Seven Million People And One Soundbite

If the PAP is dying a death from a thousand cuts, the White Paper on Population is going to be an axe-blow. It is no wonder the Government held back on its publication before the by-election, not that it helped much anyway. Again, the problem with the White Paper is not in its content, but how it is being communicated across. When people shoot the messenger, it is often not because of the message itself, but because the messenger puts it across badly.

In the era of social media, nobody shares 41 page white papers full of technical jargon and pie-charts. They share sound-bites. Nobody posts status updates on Facebook with logical step-by-step explanations but instead, one –liners that shout at you and get shared virally. And THE sound-bite, the one liner that is going to get shared and get the PAP lambasted is this one:

Population to grow to 7 million.

Or maybe another one: More than half of residents in Singapore in 2030 to be Foreigners.

Nobody will remember anything else from the White Paper and very few would have taken the time to read it. Instead, social media is going to virally spread this message from one person to another, stirring up emotions until anger boils over and the PAP takes another step towards political oblivion.

People do not understand what it means if the number of Singapore citizens are shrinking. They can only think of the big squeeze that will come from more human bodies on out transport network. People cannot understand how they could possibly live in a ‘thriving’ Singapore, have ‘exciting opportunities’ when THAT headline number of 7 million has them imagining themselves squeezed like rats into a small cage.

The PAP also posted on its website that the three main principles to remember are “to maintain a strong Singaporean core, create good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans, and have a high quality living environment.” Juxtapose this to a picture of 7 million people in the minds of people and see if it resonates. See if it convinces. 

Judging from the reception one sees on social media in the hours since The White Paper has been released, it does not. And it will get worse.

It is quite difficult to fathom how one can look at the report and decide that the way for people to emotionally connect and buy into the policies is to focus on the vague motherhood statement “to maintain a strong Singaporean core, create good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans, and have a high quality living environment.

Because this is certainly not the message.

Not to me. 

The message that comes across very strongly to me is a different one. If we don’t bring in more foreigners, by 2030 we will have very few young Singaporeans looking after many old Singaporeans. In fact, the dependency ratio is going to drop from 6 working adults to 1 old person (over 65) to 2 working adults to 1.

This is a scary thought.

The message that comes across to me is that the increase in adults who can work is also going to slow down to a trickle – 0.1%. A very small trickle. If we don’t bring in more foreign workers, coupled with our many old people and not enough young ones in 2030, we are going to have 70 year old uncles climbing scaffolding to build our HDB flats.

The message that comes across to me is that even if we all start having babies now, it is too late, because it takes time for babies to grow, and our parents will have all grown old by then. Our population will not only have shrunk, but we will be like Japan where you see more grey-haired people than black-haired ones.

If we don’t convince more foreigners to come in, by 2030 either young people have to pay more taxes, work even harder or we have to raid our reserves.

We need these foreigners not because we are nice people who want to make our home a vibrant place, but because without taking them in, Singapore will literally die of old age.

Out of the 7 million in 2030, it is true that only half are Singaporeans, but out of that half there will be very many old people, OUR old people, OUR parents, and maybe even some of US that the other half, the new citizens and the foreigners are supporting.

And so if I were to give a one-liner, a sound-bite here it is:

Foreigners and new citizens to support and pay for old Singaporeans by 2030.

And ain’t that a nice thing.

P.S.

Even though we are going to have all those New Citizens and Foreigners slaving away to support our old folks by 2030, there are a few critical things that the Government need to do,

1) There needs to be a substantial increase of housing and public transport capacity to support this increase in population. The new citizens and foreigners are here to support our old people, not to push them out of MRT trains and HDB flats.

2) The intermediate step, the Permanent Residents , needs to be monitored closely. For those who are not deemed suitable for converting to New Citizens please revoke their PRs. For those who are deemed suitable but refuse to convert to New Citizens after a certain time span (because they want the best of both worlds, to keep their home nationality and live in Singapore at the same time), please kick them out also. Basically, if you are not here to support our old people, please leave.

