Hansard, 1985-03-05

Order read for Resumption of Debate on Question list March, 1985, 'That the following Address in reply to the Speech of the President be agreed to:- "We, the Parliament of the Republic of Singapore, express our thanks to the President for the Speech which he delivered on behalf of the Government at the Opening of the First Session of this Parliament.".' - [Dr Tan Cheng Bock] Question again proposed.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as I was saying yesterday before I was crudely interrupted, the Howe Yoon Chong Report has not been sufficiently appreciated. The concerns expressed in this Report about the old are very real. Unfortunately, all the attention seems to have been placed upon one issue, and that is, the CPF withdrawal at age 55 years. Sir, the CPF issue has several dimensions. Firstly, the people are understandably concerned about any proposed postponement of the age of withdrawal beyond 55 years. We must understand that many workers earn only a few hundred dollars a month. So their savings are negligible, or none at all. So a sum of $10,000 or $20,000 at age 55 is like a bonanza. It is like winning a lottery prize. I know some of my own voters who are aged about 50 or so who are already borrowing against the prospective withdrawal. Others have plans to go travelling. Yet others have investment ideas. We should be careful not to shatter their illusions. Having said this, Sir, I believe the Government has a legitimate concern that there will be many people who are going to retire at age 55 who will not have enough CPF to last until they die. This was a point hidden in the Howe Yoon Chong Report, a point which I highlighted, a point which was not sufficiently debated. We have got to ask ourselves this question: if many people who are going to retire at age 55 will not have enough money to last until they die, what are the alternatives? So far, I have not heard any alternative plans put forward by any Member of the Opposition. All they have done is to create fear about the CPF withdrawal. The Member for Buona Vista yesterday talked about jobs, re-employment for those aged 55 and above, and it is something that merits serious consideration by the Government. What about the question of children? Are the children of these people going to be filial? Will they support their aged parents? Have we done enough in the education system? Have we reinforced the values of filial piety so that these aged people will be adequately taken care of? What about old-age homes? Would we have enough of these homes if many of these aged people are pushed out of their homes by unfilial children? And if they happen to own a flat, could we not allow them to sell back to the Housing and Development Board even while they stay in those flats and yet have a means of income? This was an excellent suggestion made by the Howe Yoon Chong Report, and I hope the Government is giving serious consideration to this. Have we done a survey of the savings of people who will retire at age 55? Sir, these are very real questions, very real concerns, very real issues. They take time to determine. I would not grudge the Government the two years that it says it needs in order to make a careful decision about the CPF issue. I think it is wrong on the part of the Opposition to raise fears in the hearts of people about this matter. The Government is not flippant. The Government is not greedy about the people's money. The politics of mischief will only breed further mischief. It is mischievous to suggest, as the Member for Potong Pasir did yesterday, that the CPF has no funds to repay. Sir, I said this before in this House and it bears repetition. We live in a country where Government has been very careful in its spending of funds. We have allocated more to development than to recurrent expenditure, and that whatever funds are invested are invested wisely so that it will give us a rate of return in the future. One does not need to be an economist to realize that the large and growing foreign exchange reserves that we have are something to be envied by many countries. These represent the real backing of the CPF. The infrastructure that we have built up represents the backing for the CPF. Perhaps the Government may find it fit one day to reveal what GSIC has been doing, so as to allay the fears that have been generated by irresponsible politicians. Sir, should there be a world depression, we would need to use these reserves to tide us over the two, three or five years that we may have to go through. It is just ridiculous to think that we can tide over a world recession by rearing chickens and by planting a few tapioca trees. If the Member for Potong Pasir has access to an economist with any credibility, he would have been told in no uncertain terms that planting tapioca in the context of modern Singapore would only feed a few people, given the large numbers of people that we have in relation to the little amount of land that is available. Beware of the politics of fear and of mischief. It is so easy to be on this side of the House to poke fun at the Government and to criticize policies. It is so much harder to come up with constructive proposals, even harder to implement these proposals. Nobody has given credit to people who spent long hours agonizing over possible alternatives for Singapore, I feel the need to speak out, Sir, because in the climate of Singapore following the general election, people may be getting the wrong ideas about what to expect from the Government, wrong ideas about what can be done about our economy, about the future progress of our country, because of misrepresentation and because of distortion of facts by the Opposition. Let me now get to another matter. I am glad that the Government has recognized that there is something beyond purely material pursuits. But, Sir, what lies beyond material pursuits, material satisfaction, is not culture. It is something called spiritual. "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." This is a quotation from the Bible. We need to have people conscious of the pursuit of spiritual goals. But, Sir, that is none of the business of the Government. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Again, a quotation from the Bible. But having said this, Government can make it conducive for people to practise their religions, to pursue their spiritual objectives. It can make available land and buildings. It can have more flexible building codes to allow change of use of offices and factory spaces as churches. Sir, we have over-emphasized material rewards, and I believe by so doing we have unleashed selfishness, intense competition and elbowing, greed, and as a result many people, even though they have done well materially, have become unhappy. As the Member for Changkat said so eloquently yesterday, we need to deemphasize material rewards. We need instead, Sir, to motivate people, to call them towards dedication, towards selfless giving, towards the caring for our fellow citizens, towards concerted community efforts. In this regard, those of us who have been long enough in politics will realize that there seems to be a distinct difference between the quality of the older generation community leaders and the younger. I say this with tremendous sadness. The older community leaders, although they have much less education, have humbler economic means, but yet their generosity has been out of proportion to their means when it comes to contributing towards National Day activities or community projects. It is not so with the younger community leaders. They are better educated, they earn much more money, but then their expectations are also higher, their plans are more grandiose for a higher and ever higher standard of living. They plan to travel. They plan university education for their children. They plan to upgrade their flats. As a result, we would be doing very well to get a $10 or $20 contribution from them for National Day activities. I think the older MPs know exactly what I mean. We need to change such attitudes. We need to tell the people: yes, we need to work hard, that Singapore as a whole needs to work hard because we have no natural resources. We need to compete with the outside world, yes, but then there is a time and place for competition. There is a time and place for cooperation. There is a time and place for giving, selfless giving. We are going to get what we preach, Sir. So if we preach these values, we are going to reap some of the rewards. In both the Presidential Address and the Addendum put up by the First Deputy Prime Minister, part of the vision is that Singapore would be what is called "a fun place to live in." I detect the hand of the young Minister of State for Defence and of Trade and Industry because, just at the time when he got into politics, he broached this idea that the young want a Singapore that is fun to live in. But then the young man from Defence is a clean-cut young man of impeccable upbringing. So I would assume that the kind of fun he imagined is good, clean fun. [Interruption] If I am wrong, I will be very sad. But let us not be beguiled, let us not be pressured by people who are looking for the wrong kinds of fun, unclean kinds of fun. I do not know whether it is the Information Minister or the Community Minister now, but let whoever is responsible for censorship continue to maintain the strict rules of censorship. We can have good, clean fun, and yet have good rules of censorship. Further, Sir, we should not relax on social discipline, and I was glad yesterday as I listened to the MP for Potong Pasir that he supports the idea of a disciplined society. Unfortunately, he is not a man of his word. I am told, Sir, that there is a certain political party that is holding illegal Meet-the-People sessions in the void decks of Chong Boon, in open defiance of the law, by people who are self-proclaimed alternatives to the present Government. If there is any association with the Member for Potong Pasir, let him speedily renounce this before this House and repent of his sin. The Member for Potong Pasir made reference to the MRT yesterday. He decried the fact that because the MRT has been largely awarded to foreign contractors, the so-called multiplier effect upon the domestic economy has been minimal. This may be true to some extent, but I would like to pose a question to him; he is not here today. What alternative is there? Do we have the technology in Singapore to build the MRT? Are we going to do it with pick and shovel, boring those tunnels deep down into the earth, and take 30 years to accomplish the MRT? Or are we going to take advantage of modern technology that is available, contractors abroad who have the experience and who are willing to tender at very low prices to our benefit, and have the MRT starting by the year 1988? The man does not appreciate the efforts that have been put in - the efforts to get the best deal for Singapore, the best technology for Singapore, to build the MRT in the quickest possible time in the most efficient way. Would the Member for Potong Pasir like to have the roads logged up with traffic, while mountains of earth are being moved gradually, over 30 years? I think the man needs to have his head examined. Certain things are having multiplier effects up there, which should not be there. But, surprisingly, he did have one good point. He mentioned that there are a lot of speculators in Singapore who make lots of money, speculating on land, on real estate, instead of channelling their money or their investments into more productive types, like growing mushrooms. I think it is a good point. And I think it is a consequence of a number of factors. Firstly, it is a consequence of our rapid growth. In a situation of rapid growth, many opportunities spring up for speculation. Furthermore, it is a consequence of the fact that we have no capital gains tax. So people can safely speculate, make their gains without having to worry about taxation. Now, Sir, the answer is not to put on a capital gains tax if we want a free and open market economy. But rather, I believe, the answer is to lower corporate taxes gradually over a course of time to make it more worthwhile for people to invest in more productive types of investment. The Member for Potong Pasir not only must make good suggestions but he must follow through with concrete proposals. Sir, if I may come to the points raised by the Member for Ayer Rajah. First, let me congratulate him because in his own special, personal, inimitable way, he has set the appropriate tone for this debate. I have only one quarrel with him. Let me despatch that and get on to the good points. I did not like his analogy or his metaphor of a kidney transplant. I am not a doctor Sir, but I have always read that there is a high proportion of rejection when kidneys are transplanted. So if the younger MPs are likened to kidney transplants, God help them! Sir, I would choose a better metaphor. I would regard them as promising buds grafted onto the Tree of Experience of the senior Ministers. That way they will grow into beautiful branches and be fruitful in due course. Now, on to his good points. Firstly, he noted the need for feedback mechanisms, but more importantly, that those who have access to these mechanisms make good use of them. Sir, when I was young, my mother used to clean my ears. I would advise the Ministers to get their ears cleaned. The Member for Ayer Rajah also said that it was a fast pace of change that brought some of the problems upon the Government. I believe this is true, and yesterday the Member for Changkat brought this up rather forcefully, that with rapid economic growth will come rapid changes in lifestyles, and we are going to pay the price for it unless we produce healthy antidotes. And here is where the spiritual rather than the cultural dimension comes in. Thirdly, the Member for Ayer Rajah emphasized the need for better communication. I said this yesterday also and something which we must pay attention to. The Government has got a lot of good intentions, a lot of good proposals, but unfortunately, in the haste of implementation, not enough is done to prepare the ground to receive these excellent ideas. I believe that if we can go through the motions, the pain of listening, of explaining, we can get wide acceptance. Because, Sir, I believe that if the Prime Minister and his colleagues could take a generation of Singaporeans that existed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and if you read the newspapers of those days, you know what Singaporeans were like in those days - rioters, leftists, disparates, prone to riots, prone to communal tension and violence, largely uneducated, low standard of living, and yet they could weld and mould a modern Singapore out of these people. I believe we have better material today, better education, more sophistication, and people, many of them have gone through the hard times. The history can be read. Many have seen the National Exhibition. So I believe that we have got good pluses to build upon, and I think the President was right - we should safeguard what has been achieved and we should build upon what has been achieved. But communication is necessary, and yesterday the Member for Paya Lebar brought up the very important point that the person, the individual, is important. If you regard him as a digit, he is going to respond as a digit. If you regard him as a person, someone worthwhile, someone built in the image and likeness of God, then you will be able to motivate him to produce his best.

Dr Tan, you have two more minutes to go.

