Patrick Tay Teck Guan
Singapore
“Will CPF Board also notify SDS holders with clear anti-scam advisories, whether via SMS or any other means, especially with emerging modus operandi by scammers? This is so that the message reaches them properly and reduces confusion. Mr Speaker, Sir, with these questions, I support the Bill.”
“We are not asking to oppose change but for clarity, contemporaneous communication, equitability and assurance so that impacted workers will not be left behind. In short, a fair and just transition. I hope today's debate helps move us in that right direction. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Bill.”
“I thank the Minister for sharing the response to the Parliamentary Question by the fellow Member of the House. I was wondering, and I think I have brought this up before on previous occasions, whether we can consider stricter penalties against those who do not comply, with this requirement.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I have two questions for the Minister for Health. Firstly, the rise in energy and related costs will impact our public healthcare clusters.”
“I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the response. I have just one supplementary question for the Ministry of Manpower that in the light of these wage levels of our PMEs, in the course of reviewing some of our existing employment labour laws as well as regulations to factor this in, so that such PMEs are adequately represented,…”
“Stable psychiatric patients often remain at IMH simply because there are no community facilities to receive them. My third question is whether there are plans to develop more custodial care and step-down facilities – sheltered homes, supported living – so that IMH’s beds are reserved for those who need its full clinical expertise?”
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Every one of 915 lines we hold for Patrick Tay Teck Guan, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 19 of 19.
“I would like to ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary in relation to my fellow Parliamentary colleague's question earlier on salary increments of low-wage contract workers, could the Senior Parliamentary Secretary update us on the progress of the recent NWC guidelines in recommending the $50 salary increment for low-wage workers? How is the progress in the non-unionised sector?”
“I just have two questions for the Minister. I am aware of the STEP and CaliberLink, as well as the overall CET framework. Would the Minister consider setting up a national PME capability fund to assist PMEs, especially the mature PMEs, specifically to get into the available jobs in the market? The second question is: would the Minister consider setting up a taskforce to look into the issue of unemployed PMEs, especially the mature ones, and how to ensure that they stay being fully employed?”
“I would like to strongly appeal for organisations such as NTUC with a keen interest in workers' welfare to be exempted from this new Bill and Act. Having listed the effects that PDP has on various stakeholders, it would be good to consider the overall impact that PDP will bring to our society. The establishment of the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) is meant to implement the law. However, with its wide-ranging powers, I am concerned about the impact that it has on the civil rights of our people and commercial rights of our businesses. Herein lies the challenge of the balancing act again – how do we establish the genuine intention of fair business practices versus the indiscriminate selling of customer databases from business to business. It is important that while we will vest PDPC with its investigative powers such as search without warrant, the composition of PDPC should reflect the diverse perspectives of not just the Government but of businesses and civil rights leaders. There should also be significant public and consumer education about the appeal mechanism and grounds for appeal. It is important for us to be able to establish the desired outcomes that we would like to see from the implementation of the PDP. The desired outcomes should be inclusive to ensure win-win for consumers, businesses and protection of the individual's privacy. Once again, on behalf of the Labour Movement, I would like to seek the exemption of NTUC and our affiliated unions from this Bill. Notwithstanding, I support this Bill to tighten the protection of our personal data. Page: 873 5.54 pm”
“In terms of the exclusion list for this new Bill, public agencies do not have to be subject to the rules under PDP. The apparent inconsistencies in the application of rules are an immediate concern. We know that the Government has its own set of data protection rules that public officers have to comply with. These rules are said to be like the PDP itself and therefore an additional layer of law is not needed. Page: 872 In a similar vein, I put forward, would a not-for-profit organisation, such as the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and 61 affiliated unions, with the interests of workers in mind, not qualify to be exempted from the PDP? Currently, for NTUC and our affiliated unions, we already have strict internal controls as to how we manage the database of our members to protect their privacy. My concern is whether the new laws will affect our outreach and communications to our workers and members. At the same time, will the Unions' organising efforts to engage more non-members in the public domain be affected? NTUC's membership efforts need to be as wide-ranging and pervasive as possible. While we understand that there is freedom of association, NTUC and our affiliated unions would like to share our benefits effectively to the working populace. It would be far easier to carry this out without the onerous requirements now set out. NTUC as an inclusive Labour Movement can only play the role of bringing different communities closer together. NTUC and our affiliated unions are driven by a social cause and not for profits. Hence, I submit that we should not be subject to these additional regulatory measures intended for the private sector.”
