Alternative proposals for a better Singapore
It’s great to be back doing food distribution in East Coast GRC! Oh wait, we never went away — Fengshan is now back in East Coast! Regardless of how they change the boundaries, we will continue our mission to serve all Singaporeans. Thank you residents for your continued support!
Reading the original Twitter posts by the girl’s sister brought tears to my eyes and made my blood boil. What was not mentioned in the ST article was how the little girl was allegedly called a “black dustbin” and that she resorted to having her recess in the toilet because it was the “best place for (her) to cry and eat at the same time”. While details of these alleged incidents are still unclear and I’m sure the school and MOE are investigating, I think this should spark some soul-searching among all Singaporeans, especially us parents (my children are around that age). What values are we inculcating in our children? Do we harbour racist attitudes and inadvertently pass them on to our children? Do we teach our children to stand up to bullies, even if they are not the victims?
Straits Times article: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/bullying-in-schools-here-wrong-and-cannot-be-tolerated-ong-ye-kung
Glad Leon Perera asked this Parliamentary Question (PQ). It arose after my conversation with a teacher during house visits in Fengshan. This teacher voiced concern that the number of classroom teaching assistants was being reduced. I was surprised to hear this and decided to look deeper into the issue together with my colleagues from The Workers’ Party. It resulted in Leon‘s PQ. He didn’t just stop when he got the initial answer, but continued to press the Parl Sec for the detailed numbers.
This highlights the value of the ground feedback we receive from residents. If you meet our MPs and volunteers when they drop by your place during house visits, please raise up such issues of concern to us so we can bring them to Parliament for debate. We work as one #TeamWP to be your voice in Parliament!
(TLDR: There are 4 categories of AEDs. The headcount in one of the categories, AED (Teaching and Learning), is indeed being reduced while those in the other 3 categories is being increased.)
Video credit: CNA
This is a video of my 1-hour live chat with Singaporeans on Workers’ Party’s responses to Singapore Budget 2020.
Video credit: Workers’ Party Youth Wing
恭喜发财！We enjoyed our 5th year painting Fengshan ORANGE, greeting residents of all races a Happy Lunar New Year and and wishing them good health in the year ahead. As before, it was our volunteers who made it all happen! Thank you to all the residents and stallholders who showered us with their own New Year greetings. 新年快乐！
We’re always so blessed by the smiles and words of encouragement from Fengshan residents we visit each month. Some insist on offering us drinks even though we tell them we just got some from other residents. #generosity
No time to read our full 60-page Public Housing working paper? Here’s a good summary by a Singaporean journalist writing for South China Morning Post. You can read the full working paper at http://www.wp.sg/…/WP-Working-Paper-on-HDB-Resale-Prices.pdf
LTA’s latest statement, Investigation Findings on Train Collision at Joo Koon MRT Station, raises more questions than it answers (but good work by the civil servants and SMRT/Thales engineers who put it together). We learned that the two “protective bubbles” around the train both went down long before it was hit. These protective bubbles are critical safety features that alert nearby trains to stop, so as to avoid collisions. LTA’s graphic (part 2) indicates that the first protective bubble went down as soon as the train left Ulu Pandan depot (located between Jurong East and Clementi) due to an “abnormal condition.” Then it was “unexpectedly disabled” when it passed by a “trackside device” at Clementi (while heading east towards Pasir Ris).
1. What caused the protective bubbles go down? What are these trackside devices? Why are they permitted to disable a critical safety feature on a train? And what was the “abnormal condition” that caused the first bubble to go down?
2. Once the second bubble went down, by design an 18 km/h speed restriction was imposed by the new signalling system, which was operating in passive mode. But LTA said the train continued to travel under the old signalling system. So was the 18 km/h speed restriction ignored?
3. Why wasn’t the train automatically brought to a stop or slowed down when the protective bubbles went down? Was an alarm triggered to the Ops Centre?
4. Why did the train continue travelling for almost 2 hours (49 stations) from Clementi to Pasir Ris and back to Pioneer before the driver noticed something was amiss?
5. The NEL and DTL are driverless, unlike the EWL. What happens if the protective bubble goes down on those trains?
6. How many times has this protective bubble gone down without anyone noticing and the trains continued operating? The statement said that the new signalling system runs in the background in passive mode between Pioneer and Pasir Ris to “collect data for the purpose of performance monitoring.” So there should be logs to trace back the answer. If the answer is “it has gone down many times”, then this accident was not “bad luck”, but it was “good luck” that there weren’t more accidents earlier on.
7. Once the train arrived at Joo Koon and was de-training all its passengers, why was the next train allowed to come within 36 m, if the stationary train’s protective bubble was gone? A train approaching the platform at 50 km/h will take less than 2.6 sec to cover 36 m. Is it SOP for trains to get so close before stopping?