Sir, in the vision for Singapore, many good things have been laid out. But there is one thing that I particularly like, and that is, the concern for the poor and for the aged. As long as this Government continues to have this concern for the poor and the aged, it will have my support. And finally, Sir, we need to be a unified nation. It is one thing to have a General Election where people can say anything they like, but the Elections are over. We have got five years to govern Singapore. Let the people rally behind the Government in unity for the sake of our nation. 11.26 a.m. The Minister of State for Home Affairs and Community Development (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Speaker, Sir, I wholeheartedly support the motion on the Address of Thanks to the President's Address moved by the Member for Ayer Rajah. Unfortunately, the Member for Potong Pasir is not here this morning because there are a couple of points which he raised which I thought should not be passed over. He questioned the sincerity of the Government. I think the sincerity of the Government can be seen very clearly for the last 25 years in what we have achieved for the people. Perhaps the Member for Potong Pasir has forgotten that not too long ago, on 13 December, at a rally in Potong Pasir, he called our dedicated community workers (Residents' Committee) "rubbish collectors". Yet, yesterday he was asking to be their Adviser. Is that sincerity? Does he really and sincerely want to be the Adviser to the people whom he had called "rubbish collectors"? Another point he brought up was the Germans: even after two world wars, they are still planting vegetables in their flats. A geography student told me -

Not in flats.

You were not here. A geography student told me that the Germans are a farming community, even though they have industrialized. They are a farming community, and farming is one of their ways to supplement their income. Let us find out from those who know about the practices of other countries, before we are misled, Mr Speaker, Sir, our President made references to the main duties of the Government. They are, firstly, to safeguard what we have achieved, and secondly, to improve upon what has been achieved so that we can have a better society. Let me ask my fellow Singaporeans to just think about three simple questions, when considering these main tasks of the Government. Where have we been? Where are we now? And, where do we want to go from here? For those of us who are old enough to personally experience what life in Singapore was like more than 25 years ago, or who are students of history, they will know that Singapore was a very different society from what it is today. We had 140 years of colonial rule. We were not our own masters; life was very different, Even after the PAP came to power in 1959, and for 10 years after that, life was still very different. Although I cannot clearly visualize the student unrest of the 1950s, I remember the incident. I cannot clearly visualize it. But I know the racial riots of the 1960s. I know the unemployment problems of the 1960s. I therefore know what communal strife and racial disharmony can bring for us. I also know the indignity of unemployment. But gradually, from the 1970s, life for Singaporeans became better. My fellow younger Singaporeans may or may not understand this. But I think it would be helpful for them to know where we were before and how we managed to get here today. There is a common saying that history repeats itself and there are many examples to prove this idiom right. The founding and decline of dynasties in China is a clear testimony to this. In every dynasty there is a golden age and this is followed by complacency and corruption, then comes disharmony, disruption, and eventually leading to the dislodgement of the empire of the day. But history need not repeat itself if we are able to draw some lessons from it. And that is why it is important to study history. But I regret to say that because of our emphasis on technical and science education, in today's school curriculum there is not enough emphasis given to the study of history. The National Exhibition held last year was one of the ways that we can infuse into our young with some historical perspective. But, sad to say, some quarters of our population and the Opposition Members included thought that it was a waste of public funds. Perhaps the message of the National Exhibition was too subtle for the people to understand, or perhaps the message was lost in the colourful and impressive displays of the Exhibition. We have achieved in 25 years what others took many decades to achieve. A student of Japanese history will be able to tell you that the modernization of Japan did not begin until after the Meiji Restoration in 1867, and it took the Japanese 100 years before they were able to gain a place in the international economy. Mr Speaker, Sir, I hope my fellow Singaporeans will have a sense of the past so that they can have a better appreciation of the present. And it is with this historical perspective that they will be able to set a direction for the future. Then history need not repeat itself. Sir, for some strange reason, some people feel that a political party cannot be associated with a trade union movement. That is really poppycock. Do they not know that even in Western democracies political parties are associated with the trade union movement? Take the United Kingdom, for example, which a Member of Parliament so often cites as a model for us to emulate. The British Labour Party is very closely associated with the Trades Union Congress.

On a point of clarification, Mr Speaker, Sir. If the Member is alluding to me, he should get his facts correct. What I said, and I have said all the time, is that it is wrong for the trade union to be at the beck and call of the Government, not that it should not be associated with a political party.

Sir, I will come to that point later. The Labour Party draws its funds from the Trades Union Congress. In the United States, the AFLCIO, which stands for the American Federation of Labour Congress of Industrial Organizations, is also closely related to the Democratic Party. When the Labour Party is in power as a government, is it not also closely associated with the Trades Union Congress? So what is wrong, may I ask, for the PAP to be closely associated with the NTUC and form a symbiotic relationship?

Having a Minister as Secretary-General!

I am flummoxed by this attitude. What does a strong trade union movement really mean?

Please tell us.

I am going to. Be patient. To me, a strong trade union movement is one that is able to galvanize the workers for the good of the country. Its objectives are no different from the government or the employers. I will tell the Member again. The objectives are to improve the standard of living of the workers. Secondly, to educate the workers so that they are able to undertake jobs with higher skills and take on new challenges. Thirdly, to make our companies internationally competitive. These are very simple truths. Sir, you can ask any pre-university student and he will be able to tell you this. But, of course, this does not seem to be what the Member for Anson thinks it should be. I am really curious to know what he means by a strong trade union movement.

I will tell you.