3) The government must be more stringent with its immigration criteria. No more New Citizens and PRs working as coffee shop assistants, masseuses etc. If they are here to support our old people, they need to generate enough economic value to not only feed themselves, but also a healthy surplus. So QUALITY immigrants please. Civil servants - please please don't obsess over the 7 million number. It is NOT your KPI. 

A Historic Loss for the PAP

The People’s Action Party’s (PAP) biggest nightmare has come true – for the first time in their recent history, they have lost a previously safe seat. The loss of Aljunied was devastating but not unexpected – Aljunied has been closely fought for several elections, with its constituents being part of Cheng San and Eunos GRCs previously. The loss of Hougang was to be expected; Hougang is the Worker’s Party’s (WP) stronghold where it’s Chief, Low Thia Kiang’s aura is impenetrable. But Punngol East’s loss is going to drive a stake into the very soul of the PAP, the very heart of its inner leadership. It is an unmitigated  disaster that will tell the PAP that it has to change, not tweak itself, but fundamentally change. EVERYTHING that used to work is now not working.

In the past, after Lee Kuan Yew had destroyed the opposition and the PAP settled into technocratic dominance of Singapore, the PAP’s winning formula was straightforward. Crunch the numbers, settle on the best most ‘rational’ policy that the statistics suggest, tell the people ‘trust us this is right’, and just get on with implementation. This clearly does not work anymore.

In the past, winning an election was straightforward.  It was always Lee Kuan Yew’s philosophy that the PAP should pick highly educated professionals, ex civil servants, generals – people whom he thought was the elite - people that the PAP believed the electorate would look up to. Never mind if he never served in the grassroots, or had any presence in the constituency. If the PAP said he was the elite and the best person for the job, the electorate believed them.

Now ‘elite’ is a bad word.

In the past, one would never have imagined that a PAP candidate, a surgeon that the Prime Minister himself promised is destined for higher office, would lose an election to what the older generation would have thought of as a ‘less qualified’ candidate. In the past, one would never have imagined that the Prime Minister could turn up for an election rally, give it his all, and STILL lose the election.

That has all changed.

Everything that the PAP thought worked must now be fundamentally re-considered.

First, it must stop seeing itself as first and foremost policy makers and then a political party. Its experience in the last 4 decades of dominance was abnormal, partly made possible by a gargantuan of a man, Lee Kuan Yew. Such a figure that can lead a nation by his sheer singular vision, make an entire people bend to his will, is an occurrence that happens rarely in the annals of human history. The PAP cannot rely on all of this now. They have to first start winning elections the normal way, AND THEN start thinking of implementing policies. This is what any other political party in a functioning democracy takes for granted. The electoral dominance that its founder granted to the PAP has caused it to do things the other way round, which increasingly looks like the wrong way round. The PAP is singularly unprepared for a post-LKY era, and is paying the price for it. It must remember that it is a political party first and foremost and the party has to win elections; its MPs have to be politicians as well as technocrats.

Secondly, its election formula must change. It cannot anymore parachute in someone it endorses, push out goodies during the election period, threaten the electorate of the consequences if they don’t vote for the PAP, and hope to win. This is 3^rd world electioneering. As Singapore matures as a country, our electorate matures with it. The Singapore electorate is now a highly educated, highly demanding and plural one. The problem is that whilst the electorate has grown up, the PAP has not. It is still campaigning like it did in the 80’s, the 90’s and it simply does not work. In a mature democracy, campaigning is highly sophisticated work. It is an art. It is a science. Just look at the US, the UK, Australia and even Japan. There are media advisors, spin doctors, campaign strategists, sophisticated research going into each and every election and careful planning. The PAP has none. It still believes that simply rolling up its sleeves and doing good work will win it elections. This is just naïve. The electorate has moved on; it is time for the PAP to catch up.

Thirdly, the PAP needs to re-discover the skill of pushing through unpopular policies it thinks is good for the good of the nation, and still win elections. This is very hard. Lee Kuan Yew could do it, but can the new generation of leaders? If it can’t then it needs to be popular rather than right. This is the bargain with the devil all politicians in popular democracies must make. The PAP may have to do the same.