“So, when the sales mechanism is activated, one may find oneself unwittingly applying for a credit card or, in the worst case, signing away one's right for our personal data to be used in any way that the company wants. While consent can be withdrawn, it leads to much personal hassle which could have been prevented with better consumer knowledge. How do we ensure consumers understand the terms and conditions that they may have unwittingly agreed to? How about those who are not able to read and understand the fine print well? How does the new law draw the line in this case between promoting commerce and protecting the interests of consumers? What would be considered as deceptive and misleading practices? By putting forth these questions, I would like to highlight that the challenges will be in the execution, implementation and enforcement. This will include the criteria and the interpretation of the law and rules even though consumers can apply to be in the DNC register or carry out withdrawal of consent. From the business perspective, the new legislation may have adverse effects on the business if they are unable to handle the new privacy demands of their customers well. I am equally concerned on the impact on the livelihood of the many insurance and property agents as some of them may be freelance professionals themselves. With the new Bill, it would be useful to have supporting guidelines or guides in a succinct format, as to how these industries, their stakeholders and individuals are to act in compliance with the new laws and still be efficient and profitable. Perhaps, even the standard form or format which is in legal compliance with the new law is circulated or shared by the Ministry.”
“I would like to provide the classic case of cold calls from property agents to illustrate how seeking a balance for consumers can be tricky. The context of the intended recipient will blur what should be considered as a breach of personal data or what can be considered to be a normal market transaction. For a property owner who is looking to sell or rent his or her property, he or she would welcome as many calls as possible by property agents, solicited or unsolicited, to get the best price or quotation. He or she may even encourage personal data to be passed on from one property firm to the other. Having sold or rented the property, would the individual therefore regard further calls by interested agents to be with or without "consent"? It may be difficult to apply the DNC regime in such a broad stroke for the customer or consumer. From another perspective, the new privacy laws will also add on to the burden of businesses having to manage their clients' ever evolving needs. Page: 871 Under the new Bill, it is stated that organisations shall not attempt to obtain consent for collection or using personal data by deploying deceptive or misleading practices. We know how easy it is to bypass this by dangling a lucky draw to obtain personal details from the customer. By sharing my personal particulars for the lucky draw, I may have only consented to its usage for the lucky draw alone. I may not have agreed for the business to share these details with other business associates. However, from the company's perspective, they may have already regarded this as a broad consent, which in most cases are explicitly stated upfront in a lucky draw coupon, and for any of its intended commercial purposes such as promotion of products through e-mails, tele-marketing, and so on.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this Bill which will help to safeguard individuals' personal data against misuse, ensuring the interests of our consumers and putting us on par with advanced economies in terms of data protection laws. It is also good to note that most organisations and companies will be subject to this baseline law in ensuring compliance from the way customers' data is collected to establishing the accuracy of its data and defining its retention and usage within and outside of Singapore. A difficult challenge that this new Bill has to address is to balance between satisfying the consumers' need for information and to prevent the infringement of their private space with spam e-mails, unsolicited SMSes and calls. It seems to me that the measure before and after Personal Data Protection (PDP) may sway to one or the other end for the caller and intended recipient. Before the PDP is proposed, the intended recipient will usually be hounded by sales or telemarketing calls often regarding banking, insurance or property marketing. After the PDP and the Do Not Call (DNC) registry option are implemented, will the majority of people list themselves on the register? It may be easier and faster to reject the call than to list the organisation or person under the register. If the calls are persistent, would enhancing harassment laws not be a more effective deterrent? While the DNC register is a good initiative, I ask whether it will entirely solve the problem of nuisance calls or it will just be a back-up option that is not fully utilised. The fact remains that people do not even know how their personal data is compromised in the business-to-business transactions of customer database.”