Mr Speaker, Sir, allow me to relate my personal experience of another form of a strong trade union movement. In September 1977, I arrived in London and, having settled down in the hostel, I took a walk around town. I saw a long queue of people waiting just outside a baker's shop and I thought that this was not unfamiliar. We also have long queues of people waiting outside Yaohan's bakery. But of course this was not similar. they were queuing for a limited supply of bread because the bakers were on a go-slow. During my two-year stay in London I experienced many more strikes. The ambulance drivers went on strike and the aged and the sick could not be brought to the hospitals. The hospital attendants went on strike and the patients were inconvenienced. The train drivers and the tube (their MRT) drivers went on strike and the commuters were inconvenienced. Economic activity was disrupted. The school canteen workers went on strike and the children went without food. The coal-miners went on strike and the people had a cold winter. I asked my British friend what he thought about all these strikes. He said, "Well, we have so many of them anyway. We've got used to them and we are helpless to change it." Indeed their threshold of tolerance of inconvenience had gone up. Union leaders can call a strike without seeking the approval of the majority of the members through a secret ballot. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher changed this only recently with a lot of hue and cry from the trade unions. Just look at the coalminers' strike that has just ended after 356 days with an impact of S$125 billion on the economy. S$125 billion means that it takes Singaporeans three years to earn that kind of money. The country as a whole has paid dearly, not just economically but also in terms of social strife. Why was the strike called? Allow me, Mr Speaker, Sir, to quote from an article by the International Herald Tribune published in the Straits Times of 11th December 1984: 'One issue raised, among others, is a dispute about whether state welfare payments should be kept up to spare the families of striking miners from hardship, which shows just how far the welfare state has developed. At the bottom, however lies the issue of what sort of economy the people in Britain want. This is not a dispute about miners' wages. It is about whether Britain remains a market economy. The government intends to close down unprofitable pits progressively, suppressing some 20,000 jobs out of nearly 200,000. It offers separation grants, and it claims that all separations can be achieved by the normal departure of the elderly or by retirement. But the trade union leaders insist that no mine should be closed on economic grounds: So long as there is coal to be extracted, it should be hacked out, at whatever cost; where fathers worked, sons should be allowed, to continue as a matter of course.' Mr Speaker, Sir, is this the kind of strong trade union movement that we want to see in Singapore? Let us not forget that we have had many years of industrial peace. We have not had a strike since 1977. And having just been a representative of an employer only five days ago, let me tell you, Sir, that our workers and the employers want to keep it that way. This is the result of the unison of objectives among the employers, workers and the management. Singapore's economic performance and its ability to attract investors are predicated upon political stability and continuity, an educated and trained workforce and not least of all industrial peace. We must not see the return of the days in the '60s and the '70s when union and management took a confrontational and adversarial approach to their relations. To do so, of course, would fulfil the saying that history repeats itself. Let us not be lulled into the belief that the problems of the '60s and the '70s will not return. In this regard, may I congratulate the Minister for Labour for recognizing this in the Addendum when he said: 'We must preserve our excellent industrial relations climate. The Ministry will build up a team of professional labour officers to work towards this goal through the promotion of more harmonious labourmanagement relations.' The Addendum went on to say: 'The National Productivity Board will promote positive work attitudes - pride in work, a sense of responsibility, self-improvement and teamwork.' These are indeed important if we want to achieve competitiveness in the international market. For without these prerequisites, we will not be able to achieve even a small targeted growth of 5-7% per annum and, mind you, this is not an easy task. It reminds me of what a Japanese expert on productivity once said. He said that improving productivity is like digging gold. In the initial phase, all you need is your bare hands and you will be able to extract all the gold that you need from the surface of the earth. But once that phase is over, you need some tools in order to dig into the earth to get the gold. After that, you need mechanized tools to go deeper to get the gold. But the results would not be the same. It means that you require more effort and more resources to get a marginal improvement in the yield, as the gold that was at the surface has already been extracted. So it is easy to achieve improvements in productivity initially by applying some simple tools and methods. But over a period of time, you would require more resources and more effort to get a marginal improvement in productivity. But that is not to say that we should not try. For if we want to achieve the vision of the 1990s, we must change our attitude to work. We must do our work right the first time as errors are costly. It means it is costly. We must apply total quality control in whatever we do. And I suggest the public sector set the pace for the private sector to follow. I am glad to note also in the Addendum from the Minister for Trade and Industry that we shall offer assistance schemes and tax incentives to private companies and public institutions to promote R&D. Allow me to comment that assistance schemes and tax incentives are necessary but insufficient to promote R&D. Ultimately, it is still the people that count. Do we right now have a ready pool of people to undertake this task? My impression is that we do not have. The answer is that our reward system does not allow for this. Our reward system recognizes that managers be paid more than the individual contributor or engineer. So engineers and scientists do not remain long in their job to build up their expertise, and so they aspire to managerial positions. This being the case, the pool of expertise is always in a state of flux. May I suggest that our educational institutions inculcate into our young a spirit of innovation and curiosity so that they will find jobs in R&D satisfying and rewarding, interesting enough to want to remain as individual contributors. Of course, we should also modify the reward system so that they will remain as individual contributors. Where do we go from here? We want a better society. We want a better quality of life. I think these are clearly laid out in the Addenda as well as in the President's speech, and I believe the objectives are realistic and achievable. They are set out by our political leaders, but what do our people want? To my fellow citizens: let me urge you to tell us what you want. We have invited you to participate in this goal-setting for the future. It is your right - "right" seems to be a word very commonly quoted. But let us not forget too that right is concomitant with responsibility. The maturity of a society comes about only when people are able to exercise their right with responsibility. The next five years are crucial for us. The people and the Government have to reach a new consensus. We are like a crew participating in a dragon boat race. We need a coxswain, we need a drummer, we need crewmen. You have elected your coxswain and, I believe, your community leaders are your drummer. You are the crewmen. We have.an agreed set of objectives. We want to win the boat race. So we must pull together in the same direction, with the same vigour, with the same rhythm, so that we can achieve our goal. Mr Speaker, Sir, if any member of the crew does not pull his weight or pulls in the wrong direction, then, of course, our progress will be slower or we may run into difficulties. So let us spend the next five years thinking about what we want, what sort of society we want for ourselves and for our children. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the motion. 11.49 a.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the motion moved by the Member for Ayer Rajah to thank the President for his Address. Mr Speaker, Sir, the social landscape of Singapore has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. Singapore society has, in fact, matured. The saying goes that it is no more fixated in its childhood stage. It is maturing and growing in its young adulthood stage. This is obviously not a Freudian interpretation, but I think it is a logical process of growth. In view of this, there is a necessity for Government to communicate with Singaporeans in an adult to adult level. And through such communication, Government will be able to listen, perhaps hear, what the common man has to say about the issues that lie ahead of them. Mr Speaker, Sir, the President has, in fact, rightly charted the various issues the Government will be tackling in the next 5-10 years. Amongst the social and economic issues which we will be facing, I would like to single out a few pertinent points that I think Government intervention is necessary, without which there may be some unintended complications or implications for the future fabric of our society. Before I dwell on this, I would like to point out that before I became a parliamentarian, and now in Parliament, I hear the Opposition Members bringing up a lot of rhetoric, viewpoints, which appear to be euphemistic but nothing seems to be concrete that has been offered for the people. I believe that the people are the best judge for themselves in relation to the performance that have been made by these Members in the last three days. Mr Speaker, Sir, I and my colleagues have identified a number of concrete areas where Government should pay particular attention. I would like myself to raise a number of issues which the Government will have to pay particular attention because they affect the common Singaporean. The first issue that I would like to broach is the need for a more responsive housing bureaucracy. I can see that the Minister for National Development is going to perceive what I am going to say, but I reassure the Minister that the Housing Board has a good track record; it has been able to provide housing for most Singaporeans and we should give credit where it is due and not make unfounded allegations against the programmes that have been built over the last 15-20 years. Mr Speaker, Sir, as you know, 81% of our population are living in public housing estates. Therefore, policies which affect public housing estates should be more carefully deliberated by the housing bureaucracy before their implementation. Where possible, time should be set aside to gather opinions from the consumers of the housing programmes, so that any policy changes which affect the well-being could be reflected, and such reflections can be incorporated into the policies. By doing so, the housing bureaucracy could become more responsive, and perhaps a healthier partnership could be developed between the housing bureaucracy and the consumers of housing. Mr Speaker, Sir, currently the public housing estate management offices are overloaded. Last year alone the housing management offices attended to about 2.5 million enquiries from residents. It is an enormous task. It is flooded with various types of enquiries affecting residents. Therefore, a large bureaucracy as such may not be able to provide a personal service that may be necessary. In the ultimate consequence, constant pressures are put on the Area Offices of having to cope with the various grievances faced by residents. These pressures are likely to increase and become more acute in the next 5-10 years ahead. As we all know, most of our housing estates are already aging and, when estates age, like people, they produce all sorts of symptoms, and when they arise the estate management offices will be further overloaded with problems faced by residents. I also sympathize with the staff working in the estate management offices because they have to meet the needs of more than 450,000 households. Mind you, it is not an easy task to deal with residents who make varying demands on the bureaucracy. Somehow I feel that it is time for the housing bureaucracy to consider establishing a Consumer Relations Unit at the estate level so that such unit will be able to receive and obtain feedbacks, viewpoints and grievances from residents in order that their needs could be attended to as efficiently as possible. Through such a unit, mis-perceptions between the bureaucracy and the residents could be minimized. And when better rapport is developed, the housing bureaucracy could be seen in better light. It also will prevent unnecessary bureaucratic "merry-go-rounds" which many of the residents do bring up from time to time. I feel that, if they are shuffled from one end to the other over the years, it will have a cumulative negative effect on the total perception of the services provided by this bureaucracy to the people. This unit can also play a very important role, particularly in newer housing estates when residents are settling in. The unit can usher the residents into the new environment, meet with their new problems. What I am given to understand is that when new estates are built, the existing nearby area estate management offices tend to take on the responsibility. These estate management offices are more often than not overloaded with their own task of meeting the needs of existing residents. And, as you all know, when new residents move into new estates they have a lot of problems with regard to their flats. Much of this running around from one place to the other could be sorted out, and perhaps through this process a better rapport could be developed. The residents will then see that the bureaucracy is more humane, more able to look into their problems and deal with them in the most efficient manner. It can also help to build up a better rapport amongst new residents. It provides the initial foundation for growth of relationship and through this process, when RCs are ushered into these new towns, it can have a better take-off because the foundations for relationship have already been initiated. The next area which has been much talked about is the area on education, the unintended consequences of streaming and the education for disabled children. Since the introduction of the new education policy, we have developed a neat educational system. Though the educational system is neat in theory, but somehow the aspect of streaming has not been well received by the people. People are unhappy about the way in which the children are being streamed. What is worse is that many of the parents are also sceptical about the intentions of the streaming process. Somehow somewhere we have failed to communicate to them that streaming could, in the long-term interest of the children, help the academically-slow children to manage with the educational process. However, I am not sure that the implications of streaming have been effectively studied. What I would like to raise is: do we know what are the psychological and social implications of streaming on the children? Has the Ministry done a longitudinal study in relation to the children who have been streamed? How many of them are affected, having been streamed? I think one way is to study these children on a longitudinal process so that we can, in fact, identify some of the ramifications of this whole process of streaming. Through that, we would be able to see the various problems that may be associated or not associated with streaming. I feel that the Ministry may be interested to look at this whole thing, so that it will be able to have a better insight into the effects of streaming on the children who have been streamed. The question we should ask ourselves is that, no doubt streaming is intended to help the academically-slow children, are there sufficient resources being decanted to help them achieve the potential? Is sufficient remedial education being channelled to these children? Many of them may be weak in various subjects and has adequate support been provided for these children? Many of these children who fail in school come from homes that do not give them necessary support. If they had a poor headstart in their own homes because of poor social conditions of the home, how could they really benefit from the very competitive environment which is prevalent in the school system? Mr Speaker, Sir, I feel that there may be a need to review and build the foundations in the primary education level because by the time the children go into secondary schools we may find it difficult to salvage or to make further