The tragedy of all this is that nothing that is happening is new under the sun. We are following in exactly the same path as Western democracies. When political parties have to be popular to win elections, then technocratic policy making has to take a back seat. Politicians have to spend more time politicking then governing, always with one eye on the next election. We have inherited the Westminster system and we should expect very little different to arise from it. There will be 2 parties, one centre-right where the PAP has comfortably sat for 4 decades, and one centre-left, which the WP is moving inexorably into. With multi-cornered fights, people will vote tactically and the 3^rd,4^th, and other parties will be pushed into the political wilderness. In the end, 2 parties will take turns to govern, with one eye on making sure it wins the next election.

But where will this lead us? Can we end up any different from the countries which have the same fundamental political system as us? Or are we destined to the same fate, whether good or bad?

One can never know the future, but if there is one lesson the PAP will learn from the debacle of Punggol East on the night of 26^th January 2013, it is a lesson that all politicians from developed democracies already know in their bones.

It is more important to be popular than to be right.

The Workers Party’s Report Card: Do we need another WP MP?

In the run-up to the by-election of Punggol East, it is clear, that final fight comes down to the 2 largest parties in Parliament: The People’s Action Party (PAP) and The Worker’s Party (WP). The Worker’s Party Chairman Sylvia Lim stated very early that this by-election was going to be a report-card on the PAP. Some political observers have commented that this is even more so than in Hougang, a Worker’s Party stronghold that the PAP was not expected to win. And although the WP’s party candidate Lee Li Lian has recently admitted that the by-election would also be a barometer of the WP’s record, it seems that more questions are still being asked about the PAP  rather than the WP.

This is natural. Being the incumbent, the PAP has much to prove after a water-shed election that saw an entire GRC falling for the first time to the opposition. It is also natural and obvious that this election, like all elections, would be a barometer of a ruling party’s record. However, as even the leader of the WP Low Thia Kiang has admitted, time needs to be given to PAP to see whether it can solve the problems of Singaporeans, and to see the effects of its policy changes. Thus, contrary to the battle-cry of the opposition, I believe that this by-election is not so much a report-card on the PAP, but rather on the WP.

When one draws up a report card for a political party, nothing does better as a guide than their own campaign promises. The most striking thing about the WP’s campaign in GE 2011 was not so much the specific PAP policies it opposed, nor the alternatives in its manifesto, but its overarching rhetoric of a “First World Parliament”. It is also arguable that it was this promise, and its alluring pitch of a ‘co-driver’ elected to ‘slap’ the ruling party when it veers off-course, the seductive promise of check-and-balance, and the ideological insistence that an opposition in Singapore was necessary, that toppled George Yeo’s team in Aljunied. It was on the altar of higher ideals that George Yeo, Lim Hwee Hua et al was sacrificed, and it is on this altar that the WP must stand to be judged: Has it delivered on its promise working towards of a First World Parliament? Has it been the effective check-and-balance it promised the voters it would be? Has the co-driver performed?

The strangest thing that struck me during the GE campaign of 2011 was the WP’s strident rhetoric that electing it to Parliament would foster more debate, and thus help Singapore progress towards a ‘First World Parliament’. What was strange and extremely disturbing to me was that for a Party that values debate so highly (arguably a defining characteristic of ‘First World’ parliaments), in the 21 months that I served as Nominated Member of Parliament, the WP was curiously passive on the debating front. One has to understand that in Parliament, asking parliamentary questions is de riguer and does little to contribute to ‘debate’. Debate is best served when there is a prolonged back-and-forth by various speakers with full speeches, but a simple parliamentary question merely warrants a reply from the Government, with a few, extremely limited follow-up questions allowed. Any parliamentarian who has a burning issue to debate must surely know that the best and only way to force such a debate is to file a full motion, which compels the whole of parliament to put aside all other business and really debate the issue, concluding with a vote by all present Parliamentarians.

