Hansard, 1994-07-27

PERMISSION TO MEMBERS TO BE ABSENT Under the provisions of clause 2(d) of Article 46 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, the following Members have been granted permission to be or to remain absent from sittings of Parliament (or any Committee of Parliament to which they have been appointed) for the periods stated:- Mr K. Shanmugam - on 27th July, 1994. Mr Chay Wai Chuen - from 1st to 6th August, 1994. Mr Koo Tsai Kee - from 23rd to 28th August, 1994. TAN SOO KHOON Speaker Parliament of Singapore

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS - VACANT LAND FRONTING BLOCK 322A, JURONG EAST STREET 31 - (Development) The following Question stood in the name of Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon - 1. To ask the Acting Minister for National Development whether and when the piece of vacant land fronting Block 322A, Jurong East Street 31 will be developed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS - VACANT LAND FRONTING BLOCK 322A, JURONG EAST STREET 31 - (Development) Question No. 1, Sir.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS - VACANT LAND FRONTING BLOCK 322A, JURONG EAST STREET 31 - (Development) Mr Speaker, Sir, the piece of vacant land fronting Block 322A, Jurong East Street 31, is safeguarded for a swimming complex and an indoor stadium. The development of the sports facilities will be undertaken by the Singapore Sports Council.

VACANT HDB FLATS AT BLOCKS 1 TO 7 IN SEMBAWANG ROAD ESTATE asked the Acting Minister for National Development why the vacant Housing and Development Board flats at Blocks 1 to 7 near Sembawang Community Centre are not sold or rented.

VACANT HDB FLATS AT BLOCKS 1 TO 7 IN SEMBAWANG ROAD ESTATE Mr Speaker, Sir, there are 659 units of 3- and 4-room HDB flats in Blocks 1 to 7 in Sembawang Road Estate. Over the years, 220 units have been sold by the lessees back to HDB. The estate is not popular so HDB did not re-sell the units. However, HDB will be letting out these flats on fixed term tenancies under HDB's various rental housing schemes.

SMALL FAMILIES IMPROVEMENT SCHEME - (Progress of implementation) asked the Acting Minister for Community Development what is the progress of the implementation of the Small Families Improvement Scheme.

SMALL FAMILIES IMPROVEMENT SCHEME - (Progress of implementation) Sir, the Small Families Improvement Scheme was implemented on 1st January this year. Prior to the implementation, from as early as September 1993, a series of briefings and talks were held to explain the scheme to organisations. The assistance of community self-help groups, voluntary welfare organisations dealing with low income families, NTUC affiliated unions, grassroots organisations and Government agencies was sought to propagate the scheme to eligible families with whom they come into contact. My Ministry also held a press conference on 20th December 1993 to announce the implementation of the scheme and to invite eligible families to apply. As at 15th July 1994, 124 applications have been approved.

ADVISOR TO COMMUNITY CENTRE - (Political affiliation) asked the Acting Minister for Community Development whether there is any stipulation that an advisor to a community centre must have no political party affiliation and, if not, whether he will consider the automatic appointment of the elected Member of Parliament for the constituency as the advisor.

ADVISOR TO COMMUNITY CENTRE - (Political affiliation) There is nothing in the rules of the Community Centre Management Committee (CCMC) stipulating that an advisor to a community centre must not have political affiliation. An elected Member of Parliament will not automatically be appointed as the advisor of the CCMC. The People's Association's task is to implement the Government's social policies and programmes. To ensure the success of the Government's social programmes, the PA appoints capable persons who understand and support the Government's policies as advisors to advise the community centres. They need not necessarily be MPs.

MEMBERS OF CITIZENS' CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEES - AND RESIDENTS' COMMITTEES - (Percentage who are members of political party) asked the Acting Minister for Community Development, until June 1994, what percentage of the total number of Citizens' Consultative Committee members are members of a political party and what percentage of the total number of Residents' Committee members are members of a political party.

MEMBERS OF CITIZENS' CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEES - AND RESIDENTS' COMMITTEES - (Percentage who are members of political party) The People's Association does not keep track of the political party membership of the CCC and RC members. The CCC and RC members are appointed based on their ability, dedication, resourcefulness and willingness to serve the community.