improvements, because basically a child's foundation is built at his primary level. His learning habits and his motivation could be built up there, and I feel that the Ministry of Education should review and see how resources could be deployed to build a better foundation at the primary school level. There is also a necessity to review preschool education system because very little reviews, studies and analyses have been done on our pre-school education system. It may be timely at this stage of our growth to examine this area of pre-school education to see how pre-school education can synchronize itself with the primary school level of education. This has been a much neglected area. I feel that such pre-school education has been provided by different organizations with different curricula, with different emphases, and many of these children having been churned through them never enjoyed their childhood. They have pre-maturely become adults by the time they get to the primary school level. So [,feel that the Ministry should try and examine this whole process in order that our educational system could be further strengthened. I would also like, Mr Speaker, Sir, to talk on my pet area, which is education for disabled children. It has been the declared policy of the Government to provide education for all children and to develop their potential to the fullest. Somehow the same benefits that are accorded to normal children are yet to be accorded to disabled children. We may then ask: Are these not our children? Should they not deserve adequate support from the Government in order to help them achieve their potential? More often than not, in the education of these children, we always look at the cost-benefit ratio and I feel that in the cost-benefit ratio application, if stretched on a long-term basis, one should be able to see that there are sufficient returns for educating these children who are physically handicapped. But they can be helped to become people who can contribute in the best way they can to our society, and I hope that with the emphasis on training. and developing skills of workers the area of training and skill development of disabled children should not be forgotten. I feel that more support could be given to voluntary organizations and social organizations that have over the years undertaken this task of providing education for the disabled children. I feel that more adequate facilities and better teacher ratio could enable them to perform their task as effectively as they can. So much for education, Mr Speaker, Sir. I will now move to low-income families. I believe that many of the Members have discussed this area thoroughly. They have presented various viewpoints in terms of how Government intends to take various actions to improve the lives of the 15-20% of the low-income families. I propose not to dwell on this area further, but what I would like to point out is that with the impending intention to raise road tax, diesel tax and various other proposals which are in the pipeline, one may have to stretch the limits of these families. If we do so, we may create further problems in the ability of these families to cope with their needs. I feel that all these increases which have been talked about may generate inflation in our local setting and ultimately it will hit the pockets of the common men, particularly families with low income. But what I want to stress is that many of the families in the low-income group have to get out to work. They are always faced with a no-win situation. If both parents do not work, they are unable to sustain and obtain the necessary income to maintain themselves. If they do work, they work in production-related work, odd jobs, hawker centres, restaurants and service industries. This means that they are required to be away from the home. The Member for Ulu Pandan says that it is necessary to encourage parents to stay at home for the first two to three years, but for these parents they have very little choice. I feel that in the provision for day-care one should look at whether day-care services will become affordable and accessible to these parents. Day-care, which is a lesser evil, provides for the climate, the environment, to help the children of low-income families to be more effective persons and to prevent further undesirable effects that hey may encounter on being left unsupervised. Mr Speaker, Sir, the problem is quite real, and I myself and other colleagues of mine who have been working in this area would like to register that when such services are afforded or planned they must be made available or accessible to such families. Otherwise, there will be great social costs that we have to bear in later years. The fourth issue that I would like to broach and discuss about are the needs and challenges facing youth. Mr Speaker, Sir, youth policies and programmes, as they have been implemented, are rather segmented. Many ministries deal with youth problems and youth needs in a small way. They are not comprehensive enough. They do not provide a holistic approach to the whole problem of the needs of the young persons in our society. I feel that it is time we re-looked and reexamined the problem and come up with a fairly comprehensive policy related to the needs of young persons. This is in view of the impending challenges and the stresses and strains on the life-orientation of young persons imposed by external cultural influences. In order to strengthen the fibres of a young person, we must critically look at the question of how we can develop a comprehensive policy to cater to the needs of young persons in our community. Why I am stressing this is that, as you all know, teenage abortions have increased. Let me quote you some figures on this. In 1972, there were about 103 teenage abortions. After 10 years, the figure has gone up to 1,235, and this seems to be more glaring if you look at abortions as a whole. Since 1973, after the implementation of the Abortion Act, there has been a dramatic increase in abortions. The figure in 1973 was 5,252 and, of late, in 1983, it has jumped up nearly four-fold since then. The figure is 19,100. There is also a gradual increase in marriage breakdowns amongst young adults. Are these then not symptoms of some underlying problems faced by our young persons? I think we have not seriously dwelt into the various reasons as to why such problems have surfaced, and the surfacing of problems which have become acute over the years requires us to look at how we can help to prepare our young persons to live a more enriched family life, a more enriched and a meaningful person who is able to contribute to his community and to his nation. The fifth area that I would like to broach on is to bring our attention to the needs of the aged. Much has been said by my colleague from Ang Mo Kio and others who have raised a number of issues pertaining to this area, but I shall confine myself to some areas which have not been touched on. It is true that we should keep our old people healthy and to encourage them to participate in various social activities and to help them to retire and live gracefully. Though this is essential, we can mobilize various social organizations in the community to participate in these programmes. I feel that most of the social and community organizations are unable to initiate programmes without the adequate infrastructural support by the Government. I know of many voluntary organizations which are interested in initiating programmes for the aged, whether they be able-bodied or aged sick. Somehow the availability of facilities and so-called "economic rental" is not at all accorded on the basis of economic rental to these organizations. And without initial inputs in terms of resources for renovation of such facilities and also without reasonable rentals for such organizations, it will be a deterrence for these organizations to take the initiative to promote programmes in the neighbourhood. I feel that the Government, through the Ministry of Community Development, could review its support system for various social and community organizations to pioneer new areas and new programmes for the aged in the community. Finally, in relation to the aged itself, with the 7.7% of our population who are above 60 years, there will be a sizeable proportion of the old who will be afflicted by illness and disease. At least about 2-3% of this aging population will become the aged sick, will become disabled. And when families of old people are afflicted by these atrocities, they will face a lot of problems in their capacity to provide care and attention for these old persons who are aged sick. I feel that there is a necessity to review why there is this rampant increase in the provision of services by the private sector which, no doubt, is a response to a need. But I feel that the mushrooming of all these private homes must be monitored carefully, and Government should take an active interest in ensuring that they maintain some minimum standards, or give the necessary support to such institutions so that they can continue to provide acceptable standards of care to the old or to the families requiring such support. Ultimately, I think, with families becoming more nucleated and, hopefully, that the problems will not be aggravated further for their inability to cater and look after the needs of their aged sick, I feel that this whole area has to be examined in the context of this changing profile, and Government should, in fact, take a closer look at what needs to be done in relation to the support and the care programmes for the aged sick. In conclusion, Mr Speaker, Sir, the ultimate analysis that one has to consider is the allocation of resources to those sectors which have the most need. Provision of resources to one sector will be a trade-off against another. But in this process of trying to allocate resources, I feel strongly that the Government should begin to look at allocating resources in areas where it would reduce the stresses and strains of people with the ultimate aim that many of those who need the support can be helped to achieve self-help. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the motion. 12.21 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to speak in support of the motion moved by the hon. Member for Ayer Rajah in thanking the President for his speech in opening Parliament on 25th February. Mr Speaker, you had a little difficulty recognizing some of the new Members of this House when you convened Parliament on 25th February. The significant changes in the membership of this House as well as in Cabinet is reflective of the changes of time. Our older generation leaders began their leadership by fighting for self-government. Through the early years, they had to deal with threats to the survival of the nation, the threats of communism and communalism. There was the tension of merger and the trauma of separation; the anxiety of building up our own independent defence force; the problems of elevating the lower standards of living, the lower standards of housing, education, health, environment; generally, to satisfy the basic needs of the people. In brief, that was the political atmosphere of those times. As we know today, each and every one of these problems was met and solutions were found. Ironically, it is the very success of the old guard that creates the challenge for the new. Indeed, it is not an easy act to follow but then one should perhaps bear in mind that the new leaders need not necessarily attempt the same act. Sir, the political atmosphere is different today. We are living in times of internal stability. There is a much higher all-round increase in the standard of living, much of what were once regarded as luxuries are necessities now. In all aspects of life, there is the luxury of choice. The population has become more literate, more knowledgeable, and generally better educated. Improved means of international communication and global activities have increased foreign influence in Singapore, both good and bad. The country has been building itself vigorously in a fairly long and sustained period of tranquillity. In brief, this is the political atmosphere today. Affluence has come to town, and affluence, Sir, has a way of surreptitiously softening the resolve of a people. This danger must be avoided. Sir, I agree with the hon. Member for Whampoa that the new leaders must not over-react to the results of the last General Election. After all, we won 77 of the 79 seats. This is a clear and overwhelming victory by any standards. However, the new leaders must continue to strive, to motivate, and gain the confidence of the people in the same way the old leaders did in the past. They must find ways to encourage the people to think of issues of national interest, rather than of personal or parochial interest. Sir, I believe this is one of the important tasks in the coming years. The hon. Member for Anson in his speech last Friday gave me the impression that he wants to fight battles already fought and won. There are new challenges ahead, serious challenges, and may be it is this that he does not seem to perceive: an attitude which reminds me of the illusions of Don Quixote. Yesterday in this House when the hon. Member for Potong Pasir declared his commitment to be a loyal Opposition, to be constructive in criticism and to play his role in nation building, I was almost swayed into believing that he sounded sincere. But, alas, the speech that followed was a sheer let-down. The Member for Whampoa and the Member for Kuo Chuan had commented on his speech in some detail. I just want to say, Sir, that he might have got away with half-truths in the last General Election. But let me assure him (but he is not here today, and I hope his fellow Opposition Member will tell him) that he is not going to get away with half-truths in this House. Sir, if his performance yesterday is, as I fear it is going to be, the forerunner of things to come from him, then this House can be sure not to expect any loyal Opposition from the Member for Potong Pasir. His Excellency the President, in his opening Address, sets out six goals to be achieved in the next five years. I applaud these objectives and the programmes set out in the Addenda of the various Ministries towards the fulfilment of these objectives. I note, however, that His Excellency placed as his primary goal the aim of reaching an accord with the people on the character of our society - that the people is to have a bigger say in major decisions of the Government. As I understand the term, "accord" means "agreement". If this is to mean that, so far as major decisions touching on the character of our society are concerned, no policy will be implemented without the concurrence of the public, then I beg to differ. Sir, encouraging open-mindedness in our society is one thing, but to rule by popular request is another. The time is surely ripe for a free flow of information and opinion. The time is ripe for us to have free discussions, consultations, criticisms, and suggestions, but it must be understood that the task of governing must be performed by the Government. Recently, the First Deputy Prime Minister urged the grassroots leaders to have a greater dialogue with the people. This is not to say that there was no dialogue in the past. The stress on a dialogue with the people is a call to the people for an increased expression of public opinion. It is also a call for more bridges to be built to join the Government and the people. This must, by necessity, be two-way bridges. Otherwise, the dialogue may turn into a monologue. Sir, with the same aim as the First Deputy Prime Minister, my community leaders and I are seeking out every available channel to reach my constituents in Telok Blangah. It seems to me that in increasing dialogue with the people, we should utilize the machinery of the civil service to encourage members of the civil service to work without fear of criticism because an increase in the expression of public opinion will invariably bring about criticism. That, of course, is not a call to the civil service to ignore public opinion. On the contrary, they must pay heed to public reaction and react and strive, where possible, to meet them. This, it is hoped, will avoid the stunting of creativity in the civil service. After all, creativity and innovations are among the avowed aims of the Ministry of Community Development. Sir, it may also be in order to impress upon the country the virtues of a sense of professionalism in work, whatever work it may be. If service is to be the hallmark of our country and if the country's sole resource is its citizens, then we cannot have a nation who have no pride in their work and every piece of job treated as a chore. I believe, Sir, that it is the Government's duty to push for a higher standard of professionalism in every line of work. In achieving this particular objective, once again, the members of the civil service should form the vanguard. I support the motion, Sir. 12.32 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, having heard the two Opposition Members, on Friday and yesterday, I now understand what Oscar Wilde meant when he