In the 21 months that I was NMP the WP filed precisely ZERO motions. They did not even file any adjournment motions that would have given them a chance to speak at length, rather than just ask a question. In the first 21 months since GE 2011, the Workers Party has filed merely one adjournment motion (by NCMP Yee Jenn Jong), and another by Sylvia Lim just to withdraw it again. In contrast, my former parliamentary colleague Viswa Sadasivan filed a full motion during his very first parliamentary sitting, which not only made Cabinet Ministers rise to rebut him, but even caused then Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew to speak in Parliament for the first time in years, and in the process teaching a nation the meaning of the word `hifalutin’.

The question then to ask of the WP is then this: For a party that campaigned on the promise of more debate as part of their march towards a ‘First World Parliament’, whither the debate? Surely if you have an alternate vision for Singapore, a vision burning to be articulated in full, asking questions would not suffice? Surely if even a Nominated Member of Parliament can force the whole of government, including its most senior statesman, to focus their attention on a ‘hifalutin’ issue and engage in robust debate, then a party with 6 elected members of Parliament, 2 NCMPs , and an alternate vision for Singapore can do so much more?

The oft-heard refrain that because the WP has no chance of winning a debate  there is no point in starting one, is a massive cop-out. The House in any Westminster Parliament is not only a legislative chamber, but also a debating chamber. Not being able to win a debate, does not mean an issue is not worth debating, especially if one is a politician elected on a promise of more debate.

This is not about politicking as Low Thia Kiang has recently said. This is not about being an irrational or unreasonable opposition. This is about keeping one’s election promise – if one sells the electorate a vision, and if they elected one on this vision, then one had better live up to it.

What is politicking is to keep selling this vision again and again with empty rhetoric, whilst failing to deliver on it. What is politicking is the WP only talking about its alternative policies at election rallies when they already have eight parliamentarians to debate these in the House, and one only needs TWO to file a motion.

When Gerald Giam argued for an alternative health care system at the WP’s Punggol East rally, it was for a worthy cause. But the right forum is NOT at a by-election rally, but in the august House he has been a member of for nearly two years. One cannot just go up to stage at a political rally and state that we should adopt a system closer to the UK’s National Health Service, a system that the UK is struggling to keep afloat, and just leave it at that.. An issue as fundamental as health care reform cannot be only used as campaigning ammunition. That would be politicking; debating it in Parliament is surely not.

Other matters such as the nationalization of public transport should not lay hidden in the WP manifesto, especially when they are high on Singaporeans’ concerns. Even if it is an untenable idea, the government could be compelled to justify why the current system is better and why a fundamental change is unnecessary. Issues of fundamental changes, changes the WP has proposed in its manifesto, require a full and robust debate in the House, and not only brought up at election time. The PAP surely does not need the Opposition to tell it to ‘tweak’ its system; it has been tweaking it happily by itself for most of 4 decades, without the need of a co-driver.

The Worker’s Party thus has far bigger questions to answer than the PAP. When the Prime Minister asked where its policy alternatives were, the answer is obvious: they lay hidden in the depths of its Manifesto. The more crucial question is  why a party which campaigned forcefully for more debate and a ‘First World Parliament’ has allowed these alternative policies to remain there, rather than forcing a fundamental rethink from the government by requiring them to stoutly defend its policies in the House.

At the end of the day, the Worker’s Party did not promise to run Singapore’s  town councils better. The Worker’s Party did not even promise to solve bread-and-butter issues that Singaporeans face . Instead, the Worker’s Party promised that it would be a check-and-balance, that it would be a co-driver, and that more debate would lead Singapore to a ‘First World Parliament’. It is this, this that the voters of Punggol East, and perhaps Singaporeans at large, must ultimately judge them. If it hasn’t even delivered the one thing it promised, then the question voters need to ask is not the one WP is asking them - whether Singapore needs another PAP MP. Rather, the right question would be the exact opposite: whether Singapore needs another Worker’s Party MP, or indeed any at all. 

Much Ado About Nothing

With the furore surrounding the proposed online code of conduct, the government is in danger of losing political goodwill whilst not achieving any of its aims. 