MAINTENANCE OF PARENTS BILL Order read for Resumption of Debate on Question [25th July 1994], "That the Bill be now read a Second time." - [Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon, Nominated Member]. Question again proposed.

MAINTENANCE OF PARENTS BILL Sitting in the House for the last two days and listening to the hon. Members, one may note certain recurring objections to the Maintenance of Parents Bill. These are the lack of conciliatory procedures, the adversarial nature of court proceedings with the presence of lawyers, and the accompanying shame and loss of face to the family when the case is brought to the court. To overcome these problems, various suggestions have been made by Members, for example, a special Commissioner or a Community Court or even a legal mechanism modelled after the arbitration court. Sir, there is no valid reason for creating these new channels or institutions and bypassing our present judicial system. We can achieve the same objectives of privacy, conciliation and non-adversarial procedures through our Subordinate Courts. Let me elaborate. What I am suggesting is that the legal procedure for implementing this Bill need not be by the usual forms of action, such as by a writ of summons and pleadings involving lawyers but should be by way of a sworn complaint by the parents in the Registry of the Subordinate Courts. The complaint should set out the means of the parents and the means of the child which the parents reasonably believe to be true. The Registry officials who will be involved in processing the claim could be given some training in the relevant family issues. After receiving the complaint from the parents, the Registrar should, in the first instance, send out a notice to the children to appear before the Registrar with a view to conciliation. If the child is amenable to a maintenance order being made against him or her at this stage, the matter can end there quickly. If the claim appears to be frivolous or vexatious, then the matter could equally rest before the Registrar. However, if the parents' claim appears proper and if the children are recalcitrant, then only should the case proceed to court. The proceedings in court should be heard at the District Court level so that that court can lend experience and maturity in the administration of the Act. The hearing should be in chambers and only heard in open court if cross-examination of the parties is entailed and then again such a hearing should be in camera so that a purely private family matter remains a private family matter. By following this procedure, many of the valid objections against the Bill could be overcome. Sir, I will now refer to some of the specific clauses of the Bill and make some comments. Clause 4 states: `A respondent may service notice ... on other persons liable to maintain the applicant joining them as respondents in the action.' Here, some difficulties may arise on a personal law problem. In some traditional Indian families, a married daughter, even if she is a wage earner, is supposed to "belong" to her new family (husband's family) and is not supposed to have any more financial obligations to her old family. In such a situation, if her brother joins her as a respondent, it will create problems between the two families and may make the married daughter's future life untenable even if she is not apportioned to pay any maintenance. Just the fact of having been named as a respondent and the public becoming aware of this will make her husband and in-laws lose face. Therefore, this clause needs to be changed. The respondent should not be able to lightly serve notice on the other siblings as co-respondents without the leave of the court. Clause 5(2)(a) looks at housing needs and costs. What guidelines can the court adopt when a child insists that the parent stay with him or her in a very crowded and noisy environment whereas the parents prefer to live on their own even if it is in spartan surroundings? This consideration does not apply in the maintenance of wives and children. A husband cannot ask his ex-wife to stay with him and not set up a separate household. What about parents who could downgrade into smaller apartments or take up reverse mortgages to become financially self-reliant but prefer to sue their children for maintenance? In the case of wives and children, one factor which is taken into consideration is the standard of living enjoyed by the family before the break-up of the marriage. We cannot apply such a criterion for the maintenance of parents and, therefore, I suggest that we fix an upper limit to the amount for each parent. In the Indian Bill for the maintenance of parents, the upper limit is Rp. 400. For Singapore, we could fix $500 as the upper limit for each parent. I am not suggesting a fixed sum for each case but only the upper limit so as to reduce the chances of frivolous action by well-off parents. Clause 5(3) and (4) states: `(3) If the court is satisfied upon due proof that the applicant abandoned, abused or neglected the respondent, it may dismiss the application ... (4) The onus of proving abandonment, abuse or neglect shall be on the respondent alleging it.' Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not think that the claim of maintenance by the parent should be dependent on his or her having discharged parental obligations during the childhood of the children. There can be no doubt that it is the moral obligation of a son or a daughter to maintain his or her parents. It is not desirable that even though a son or daughter has sufficient means, his or her parents should starve. To base the validity of the claim of the parent on how the child was treated by the parent is to unnecessarily allow the opening up of a whole lot of suppressed, repressed and painful memories and the recounting of real and imagined grievances by the child against the parent and the vehement denials by the parents. This aspect of psychoanalytical terrain is hardly the domain of the courts and thus should be prudently left out as this is one area where even angels would fear to tread. We, as a society, should accept that it is the duty of the children to maintain their parents if they are not in a position to maintain themselves and this duty should not be dependent on how the children were treated by the parents. I therefore am strongly of the considered opinion that these two subclauses be deleted. There are another two points which I would like to make and these have not been addressed in the Bill. First, the claiming for parent relief for tax purposes. Right now, the whole tax relief for each parent can only be claimed by one child. If the court orders parents' maintenance to be paid by a few siblings, then who will get the tax relief? Will it be shared by the siblings? If so, then are we going to extend this privilege of sharing tax relief to children who have been voluntarily supporting their parents? The Minister for Finance will have to give us his views on this matter. Another point that I would like to make is that the proof of the pudding is in the eating and even if we have a very good Act for providing maintenance for parents, the biggest practical problem will be to make sure that the maintenance payments to the parents are kept up each month. This has been quite a problem in the case of monthly maintenance payment for wives and children, and this has been brought up by other hon. Members too. Very often, the husbands stop payment and the wives have to troop regularly to the Subordinate Courts to recover arrears of payment. In the case of old and possibly infirm parents, they will metaphorically and literally die carrying out this effort. To overcome this big problem, I would like to suggest the creation of a central support agency under a Government Ministry. This agency could make sure that maintenance payments from grown-up children and maintenance to wives and children from husbands will be paid regularly and on time. There could be an attachment order from the courts and the central support agency could act as a State agency to remit support payments to the recipients and then take it back from those liable to pay. Without this, the Bill will have the form but not the substance. In my understanding of this Bill, one of its main purposes is to send a clear message to our young that they have a personal responsibility to look after their parents. However, this message to our young should include the fact that there is also a community responsibility to care for our aged. We could send this message very strategically by setting a community example of filial respect and concern. This could be done by setting up a retirement fund for the elderly. All Singaporeans above the prevailing mandatory age of retirement would qualify for this fund. And this fund could be funded by two sources: one, every working Singaporean could contribute $1 per month from his or her CPF account on an opt-out basis to this fund; and, two, some money from Budget surpluses could be put into this retirement fund. Besides Edusave and Medifund, this retirement fund could be another recipient of the prosperity of our healthy economy. Once this retirement fund has been set up and the criteria for eligibility drawn up, then needy elderly Singaporeans could apply to this fund for help. The present public assistance scheme is meant for every age group and only the really destitute qualify. The retirement fund would apply to the elderly only and would be specific to their needs with special criteria of eligibility. It would also take care of those who, for some reason or another, do not have children to support them or whose children have migrated and deserted their parents. This fund will not prevent parents from suing their children if they want to and need to, but would be another mechanism in place whereby we, as a community, are making it clear that the responsibility of supporting the aged is not only a personal responsibility of the children but also a community responsibility. Respect and concern for the elderly is both an individual and community duty. Without the community responsibility part, we will be leaving the aged to only their children and the courts. Most caring and thoughtful citizens are not comfortable with this abdication of communal responsibility. And I would therefore urge the setting up of this retirement fund to fulfil this need. If there is one thing we all have in common, it is the fact that we all have parents. And that is why there has been such a widespread reaction to this Bill, as we can all relate personally to the Bill. At the same time, like in all human relationships, there is no one uniform or perfect way to conduct these relationships, and this has accounted for the mixed reactions to the Bill. Although I support the Bill, I have to confess that when the Bill does become an Act, it could be a mixed blessing. Therefore, I hope that the additional points that have been raised are taken into consideration and the Bill committed to a Select Committee. Finally, just before I sit down, Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to express how happy and proud I feel that a fellow NMP has moved a private Member's Bill making this a historic occasion.