said that "a politician is someone who approaches every subject with an open mouth." Sir, the Member for Anson on Friday talked about violation of fundamental rights. Sure they have fundamental rights in the United Kingdom. I do not want to go into a serious discourse except to remind the Member for Anson that the coal-miners' strike in the United Kingdom cost the United Kingdom government $5.2 billion. I think this is a luxury that we in Singapore cannot afford. Sir, the Member for Potong Pasir yesterday tried to convince this House that he is a loyal Opposition Member, by which I infer that the Member for Anson is not. He is sincere and responsible. He will be constructive and that he wants to contribute to nation building. Sir, I am afraid his performance yesterday did not match his words. In his 45-minute speech, or spill, whichever way you might take it, he took every opportunity to discredit this Government and its achievements. Is this constructive criticism? Talk about credibility, he distorts a Blue Paper on the aged as Government policy and goes on to insinuate that this Government has no money to pay CPF holders. On the other hand, he went on to offer two solutions to our possible national problems. If a recession or a catastrophe is to hit us, then we can go back to rear chickens and plant vegetables. Mind you, Sir, he is very serious about this. In West Germany, he says people grow corn. Does he know the size of West Germany? Just for his information, Singapore has 600 sq km, West Germany 250,000 sq km. Maybe he should take another drive in Germany. In his solution to traffic congestion, he says the problem can be easily solved by introducing fast lanes; again, a German influence, maybe the autobahns. Does he really know how many people are killed on the highways? Does he want Singaporeans to be killed on our expressways? Surely, Sir, this cannot be contributions towards nation building. Mr Speaker, Sir, the President in his Address sets out the broad parameters and goals upon which Singaporeans can work together to design and plan our future. The major parameters are set out and these goals set out the framework within which our people can forge a New Society, a society which will be qualitatively different from what we are today. This new society is often labelled as the post-industrial Information Society in which I believe people and knowledge will be the key resources. The final shape, nature and structure ofthis new society are still emerging and very unclear. Employment and occupational patterns will be different, with tremendous impact on our social relationships, values and attitudes. Sir, the thrust towards this Information Society will impose great strains and stresses arising out of the inevitable uncertainty. It is in this regard, Sir, that there would be a great need for extensive communication and dialogue between the Government and those governed. I am afraid Government Ministers must seek views, get feedback, review them and then explain. There has to be regular, both formal and informal, dialogue sessions among Ministers, MPs, including Opposition MPs, professional and business groups, community leaders and other interested groups. National policies will have to be disseminated properly and should not be left to the rumour mills. Sir, the policy objectives of this Government are laudable and nobody in his right sense, maybe except one or two, can quarrel with them. But what I am concerned with is in the implementation. The question is: has the Government paid enough attention to the sensitivities of the people when implementing certain policies, specially those perceived to be tough policies? I am not convinced that the Government has exhausted all available options when embarking on certain tough policies. For example, Sir, when allocating scarce resources, I am afraid this Government has relied too heavily on the pricing mechanism, or just turning to fiscal measures. There may be other alternatives. One other alternative is to make people queue. But is there no other middle way? Maybe the Government should explain and explore whether there are middle ways. The Government to its credit has embarked upon many imaginative solutions to various problems. Take the transport problem, for example. It is not just building more roads and expressways or increasing the number of taxis or buses, decentralizing the central business district, spreading out the industrial areas to various parts of our Republic, locating certain clean industries amidst our housing estates, and the area licensing scheme. All these have helped to alleviate the traffic congestion, not just having fast lanes. My question is: have we done enough? How about staggering commercial vehicles, trailers and other earth-moving vehicles? Next, Sir, are tough policies really the best policies? Our education policy of streaming at an early age, has it not taken away the hopes of many? I believe streaming is a right policy. But has it been implemented well? However, I am pleased to note in the Addendum to the Presidential Address by the Minister for Education which says: 'Streaming procedures will be further improved to allow greater flexibility.' Sir, I believe the key to the exercise is flexibility. I am afraid there is over-dependence on computers in the Ministry of Education. Sir, the main thrust of Government policies are all well and in the right direction. But I would urge that more care and consideration be given when implementing these policies. Mr Speaker, Sir, the Presidential Address has highlighted the plight of the 10-15% lower income group who are unable to buy HDB flats. The Government must be congratulated for giving this priority consideration on our national agenda. Next, I turn to the Addendum on the Ministry of Community Development. It is stated that the Government will work with families, community, voluntary and charitable organizations and provide opportunities for the disabled, disadvantaged and the aged. Sir, to-date, the Government's track record on help and assistance to the disadvantaged and the aged is not one of the best. I think there is a fundamental misconception of the proper role of the Government with respect to the less fortunate members of our society. Government appears to take the view that the main assistance should come from voluntary and charitable organizations. Government tends to play a secondary role, and I think this is morally wrong. I am not asking for welfare hand-outs like in Great Britain but for a certain amount of concern and compassion. I feel more should be done to help those who have been left behind in our march towards progress and prosperity. And, Sir, we can afford to be a little bit more magnanimous. When I had a look at the Ministry of Social Affairs Annual Report, I noticed that the assistance given to the financially distressed and the aged is not something we want to be proud of. The $3.2 million paid out in public assistance in 1983 is negligible compared to the billions that make up Government expenditure. Sir, surely we can do better than $3.2 million, and we need to do more. As for the aged, the same Report shows that the number of residents in private and other voluntary homes has increased while the number in Government homes has decreased. Mr Speaker, Sir, I believe that this is one area where privatization will not find strong support and many takers. I fully agree that we should not encourage the crutch mentality. But will the Government take more positive steps to help public assistance recipients and other needy persons so that they can become more self-supporting? Sir, I also note in the 1983 Ministry of Social Affairs Report that only $2,400 in loans were disbursed to two families. Surely such assistance can be increased, maybe a hundred-fold. Mr Speaker, Sir, the First Deputy Prime Minister in his Addendum to the Presidential Address stated among other issues: 'Singaporeans will participate in and actively run their own community services. They will manage their own towns.' This, I believe, is a major step for Singapore. I believe, Sir, Singaporeans are now capable and willing to take on some social responsibilities which impinge on their daily lives. Moreover, the move to experiment with some form of limited government would widen the degree of political and social participation among our fellow citizens. In fact, Sir, I honestly believe that if more Singaporeans are involved in the decision-making process on policies which impinge upon their daily lives, the quality, relevance and acceptability of such decisions must definitely improve. Sir, the Housing and Development Board has done an excellent job in building homes for our people. Unfortunately the HDB's achievements for some reason or other have been taken for granted. Today HDB, I am afraid, gets more brickbats than bouquets. Most foreign visitors, particularly dignitaries, wished they had an effective organization like the HDB in their own country. By any standards, the achievements of HDB are something all Singaporeans can be very proud of. Having said this, I believe the time has now come for the HDB to concentrate and confine on the building aspects of the housing programme, and gradually detach itself from the Estate Management functions. Right now, Maxwell Road sets the cue and tone for all estate management, and I feel that this sometimes shackled local initiative and creativity. The formation of limited town councils has my full support, and I think it is timely for the Government to undertake a detailed study of this subject. Sir, in conclusion, I would like to offer two suggestions to the Government. Firstly, the Government should set up a multi-disciplinary Task Force, similar to the one on tourism, to look into the plight of the 10-15% of our population who appear to be imprisoned in a poverty trap. This task force should look into all aspects of the problem and make necessary recommendations to the Government, with home-ownership being one of the objectives. The second suggestion which I would like to make to the Front Bench is that the Presidential Address which effectively sums up our national agenda for the next decade should now be simplified and disseminated to all Singaporeans, together with an action plan for implementation. 12.48 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I consider the speech which the President made on behalf of the Government sometime last week to be very significant on a number of counts. Firstly, I think it allows us to have a good grasp of what this new and young Government's priorities are. At the same time, as has been pointed out earlier, it has given us a fairly vivid description of what we can expect over the next decade or so. But what I feel to be most important of all is that, through the Presidential Address, we were given an insight into the collective thinking of the younger leaders, their philosophy and their approaches to resolve what would appear to be intractable problems which we are likely to encounter. And it is on this philosophy that I would like to deal with in my speech this afternoon. Before I do so, I would like to outline what I perceive to be the back-drop for the plan of action which Singaporeans can expect to be implemented over the next decade. Having perused the Addenda to the Presidential Speech, one cannot but try to extract the essence of the various programmes which Ministries have put up. This essence, I feel, can be captured in two objectives; namely, first, the creation of more wealth and a better society for all Singaporeans; and secondly, the distribution of wealth amongst Singaporeans or, in more common terms, how and on whom to spend the money we shall earn. These objectives are really not new and, moreover, they look deceptively simple to achieve, so much so that I gather that the Member for Anson, who is not here now, was under the illusion that they could be achieved just simply through the stroke of a pen. In other words, the Member for Anson thinks that by changing the legislation, by amending the Constitution, by providing more rights which apparently we have been deprived of, we will all be well provided for. These objectives are not new, for the simple reason that these are the same challenges that we encountered when we first attained self-government in 1959, and subsequently when we achieved nationhood in 1965; and I will venture to say that these objectives will be with us in 1999 and even up to the 21st century. There is a reason for this constancy of purpose. It is not that we lack imagination or we do not have good and able men with vision. The reason for this constancy of purpose is really because ours is a political system where our future, our prosperity, our progress, are determined by the people and for the people. That being so, there is no reason whatsoever why these two objectives should vary over time. Now, it is a well-known fact that over the past 25 years our success has been the result of hard-headed decisions, a realistic and pragmatic approach to resolving difficult problems, an impeccably, honest administrative service, and of course an able leadership which was able to jell a group of disparate people into one cohesive unit with a common sense of purpose. In the process of developing over the past 25 years, one thing stands out very clearly, and that is the guiding principle that has formed the framework for our policies. This guiding principle has been, and will continue to be, how to motivate and help Singaporeans from all walks of life, regardless of race, religion or culture to work together as a people, participating in and contributing towards our progress, and in creating a secure, prosperous and vibrant nation, where each and every Singaporean can find fulfilment in life. I would like to really stress that it is each and every Singaporean that will find fulfilment and not just a sector or a group. While the guiding principle has served us well over the past 2 1/2 decades and, I venture to add, will continue to serve us well for the next 2 1/2 decades, we must take cognizance of the fact that over time circumstances will change. We have a different mix of people with different and improved capabilities. Our population has not remained stagnant, we have improved not just in quantity but in quality. Priorities and expectations of our people have also varied; lifestyles have become different; and the of demographic pattern has also changed. In short, while the guiding principle remains, but because of differing circumstances, our approach to resolving problems must also change. In this regard I am particularly gratified to see in the First Deputy Prime Minister's note to the Addendum that cognizance has been given to these changes. But equally gratifying is the fact that he and his colleagues have not taken the softer option despite what has been termed as the recent set-back in December and traded off a proven approach towards prosperity for softer options in order to attain immediate gains and popularity. I must at this juncture say that we ought to be thankful to him and his colleagues for not succumbing to what could easily have been a very attractive alternative, namely, to trade off a proven approach, a hard-headed approach, and often even an unpopular approach, for a more popular one, because if he had done so, I would not be standing here today in support of the motion. I mentioned earlier, Mr Speaker, Sir, that one of the reasons why the Presidential Address and the Addenda is significant is that it provides us with an insight into the way our new leaders think and act. And I would like to quote one policy statement which I feel stands out very starkly in the Presidential Address, encapsulating the essence of how our new Cabinet think, their philosophy and their priorities: 'My Government will pay particular attention to those who find it difficult to keep up with the pace of change - the 15 to 20% in the lower income group and the aged . . .'. This statement stands out starkly because it is a categorical statement that will shape all our policies over the next five years and possibly even longer. And for that reason I would like to take a little time to dwell on it. Undoubtedly this policy statement will have a very important bearing not just on policies alone, but also on the way and the manner in which details of policies will be worked out. To illustrate this point, I would like to use an example as to how we can expect the new Government to attain the two objectives I outlined earlier, namely, the creation of wealth and the distribution of wealth. Since it appears that it is fashionable to use transportation modes as examples, I recall last Friday it was a bus, with some interjection on MRT, yesterday I believe it was the taxi, I shall do likewise. But I am afraid, Mr Speaker, Sir, my mode of transport is slightly more modest, it is a bicycle. I would like to illustrate by means of a bicycle, if I may, how Singaporeans can expect to create wealth and how we, as a government, as a Parliament, and as a people, ought to distribute this wealth. My bicycle unfortunately is out of the ordinary because it has to be large enough to accommodate ---