A code of conduct is not a piece of legislation and if it lacks teeth by way of penalties; it is unenforceable.  To begin with, asking the internet community to self-regulate is a pipe-dream. The entire culture online is anti-regulation.  If the government on the other wants to enforce the code-of conduct, one wonders what penalties there would be if someone breaches this code. And if there aren’t any penalties, whither the enforcement?

The government should thus instead identify specific behaviour they want to discourage and enact specific legislation to deal with them. For example, they could follow the lead of South Korea which has introduced targeted cyber-bullying and cyber-defamation laws.  

By introducing such specific, targeted laws instead of giving the impression they want to regulate the entire online space, the government could also assuage the deep mistrust amongst many leading bloggers that any regulation is politically motivated. 

Finally, even without further legislation, many of our current laws are already sufficient to deal with most criminal and civil offences. These if taken seriously and enforced properly, would have far more teeth than a mere code of conduct.  Netizens should  be aware that they are not citizens of an imaginary online nation where different rules and laws apply; they are first and foremost citizens of a real country – in this case Singapore - with its own sovereign laws that should be respected.  There shouldn’t  and needn’t be one set of rules and laws online, and another set for the real world.

*This article also appeared in the Straits Times Forum on the 3rd of May as "Targe Specific Acts Online"

The Unreasonableness Of The Death Penalty

The biggest regret I have about my term as Nominated Member of Parliament being cut short by the General Elections was that I ran out of time to submit a motion to debate the death penalty. As I was unable to re-apply for another term due to work commitments overseas, I may have lost the chance to do this forever, and so have decided to write about this, especially after reading the article on  executions in Singapore in the Straits Times.

I oppose the death penalty generally, the death penalty for drug offences particularly, and the mandatory nature of the death penalty for drug offences specifically.

However, from the outset, I must state every clearly that I do not oppose the death penalty on grounds of human rights. Like Jeremy Bentham, I believe that natural rights are ‘nonsense on stilts’ but I shall leave that for another essay. I am also an atheist, which means that my objection to the death penalty is also not on religious grounds.

Below, I will lay out my general, particular and specific objections as I described above.

Firstly, the argument that the death penalty deters crimes is based on a logical fallacy. I do not argue this from an empirical basis, as many are wont to do i.e. that no study has conclusively proven this. 

The reason that no study can conclusively prove whether the death penalty deters crime is that it is impossible to ever do so. The whole point about deterrence is that it stops people from committing a crime – crimes that are deterred never occurred. However, if the crime never occurred, you can’t measure it. You can’t count something that never happened. You can never know if the existence of a punishment has deterred a particular crime precisely because if the punishment were truly a deterrent, those crimes never occurred.

Empirical studies can thus only study contingencies not causality. It can show patterns that a particular crime has fallen during the existence of the death penalty for those crimes. However, it can never prove that the death penalty has caused the rate of those crimes to fall. This is to confuse contingency and causality and is a logical failing. Crime during a period can fall for many reasons – economic conditions, social conditions – and may not have anything to do with the punishment itself.

This argument is of course true for any punishment but the maximum punishment deserves the maximum proof.

If we can never – logically – be sure whether the death penalty can deter a particular crime, it cannot be a reason for us to use the death penalty, especially when it is the maximum punishment we can mete out to a fellow human being.

My second reason for objecting to the death penalty in general is the existence of human error. Justice is meted out by human beings, and human beings are not infallible. There should always exist the possibility for making amends if justice is meted out wrongly. If this is the case, death is the only punishment we cannot make amends for, as the victim of wrongful conviction is already dead. This in my opinion is a strong reason for not ever meting out death as a punishment, unless we can be sure the justice system is infallible, and it will never be.

The arguments for the death penalty for drug offences are even weaker in my opinion, because of certain characteristics of the crime.

It is punishment for incipient harm – harm that has yet to happen. Let me explain.

Most justice is founded on the philosophical justifications that the criminal act involves the harming of other people – the ‘harm principle’. From simple littering to murder, these acts involve the harming of other human beings. This is the reason that society classifies these harmful acts as crimes, and punishes people for committing them.