“If a company's revenue streams are vulnerable and at the same time it has incurred huge debts, the foreign workers that it is seeking would definitely be left in the lurch when the company collapses or when the business fails. Hence, there should be tighter financial screening as well as criteria established. Maybe we can even have a situation where the approval of Work Permits is not just based on the sectoral quota but also the market capitalisation of the company. Page: 766 On regulating the inflow of EP holders, I share and second the hon Member Ms Foo Mee Har's earlier point on the Singaporean first approach for PME jobs. Ms Foo is herself an employer in the global banking giant. I am heartened she shares the same views as me − a trade unionist. To conclude, I welcome the measures introduced in the amendment Bill. Nonetheless, I would also like to urge more efforts be put into resolving fundamental issues such as effective enforcement against errant employers, control of foreign labour agents and fair sustainable wages for foreign workers. 5.29 pm”
“Many Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs) have shared with me about their worries of their jobs being displaced in a restructuring exercise when it turns out that employers have decided to replace them with S Pass holders or EP holders. What is even more difficult to ascertain than a foreign worker quota is the actual job scope that the foreign workers are tasked with. For example, an S Pass holder may be delegated jobs that are executive in nature while still holding on technical responsibilities. Here, we would have lost two jobs which could have been filled with Singaporeans. Fair wages for foreign workers is another important issue that is not addressed in the Amendment Bill. If employers are the critical link in this process, we ought to carry out a deeper cost-benefit analysis in hiring foreign workers. Let us face this – the levies, training, food and accommodation paid to upkeep a foreign worker in Singapore has a direct correlation to the final wages that they are paid. This, in turn, provides a direct comparison point in hiring a Singaporean. If the wages paid to foreign workers are too low, they are tempted to flout the law in taking on more jobs illegally. They may not be able to have enough to survive in Singapore. We should not earn the unwanted reputation of being a sweatshop bent on exploiting foreign workers. Would it be possible for the Ministry of Manpower to collate and publish data on how foreign workers are paid in Singapore in different economic sectors? Fair sustainable wages for foreign workers are also in reality determined by the employers' ability to pay them. In the application process for foreign workers' permits, there should be closer scrutiny by the Ministry of Manpower on the financial situation of these applicant companies.”
“While punitive measures against errant employers will be introduced, the onus of proof is challenging. A certain portion of foreign workers only receive their salary in cash. There may not be any salary or pay slips issued to the workers. At the same time, employers may threaten to terminate these workers if they would report to the authorities about underpayment or working overtime without payment. As mentioned earlier, these foreign workers may still be owing thousands of dollars to employment agencies even before coming over to Singapore. They would not want to risk their jobs. We do not know how many of such cases there are. Salary arrears or tracking can be difficult for foreign workers who are sometimes illiterate. These are complex issues that will be faced in the enforcement of the law. Employers can also claim that the salary deductions are legitimate and within the boundaries of the law. Page: 765 Another area of concern is about the re-categorisation of the penalty regime into criminal offences and regulatory breaches in the amendment Bill. While I understand that the rationale is to achieve greater expediency with the outstanding cases, we ought to be careful with the signalling effect to the employers. Does it mean that those categories of offences under regulatory breaches which do not cause direct harm to foreign workers be seen to be settled with ease and treated with less rigour? For example, the inflation of foreign worker quota is listed as an administrative breach. This could have serious implications as any additional foreign worker hired is depriving our citizens a job opportunity.”
“More often than not, foreign workers usually enter into an inequitable arrangement with the employers due to the huge debts they owe to foreign labour agencies merely to get a job and work in Singapore. With the further tightening of foreign labour quotas for various sectors, I am concerned about whether our enforcement efforts will be stepped up to wield the strong arm of the law against unscrupulous employers and labour agents. I would like to submit that we should close the loop tighter, in terms of developing a more comprehensive solution, in addressing the problem of illegal foreign workers, their upkeep and any potential issues as highlighted above. At present, there is no restriction on the number of foreign labour supply agencies as long as they are registered with the Ministry of Manpower. However, this does not mean that these agencies will not go into illegal hiring or, worse still, turn out to be shell companies which just pocket the agency fees of the foreign workers. I would like to urge the Ministry of Manpower to take a stricter view and set a quota on the number of labour supply agencies for each economic sector and that there should be regular audits carried out of their employment practices. The owners of the employment agencies should also meet essential requirements such as a sound background, appropriate qualifications/training and experience. The quality of hiring and adherence to work pass framework can then be better ensured. There should also be better supervision of employees of the labour suppliers and agencies to ensure that both owners and their employees adopt proper hiring strategies in compliance with current laws, regulations, tripartite guidelines and practices.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this amendment Bill which will help to better manage the growth of foreign manpower and to introduce a suite of deterrent measures against errant employers who flout the work pass framework. As we undertake to better manage the inflow of foreign manpower, it is also imperative that we have more robust counter measures to mitigate against the unwanted social impacts and ensure our foreign manpower is fairly treated. Page: 764 I am heartened to note that some of the penalties will be further enhanced in this amendment Bill. The penalty for the illegal hire of a foreign worker without a valid work pass will see an increase of fine amounts from $5,000 to $20,000 and jail term increased from one to two years. Notwithstanding, there are improvements which can be made in the work pass system to address the root cause of the problem. I am referring here to the greed of employers who embark on hiring illegal foreign manpower merely to save on costs. I would like to highlight the reported case where two years ago, an employer left his foreign employee by the road when the latter suffered a fall and injured his head and legs. All these were sustained in the course of work whilst at a condominium lobby fixing the ceiling lights. It is tragic to note that he was not sent to the hospital for treatment as the employer was fearful of being apprehended for hiring illegally. The errant employer has since been sentenced to a fine of $12,000 and nine months' jail. The punishment is pale in comparison with the loss of a human life. This begs the question of whether the more punitive measures will be fully effective and adequate in eradicating these heartless employers.”
