Mr Speaker, Sir, before I am challenged, may I declare my pecuniary interest before I speak on the Budget Statement, because I stand to gain by the income tax rebate that has been given by the Hon. Minister? Having said that, may I say that having regard to what the Leader of the House said at the last sitting -that this House is all PAP - I do not suppose anything that I do say here will have any effect or notice taken of. But be that as it may, Mr Speaker, Sir, I am here to speak on behalf of those in our society who have been neglected completely by the Minister in presenting his Government's policy for the year ahead. And, of course, I am referring to the working class who, may I say, have contributed in no small measure to the economic growth of Singapore. I have said this before and I say it again. But we find in this Budget Statement of the Minister not even a recognition of the part played by this sector of our society and therefore it is largely for them and for the less well-to-do people that I am here to speak. I am not here to speak on behalf of the wealthy, the captains of industry. I am sure they are well taken care of by the Hon. Minister and his Government. Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not know whether this was deliberate or not but the Sunday Times in its front page carried a photograph of the dismal scene in Singapore after the deluge of rains we had. And it said, "After the Budget sunshine, the dismal gloom in Singapore." Sir, that may I say summed up beautifully what Singaporeans felt about the Budget, and I am talking about the majority of the Singaporeans. The press no doubt on the dictates of its masters tried to drum up a euphoria as soon as the Budget was presented. Everything was presented in glowing terms. And we of course heard this afternoon that it would be very difficult to fault the Budget Statement. I wonder if that is the reason why we have only set aside one day for the debate on the Budget Statement. It has been assumed that there will be nothing to criticize. Mr Speaker, Sir, if I may attempt to criticize this Budget. This Budget is a budget that rewards the rich and capital. It is a budget designed in the main to put more money, as I said previously in other budget speeches, into the pockets of those who already have enough and to spare. It completely ignores the sector in our society who do not have enough money even to make their ends meet. Sure, Mr Speaker, Sir, there are a lot of give-aways. We have the give-aways for the graduate mothers with children and now extended to mothers with five 'O' levels. We have the give-aways in the form of the relief in estate duty for those who have amassed huge fortunes and who can afford to leave estates worth millions of dollars. We have give-aways for those who have invested in our economy. I am not complaining of that. Of course, it is necessary. You have got to encourage investment in our industry, in our economy. But the Government's financial policy, and this is a repetition of what I said previously, must address itself to all sectors. And I ask: what is there in this Budget that gives the average working man any joy? There is plenty of joy as I said for the rich, for the wealthy, for the well-to-do. But what is the joy for the average working man in this Budget? The overage working man in the manufacturing sector is earning, according to the statistics in the Economic Survey, $156 per week. It works out to roughly about $600 to $700 per month. What joy does he have in this? Perhaps I must not completely ignore something, and that is, the Minister has thrown a little crumb to them. He says, "All right, I am giving cakes away to the rich, the well-to-do, the people who have got the money. Well, here is a little crumb for you. You take it." And he says, he has given a crumb of 10% rebate on the tax payable by these people. What does it work out to? The figures, given by the Minister himself ranged from about $10, the average reduction in tax, to about $48 for those who have a chargeable income of about $10,000. I suppose the workers must go down on their knees and thank the Hon. Minister for this little crumb that has been thrown into their basket or into their lap. But it makes a mockery. It is a mockery when you compare it with the reliefs that have been given to the others in our society. You see, on the other end of the scale in income tax, the reliefs that are given to those who are paying income tax at higher rates beyond 30%. We find that the highest relief comes to about $52,000. And with that, we have to contrast the $10 given to the worker. Why is it considered necessary to give to persons earning more than $750,000 a relief in the very significant sum of $52,000? If the Minister wished to satisfy his conscience, could he not have considered increasing the personal relief of the individual, the relief for the wife? I have spoken on this at length in last year's Budget Statement, Mr Speaker, Sir, and I do not wish to repeat it. All I want to say is this. That the personal reliefs that are now being accorded are less than what we were given in 1947, and that is nearly 40 years ago. I then referred in that Budget Statement to the reliefs that were given across the Causeway, and I pointed out that the reliefs there were more substantial than what were being given in Singapore. And the Minister in replying to my point on this said, "Oh, it doesn't really make very much difference because the rates are different. We start at a lower rate. We start at 4% whereas they start at 6%." He said, "You will find that the difference in the rates even out, and that we are not really taxing our workers earning below $7,000 to $8,000 anything more than what the Malaysian workers are paid." I am afraid, Mr Speaker, Sir, that the Minister was entirely wrong in that answer. I would not say that he has deliberately misled the House in making that reply. I would not want to accuse him of that. But I am afraid he has got his figures all wrong. We produced a survey of this in our Party newspaper of May, 1983, and in case the Hon. Minister has not seen that, it is sent regularly to the PAP headquarters. We compared the position of a family in Singapore and in Malaysia, just a husband and wife, Mr Speaker, Sir, without any children, earning $8,000. What do we find? The table is there. We find that the husband and wife in Singapore earning $8,000 paid tax about five times that of a husband and wife in Malaysia earning the same amount. It is not only that, Mr Speaker, Sir, but a husband and wife in Singapore earning $8,000 a year had a net income of only $6,160 after his CPF deduction, whereas a husband and wife in Malaysia had a not income of $7,280. Clearly, the family in Malaysia is better off than the family in Singapore. Again, a husband and wife earning $7,000 in Singapore will pay tax of $55.60 on their income but the same family in Malaysia will not pay any tax. Mr Speaker, Sir, may I give you the figures for a family of husband and wife earning $8,000? The tax in Singapore at 4% works out to $86.40, after giving the reliefs that they are entitled to. And the Malaysian tax works out to $16.