Order. It is 1.00 p.m. We shall go bicycling later on. This Sitting is suspended until 2.30 p.m. Sitting accordingly suspended at 1.00 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 2.30 p.m.

On behalf of hon. Members, I would like to welcome the hon. Members from the House of Commons who are present in our Gallery. [Applause].

Debate resumed. Question again proposed.

Mr Lim, you can carry on cycling.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, Sir. I am pleased to report back to the House that the bicycle, having been repaired over lunch, is back on the road, in good order. As I was saying before we broke up, Mr Speaker, Sir, the bicycle, I was referring to really is a figure of speech, as you quite well realize. It has to be large enough to accommodate all Singaporeans of all hues and capabilities, of different ages and inclinations, and obviously, each with an independent set of pedals. Why do I choose this rather unglamorous form of transportation when my colleagues before me were dwelling on MRT and other similarly exotic vehicular traffic. The reason is very simple, Sir. There is one unalterable physical fact about cycling, as all of us well know: one has to keep on the move, keep on pedalling to remain on the seat. To stop means to fall off. This is not unlike the way Singapore has grown over the past 21/2 decades. We had to strive continuously to achieve political, economic and social growth and were never at any one time able to relent despite the fact that on many occasions the odds were so overwhelming that men with weaker physical and intellectual abilities would have given up. But fortunately for us, the younger Singaporeans, our leaders did not give up. They kept on pedalling. True, the bicycle was travelling at different speeds at different times. Sometimes we encountered obstacles and had a bumpy ride. We slowed down when we had to move uphill. On the very rare occasion, we free-pedalled a little as we went downhill but often times there was always a danger of a fall as we negotiated curves and hairpins. Despite all the traumatic experiences we had encountered over the past 25 years, we have arrived at the present stage of our progress and must continue to pedal on. One thing that has remained unchanged, Mr Speaker, Sir, is the physical principle which will apply as long as the law of gravity exists, and that is, we have to keep on going to avoid failing off. To achieve that means that we have to put in the effort continuously, putting in more effort when the going gets tough just as we did when we encountered hard times and steep inclines in 1973 and 1978. But one factor is unaltered; we cannot afford to stop, for to do so means falling off and, in our case, it will not be unlike Humpty Dumpty. Once we fall, Singapore will never be the same again. Let me digress a little, if I may, Mr Speaker, Sir, to regale you with two important features of this rather large and unique bicycle. Firstly, I would like to stress that despite the size of this mam- moth contraption only one person can steer this bicycle. To encourage otherwise will only end up in the bicycle becoming a twisted hulk of metal. It begs the question then: who should steer? I think the obvious answer would be the striker. I know, Mr Speaker, Sir, I run the risk of getting my metaphors mixed. I suspect what we end up with will be a footballer-cum-bicyclist. But what is important is that this striker who is steering the bicycle must rely on inputs from all his colleagues, from Cabinet and Parliament, our various grassroots organizations, our community leaders, and most important of all, the people who are right behind the striker, pedalling away, putting their best foot forward. What is worthwhile repeating really is that the person who is doing the steering must have enough gauges and meters to know what is going on at the back of him -whether the people are exhausted, what sort of refreshments the cyclists require, what are their needs to keep on going. Not only must he have this feedback but what is equally important is that having got the feedback he must take heed. He neglects it at his own peril and endangers the whole nation by so doing. Because by neglecting the feedback he may end up steering but getting nowhere. Since we have referred to the striker, one probably wonders where is the place for the goalkeeper. I suspect he will be right at the end, bringing up the rear. In case the bicycle wobbles while negotiating a bend, he will be in a good position to put on the brakes or perhaps even crack the whip. The second feature of this bicycle is that everyone on board is carried along on one condition - provided he is giving of his best. What is equally important, as mentioned in the Presidential Speech, is that everyone has a place on this bicycle. No one should be left behind or discarded as the bicycle progresses. In this regard, again I am thankful and gratified that the Presidential Speech clearly stated that each citizen will be urged "to develop his potential to the fullest, and to achieve his rewards in accordance with the worth of his contribution to our economy or society." The question that is being begged to be answered really is: how best to help each individual to develop his potential to the fullest? Or look at in another way: how much resources should be deployed to help those who are less talented, less well-endowed, less able and consequently require more care and more attention? Alternatively, should more resources be used to develop the better-endowed and the more talented? I suspect the answer lies somewhere in between. We cannot have the cake and eat it too. There must be a trade-off. I would like to dwell a little on this question because, to me, it is the under-pinning philosophy of the whole Government's agenda, Should we trade-off faster progress for a slightly slower one in order that more people can benefit from our prosperity? If that is so, then the Government has to make a conscious effort in bringing this about. Having perused the Addenda, while I detect some implied thinking along this line, I was unable to discern any clear indication regarding Government's position on this rather crucial policy decision. I realize that reference has been made, albeit in a general way both in the Addenda as well as in the Presidential Speech about helping the lower-income group, the aged, the less fortunate, the less able and so on and so forth. These broad objectives are laudable and are at the same time in line with our overall aim of improving the quality of life for all Singaporeans, as I have stressed earlier on. But let me hasten to add, Mr Speaker, Sir, that all of us here, and I suspect every Singaporean too, realize that we do have limited resources but, at the same time, we also do have Singaporeans who need that linle extra help or push to realize their full potential. Given the best of will, they cannot make it on their own. Therein lies the dilemma. The nub of the matter really lies in the way in which we, the Government, and we, the people, wish to cut our cake. Who should have the larger share? I am posing this question because we are debating the Government's agenda for the next 10 years. We are also in the midst of a rather critical situation in view of the economic difficulties we are likely to encounter over the next year. So the policy as to how we ought to cut the cake will impact not just those who are likely to benefit but all Singaporeans. I would perhaps like to, if I may, quote a few figures to help bring the problem into perspective and hopefully enable the Government and ourselves to have a better grasp of the dilemma that we are facing. I have gone through the Report, the Census of Population, 1980, which is perhaps rather ancient being about four years old, but I think the patterns and the trends are still applicable. In this particular Report, Release No. 7 which gives the income profile of the population, the 1980 Census showed that about 70% of employees earned less than the mean income. I do not intend to go through the details, but roughly, a summary of Table 11, on page 46 of this Report, indicates that for employees with no qualification, their mean monthly income in 1980 was $352 and 69% of this category of people were earning below the mean income. Those with primary qualification, numbering some half a million, their mean monthly income was $425, with 74% of the employees earning below the mean income. For those with secondary and upper secondary education, the mean monthly income amounted to about $785, with 68% earning below this figure. For those with tertiary education, the mean monthly income was $2,401, with 54% earning below the mean income. For the whole group of employees, numbering some 900,000 of them, the mean monthly income, I would like to reiterate that this was in 1980, was $585, with 70% of the employees earning below the mean income. In short, some two-thirds of employees in 1980 earned below the mean income. However, to make policy decisions based purely on such figures would not only be irrational but would be totally wrong. Let me explain. Fortunately for us, household incomes have substantially increased over the past three to four years because of the full employment situation which we enjoyed over the period 1979-1983. Hence the standard of living rose over this period despite what could be deemed to be relatively low individual incomes. Indeed, the 1980 Census Survey confirmed this, and I would like to quote: "The second and subsequent working members of the household provided modest but important supplementary income to the household." So despite the fact that superficially the bulk of, or to be precise, some two-thirds of the employees earned below the mean income, Singaporeans were able to afford a fairly comfortable way of life for the simple reason that we were able, despite the many setbacks and an unfavourable, global economic situation, to maintain full employment, thereby providing ample employment opportunities for Singaporeans from all walks of life. As such, I would not be too perturbed if someone stood up and said, "Look, $585 is way below subsistence level, if ever that was." But what is perturbing, Mr Speaker, Sir, is that with the likely downturn in economic growth over the next year, I am afraid that more workers will be retrenched, job opportunities will decrease and, as a result, household incomes fall. The net effect will not only be the reduction in individual incomes, but also in household incomes. And this latter effect, the drop in household incomes, will have fairly grave consequences. The point I am making, Mr Speaker, Sir, is that the Government and we in Parliament ought to bear this in mind when formulating policies, particularly those which have a financial impact on the average household. In this regard, I am really pleased to note that this fact has not been overlooked. The Addenda indicated very clearly that the Government in its farsightedness has decided that lower income families will require assistance to own their own homes, just as one example. This is a laudable and a necessary policy. Since most of my colleagues have already touched on how Government can help the lower income families to own their own homes, I would not reiterate any of these suggestions, but perhaps to round up by saying that, whatever schemes the HDB or the Ministry of National Development or the Ministry of Finance may come up with, they should take cognizance of the fact that in a prolonged recession, particularly if it is going to result in massive retrenchments, not just in numbers but also in frequency, lower income employees invariably by the very nature of their jobs that they are engaged in, will be affected disproportionately. As such, when drawing up details of any scheme to assist home ownership, they must take into account that these families will need that extra help. Let me add, Mr Speaker, Sir, that these same low income groups will also require assistance in other areas as a result of the reduction in household incomes. Since education is uppermost in most of our minds, it will be a useful example to examine children's education in primary and secondary schools in this respect. I do not have any ready figures. But I strongly suspect that the majority of children who have been streamed into the monolingual or extended stream in primary schools, and the normal stream in the secondary schools, are from lower income families. I am sure the Ministry of Education will be able to confirm whether this is so. But the crucial point is whether Government ought to channel more resources to help these students, namely, those in the extended or the monolingual streams, or the normal secondary stream, with the sole objective of enabling them to realize their full potential. It is well and good to stream them into schools where they are able to learn at their own pace. To succeed more resources could well be required to help them along. Mr Speaker, Sir, if our declared policy is to help those who need help to help themselves, then I feel that it behoves us to consider seriously to deploy even more resources to help the children from the lower income families in order that they could break out of the poverty trap and move up the economic ladder. In case some of my colleagues think that I am going soft, I am making this plea really in the hope that the declared aim of the Government in helping each and every Singaporean realize his full potential can really be met, and is not just a slogan. I will be the first to declare that meritocracy has served us well. Equal opportunities have enabled those who are talented and well- endowed to rise socially, regardless of their race, creed, culture or their stations in life, or background. Indeed, I have often compared the upward mobility of our society to that of a concertina. In short, our society, as a result of free and easy mobility, has expanded like a concertina. It is really up to those who have made it to the top to help the others struggling at the bottom of the heap. At the same time, I think Government equally has the responsibility to make it a conscious policy to help those at the bottom not by hand-outs, as may be advocated from time to time by one or two MPs, but really by giving them the extra assistance in order that they can succeed in pulling themselves up by their own boot-straps. What they need is that little extra help. And this help which must be forthcoming from the Government is not only morally right, but I feel very strongly that it is also a pre-condition for continued social harmony and national cohesiveness. Because if we promote a society, where the concertina is overstretched, with the result that those at the top of the heap pay scant regard to those at the boftom, there can only be but one result - civil strife, chaos, and all the attendant disastrous consequences. Indeed, when we speak of total defence, something which we have been trying to promote, everyone must have a stake which is worthwhile defending, and if the bulk of our population does not have any stake, then I am afraid the concept of total defence will never succeed. Hence, it is really in the interest of national survival that we make every effort to assist those at the bottom of the heap. In short, Mr Speaker, Sir, Government has stated quite categorically, as I said at the outset, that it will create an environment where each and every Singaporean will give of his best. I think no one will quarrel with that. Moreover, their respective talents will be developed to the fullest. This broad policy deserves our full support. What I am suggesting, Sir, is that Government, when translating this overall policy into programmes at the ministerial level, should take extra care to ensure that the talents of the less well-endowed and the skills of the less able are given every opportunity to be developed to the fullest, like those of their more talented and better endowed fellow citizens. And this, I must stress, will require a conscious decision in policy formulation on how much of our limited resources are to be used and for what purpose. I am afraid, Mr Speaker, Sir, there is really no one clear-cut answer to this difficult decision. But one thing is clear. We ought to bring our minds to bear on this matter and convince Singaporeans that whatever decision we arrive at, it has been made in the best interest of Singaporeans at large in the longer run. The guiding framework I touched on earlier will continue to be what is most good for the maximum number of people. I have, however, one caveat to this approach of helping the people at the bottom of the heap. Having been told of the Government's intention to pay particular attention to the lower income group, the aged and the disadvantaged, Singaporeans will invariably put under the microscope all policies particularly those relating to fees, rates, fares and I suspect it will include the impending increase in taxi fares, and compare such fare adjustments, fee increases, against the declared policy. This is inevitable. And as a Government we have and must have the courage to stand up to it. What we must prevent at all costs is to lose our credibility, and that is, to preach one thing and do another. Yet at the same time, let me hasten to add, Mr Speaker, Sir, we must not swing the other way and create what has been called the "crutch mentality" in any strata of our society, nor by our policies ought we to encourage dependency and slothfulness. What is called for is a judicious balance to be struck and, at the same time, whenever increases of fares, rates and fees are inevitable, great pains ought to be taken to explain why such increases are necessary rather than just making changes by merely promulgating legislation, just by the stroke of a pen. The litmus test really is that the "national bicycle", if I may term it, must be kept going with everyone pedalling to the best of his ability, realizing of course that some will need more help than others. And those who need more help ought to receive more help, not because we believe in hand-outs but because this is to enable them to give of their best. In this way, everyone can and shall enjoy a better quality of life in accordance with his contributions. I note that one of the declared objectives contained in the Presidential speech is that Singapore ought to be a fun place to live in. I would like to expand on that by stating in no uncertain terms that unless life in Singapore can be fun for everyone, no one will be in a position to enjoy any at all. It is with this reminder that I support the motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Ayer Rajah. 3.06 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, politics is about giving hope to the people. The people supported us and voted for us because they have placed their hope in us. If we fail to give them hope, they will abandon us. We may have the best intentions in the world and we may have the most visible achievements to show, but if the people's perception is that they cannot get a fair deal from us and that there is no hope of improving their livelihood under our rule, then they will abandon us. This, I suspect, must be what was in the minds of some of the 33% of voters when they went to the polling stations on 22nd December and voted against us. "Perception" here is the most important word. It is no use comparing us with the people in Calcutta or Bangkok. The common people cannot see beyond his immediate horizon. He can only compare himself with those who live around the corner, in condominiums and in executive flats, those who enjoy a four-figure or five-figure income. If he thinks that there is gross unfairness in the distribution of the nation's wealth and the only way he can make us understand his despair and frustration is simply to cast a vote against us, then he will do it. An ancient Chinese philosopher was quite right when he pointed out that a country never suffered from poverty. It only suffered from the ill effects of the inequality in the distribution of its wealth. ( ) In other words, if everyone is poor, then no one can complain. The pavement sleeper in Calcutta has nothing to complain because everyone sleeps in the pavement like him, and he cannot see anything else. Similarly, if everyone eats tapioca, no one will complain because, if that is all we have, then we will have it. However, if some eat tapioca and some eat chicken, for instance, then we will have trouble because the tapioca eaters will complain. If everyone has an equal stake in the system, then this system is worth fighting for, worth dying for. Only then is there a meaning when we ask the people to strive for the best and to work their best. ( ) This is not a system that we want to preserve or perpetuate. We have just celebrated the 25th year of the rule of our Party. It is therefore a good time for us to sit down and take stock and to ask ourselves what we have done for the common man, the small man, or ( ), for whom we have set our task to serve when we first joined the PAP. It is true that we have created a few millionaires, and a few among us here too, not surprisingly. It is true that we have given everyone better schools, better houses and better standard of living. But has the livelihood of those in the 15-20% lower income group whom the President has specifically mentioned improved very much? Not much I would say. Over the last 25 years, the allowances of Members of Parliament have increased six times, from $500 to the present $3,000-plus. The pay of Ministers has increased 10 times. It used to be $2,000. I was told now it is $20,000. I have lost touch. I have not been here for several years. That is 10 times. But the pay of the average man, the small man, in the lower income group has only increased two times or at the most three times, if he works hard enough at overtime. His pay would be increased from, say, $200 a month to the present, say, $500 a month. But during the same period, our cost of living has risen five or six times. A plate of char kway teow which cost 30 cents in those days can now be had only at $2 if we want an egg. A cup of coffee which cost 10 cents is now 50 cents without milk. If we measure our achievements by these criteria, then we can be perceived as having failed miserably. I am not directing this criticism solely at the present younger leadership for whom I have great respect and admiration. I am directing it at ourselves collectively for allowing it to happen and we were blind to all the signals sent back to us by the people in their agony and frustration. The Member for Anson and the Member for Potong Pasir would be flattering themselves if they for one moment believe that they have brought about this turn in their political fortunes by their own effort. It is we who, through our own lopsided policies, have put them there. It is now up to the new leadership to remedy that situation and win back the supporters. To these supporters we must show concrete proof of our sincerity. It is no use telling them the nice things that are going to happen to them in the year 1999. It is no use telling them the fun things. Fun? What fun? It is no use telling them the fun things that are going to happen to them in 1999 when they cannot get themselves above the line of subsistence living now in 1985! It is true that the people in the lower income group had their pay increased on several occasions in the past years. But unfortunately every time they had an increase, whether it be the NWC recommendations or the 13-month salary, there was always a corresponding increase in the CPF contributions, which then left them not very far from where they were before. In fact, a man who now earns $500 a month takes home less than he did before. In the past, if he earned $500 a month, then after deduction of the CPF contribution at 5%, he would take home $475. Now, he is lucky if he can take home $375. Our intentions, of course, were good. We were concerned that they were unable to manage their own money. We were worried that if we stuffed too much money into their hands they would squander it away, adding fuel to inflation which would leave them worse off than before. So it is better that part of the increase should be taken away and kept in their CPF until the time when they are old enough to handle it. But this, I think, is too caring and too paternalistic in a matter which everyone considers to be his own business and nobody else's. The same mentality prevailed when it came to tackling the problem of the old aged people. A commission was set up and the result was only too well-known. Its sweeping conclusion was that the people could not be trusted with their own money, even though they had lived for more than half a century. So it had to be retained until they get even older. Again, too caring and too paternalistic. Too much interference in areas where the common people consider them too personal and private to be regulated by the Government. The same thing happened in the case of women graduates. If you are a woman graduate and if you are not married by the age the Government thinks you should, the whole Government machinery would descend on you and devise ways and means to get you married off, and preferably producing good, brilliant babies. We tend to see too far ahead, look too deeply into problems and get worried too early. In a way, this is good and, with such people in charge, nothing much can go wrong. But what fun is there? It is also in keeping with the good old Chinese philosophy which says, "A leader should show concern and start thinking long before his people get into trouble. He should enjoy only after his people have enjoyed." ( ). This is all very honourable and admirable and deserves our praise. But the ordinary man cannot see so far ahead. He cannot understand why certain things have to happen to him, so he gets very angry because of them. On the other hand, in places where the Government should show more care and sympathy, they are found lacking. If you are sick and if you do not have a credit balance in your Medisave account, it is too bad. If you have the misfortune to run a shop in an HDB estate, and if the HDB wants to increase your rent by 200% or 300% and if you cannot afford it, well, it is too bad. You have to move out and make way for those who are more efficient. And what happens to you is none of the Government's business. As a result of this high rental policy, many shops in the HDB estates cannot survive on legitimate business alone. [Laughter] It is an open secret. I know why Members are laughing because it is an open secret that many had to resort to doing other less legitimate business, such as running illegal 4-D operations to keep going. After an absence of more than six years from the politics of Singapore, I am naturally pleased to be back. However, I find that it is a very different Singapore that I have come back to. People are forever ready to charge you a fee for anything and for everything. The greatest shock came the other day when I found that I had to pay 50 cents to set foot on Chinatown. Can you believe it? I know you will say that nothing is for free in this world, and I subscribe to that philosophy. But in Chinatown where I used to roam freely as a boy! It is a bit much, isn't it, to have to pay 50 cents for a nostalgic stroll in Chinatown during Chinese New Year. I have a feeling that the day may not be far away when we have to pay for the sea breeze in the Esplanade and for a swim in Changi Beach. No wonder they "Pay And Pay." You know what that means. In recent months, the newspapers are so full of reports about companies going bankrupt and workers being retrenched that I do not have to be an economist to tell you that things are getting very bad in our economy. High overhead cost, high labour cost and high value of the Singapore Dollar have hit our businessmen very hard, especially the small businessmen. I think the Government ought to do something to get them out of this very difficult time. I think one thing the Government can easily do in this respect without losing any revenue, and that is important, is to abolish the Skills Development Fund levy. The levy in its present form is unfair to the small employers and give tremendous advantage to the multinationals. A look at the SDF's latest annual report tells us that of the 50,405 small companies which employ less than 10 employees each, only 1.5% of them have applied and got grants from the SDF for their employees; whereas of the 217 large companies which employ more than 500 employees each, every one has applied and every one has been successful in getting grants for its employees. Some people say that the SDF levy is, in fact, an indirect tax on the workers in the lower income group, and I am inclined to agree with them. The reason is simple. If the hard-pressed small employer does not have to pay 4% of the payroll of his small low income employees into the SDF, he will have that much more money to pay to his workers. But because he has to pay to the SDF, he has less to reward them. So at the end of the year he has to make the adjustments and pay less bonus to his workers. In the end, it is the poor workers who have lost out. It is interesting to find that even the trade unionists among here have spoken out against the SDF. Why should trade unionists speak out against it when workers are not required to contribute to it? They have lost nothing. Why? And the SDF is ostensibly meant to upgrade the skill of the workers and prepare them for better and higher paid jobs. Why, may I ask, should the trade unionists raise the matter? I think in a way the unionists have sensed, although no one has told them, that the levy has indirectly hurt the workers in the same way as it has the small employers. I know it is not the habit of this Government to abolish any levy or tax once it has got them going. It would be like to force the biblical camel through the needle hole; if I had quoted the bible correctly. I beg your pardon. The authority is not here. An hon. Member: Eye of the needle.

