Town councils not only give power to the MP in his constituency but also strengthen the position of the many grassroots leaders who become Town Councillors. They will now have the authority to decide on how they want their constituencies to be managed. When grassroots leaders must weigh the consequences of their decisions and not just the attractiveness of their requests, their perspective changes very quickly. They consider trade-offs between one project and another. They worry about where to find the funds to pay for their ideas. They are concerned about how to present their decisions to the residents so that they can get the residents to cooperate with them. They defend decisions made with more conviction, because these were their own decisions and they know why they were taken. Today's Singaporeans want to be involved in decision-making, especially decisions which affect them directly. They want room to express their views and to participate. It is a good thing that they want to do so. We encourage them. Town Councils will be the mechanism to provide a new generation of Singaporeans with the opportunity to participate in the social and physical management of their own housing estates. Three Town Councils have been running in Ang Mo Kio for nearly two years. The acid test is this. Would any one of them, any one of the three, prefer to hand back their power to the HDB and go back to the status quo ante? I have asked the three Chairmen and the MPs concerned. None of them want to give it up. Now I shall move on to discuss how Town Councils enhance the stability of our political system. Every democratic political system needs ballast to prevent it from being overturned by temporary swings in popular opinion. Let me give you examples from Britain, Japan and the United States. In Britain, although there are more than two political parties, political stability comes essentially from the presence of two major parties, which can take over from one another to form the government. Also, the country is divided into richer and poorer constituencies, and many of the constituencies are safe seats for either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party. They return MPs from the same party, election after election, for decades. Cities like Glasgow or Liverpool are permanently Labour. Well-off rural areas like those in Cambridgeshire are permanently Tory. British elections are therefore really fought in a relatively small number of seats, the marginal seats, or marginal wards, and not throughout the whole country, because certain areas will vote Labour or Tory traditionally. In these wards, the balance of strength of the parties is almost even, and a small shift in the percentage of votes can change the MP, or the government. But while the government may change because of this shift in loyalty in the marginal wards, the British Parliament itself retains a certain degree of political stability. In Japan, the farm vote provides the stability. Farmers vote solidly for the LDP because the LDP looks after their interests. The Japanese keep their rural constituencies much smaller than urban ones, in terms of voters, about one-third the size of the urban constituencies. The farmers therefore have political influence out of proportion to their numbers. One urban constituency is roughly equal to three rural constituencies. And it is in the rural constituencies where the votes are for the LDP. Because of these arrangements, although the opposition Japan Socialist Party, Komeito, and others, often do well in the cities, they have no hope of forming the government. The Japanese pay a cost though for this arrangement. This cost is high food prices as a result of price supports for farm products. But the benefit is more than 30 years of stable government, and many more years of such stability to come. In the United States, the Senate was explicitly constituted to balance the short term interest and concerns of the House of Representatives. Representatives must get elected every two years, senators only once in every six years. So two years election in the House of Representatives, six years in the Senate. Representatives are highly susceptible to popular pressure, the senators much less so. Senators do not have to worry so closely about their day-to-day popularity. So they can take a longer viewpoint of issues of national interest and support correct but unpopular policies, if necessary. Furthermore, Senators' re-elections are staggered. Every two years, only one-third of the Senate is up for re-election. As a result, it is impossible for a sudden, temporary change in popular mood to overwhelm both the House and the Senate simultaneously, and cause political chaos. Singapore's political system enjoys none of these sources of stability. In Britain, stability comes from the traditional support for either the Labour or Conservative Party. In Japan, it comes from the farm votes. In the US, it comes from the different timing in electing Congressmen. In Singapore, it is the PAP which provides the political stability. There is no other party at present which can effectively govern Singapore. But this political stability can be threatened by sudden temporary swings in national mood. If there are such swings, the PAP can be out of power. If that happens, political instability will result because no alternative leadership has emerged which can effectively govern Singapore. In Singapore, except for a few constituencies