80. You will find that the Singapore family is paying five times the tax that the Malaysian husband and wife are paying. I ask the Minister why was it not possible to consider increasing the reliefs, raising the threshold at which the incidence of tax begins to fall? Would there have been a great loss to revenue if that was done? The Minister says the PAP philosophy is that tax must be collected from as great a number as possible. "The tax base", he says, "should be as wide as possible because we do not want anyone in our society to fool that the Government will provide services for free. They must know that they have to pay for the services." But may I ask the Minister: what services are being provided free by the Government here? Mr Speaker, Sir, I was asked a question recently by somebody in my constituency. He says, "Mr Jeyaretnam, why are we paying income tax in Singapore? What benefits are we getting from our payment of income tax?" Because for every service that is provided by the Government there is a charge - I do not say the total charge but there is a charge for it. The patient goes into hospital, he has to pay. And we know that the charge for Class C rates has been raised quite considerably. To educate your children, there is a charge. I know the myth about free primary education in Singapore but parents are paying every month. Every parent knows this. So what is being provided free? There is nothing that is being provided free. So I do not understand the Minister's statement that every one must pay income tax because they must not be allowed to get away with the idea that Government will provide services free. Our citizens have never been allowed to forget by this Government that everything has to be counted in terms of money; that there is no question of humanitarian needs, compassion, but everything must be calculated in cold, hard money. Mr Speaker, Sir, may I continue. The PAP philosophy - and we hear this often, it is dinned into our citizens' ears, I hear this in the House - is that there should be no subsidy. Subsidies are bad. It encourages people to be slothful, to not work. It encourages indolence. The PAP philosophy is that there should be no subsidy and that only hard work should be rewarded. May I ask the Minister seriously: what is the enhanced child relief if it is not a subsidy? Is that not a subsidy? You say that you need to subsidize these graduate mothers by giving them relief from income tax so that they may bring up their children. If that is not a subsidy, I do not know what is. So, Mr Speaker, Sir, what do we make of the PAP's philosophy that there should be no subsidy? Is it not really that the Party adopts double standards? What you are really saying is, "Yes, we believe in subsidy for the rich. We believe in subsidy for the wealthy but we don't believe in any subsidy for the working man. He will have to work." That is the son of double standard. That is talking with a forked tongue that we are accustomed to from this Government, Mr Speaker, Sir. Then about rewarding hard work. Well, I agree you must reward hard work but how have you rewarded the workers for the hard work that they have contributed? How does the estate duty remission square with your philosophy of only rewarding hard work? Mr Speaker, Sir, I am all for simplifying the estate duty. But what I did not expect the Minister to do is to give these massive sums back. We find that in an estate of just over $5 million, the tax relief in estate duty comes up to nearly $889,000. Mr Speaker, Sir, is this relief a reward for hard work? BUt who will benefit by this relief? It is the descendants of the man who has worked hard. But is it rewarding them, or is it encouraging them if you give it away to them without taxing adequately the inheritance that they are receiving from the labours of their father or grandfather? I see that the celebrated Dr Winsemius, to whom reference has been made already a number of times in this House, has said, "Money has to be earned." How have these persons who benefit from huge sums left to them earned the inheritance? So I ask again, how do you square your philosophy of rewarding only hard work with this massive relief in estate duty for the big estates? I can well understand and I think there is a need to give relief in the case of small estates, the families who have worked hard, who own a home, a family home. I can very well see that, and they should get relief. But at the same time, what is the justification for cuffing down so substantially the estate duty on huge estates that have been left? Mr Speaker, Sir, so I say the Budget is contradictory to this philosophy of the PAP. Would the Minister say whether he does not consider that his proposals in the Budget of these give-aways really run counter to the PAP philosophy or not? May I move on, Mr Speaker, Sir, to the first part of the Minister's Statement in glowing terms about our economy. As I said, the Minister has delivered a shining panegyric of his Government's achievements during 1983. We have been told that our economy is in robust health. May I, Mr Speaker, Sir, question one claim that is made in this Statement and which appears in the Economic Survey of Singapore report as well and, that is, the question on productivity which, of course, we have been told over and over again that it is very vital. It is dinned into