Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to ask what is the need for this Bill at this particular moment. We have heard from the Prime Minister not very long ago of the grim years ahead for all Singaporeans, not just for Singaporeans but for most of the world. Steps have been taken in other countries to curb public expenditure, particularly in the form of salaries paid to Ministers and others in the public service. What this Bill proposes to do, for all practical purposes - although it is paid in the form of a pension - is to increase the salaries that are already paid to those who will qualify under this Bill for the payment of pensions. If we take the case of the Prime Minister, what it will do is, for all practical purposes, to increase his salary by a sum of $132,000 annually. If we take the First Deputy Prime Minister, what it will do is to increase his annual salary by a sum of $114,000. If we take the Second Deputy Prime Minister, what this Bill will do is to increase his annual salary by a sum of $103,995. When it comes to Ministers who have served 18 years or more, what it will do is to increase their annual salary by a sum smaller than that of the Second Deputy Prime Minister, but not very much lower. For a minute, Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not begrudge the Ministers the salaries paid to them. They have earned their salaries and they have done well for Singapore. But the question still has to be faced whether, in the present state of our financial situation, this Bill should be presented to Parliament to add on to the public debt the payment of an increase in salaries, because that is what it amounts to. Again, Sir, I have with me, for the information of Members of this House, by way of comparison the salaries that are paid to Ministers, again, in Australia and in our nearest neighbour that is over the causeway. In Australia, the Prime Minister is paid S$253,470. This is his annual salary. The counterpart across the causeway in Malaysia is paid a sum of S$127,443. The Prime Minister of Singapore is paid $230,016, not very far below what is paid to the Australian Prime Minister. May I say, Sir, that the Australian Prime Minister's salary that I have given here is the recommendation of their Remunerations Tribunal, which was made recently I think, and this is the salary that has been recommended for him for the future. But I read in one of the papers that, on his submission, this recommendation has been deferred for three months in view of the situation facing Australia. If this Bill is passed, what it will do is to increase the salary of the Prime Minister from $230,000 to $362,000 a year for all practical purposes. Then if we look at the Deputy Prime Minister's salary, byway of comparison, in Australia the Deputy Prime Minister is paid a sum of S$208,320. This is, again, the recommendation of this Tribunal which has not been implemented yet. The counterpart across the causeway is only paid S$116,361. In Singapore, the First Deputy Prime Minister is paid a sum of $203,016. All these figures that I give include the allowance paid to the Ministers as Members of this House. The Second Deputy Prime Minister in Singapore is paid $188,016. So the result of this Bill, if passed, will be to add, for the First Deputy Prime Minister, a sum of $114,000 annually to his present salary, and to the Second Deputy Prime Minister a sum of $103,995 to his present salary. If we look at Cabinet Ministers, again, by way of comparison, in Australia a Cabinet Minister is paid S$173,670. The counterpart across the causeway is paid S$105,279. In Singapore it is $170,016, again, inclusive of the allowances paid as Members of this House. And if you move further down to Ministers and Ministers of State, what do we find? In Australia, they are paid S$163,380. In Malaysia they are paid S$88,656 and in Singapore a Senior Minister of State is paid $127,176 and a Minister of State is paid $109,896. Mr Speaker, Sir, I have for comparison purposes not taken salaries paid in other countries in this region. I have not, for a minute, tried to compare the salaries paid in Singapore with the salaries paid, for example, in India. I have taken, I thought in fairness, the salaries paid in Australia. But one must remember that the salary structure in Australia is quite different. There, the salaries are generally much higher for employees and workers and the salary structure is different. Yet we find that what we propose to do in Singapore, if this Bill is passed, is to pay our Ministers far in excess of what they pay in Australia. Mr Speaker, Sir, as I said, I do not begrudge the Ministers, for a minute, the salaries that they should be paid. But it is a mistake to think that the only attraction for public service is the salaries that will be paid or the pensions that they will be able to draw. It may, may I say respectfully to this House, attract the wrong sort of persons because one comes into this public service not for what one can get out of it but what one can give to his country and to his fellow men. That, I am sure, must have been the motive which led our Prime Minister and his team, when they entered politics in 1959, to guide the destiny of this country. So I think it will be a folly to think that because they are Ministers, they carry responsibilities, and therefore they must be paid very high salaries. This brings me to the point of whether the Government in Singapore is costing the taxpayer perhaps a little too much. The high cost of government, I find, Mr Speaker, Sir, that in salaries alone paid to Ministers, going down from the Prime Minister to the Ministers of State, is an annual sum of nearly $4 million. This is in payment of salaries alone to Ministers in the Government. We have, unique to Singapore, two Deputy Prime Ministers. One of them is, of course, in full-time charge of a Ministry. The other would appear to be a supernumerary, super-annuated. And his main task, as I see it at the moment, seems to be to write long letters to the press as the political propagandist for the Government and the People's Action Party. Mr Speaker, Sir, I would urge the Minister to reconsider this Bill; whether it is right that the taxpayer should be burdened with these additional sums. They are not small sums. They are quite large sums particularly, I repeat, when the Prime Minister has drawn the attention of Singaporeans to the bleak future facing this country for the next year - I do not know how many years - and for the need to tighten our belts. Mr Speaker, Sir, we have had NWC recommendations and this year's NWC recommendations, I need not remind Members of the House, are $18.50 plus 2.5% to 6.5%. The salary increases that are offered for our workers are very, very meagre compared to what increases (i keep saying "increases" because that is what it really amounts to) that are being offered to our Ministers. I think it is wrong, if I may say so, Mr Speaker, to try and equate service in the Government as a Minister holding a political office with that of the Administrative Service. It is wrong. For one thing, they are two different things. In the Administrative Service, the officer is paid to do a job and he does not enjoy the authority, the prestige, and the dignity that go with the appointment to a political office. So it will be wrong, in my submission, to try and equate service in the political field with that of service in the Administrative field. I have spoken about the high cost of government in Singapore today. I have mentioned about the salaries. I have tried to tot up the sum that is provided in the estimates for Administration, just pure administration of this country of over 2 1/4 million people. I would like to know what the exact figure would be from the Minister, if he is able to give that answer. The figure that I find is staggering, and I would urge the Minister to consider whether it is time that we examined Government expenditure, particularly in the salaries, and other economies that may be effected. I would propose to the Minister that this Government should give serious consideration to the appointment of a commission now in Singapore to examine Government expenditure to see and to recommend what economies can be effected in Government spending without reducing efficiency. We have, Mr Speaker, Sir, in our society unfortunately people who need welfare, people who find it a burden to pay their hospital bills, people who are unemployed and who do not get any unemployment benefits, and people who are aged. I was reading in the Straits Times (I think it was yesterday) the speech made by a Minister about the plight of the aged in Singapore. In my view, it should be possible for some of these savings in Government expenditure to be directed towards caring for the needy and the less privileged in our midst. That is a deserving cause. We should not merely attempt to look after those in our society who are able to look after themselves, who can earn for themselves, sufficient to keep themselves. We should concern ourselves with those who are unable to do this, and we should see whether, with the funds and money available, this can be done. And I say, Mr Speaker, Sir, that it can be done if a serious attempt is made by this Government to examine Government expenditure to see what economies can be effected. Mr Speaker, Sir, I oppose this Bill.