“There is, therefore, a need to re-look at how we can better protect this group in our future policies and programmes. Perhaps, in future, the Government should consider an annual top-up to recognise their role in society and especially so when they have given birth to children and are looking after them. Then, however, there is another female resident who is 49 years of age who had mortgage repayment difficulties for her HDB loan. In our desire to ensure a minimum sum in the Ordinary Account, she was told by HDB that she had reached the CPF withdrawal limits and not allowed to utilise her monies in her Ordinary Account to finance an HDB loan. HDB suggested for her to use cash and to sublet her extra bedroom to generate rental income to fork out that cash. To conclude, I welcome these changes to be made to the CPF. However, I hope the Government can do more to allay the fears and worries of its citizens on the sufficiency of their CPF funds, come 20, 30 years down the road, taking into account the higher costs and standard of living. 5.45 pm”
“Since this amount is drawn down from the Special Account, we can be sure that it will be mainly for meeting retirement needs. One group of Singaporeans that I would like to specially highlight for future fine-tuning of the CPF system would be the home-makers and caregivers. As they have to take care of their children and/or the elderly, they are unable to work either for the short term or on a longer term basis. Hence, they would not be able to build up their CPF savings. This also has a direct impact on our young people's willingness to settle down to marry and to have children. At present, the maximum amount of top-up which qualifies for tax relief stands at $7,000. For husbands to provide a nest-egg for their wives who are home-makers and who have to stay at home to care for the young and/or aged parents, can I suggest that the maximum amount of top-ups for spouse's accounts which enjoy a tax relief be raised much higher than the current $7,000 limit? Page: 640 I recently met a housewife in her 50s during my weekly house visits. I was sharing with her on the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) and she retorted and lamented on her huge hospital bill that very day while seeking outpatient treatment at one of the restructured hospitals. She shared that she incurred a bill of about $300 after the subsidy for her consultation and a huge bag of medication. She told me that the CHAS did not help as the bulk of her charges were on medication. I then asked her whether she had Medisave to use as she was having a chronic illness. She said she has been a homemaker since many years ago, and as such she has no CPF or Medisave for the longest time, except for Government top-ups which help in some ways to pay for her DPS and MediShield premiums.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Amendment Bill which will help to expand the Minimum Sum Topping-Up (MSTU) Scheme to cover parents-in-law and grandparents-in-law, to fine-tune the top-up process for members and to have the CPF housing refund policy regularised to ensure equitability. These are good measures that will help to enhance the CPF system for Singaporeans and to improve their nest egg for retirement. With longer life expectancies and a greying population, there is an urgent need to review whether the present CPF scheme is sufficient to meet retirement needs. Only about 45% of active CPF members turning 55 in 2011 met the Minimum Sum requirements. In response, we have developed the CPF Life Annuity scheme and Silver Housing Bonus taking into cognisance that Singaporeans may not have enough CPF savings to cope with their future retirement needs. With a better educated populace and increasing number of PMEs (Professionals, Managers and Executives), there should be a fundamental rethink of how CPF funds can be further boosted for all Singaporeans. Many ideas have been offered before. Financial experts will point out that building up investments is the positive route to grow savings in such a way that will beat inflation. While we have the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS), the majority of investors did not manage to exceed the risk-free rate from their returns. It is time that additional financial instruments be created for our citizens to participate in. For example, more sovereign funds can be further developed by the GIC or Temasek that will allow our citizens to invest from their CPF Special Account. This will allow each and every Singaporean to have a stake in our country's long-term success.”