our people's heads from morning to night over the television, press, sides of buses and taxis. Now we are told that last year has been a shining success. We are told that productivity in the manufacturing sector has risen by some 8.8% during 1983 over the 1982 figure. I would like to know, Mr Speaker, Sir, and if the Minister will clarify this in his reply, how does the Statistics Department make its calculations, because there is no explanation accompanying the table showing how the figure was arrived at. Mr Speaker, Sir, there are, I understand, two ways of calculating the growth rate of productivity. One way is by using the table which appears in the Economic Survey of Singapore at cols. 703-4. In cols. 703-4 of the Economic Survey, we find details of output, employment, remuneration, establishment, value added and exports of the Manufacturing sector. We do not know whether the prices are current prices or whether they are prices of a previous year. If he takes the figure for the value added and divide this by the number of workers, we get a surprisingly different story from the Government's claim of 8.8%. Value added per worker at current prices peaked in 1981 at $34,420. That is by this method, Mr Speaker, Sir. You divide the value added by the number of workers. In 1981 it was $34,420. By 1983, it had declined to $33,437. This would seem to give the lie to the claim that productivity in the manufacturing sector has been rising. If you work it that way, you find that productivity has indeed fallen over 1982 by about 1.4%. There is but another way of calculating productivity and I am sure the Minister will acquaint the House of that. I understand, however, that the more accepted method now of calculating productivity is the method that I have outlined. That is a more popular method. But whatever it is, is it not incumbent on whoever produces these statistics and makes the claim to explain how they have arrived at this figure? Because if there are two ways of calculating this and they prefer to choose one method to show the figure that promotes their case or justifies what they have done, is it not incumbent on them to explain that there is yet another method but that they prefer their method of showing how productivity has risen? Mr Speaker, Sir, I understand it is made worse if you take the 1968 prices. I do not want to spend too much time over this because I have a number of other things to speak on and I shall soon be told that my time is up. But it is important that when you present an economic survey for a year or so, you show how you arrive at your figures so that people may understand them. But before I leave that subject, may I also mention in passing about the growth of the GDP. Again, claim has been made about the remarkable growth in GDP. What I want to ask the Minister - this is in passing - is how much of the growth in the GDP is attributed to foreign workers and foreign employees in Singapore, and how much of it goes to the indigenous workers and people working in Singapore. I am told that if you do attempt an examination, it will be very revealing. So would the Minister perhaps give us an answer to that as well when he replies? I am sure the Minister would perhaps say that whatever I have said does not need any reply. I would ask him not to hide behind that but to try and reply to this. That is one way of dealing with a matter. If you cannot answer, you say, "i do not think he needs a reply." And everybody thinks it is very clever. If I may now turn to the objectives in the 1984 Budget which are given in Section 11, Mr Speaker, Sir. It says: "The FY 1984 Budget is accordingly directed towards three objectives: (i) restraining the increase in Government spending; (ii) encouraging greater efficiency and productivity in companies; and (iii) rewarding individual enterprise and hard work." If I may take the first objective - restraining the increase in Government spending. I say amen to that because I have mentioned before, and I see that the Member for Rochore has mentioned it - the increase in Government spending. I asked sometime ago whether a commission could be appointed to examine the Government expenditure on manpower to see whether any economies could be effected. I notice that our expenditure on manpower is going up by another 6% in the sum of $102 million. Perhaps could the Minister explain how his Government proposes to restrain increase in Government spending, and what Government spending is he proposing to restrain? What measures do the Government have in mind for restraining the increase in Government spending? The other objectives are "encouraging greater efficiency and productivity in companies and rewarding individual enterprise and hard work." He says in page 31 in Section I of his Budget speech that a fundamental requirement is better pay for better work, and of course no one could quarrel with that, He says: "One of the fundamental requirements for success in our economic restructuring is to ensure that better work is rewarded with better pay." And as I said, no one could quarrel with that and it is only right that you should reward hard work, better work, with adequate pay. The Minister goes on to say that his Government had "started last year to move away from the tripartite collective wage negotiations conducted at the national level and instead to promote union-employer wage bargaining at the individual company level." Well, it is all very good on paper, Mr Speaker, Sir. But if you are going to promote union-employer wage bargaining, you have got to give some clout to the unions. I spoke sometime ago when the Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill was passed and I said then - and I say it again - that our trade unions in Singapore are completely powerless. They are at the mercy of the Government and the employers. So how are they, the company unions, going to promote wage bargaining? I refer to the amendments that were made to the Industrial Relations Act by this Government and to the amendments made to the Employment Act which took away the powers of the trade unions to negotiate with the employers. Will the Minister assure the House that some of these powers will now be restored to the unions so that they may have some power to negotiate