Drug offences are different. The arguments that I often hear from people for imposing the death penalty for drug offences is often based on how much damage could be done if these drugs were used. More, this possible harm involves a lot of conjectural situations that are based on a lot of ifs. If the drug trafficker was successful in trafficking the drugs, the drug pusher could sell it to people who may or may not get addicted, who may or may not become a burden to his family (many rich drug takers never become a burden), whose families may or may not be destroyed etc. 

We thus in the case of drug offences very uniquely punish for harm that is not yet done, which even if highly probable, is not certain.

Even for the case of murder, for which the death penalty is meted out in many countries, there is a difference in the treatment of actual murder (harm already done) and attempted murder (harm that was intended but not done).

The treatment of drug offences is thus unique. And as I argued, the maximum punishment must have maximum justifications, and frankly, potential harm for me just does not quite make the cut.

A second unique characteristic of drug offences is the role that victims play.

In the vast majority of crimes, the victim is not willing. If you killed me with my co-operation, it would not be murder, it would be assisted suicide.

The victim in drug offences is almost always a willing party in the transgression. The law recognises this and thus, drug-taking is also an offence. It is true that there would be fewer drug takers if there are fewer drug traffickers; but the converse is also true – there would not be any drug traffickers if there were no drug users.

Drug offences to me are thus again a very special kind of offence, given that it almost always involves the co-operation of the victims.

This does not in any way make it right but again, does this weaken the justification for meting out the maximum punishment for such a crime? I believe it does.

Finally, the death penalty for drug offences in Singapore is mandatory. 

This I find hugely objectionable. It means that as long as the party is found guilty, the judge has to sentence the accused to death, even if there are mitigating circumstances.

I have four arguments to make here – one theoretical and three practicable.

First the theoretical. Sometimes it is useful to clear our thinking by using extreme examples to drill down to the reasonableness of a position. Some have argued there can never be strong mitigating reasons for drug-trafficking. The youth of the accused, his ignorance, his economic and social circumstances etc, once admitted as mitigating factors, will open a huge can of worms if we allow these to be pled in mitigation. This may be true to some extent but logically just because some mitigating reasons are weak does not mean that no mitigating reasons can be strong.

For example consider the possibility that I am forced to traffic drugs because a drug lord has kidnapped my mother and threatens to kill her unless I do as I am told. Under the mandatory death penalty, the judge cannot even take such a clear and exceptional mitigating factor into account and I will be sentenced to death if I am caught. The most I can hope for is clemency (which I shall deal with below). There is thus something wrong with not accepting any mitigating circumstances in dealing with drug offences – either you are guilty or you are not. Even in murder under Singapore law, there are defences built into the consideration of guilt, even though the death sentence is also mandatory.

When I was researching this issue, I discovered 3 arguments about the justice system in Singapore that have been used to support the mandatory death penalty.

The first is that the Attorney General’s chambers already takes mitigating circumstances into account and choose whether to push for the death penalty, by choosing the amount of drugs the accused is charged with trafficking. This sometimes could be less than a gram difference than the amount that would automatically trigger mandatory death, if found guilty.

This is wrong as it conflates the role of the AG’s chambers and the judiciary. The AG’s chambers is the prosecutorial arm, and it should not pre-judge a verdict and play the role of the judiciary as well. The fate of the accused should not be left to the AG’s chambers as this is the job of the judges. Mitigating circumstances of course can be exercised by the prosecution, as it is in other non-drug offences, but the main responsibility of passing a verdict should be with the judiciary. That is its function. Mitigation should be considered primarily at the judicial level, and this cannot be done at the moment as the hands of the judges are tied.

The second argument I often hear is that a non-mandatory death sentence puts too onerous a responsibility on the judges. The argument goes that the judge takes on a less of a burden psychologically and on his conscience if his job is merely to find guilt, as the sentence of death is automatic.

I hope our judges have got stronger characters than that.

