pro-economic growth Budget as well as a pro-worker Budget. Mr Speaker, Sir, please allow me now to go on to offer some suggestions on how I feel future budgets can address some of the issues that will further position ourselves for future competition. I feel that the budget in the future should, firstly, address the pricing policy over the long term to make sure that the limited economic resources in Singapore can be put to better use, in particular in the areas of land and water.”
“Therefore, Mr Speaker, Sir, my view of competitiveness is that competitiveness is a function of not just cost, but cost and capability. If we can upgrade our capability not just in the short term but over the long term, then over time workers can get higher salary, businessmen can still make more profit. That is what I meant by "win-win". If I may quote an example. Last month I was in Europe, in Switzerland. I visited a company known as ESEC. This company is in the business of producing back-end semi-conductor equipment and it is now one of the top three in the world. Its business is growing very fast, at 50%, 70%, every year, even during the slowdown of the global economic sector. We asked them, "How big is your market in Switzerland?" They said, "0". Everything the company produces is exported to the rest of the world, including Asia, Europe, USA, but nothing in Switzerland. How then can this company survive with no domestic market, with a high cost of doing business in Switzerland, and yet able to be profitable, able to grow? The answer is very simple. They strengthen their comparative advantages. So, over the years, they have developed their capabilities in the areas of R&D, innovation, marketing and final assembly and testing. Eighty per cent of the manufacturing is out-sourced from the suppliers from lower cost locations. In this company, all the managers, the marketeers, the technicians, the skilled production workers, everyone is well paid. And yet at the same time, the company is profitable, and the business is growing. I think here is an example of the kind of "win-win", the kind of competitiveness we should be talking about. Having said this, Sir, I would like to convey this message to the Minister for Finance that, in my view, Budget 1997 is a good budget.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the motion in the name of the Minister for Finance. Mr Speaker, Sir, once there was a man, he was seen searching for something under a lamp post. After a while, he could not find what he was looking for. Another person came along and asked him, "What are you looking for?" He said, "I have lost my key. I am looking for my key." And the person said, "Where did you lose this key? Is it here?" He said, "No. Over there." The person then asked, "Why don't you look for your key over there then? Why search over here?" He said, "Because it is too dark over here. It is brighter here than there. Easier to search." Obviously, he could not find his key. Mr Speaker, Sir, when the NCMP said that he saw nothing in the Budget to enhance the competitiveness of the Singapore economy, my conclusion is that maybe he was looking for the key at the wrong place. My view on competitiveness is very simple. If we look at competitiveness as a function of cost alone, obviously to enhance our competitiveness is to lower the cost of everything in Singapore - make the land cheaper, make the office rental cheaper; better still, get the workers to take a pay cut. Then, in that way, cost of doing business in Singapore will decline overnight, businessmen will turn healthy profit overnight. But if we adopt that approach, then we are thinking of a win-lose situation. Win on one side on profitability, lose on the other side for the workers. Obviously, that cannot be the case because at the end of the day, what is economic growth for? It is not to help businessmen make more profit but, at the end of the day, to make sure that every Singaporean can live a better life.”
“Sir, may I make a point of clarification? What I said earlier was that Singapore is where we are today because Singaporeans had contributed their effort and that we had worked together as one united people under the leadership of the Government. I did not deny the effort of the people. In fact, I said that it was the teamwork between the people and the Government.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, please allow me to respond. Firstly, I did not say that the people do not want to participate more in the decision-making. My point is that the people have voted along the line of their aspirations. The NCMP mentioned that there were 50,000 people who attended the rally. In fact, I am very happy to hear so, because a better informed voter is a wiser voter. The fact is that having listened to the Singapore 21 from the PAP and they went on to listen to the WP and various parties, and having listened to all of them, they still came to the conclusion that the PAP is the party that they would like to support. I think that reinforces their commitment to work together to pursue this vision of building Singapore as their best home in the 21st century.”