Yes, eye of the needle; the needle hole! It does not matter. It is an Asian way of expressing it well, ( ). But it is useful to point out that the SDF has already amassed a huge amount of money. Even if the levy is to be suspended for a year or two, there is no danger that the training programmes under the SDF would be jeopardized. Up to March last year, the SDF has accumulated an amount of $432 million. But in the same period it has only paid out slightly more than $40 million as grants. So at this rate, if the grants do not increase substantially over the years, the fund can easily last for more than 10 years. But in any case, the argument is quite strong for the Fund to be abolished for the time being and reintroduced when the economy is in better shape. The Prime Minister has advised the younger generation against tossing overboard fixed, settled values which are part of our culture, part of our ethos." This advice should be well heeded. I cannot agree with him more. We have been helpless in seeing these good old values being eroded, compromised and dismantled for too long. But somehow I have the feeling that his officials and we ourselves have been unknowingly and unwittingly a party to this dismantling and demolishing of our traditional cultural values. I need only bring out two examples - the simplification of the Chinese characters and the cultural or high-brow programmes in SBC's Channel 12. First, the Chinese characters which we call han zhi. The Chinese characters have served not only the Chinese people but also the Japanese people, the Korean people and even the Vietnamese people for more than 2,000 years. It is still the most widely used and the oldest writing scripts in the world. It must have its inherent values, otherwise it could not have lasted so many thousand years and not being discarded. The Chinese are an intelligent people. The Japanese are also an intelligent people. After so many hundred years of searching and experimenting, they have yet to find another script which can satisfactorily replace these characters. It is part of the Asian culture. It is a legacy to all the east Asian people. With a legacy like this, one should value it and should not allow it to be tampered with or modified lightly. Yet the characters have suffered more damage in the last 20 years under the hands of the so-called "language reformers" than in the last 2,000 years under the hands of tyrannical emperors and warlords. The "reformers" ie, the language experts say that it takes too many strokes to form a Chinese character and that it is difficult to teach the young children to read and write them. I say, balderdash. The English language is just as difficult to write. It is also difficult to pronounce. It is also difficult to spell, but no one has suggested that the English words should be simplified. Take the English word "beautiful", for instance, and the Chinese character mei ( ). They both convey the same meaning. The English word "beautiful" takes nine letters to form and so it can be said to have nine writing strokes. The Chinese character "mei" also takes nine strokes to form. While the strokes in "mei" are dashes and dots written in different directions, the strokes in "beautiful" consist of different letters or alphabets, as you call them. It takes nine strokes to form the word "beautiful" and it also takes nine strokes to form the character "mei". No one in his right mind has suggested, or will ever suggest, dropping a few English letters here and there from the word "beautiful" in order to make it more easily taught and understood. The Americans have tried it, and we have words like "color", "favor", and so on and so forth, but we are not following that system here. So why should the Chinese characters be chopped and changed and castrated? As a result of that, there has been more confusion. Instead of simplifying it, they make it more complicated. And as a result of that, the word "hair", for instance, in Chinese "fa" ( ) and the word for "development" - "fa" ( ) are now indistinguishable. The word for "history", for instance, "li" ( ) and the Chinese character for "calendar" ( ) are also indistinguishable, and many other words have been made indistinguishable. As a result of that, our own children can now only read what has been fed to them and cannot gain access to the vast knowledge stored in the hundreds of thousands of books which were written in the non-simplified form. The tragedy now is that the simplification process is done only half way and has ground to a halt, and it has been left hanging ever since, in mid-air. The Chinese in the mainland must have now awakened to the damage that has been done to this very valuable writing script, and they have virtually called a halt to it. For many years now, no one has ever talked about the subject. No one has ever issued any new simplified characters. Nothing has been done. It is just left like that. No objectives, nothing. Can you believe it? I suppose this will also leave us dangling for quite some time too. Let me now come to the other subject, hanyu pinyin. At the outset, I must say that as a form of spelling for Mandarin, it has my wholehearted support. For the first time, since the 1915 May 4th Movement, the Chinese found a tool which would efficiently and accurately transcribe the sound of Mandarin on paper. Nevertheless, it is only a tool for transcription of Mandarin sounds. It cannot and will not replace the Chinese characters. But because it can translate the sounds accurately, I am sure it will help to speed up the teaching and learning of Mandarin. My advice to the new MPs who are now struggling to improve their Mandarin is this: they should take up the learning of hanyu pinyin seriously. I am sure they can master it in one or two weeks, and after that the mystery of the ancient oriental world will be gradually opened to them. However, we must not allow the enthusiasm for spreading the use of hanyu pinyin to overtake us and make us do something foolish, which is what is happening now. I am told that we are now in the process of transforming all the names of our children into hanyu pinyin, so that in one stroke we separate them from their ancestral names. One fine day when we wake up, we may not know how to write their names correctly. This, again, is a move which will lead us into many imponderables. The way we spell our names carries with it a piece of our own history. Whether we spell it in the Cantonese way, the Hokkien way, the Teochew way, or the Hainanese way, it tells the story of how our forefathers had gone to the various parts of Southeast Asia to seek their fortunes and then converged in Singapore and made Singapore what it is today. From the way a Chinese spells his name, you can easily tell where his father or he came from. If it is "Koh Lam Son" straightaway I know that he is a Hokkien and he comes from Singapore, because nowhere else would a Chinese with the same surname spell it that way. In Hong Kong, he would spell it as "Hui", and those in Peking or Taiwan would spell it as "Shui". So it is all different. In London, in the bigger metropolitan area, I used to meet Chinese from all parts of the world, and I often wonder how is it that I could very easily tell and identify where he came from, which part of China and which part of Southeast Asia. An Englishman once asked me how I could tell the difference between a man from China and a man from Singapore. Frankly, I did not know it myself. I told him that it was instinct. It could be the smell or something. Then one day when I faced several people from different places with different names but with the same Chinese characters, I found the answer. If a man, say, Koh, comes from Indonesia, then he would be obliged now to spell it as "Hoswala". And if he comes from the Philippines, it would be spelt as ". . . palingco", with "co" at the end, and so on and so forth. It all makes sense. And all this comes back to me. The way we spell our names separates us from the rest of the Chinese world. Do we want to remain distinct, or do we want to submerge into the ocean of obscurity? Is it not better for us to remain a separate entity, no matter how small that entity is? Or does Mr Tang See Chim want to link up with Deng Hsiao Peng and become the long lost relative and change his name to Deng Xi Chen? For instance, the Member for Potong Pasir, if I can have a very quick intelligent guess, from the way he spells his name, Chiam See Tong, maybe he is a Hainanese. Am I right? An hon. Member: Teochew.

I could be wrong but I beg forgiveness. Although there are only three syllables in a Chinese name, but from the way they spell it, the way they use it, you can not only identify where he comes from but you can also tell where his forefathers came from, which village his father came from, and which generation ---

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I seek a point of clarification? Would the Member for Queenstown explain his own name "Jek" which is typically not Cantonese, and I do know that he is a Cantonese? I think it should be "Yek".

A very good question. This gives me a very good opportunity to explain why it is spelt "Jek" and not "Yek".

Has it got anything to do with Jekyll?

No. It has a history of blood and tears. My forefathers or my father must have gone to Indonesia as a coolie. In those days the Dutch were in control. "J" is spelt for "Y". That is why this name was given to my father and to me.

Will the Member for Queenstown declare that his affinity is more close to the village in China which is pronounced as "Y", or to Indonesia, or to what is Singapore now?