like Tanglin, Chua Chu Kang and Joo Chiat, all our constituencies are microcosms of Singapore. They are all HDB estates, and every estate has about the same racial and socio-economic composition. That is because we have taken care to have a mix of flat types and of different races in all our new towns, and are upgrading the older ones to do likewise and to be likewise. There are no slums or pockets of despair anywhere in Singapore. We have no farm vote, which supports the status quo. We have no Upper House, no Senators to absorb the backlash of unpopular policies. There are no inherently safe seats for one party or other. Any temporary swing in national mood will affect all constituencies simultaneously. Town Councils should provide this missing stabilizer to trim sudden, temporary drastic swings. With Town Councils, it will matter more to the voter who his MP is. His MP will head the Town Council which looks after his living environment. Because of this, voters will have a stronger incentive to vote carefully and sincerely, ie, for the person and the party who they think they can depend on to manage their constituency and look after the country as well, whether it is the PAP, the SDP or the Workers' Party. If they have confidence that the candidate can look after their constituency, they are more likely to have confidence that the candidate's party can form the next government of Singapore. Certainly, if the voters cannot even trust a party to run their constituency, they will surely not want that party to form the government. They may be right or wrong in their choice, but at least they will vote in accordance with their belief that their constituency and national interests are better served with a particular candidate or a particular party. At present, MPs have no direct responsibility for their constituencies. They are not directly responsible for the welfare of the voters in their constituencies. The Government is. It is, therefore, quite safe for voters to cast their votes for a candidate they would never pick to manage their constituency. For example, some voters who want a PAP Government also want to see some Opposition MPs. They may vote for an Opposition candidate and depend on the PAP to look after their constituency because they expect other constituencies to return PAP candidates in sufficient numbers to form the government. This phenomenon is sometimes called "the free-rider" problem, or the have-your-cake-and-eat-it syndrome. If everyone free-rides, Singaporeans may end up with a government nobody really wanted. This free-riding problem is serious because not everyone need to think the same way for the unwanted result to happen. At any one time, some 25% to 30% of the electorate will vote against the Government, any government for that matter. These are the anti-estab- lishment, disaffected votes. They will vote against any government. All it takes to upset the status quo is for an additional 20% to 25% of the electorate to free-ride, ie, voting opposition and hoping other constituencies will vote for the PAP for the government. If we use the 1984 general elections as the benchmark, the status quo will be upset when only 13% of the electorate free-ride. I do not know the views of the Member for Potong Pasir on Town Councils. But he should welcome this Bill. It adds stability to the political system, but more important for him, it also benefits Opposition parties. The more power and responsibility MPs are given at the constituency level, the more the Opposition parties can demonstrate to voters that they are worthy of trust and are ready to take on greater responsibilities. Mr Chiam's authority is now limited in Potong Pasir. With Town Councils he will have more authority plus the opportunity to demonstrate his ability. That was how the PAP came to power - contesting the City Councils in December 1957 and going on to win the general elections in 1959. This is also how many French politicians make their way to Parliament, by getting themselves elected as Town Councillors. Town Councils provide a stepping stone for political parties without any track record to demonstrate to voters that it can manage the country. If a party can manage Town Councils well, it will prove its competence in at least one area - good administration which is the prerequisite of any government. In Britain, one of the problems which the Labour Party now faces in winning elections is that its Front Bench contains few members with ministerial experience. The British Labour Party has been in power many times before this. Even then, their present lack of experienced men, men who have been in government before, causes voters to hesitate. How much bigger the problem must be for a new party in Singapore. If a new party finds itself unexpectedly in government, it would be like an aspiring pilot taking over an SIA jumbo jet in mid-air before he has flown solo in a Cessna. This cannot be in the interest of passengers in the jumbo. If any party aspires to displace the PAP government, its first step must be to try and acquire some experience in running Town Councils. Town Councils are the Cessnas of our political system. In the interest of Singapore, any party which wants to form the government should prove itself first in Town Councils. On election night in 1984, when the Member for Potong Pasir was elected, he said that he would make Potong Pasir a model constituency. I have not read that he has succeeded.