MAINTENANCE OF PARENTS BILL ( In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this Bill. In the past two days, many Members of this House have spoken on this Bill. I do not wish to repeat what they have said. In supporting this Bill, I wish to give my views. To support one's parents is perhaps the fulfilment of the lowest of a man's moral standard. In fact, most people would react spontaneously in declaring, "To support one's parents is one's basic duty. No matter how poor one is or how difficult one's situation is, one must take care of one's parents." As such, there are actually very few people, with perhaps the exception of some special cases with special reasons, who would neglect their aged parents after receiving their love and care when they were young. Now, I have heard that there are people who oppose the passing of this Bill based on the argument that it is the duty of the Government to take care of the old, the sick and the weak. If it is a case that the children themselves have problems in looking after themselves, then it is both normal and acceptable for the Government or a voluntary welfare organisation or some kind-hearted people to extend to them a helping hand. However, this does not mean that one can shift the entire responsibility of looking after one's parents to the Government. This is something I cannot agree with. Filial piety is one of the cornerstones of Eastern civilisation and culture. We should not consider it to be irrelevant to a modern society and therefore discard it as one of those useless leftovers from the past. On the contrary, we should study what positive influence it has brought and what function it has performed in creating a better society in Eastern civilisation and contemplate in what way we can learn from it. In ancient China, one of the basic motivational forces for one to become a good man and make contribution to society and the country is a sense of responsibility he felt for his parents. This is well illustrated in the children's book which tells them to become a man of good repute and glorify the parents ( ). Confucius said: `The highest level of filial piety is to bring glory to one's parents; then followed by caring for them in their daily life, to maintain them is in fact the lowest. For we even feed and keep our dogs and horses. What is the difference, if we show no respect to them?' That is to say, just to maintain one's parents is not even good enough because we also keep cats and dogs. How is it that we do not even want to maintain our parents? The real meaning of filial piety and the highest level of filial piety is to glorify one's parents. Therefore, the renowned Northern Song dynasty minister, Auyang Siu, after he had become the Deputy Prime Minister, only then did he write an article to praise his parents which was carved on stone. In his article, he related how his mother became a widow when he was three and brought him up, educated him amidst great hardship and how his father behaved as an upright and uncorrupt junior civil servant. He then explained clearly that he had waited for so long to tell the world about his parents because only with his new appointment did he feel he was qualified to do so and bring glory to his parents. A similar type of mentality, to a certain extent, still exists in Japan. I have seen in Japan, displayed along the roadside, slogans urging people to drive carefully because an accident would hurt the parents' hearts. This is exactly the meaning of his words when Confucius said, "Parents should be worried about the children's well-being." ( ). I think to develop this sense of responsibility towards one's parents so that one would try to do something one's parents can be proud of or at least not to do something one's parents would feel ashamed of is an attitude that we should consider to introduce in our education for the young.