There is no doubt that sentencing a person to death is difficult to the extreme, but so it should be! We would be worried if we had judges who could send people to death with no emotion or little consideration. The taking of a life by the state should never be something trivially dealt with, and if it causes great psychological stress for the judge who must make the decision whether to send a man to his death, all the better.

Finally, it is said that people who are found guilty of drug offences have the hope of getting clemency from the President. Much has been said about the rarity of such cases, the role of the President vs. The Cabinet and I will not belabour the points made. I think the most important point again is lost – mitigation should not be considered only at the clemency stage. Politicians have no business getting involved in deciding whether a man should live or die – that is not their job. It is the job of the judges, and with the mandatory sentencing, they cannot do this job.

In conclusion, I have argued that there are very strong reasons to re-consider the mandatory death penalty for drug offences in Singapore. Even if one supports the death penalty, and even of one supports the death penalty for drug offences (both which I have argued against), one cannot support the mandatory nature of meting out death for drug offences. Even for one such as I who does not believe in natural human rights, the case for this is logically weak.

Shall, May, Must, Ought - A By-word on a By-Election

I have been following with interest the recent exchange of letters between Hri Kumar and Eugene Tan in the TODAY newspaper, regarding the issue of calling a by-election in Hougang.

With all due respect to lawyers and legal academics, the debate on the constitutional requirements of having a by-election is irrelevant to most ordinary citizens. The legal interpretations that turn on the words ‘shall’, ‘must’, ‘may’,  ‘at convenient speed’, and whether an election can either be a General Election or By-Election is frankly over the heads of non-legally trained people (and frankly it does not interest us as much).

I think the operative word that has been lost in the debate is ‘ought’. Ought the Prime Minister call a by-election as soon as possible? In my opinion, this is a more important question than the constitutional debate by legal experts. 

In this case, I think it is an unequivocal yes. However one interprets the constitution, Hougang is a Single Member Ward that has no other elected Member of Parliament serving its constituents. This is very different from a GRC where the loss of one member still means that other elected team members can serve the people that elected them. 

Therefore, the Prime Minister ought to call a by-election as soon as possible.

But the most important fact that people are missing is that the PM never said that he will not call a by-election, just that the nation has other pressing issues that need attending to. And in case people have not noticed, the Yaw Shin Leong affair happened just before the Budget Debates and his seat was only declared vacated on the first day of the Budget Debates.

This was two days ago. 

We should have more patience than to jump to conclusions that the PM is not going to call a by-election or he is delaying the calling of one. I re-iterate – the seat has only been officially vacant for TWO DAYS.

I am sure that once the Budget debates are over, the Prime Minister will make a decision to hold a by-election.

In the meantime, we should focus on a very important Budget debate, instead of getting carried away with the ‘shalls’, the ‘musts’ and the different shades of ‘mays’.

Budget 2012

In many ways, the 2012 Budget represents a shift towards a new compact between the PAP government and the people. 

It recognises the desire of a younger generation to go beyond a naked drive towards material well-being and accumulation of wealth. The old compact with our parents' generation was a simple one – give the PAP a popular mandate and they will make sure we are materially better-off year-after-year. Most attention was given to GDP growth, which by definition focuses on the welfare of the average Singaporean. Our GDP per capita still ranks amongst the highest in the world, even on a purchasing parity basis, which means that the average Singaporean lives better than the average citizen in other countries.

This is not enough for the new generation. The PAP has successfully taken Singapore to developed-nation status but has in the process bred a new generation that has post-materialist desires – desires that go beyond the bread-and-butter. In this, we are not any different from other developed countries. Bread-and-butter issues are of course still important, but for the new post-materialist generation , it is not enough to merely grow GDP per capital , but also to ensure that in our pursuit of growth, nobody gets left behind and we build a cohesive and inclusive society. This Budget recognises this in several ways.