I really do not know because I have nobody there in that village. But it tells a history of blood and tears, of how the overseas Chinese had gone overseas to make their fortune and be bullied. Then there is this mad scramble to change the traditional place names into hanyu pinyin. I thought once upon a time we had decided as a matter of principle not to change any place names, whether these names bear colonial colours or traditional history because these names carry with them a piece of our nation's background and history. And yet we see this attempt to change them all, sometimes with very laughable outcome. Tekkah market, for instance, has become Zhujiao ( ) market. Well, whether it is "Zhujiao" a place where it is under the bamboo tree, or whether it is Zhujiao ( ) - a pig's trotter, also pronounced as Zhujiao. Whether it is this or that, nobody knows, so that if you tell a taxi driver to take you to Tekkah market, to Zhujiao, he might think that you want to have a bowl of pig's trotters or something else. I do not know what. Then we have this place called Seletar. This was a Malay name, and the Chinese cannot pronounce Seletar properly, so they have to render it into Chinese characters and call it " ". And then our city planners, they have very wise idea, change this " " into a Hanyu Pinyin, Now it becomes Shilida. They have completely forgotten what it is all about, and I wonder why they have not bothered to change Mangka Kah into Wen Yao Jiao ( ). Maybe it is not very pronounceable because in Chinese " " means "a mosquito biting your leg". Are we going to have a place named like that? I now come to this other point about the programmes in Channel 12 by the SBC. They have made a very admirable effort. They have done very good work and they have given very good, enjoyable programmes. We have Tchaikovsky ballets and Verdi operas and we have Beethoven symphonies. We have everything which we can call "culture" - good culture, good civilization. But what I want to quarrel with them is their mentality in classifying the programmes which they call "culture and good-taste programmes". Whatever that is, Western culture, according to them, is good and is suitable to be used in Channel 12. Whatever is not, it would not use. So we have these operas, whether it is sung in Italian, or German, or French, they would telecast because this is "culture". But an opera that is sung in Cantonese, or in the Peking dialect, is not culture; so it is not telecast, not used there. This is the mentality behind it. We have the vast, the very rich Asian culture right under our nose, and yet they ignore them. Some of them, can only be shown, a very, very small part of them, shown only on occasions like Chinese New Year and so on. But I think it is this sort of thing that makes Singapore what it is, it gives us the values, the culture. It is no use giving them a good culture if they cannot understand all these operas sung in Italian. And the other operas in Italian, in German, and in French. I enjoy it, I like it. But what about all the old folks? The operas in Cantonese and in other dialects have hundreds of years of history, and they impart to us their values in a story. It is not just an opera. It gives you all the history of China, the literature, the poems of the Tang period, the Sung period. All these are being reflected in these operas; how to teach our children to be filial to their parents and be loyal to their friends. All these values are there in the Chinese operas, but they say this is not culture, and therefore it is not worth showing in the Culture Channel. But it is still not too late to try and win back the support and confidence of the common man. We must not antagonize and alienate them. We must treat them as our friends. They may not have good paper qualifications but they have feelings. Even in China (it was once said in this House) they believe more in chopping heads than in counting heads. There is this old saying which likens the rulers of the country to a "boat", and the people to "water". Water can carry a boat but it can also sink the boat - " " Respect them and attend to their needs at all times, and the people will carry you very far. Otherwise, you will be sunk by them. 3.52 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the motion moved by the Member for Ayer Rajah in thanking the President for his Address outlining the goals and objectives which he delivered on behalf of the Government at the opening of the Sixth Parliament. The President in his Address to the nation has clearly stated the goals and the objectives of the Government for the next five years and through the 1990s. He has clearly emphasized that it is the Government's first duty to safeguard what Singaporeans have achieved and, secondly, to improve upon what has been achieved by building a better society. While gearing our country to achieve higher goals to put us in the rank of the developed nations, we must pay particular attention to the 15-20% of our population who are in the lower income group. We must seek ways and means to help them keep up with the rapid changes in our country. The six objectives for the next five years, as spelt out, give us a clear sense of direction to move towards a higher level in order to put us in the league of developed nations. The tasks are heavy but challenging. But it has been in us, as Singaporeans, to face all the challenges together to build a better nation for our children - the future generation. We must involve the population, both the young and the old, to determine our future. Though each individual is given the opportunities to achieve his or her maximum potential, we must be able to cooperate and work together to achieve the best team spirit. Greater participation of all our people will certainly bring greater benefits to our nation. Mr Speaker, Sir, we have come a long way since the hard and uncertain times of the 1950s. We have achieved our basic needs and we now put more emphasis on a better provision of service, such as health and education, and also to give greater attention to the satisfaction that could be derived from leisure and the environment. We have also made advances in the technological field and one of the rapid changes is in the field of communication. This has greatly enhanced our awareness of how other people live and has brought with it an uneasy concern about many people elsewhere who live below acceptable standard of living. We should consider ourselves fortunate to be what we are today. We must therefore work hard, intelligently, and prepare ourselves to protect and preserve our heritage. Sir, I share the views put forth by the Member for Changkat about the social changes that we may face in the future. Our society is changing as much as the economic and environmental aspects of our country. We move around more and spend less time in getting to know people. Our relationships with our friends and acquaintances are getting more superficial. We change jobs more often and technology makes our skills more quickly out of date. The family is less tightly knit and we have less contact time with our kin. And as you know, more mothers are going out to work. Mr Speaker, Sir, many of my colleagues here have brought up or suggested to the Government to pay particular attention to the 15-20% group of people in the lower income bracket. I share their views in suggesting to the Government to help them in monetary form, as some have suggested. I am pleased to note that the Government is giving special consideration to this, but what I would like to suggest is that we must not think of giving them help in the form of, say, monetary incentives only. What we should do is we should try and upgrade their skills through education. We could make arrangements for these people to attend academic classes to improve their numeracy and literacy skills. A good example that we have is the BEST classes. I think, if we can make arrangements for some of these people to take time-off, if possible, from work and put them through vocational training, they might have the chance to go up in their vocations. We could make use of the various vocational institutes that we have throughout the island. With their improved skills, they can go higher in their vocations and be better paid. I use an analogy on why we should help them by upgrading their skills. It is better that we give a man a fishing line and teach him how to fish rather than give him a fish to eat for the day. With his skill on the fishing line, he will not go hungry if he is willing to work. Amidst the changing scene, how can we preserve our heritage and achieve a better quality of life for our people? This is the declared aim of the Government. To me, the answer lies entirely in the field of education. Many criticisms have been directed at the Ministry of Education. I think it is easier to criticize than to bring out suggestions to improve the process of educating our young. As for me, being involved in the education service for the past 18 years, I could say that it is a very difficult task to educate the young. At this juncture, I would like to put on record my admiration to the professionals and administrators in the Ministry of Education for the hard work put in all these years, despite the difficult task and criticisms thrown at them. I am also glad to note that the new Minister for Education in the first Schools' Council meeting this year gave us assurances that the system will be further improved. According to the Addendum on the Ministry of Education: 'Our education policy will be directed towards establishing a flexible education system which will bring out the best in every child and develop in each pupil sound moral values and a strong foundation in the basic skills necessary to earn a living in Singapore's modern economy.' Educating a child involves more than just giving him the basic knowledge to enable him to get a job later on. It is not a matter of passing examinations with flying colours. I think we must look into the non-tangible aspects of education, for example, moral education and nation building. And the school is the best place to imbibe in our children the concept of loyalty and patriotism to the country. Whether our education system has achieved its objective in giving good education to our children can be seen only if there are positive answers to the questions that our Prime Minister asked Dr Goh Keng Swee, the former Education Minister, in his letter to him in the 1978 Ministry of Education Report. Sir, let me quote from this Report: 'However, the litmus test of a good education is whether it nurtures citizens who can live, work, contend and cooperate in a civilised way. Is he loyal and patriotic? Is he, when the need arises, a good soldier, ready to defend his country, and so protect his wife and children, and his fellow citizens? Is he filial, respectful to elders, law-abiding, humane, and responsible? Does he take care of his wife and children, and his parents? Is he a good neighbour and a trustworthy friend? Is he tolerant of Singaporeans of different races and religions? Is he clean, neat, punctual, and well-mannered?' Sir, if the answer to each of the above questions is positive, we can say that we have been successful in educating our young. Our children in schools are given equal opportunities to get a good education. However, I would like to suggest to the Ministry of Education to pay more attention to making our pupils more aware of each other in our schools. An understanding and awareness of each other's language, culture and religion will cermainly bind them closer and make them feel more as Singaporeans. I should think from 1987 onwards when all schools would be doing English as the first language and the mother tongue as the second language, we should be able to see pupils of all races in all schools in Singapore. Through their daily interaction with one another, we can forge them together and build a united country. We can also make use of the mass media to create this awareness of the various cultures in Singapore. An example is the quarterly magazine, The Singapore Heritage, which I have a copy here, Sir. It is from the Information Division of the Ministry of Communications and Information. It is a good example of how we can make people aware of the various aspects of all the cultures that could be found in Singapore. Another important point is that parents and society must play an active part in the education of a child because the child is at home most of the time. He spends about five hours in school a day. But I am sad to say that sometimes what we have taught the child in school on the right values were undone when he is away from school. Here, the society must play a complementary role in imparting the correct social values to our young. An example of this is gambling. In schools, we tell the children that gambling is wrong. But, Sir, you will agree with me that when they leave school and they go to the HDB void decks on Saturdays and Sundays in the afternoons, sometimes they could see gambling in the open. So we must ensure that our children are being shown the correct social behaviour and inculcated with the correct values to help them develop as rounded Singaporeans of the future. Once again, I would like to stress that parents must play a very active role. They must not "wash their hands" of their responsibilities in the education of their children. Another area that I wish to point out is that the Ministry of Education should give opportunities for our children to pursue their studies even after completing their secondary education. An example is that of our Secondary 4 Normal pupils. Last year, about 14,000 of them sat for the GCE Normal examinations. One-third of them are now in Secondary 5 Normal. Out of the other two-thirds, only 2,000 are doing vocational training. Most of them have to look for jobs. If they look for a job without the necessary vocational skills, definitely they would not get a high pay. Perhaps the VITB should offer more places for these children from this year onwards so that after they finish their secondary education, they can go on to do technical or vocational skills training and thereafter go into the employment market and get better pay. Our young must also be encouraged to pursue part-time studies to upgrade themselves. Many people have to go to work after their secondary education for one reason or another. It is only fair that we give them the encouragement and opportunities because they are motivated and they want to improve themselves academically. So we should allow these people to pursue part-time studies either at the National University of Singapore, the NTI or other recognized tertiary institutions. Mr Speaker, Sir, it is through education that our people can move up the economic and social ladder. If the opportunities are given to all Singaporeans, we hope to see more citizens especially those in the lower income group break out of this poverty cycle so that they will be in a better situation to face the challenges of the fast changing technological world. In conclusion, Sir, let me stress again that we must pay particular attention to the social and moral aspects of bringing up a new generation of Singaporeans. While we will try to bring out the greatest potential in our children so that they perform well in their studies, we must also ensure that they will grow up as good and useful citizens. 4.13 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the motion moved by the Member for Ayer Rajah thanking the President for the speech which he delivered on behalf of the Government at the opening of the First Session of this Parliament. The Government's plan in the next five years marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of our development. It reflects a nation that has come of age. With the passage of time, the level of social, economic and political perceptions of Singaporeans have changed and have matured and gained sophistication. The majority of Singaporeans have achieved their basic needs. They are now ready to achieve higher goals. They want a greater say in the events and policies that affect and reshape their lives, This level of maturity necessitates a change in the style of the Government. The Government's move to be more open and to seek greater consultation with the people is indeed most timely. Mr Speaker, Sir, the path towards achieving our vision of a City of Excellence by 1999 requires both hardware and software growth, if I may borrow a computer jargon. We all know that there can be no software without hardware. The two must grow together. By hardware, I mean real economic growth, the creation of wealth. The hon. Members in the House have touched at length on the software aspects of growth. Allow me, Sir, to swing the pendulum the other way. I shall touch on the hardware aspects of growth. The underlying assumption of an improvement in our quality of life is sustained real economic growth, albeit at a gradually reducing rate as our economic cake expands. It is only through real economic growth that we could be assured of a continuing unemployment situation and a job for everyone. It is through the practice of prudent economic policies and measures that we could continue to have low inflation, productivity improvements and a balance of payment surplus. It is through real economic growth that we could bring about tangible and intangible improvements in the software aspects of life. It is indeed laudable if we could achieve the target of a 5-7% per annum GDP growth and a productivity improvement of 3-5% in the next five years given the turbulence and complexity of the world economy today. With less and less manpower entering the workforce, our growth will have to come increasingly from productivity contribution. To achieve our growth targets, we have no choice but to continue to adopt the following measures: -

Mr Speaker, Sir, finally I have managed to catch your eye. But I can see that you are very tired. I need about 25 minutes to do the job. So would you like to call it a day?

It is up to the Leader of the House.

Resolved, "That Parliament do now adjourn." - [Mr S. Dhanabalan]. Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-eight minutes past Four o'clock pm.