MAINTENANCE OF PARENTS BILL Mr Speaker, Sir, I disagree with the view that Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon's Bill is only about the maintenance of parents and nothing else. It is not. This Bill has resurrected issues which were once debated in this House in 1984. The Committee reporting on Problems of the Aged then had recommended a change in attitude towards the elderly. Filial piety was considered pivotal to this. Legislation for maintenance of parents was also considered but only as a last measure. Hence, no attempt has been made to pass a law on this by the Government, even up to now. And why now, Sir? If we could wait 10 years, can we not wait a little longer? Are we not being over pragmatic in wanting to set up this safety net because of a recalcitrant few who have neglected their parents and in so doing shake the very foundations upon which our society is built? We know that the problems of the aged will not go away. But the fundamental question is: are the aged always a problem? Or is this a mindset that we have created based purely on demographic projections? Sure, the shifts in age dependency ratios are there. But are we correct in measuring the needs of the elderly of tomorrow with the yardsticks of today? The elderly of today are of our parents' generation. They belong to a different era. Many grew up in a society where children were the only social security, sons in particular. Or as they say in Mandarin, yang er fang lao ( ). Our generation is tomorrow's aged. Better education, sounder personal asset management and healthier living, together with the enforced savings through CPF, will see tomorrow's aged through without undue strain or pressure on society. Hence, the often talked about fear of excessive demands by the aged of tomorrow may not even materialise. Following that Report, Members will recall that Singapore embarked on an education programme to inculcate Confucian values in our young at school. Scholars were invited from abroad to write a new curriculum of Confucian studies in more conventional scripts. Our leaders went around the world speaking of our Asian values and how we have succeeded because of these. Millennia of unbroken civilisation, with strong family ties as the basis of society, that have provided our forefathers with a life raft. Are we to tell the world another story so soon, that our young has squandered away this legacy that has taught us, amongst other things, to honour our father and our mother first? Sir, it is this bond of kith and kinship which will see us through. I have witnessed two societies with and without it and see how they could end. Not too long ago, I visited a city in a country which now wants to regard itself as Asian for economic reasons but is still occidental in many other ways. Walking across the city square, I noticed a young woman, not quite out of her teens, child in her arms, begging. I spoke to her and found that she was a single parent and an unmarried mother. Her own parents had divorced when she was young and she has had not much of a family life. Hence, her sorrowful plight. I was instantly grateful for the cardinal core values of my Asian heritage. As a child, I grew up in the Hainanese enclave in a poorer part of Singapore city. There were many clan associations where I lived. Newly-arrived members of a clan were clothed, fed and housed by those who had already been here for a while. Few had conjugal ties. The only geneological link was a common surname. There was no law which required it. Yet, clan members cared for one another with single-minded determination to ensure that their clan succeeded. The lessons from these two societies are obvious. But I fear for our next generation, as Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon's Bill implies that we are now so influenced by alien moral values that come with progress and economic success that we must need a law to make children do something which is basic and decent as looking after one's own aged parents. Sir, I will not go into the technicalities of this Bill, but I can foresee that its implementation will be devilled by more problems it will create than it sets out to solve. We have just heard Dr Soin talk of the problems in the Indian community because of marital customs. I will give another example. When several children are being sued by the parents for maintenance, how are we to ensure equitability? Do we want to set means test and asset evaluation? What if a sibling contests on the ground that parental love cannot be dispensed equitably in the first place? Can love be quantified in percentages and measured in monetary terms? Again, some neglected children may still look after the parents, not out of love, but charity and compassion. This group could now end up abandoning their parents because they can claim that the law does not require them to do so now. To carry this law to its ultimate conclusion, we will also have to amend it in the future to include unmarried, widowed and orphaned relatives and siblings who are destitute and unable to care for themselves. Will we then have a Maintenance of Siblings and Relatives Bill? This Bill does not teach filial piety. On the contrary, the provision for excluding parents who have neglected their children breeds vindictiveness. It teaches us that as you sow, so shall you reap, for parents who neglect must in turn be neglected. It teaches vengeance, for it tells us to give an eye for an eye, neglect for neglect. It invokes retribution. Do we want all these in the Year of the Family? Sir, we have just promoted the core family values. Let us allow time for these to mature and foment. I am for education. It will be slow. The changes imperceptible, but the effects last. Sir, the Senior Minister has shown us an excellent example. Reputed for jealously guarding the privacy of his personal life, he agreed to open the doors the intimacy of several generations of the Lee family in Singapore in a delightful pictorial biography. Surely, it is not without purpose. Strong family ties, like those of the Lee's, will see us through. There is no need of a law to make our young to look after their parents. Matters such as this must come from the heart: to want to and not to have to. I congratulate NMP Walter Woon for a laudable effort in proposing this Bill, but I will not support him as I see this as an unnecessary legislation. There is only one possible scenario where this Bill may have a place. The diaspora of young Singaporeans as expatriates in pursuit of our external economy may result in aged parents being left neglected at home. Finally, Sir, I would like to request that when a division of votes is called, the Whip be lifted for PAP MPs so that they may decide to either vote with their hearts or with their heads.