“The answer is, at best, maybe or, at worse, no. Mr Speaker, Sir, I believe the reason why the people in Cheng San voted for the PAP is that they value the values, the aspirations, the vision conveyed, promised by the PAP through Singapore 21. I believe that they do so because they want their children to have a better life, they want all these investors to come to Singapore to create better jobs, better pay, better future for their children. Of course, the NCMP will argue that money can buy a house, but cannot buy a home. I agree with that. The question is this. If the people have to choose between a better house or a warmer home, I think some, hopefully a majority, will go for a warmer home. But this is not what we are talking about in Singapore 21. In Singapore 21, we did not say that Singapore 21 is towards a poor but happy future. We said that Singapore 21 is to make Singapore our best home in the 21st century. And when we said "best home", we are saying that yes, we want to build a comfortable home, a comfortable living environment for our people and, at the same time, make sure that there will be very strong social cohesion so that this nicer house will also be a better home. And this is what we meant by the best home. Mr Speaker, Sir, having thought through very carefully what the NCMP had said, I cannot but come to the conclusion that there is no basis at all for this amendment proposed by the NCMP. I therefore beg this House to vote against this amendment proposed by the NCMP.”
“Two years ago, when I was still with the EDB, the Chairman of a leading MNC met our Prime Minister. Our Prime Minister asked him this question: "Do you have any plan to invest in Asia-Pacific?" This Chairman said, "Obviously. Asia-Pacific is growing so fast, expanding so fast. Obviously I have a lot of plans to invest more in the Asia-Pacific." So our Prime Minister asked him, "Where will you consider to invest?" His reply was: "It depends on how much investment I am talking about. If I am investing $5 million, there are many locations in Asia-Pacific I could consider. But if I am thinking of investing $50 million, then the list is shortened to maybe five to seven locations. But if the investment amount is $5 billion, or $500 million, then the list is not more than three." And the Prime Minister asked him: "Would Singapore be one of the three?" And he said, "Certainly, yes. Not because you have world-class workforce, not because you have world-class business infrastructure but, more importantly, you have a stable policy, you have a stable government, stable society." Sir, the point here is that when an investor has to look for a location to invest $500 million, $5 billion, it will take him at least 10, 20 years to recover his investment. And for that, it is very important that there is stability in all the policies in the investment environment. So can we imagine, in the last general election, if the ruling Party, the PAP, had lost in Cheng San, if the ruling Party did not have a landslide victory in the last general election, what kind of signal are we giving to the global investment community? Would that Chairman who spoke to the Prime Minister and many chairmen of many other MNCs consider to bring their best, world-class, high-tech industries to Singapore?”
“In a small country, like Singapore, there is no mountain to climb. We go down the river. In fact, we do not go down the river. We go up the river. In fact, the way we build our nation is like the Chinese saying, (ni shui xing zhou). It is a small boat trying to move upstream. For a big country, why do I say this way? In a big country, when they have a problem, when there is a recession, when they are tired, they can take a break, they can have a debate, an argument. When the debate is over, when the rest is over, they pick up their backpack and they carry on. In a small country, imagine if the members from this small boat along the way, instead of paddling together in sync, some members like to take a rest and therefore you have less people contributing to the effort; worse still, some people want to create different opinions, want to move in different directions, why move upstream when it is so difficult, why do we not go downstream, it is easier. Can you imagine if the teamwork is broken, if the cohesion is broken? Then it is the end of this boat, because not only this boat will be pushed downstream; worse still, it may even capsize and disappear forever. Mr Speaker, Sir, my submission is that the people of Singapore voted for the PAP not because they were deprived or denied the freedom to choose their leaders but because they share this common aspiration of making Singapore our best home in the 21st century. Many opposition Members here keep on saying that the PAP Government says one thing and does another thing. We talk about cohesion, at the same time we try to divide the society through MUP priority and so on. Mr Speaker, Sir, please allow me to give another example to explain that what the PAP is doing is what the people believe as well.”
“And the third time was in 1991 when I was assigned to be based in New York to take charge of the international operation of the Economic Development Board. Having gone through three recessions, my feeling is that, firstly, any country, any economy is likely to experience ups and downs. It is unavoidable. The question is: is it more ups or more downs, and how high are the ups and how low are the downs? Secondly, what is even more striking to me was the way UK, US and Singapore, with a different sense of urgency, responded to the recession. In 1974 in UK; in 1991 in US, I did not sense that there was any sense of panic in the people. You see, these countries, they are big, they have tremendous resources, they have world-class technology. So to them, a recession is something they will eventually get out of. It is just a matter of time. So sometimes they work faster, sometimes they work slower. In 1991, in USA, they went through what we call the double dip. They went down, they came up. But before they had gone back on track, they came down again. And they took their time, they went up again. But in the case of Singapore, in 1986, when there was a recession, I could sense there was a great deal of concern. Many Singaporeans were concerned whether we would be able to get out of the recession, and whether that would be the end of Singapore. In fact, this is the reason why property prices dropped drastically in 1986. Mr Speaker, Sir, my point here is that for a big country, nation building is not an easy task. It is like climbing a mountain. The higher you go, the more difficult it is. And if you were to fall down, the more you have to lose. In the case of Singapore, being a small country, we are in a much worse position. In a big country you can climb mountain.”