Firstly, it recognises that even though foreign workers have been instrumental in our years of breakneck growth, their presence in our society has not been without costs. On an emotional, psychological basis, when almost a third of people residing in Singapore are foreigners, there is bound to be an impact on our social make-up. Not only do we have to share our already crowded living spaces with more people, it is with people we find difficult to identify with as they come from  different cultures. It also causes fissures and frictions in our social make-up. In a society still in its adolescence which is still struggling to find a Singaporean identity, this cannot but be detrimental.

If however we make a choice that we want a society that has a smaller number of foreigners, it is also not without costs. This is the nature of policy making – there is no perfect policy, no right answer, but a choice between several options each with costs and benefits.

In this case, if we want to make do with fewer foreign workers in our society, Singaporeans have will also have to adapt, and this adaptation could in the short run also be painful.

Firstly, businesses have to increase their productivity so as to make do with fewer workers. This is easier said than done. The government recognises this and has introduced a slew of measures in the Budget to help businesses including a small cash grant, an enhanced Productivity and Innovation Credit Scheme and other measures. The road to a lower reliance on foreign workers will nevertheless be a long and hard one, especially for small businesses. 

To begin with, most small businesses operate on a tight cash-flow and run on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis. In order for them to invest in workers now so that will see an increase in productivity in future (that may or may not happen), is to ask them to forgo precious cash that they need now for an intangible future. The PIC schemes still work on a reimbursement basis, meaning that firms will need to fork out their money first. Although the enhanced PIC now pays out on a quarterly basis, a quarter is a long time for small business that operates on a tight cash-flow. It may be difficult for them to spend $10,000 and then have to wait 3 months to get $6,000 back. 

More importantly, training in order to increase productivity is not immediate. Whereas if one hires a foreign worker one sees the immediate benefit as he can be put to work from the outset, a local worker isn’t going to be able to miraculously start being able to serve 10 tables in a minute after a week’s training course. In the meantime, as new processes are put into place, and as workers learn more productive methods, businesses suffer from a manpower crunch which can put them out of business.

Ordinary Singaporeans will suffer too. When businesses go bust, Singaporeans also lose their jobs – and let’s not forget that many business owners are also ordinary Singaporeans trying to make a living. Singaporeans as consumers will also be impacted. Recently, I have noticed that the tables at Starbucks do not get cleared as fast, as they are unable to hire as many foreign workers as in the past. We as Singaporean consumers will thus also have to adapt.

A second post-materialist desire this budget recognises is that it is not enough anymore for the government to roll-out statistics that Singapore as a whole is doing better and better every year – the younger generation also want to make sure that the worst-off and most vulnerable in our society are also taken care off. 

Budget 2012 recognises this by taking significant steps to ensure that 3 groups of particularly vulnerable Singaporeans are not left out – the old, the poor, and the disabled. 

I too believe that it is the mark of a developed society to have compassion for our least well-off. To this end, I applaud the generous measures that the government has introduced, that will cost billions of dollars.

But again, nothing comes free and money does not grow on trees. The money that the government is spending to help the least well-off comes from public finances – that is the money that belongs to us, the taxpayers. It is all well and good to wear our hearts on our sleeves and wax lyrical on compassion and helping others but the litmus test is always when we are asked to put our money where our mouth is. At this moment, our public finances are in good shape and the government is able to spend money without raising new money.  However, if one day we are asked to pay more taxes in order to keep these measures up, will we be ready to do it? Are we willing to put our money where our mouths are when push comes to shove? It is always easier to champion compassion and charity when one does not have to bear the costs or feel the pinch of doing so.

Finally, in our push for a more inclusive Singapore, we must not forget the bread-and-butter issues that face every Singaporean. In an uncertain global outlook, we must not get too obsessed with navel-gazing and be acutely aware that the greatest challenges that Singapore face come from outside. In our quest to be less dependent on foreign workers domestically, we must not forget that we will always as a country be dependent on foreigners and the world outside, given our size. In our quest to perhaps run a little slower so that our least well-off can keep up, we must not forget that we must still run faster than everybody else as it is the only thing that ensures we survive as a country. We are an improbable nation built against the odds. As we build a stronger and more cohesive nation, it must always be to one end – that we remain a prosperous, independent country, a united Singapore we call our home.