with the employers? However, after saying this, he brings in a word of caution. He says; "It will be dangerous to rush the process." Well, he says it in one breath and in the next breath says, "We are going to promote this, but we must be careful." Would he tell us exactly how he intends to promote the process or his Government intends to promote the process? Mr Speaker, Sir, again I am sorry to repeat or refer to what I have said earlier. In previous Budget Statements, I said that it was time that this Government moved on in the area of employer/employee relations and not cling on to archaic ideas. I heard a Member speak about politicians with archaic ideas. It seems to me that if anybody has got archaic ideas, it is this Government. I said, "What about the Government moving on to give the workers a share in the company, equity sharing and power sharing, so that they have a stake in the companies that they work for?" If you give them a stake, if they have a share in the profits that are earned by the company, then you will find that they will turn out better work. It is no good preaching to them. No amount of preaching is going to do that. It has got to be something positive given to them so that they can respond to it. Is it not time, Mr Speaker, Sir, the Government thought of a scheme linking workers' pay directly to the productivity and profitability of the enterprises for which they work? This could be dons by linking yearly bonuses to a fixed percentage of total current cost profits as defined by standard accounting conventions. It should also be possible for workers to participate directly in the ownership of the companies they work for. This could be done through the distribution of bonuses for long serving employees in the form of equity. Tax incentives could be given to private sector companies to encourage them to do this. In addition, part of the employers' CPF contribution might take the form of equity in the companies themselves. It would be best if public sector enterprises took a lead in this direction. We would hope eventually to see the employees of the public sector companies owning the majority of ,shares with the result that they share directly in the need for risk-taking and improvements in effi- ciency which at present involves only management. The Minister must be aware that it is standard practice in the advanced capitalist countries, and we favour the capitalistic economy, for senior management to receive part of their remuneration in the form of shares in the company they work for. Why should this not be extended to the workers? I have tried to show, Sir, that despite the claim made by the Minister, productivity has indeed fallen over the last two years. It certainly has if you calculate productivity by the method that I have spelt out. So it becomes of increasing urgent importance that now new steps be explored to increase productivity. It is no good just talking about company welfarism. You cannot just leave it to the companies. Workers are not recipients of charity. It is time we rid ourselves of that idea, that workers are only recipients of charity. We have got to accept that workers have a significant contribution to make and that they should be given full rein to play their part in increasing productivity. Mr Speaker, Sir, it is timely that there was a report filed by the US News and World Report about what is happening in America, the capitalist country and what do you find there. I read from this report filed by the US News and World Report and carried by the Straits Times. You will find that a small but growing number of unions now are in positions inside corporations to question and influence decisions about product development, capital investments, plant closings, compensation and corporate leadership. Through seats on Boards of Directors, labour leaders are gaining access to financial information and plans for expansion, subsidiaries and affiliates. The President of the American Arbitration Association, Mr Robed Coulson, is quoted. He says, I do not think it needed saying, but he says it: 'it is a recognition that workers have an interest in seeing their employers prosper and that in many cases management decisions are better if the experience and knowledge of the workers are listened to and tested against the real world of the assembly line.' Then, if I may quote again from this report what was said by the Labour economist, Audrey Freedman, of the Conference Board. She says: 'in sharing information about business as well as profits and stock, employees become more than mere wage takers.' That is important. We must make our workers feel that they are more than just wage takers. She goes on to say: 'They become engaged with the place they work. They feel part of the enterprise and put forward their best effort. That can only be for the better.' Mr Speaker, Sir, it as somebody said, and it has been said again and again that our only resource are our people, and if you look at it, the only resource are our workers, we have got to see that they are rewarded, not unfairly, not that they should take the major portion of the cake or the profits, but they be rewarded equitably for the work that they have put in. I think it is time that we moved away from the idea that the workers are there simply to work, that they have no share in decision-making in the companies, just as we are saying that our people have a share in the decision-making of the Government. And that is our policy, that every citizen must share in the decision-making of the Government. Workers must share in the decision-making of the companies and must not be excluded. If you do that, you will find that productivity will rise. Mr Speaker, Sir, this year we are told that we are going to celebrate National Day from June to September and we are told it is because it is the 25th year of our nationhood. Mr Speaker, Sir, may I say that (I do not want to spend too much time on this) it is not the 25th year of our nationhood. We only became a nation in 1965. But that is in passing. I will deal with that later. But it is obvious why we are celebrating this National Day from June to September. We are celebrating 25 years of this rule, the domination of Singapore by one Party. That is abundantly plain.