8. Lastly, did anyone tell the driver of the train behind that the train ahead had no protective bubble? Evidently not, because he didn’t think anything was amiss and therefore did not react in time when he realised the train was lurching forward.
At WP Youth Wing’s Youth Hangouts yesterday, we discussed the topic of democracy. We had a very encouraging turnout from mostly polytechnic and university students. Diverse views were shared but we all agreed that the objective of democracy, or any political system, must be to improve the welfare and happiness of citizens, not to pursue some esoteric ideological objective. I observed that increased political competition, with more opposition MPs in Parliament, gives citizens greater “bargaining power” over the government. This was clearly evident after 2011 when the number of WP MPs increased more than four-fold: the PAP government introduced an unprecedented raft of social welfare policies to win back the support of the people.
We discussed recent statements coming from government affiliates that Singapore may be more efficient as a one-party dominant state, that internal contestation within the ruling party suffices and that Singapore’s “unique” circumstances necessitate practices that deviate from democratic norms.
I shared my views about the oft-raised spectre of “gridlock” should there be too much political competition. Gridlock, whereby legislation cannot get passed, can only happen if (1) neither party has a majority in parliament and (2) the parties are working solely in pursuit of partisan interests rather than the good of the country. Singapore’s parliament currently has a super majority of government MPs: 83 PAP vs 9 WP, with 9 NMPs (who are technically “politically-neutral” but almost always vote with the PAP). Most laws require only a simple majority (i.e., currently 51 MPs) to pass. Even if WP were to win one or two more GRCs in the next elections, we would have only 14 MPs — hardly enough to even block constitutional amendments (which require a two-thirds majority).
On the second point, one participant asked me: If one day the opposition were to make significant gains in numbers, would we cause gridlock? I could not say with absolute certainly that there won’t be gridlock but WP’s track record as a parliamentary opposition is that we have supported all legislation that improves the welfare of the people, and only opposed bills that were, in our opinion, designed to give the incumbent regime a partisan advantage. In any case, not all obstruction of legislation is necessarily bad. If there is a sinister piece of legislation that hurts Singaporeans, wouldn’t you want your MP to oppose it?
Nevertheless, I emphasised that it is important that voters choose only high-quality MPs at elections, and do not simply cast protest votes.
I also shared about the importance of having strong and independent institutions, a diverse and independent media and a valid system of checks and balances on the government. In good times, it’s easy to overlook their importance. However, should the governing elites turn rogue, can we confidently say that our current institutions will be able to stand up to power and say “no”, like they do in more developed democracies?
Another question from a participant that stood out to me was: If things are going well now, why should I care about the composition of parliament and the state of our democracy? My answer was that political institutions and political parties cannot be built overnight. We will rue the day if the current governing party were to lose the confidence of the people and a group of political greenhorns or a populist demagogue were to top the polls and take over the reins of government. Much better to start building up the capacity and capability of a credible opposition party now, than to scramble when it’s too late.
Now the Prime Minister exhorts us to lower our expectations for future economic growth. Frankly I’m not confident that we can even achieve 2-3% growth with this government’s economic policies. Productivity, which is the main driver of quality growth, has been flat or negative for the last 4 years. The main thing that’s propping up growth these days is labour inputs, largely from the (still) growing foreign labour force.
The PAP has staked its electoral legitimacy all these years on “delivering the economic goods” (i.e., growing the economy and providing good jobs for all). Now we clearly have a segment of PMETs who find themselves made redundant or at risk of being made redundant in their jobs. Quite a few have been sacked or forced to resign in what are, in fact, retrenchment exercises. Many have no choice but to take on jobs that are below their qualifications (which they worked so hard for).
Now the Prime Minister expects us to lower our expectations for future economic growth. Frankly I’m not confident that we can even achieve 2-3% growth with this government’s economic policies. Productivity, which is the main driver of quality growth, has been flat or negative for the last 4 years. The main thing that’s propping up growth these days is labour inputs, largely from the (still) growing foreign labour force.
The fact that last year’s anaemic economic growth of 1.8% — which is lower than all our neighbours and the other erstwhile “Asian economic tigers” (South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong) — coincides with the smaller inflow of foreign workers, is an indication that our economy has been overly dependant on foreign labour force growth. Successive PAP governments did not invest enough in our citizens by equipping them with the necessary skills, especially technology skills, to thrive in this technological age. Instead they took the shortcut to growth by importing cheap labour. Now the chickens have come home to roost, and hardworking Singaporeans are paying the price.
Do Singaporeans realise that their “investments” in the PAP (through their votes at the polls) are producing diminishing returns?