“But there is a big difference. In the case of this young man, he has a doctor, a surgeon who has the duty to perform his best to rescue him. But in the case of Singapore, when we became independent, when we were in great difficulties, nobody else in this world, except Singaporeans, has any duty or responsibility to do anything to help us. Therefore, the reason why we get to where we are today is because all Singaporeans were working together as a team, as a united people, under the very able leadership of the Government. That is why we have succeeded. The NCMP said that the way we went about campaigning, we denied the people of Singapore the right to choose the leaders to represent them in this House. This cannot be furthest from the truth. You see, what the NCMP has to understand is the aspirations of the Singaporean. The Chinese has a saying, (shui wang di chu liu, ren wang gao chu pa). The point here is this: water, by nature, will flow downwards but human beings (people) have aspirations, they want to do better every day, they want tomorrow to be better than today. Why did the people, given the choice to elect the party to represent them, choose the PAP? Why did they not vote for the Workers' Party, and so on? The NCMP would like to believe that this is because we leave the people no choice, and I would like to counter this point. I believe that the people of Singapore voted for PAP because they all want to have a better future not only for themselves but for their children. I have gone through three recessions in my life. The first time was in 1974 when I was studying in the United Kingdom. At the point in time, due to the hike in oil prices, the global economy moved into recession. The second time was in 1985/86 when Singapore experienced negative growth.”
“And his friends ask him, "How do you manage to be so positive, constructive all your life?" He said the answer is simple: "It is all a matter of attitude." He said, "Every morning when I wake up, I look at the mirror, I ask myself: Should I be in a good mood today or should I be in a bad mood today?". And he said, "I always choose to be in a good mood. When I come across any unfortunate incident, I can choose either to be a victim of the circumstances or I can choose to learn from this experience." And he said, "I always choose the latter so that I can become a better person all the time." So one day, he was unfortunate to be shot by a gun. They sent him to hospital. And lying on his operation bed, he looked at the eyes of the doctor, he could tell he must be very seriously injured, because he could tell that the doctor, more or less without telling him, was saying that, "Look. I am looking at a dead man." Before the doctor operated on him, the nurse asked him, "Are you allergic to anything?" He said, "Yes." And everybody stopped because they wanted to find out what he was allergic to. And he said, "I am allergic to bullets. Can you please do your best, remove these bullets in my body." The doctor, the nurse, they laughed. They operated on him. They did their best. But because of his will to survive, because of this expert skill of the doctor, of the surgeon, he survived this operation. Mr Speaker, Sir, I want to share with the NCMP that many Singaporeans today support this Government because when we look back to history, in 1965 when Singapore became independent, we were very much like this young man who was seriously injured, lying on the operation bed. The same thing between Singapore and this young man is that we both have the will to survice.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this opportunity to respond to the amendment proposed by the NCMP. I would like to speak against this amendment. The NCMP, in proposing this amendment, has made a few baseless allegations. Mr Speaker, Sir, this is the first time I, as a Member of Parliament, am sitting in this Parliament. When I look at the last three days' debate, I thought it was meaningful, it was responsible. It is like having three persons standing in front of a cup which is half filled with water. Someone will come out to say the cup is half empty. The other person says, "No. I disagree. The cup is half full." And the third person says, "No. The cup is 50% H2O, 10% O2 and 40% nitrogen." All the three points of view are valid, even though we may disagree with each other. Because it is based on different perceptions, different perspectives, founded upon some sense of reality. So when the NCMP proposed this amendment, the thought that came to my mind is like having a fourth person come along to say, "All of you are wrong because this cup is empty." Mr Speaker, Sir, is it possible that everyone of us is so blinded that we could not see that there is nothing in the cup? Having listened to the NCMP's deliberation, I came to realise that what the NCMP is saying is not that the cup is empty but the cup does not contain the kind of liquid that he is looking for. Sir, everyone of us would like to drink our cup of water. I think it is very unfair for the NCMP to try to impose on the kind of water that every Singaporean ought to drink. Here I would like to share my own personal experience. A few days ago, I read the e-mail via the Internet talking about a young man. He is always very positive, very constructive.”