Women MPs speak for the men as well, replies Grace Fu

I AGREE with Mr Sulthan Niaz that women Members of Parliament should speak up for their constituents who include men ('Women MPs should speak up for men too'; yesterday).

Over the past few days in Parliament, several women MPs have spoken on issues that affect both men and women.

Madam Halimah Yacob (Jurong GRC and Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports) announced plans to refine the Community Care Endowment Fund (ComCare), which will help the elderly, while Ms Denise Phua (Moulmein-Kallang GRC) called for government funding for special needs programmes in the universities.

These measures will benefit men and women.

On gender equality, I recognise that men and women are not the same in their physical and emotional make-up.

I am not advocating absolute equality. There are undeniably some roles women perform better in and there are others that men can do better.

However, as a society, there is room for us to be more supportive towards women balancing the multiple roles at work and in the family.

Our policies should also gravitate towards recognising greater gender equality.

The media interview Mr Sulthan referred to was in my capacity as chairperson for the People's Action Party (PAP) women's wing.

Naturally, our cause is to champion issues affecting women and to focus on the needs of women.

Still, the recommendations we are making - for example, re-entering the workforce, flexi-work arrangements - apply to men as well although we approach the subject from the women's perspective.

New foreigner hiring rules 'put off MNCs'

Resulting staff shortage may cause firms to pack up or scale back, says business group

The Straits Times, Yasmine Yahya, 21 Oct, 2011

MULTINATIONALS are finding it so hard to find skilled staff in the light of the new rules on hiring foreign workers that some may scale back their operations here.

That was the stark warning from the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce (SICC), which has called on the Government to review the policies.

It suggests that the measures, which apply to all sectors in a standard form, be fine-tuned and tailored for specific industries.

The SICC's call echoes one earlier this week by the Singapore Business Federation, which raised concerns about the foreign worker levy.

The worker shortage appears to be showing up across the board, from a lack of chambermaids in the hotel sector to a need for engineers for manufacturers and drivers for logistics companies.

SICC chief executive Phillip Overmyer told The Straits Times multinationals and big local firms from many industries are finding it very difficult to fill vacancies.

Mr Overmyer cited the case of two hotels at the integrated resorts that held a recruitment drive last year to find up to 50 people in service and maintenance roles.

The hotels have to abide by a strict quota of foreign workers and so need to find Singaporeans instead.

About 400 Singaporeans applied for various positions but not all turned up for the first round of interviews and even fewer for subsequent interviews.

By the end of the process, only four people accepted jobs and, after just a week, two of them quit. The other two followed within a few weeks.

Mr Overmyer said the hotels remain understaffed.

'Because there are so many other jobs, most Singaporeans don't want to take up service jobs. Singaporeans don't want to wait on people or work shift hours,' he said.

The result has been feedback from guests slamming service standards as 'terrible', he added.

'This is the kind of thing we're hearing more and more at the integrated resort hotels - and this is an industry we just created only a few years ago.'

Mr Overmyer noted that companies in sectors such as manufacturing, oil and gas, education and construction engineering face similar challenges.

Even though Singapore is a logistics and distribution hub for many companies, it is tough for bosses to find locals willing to work as drivers or warehouse operators, he said.

He noted that the foreign worker policy could have consequences throughout the economy, beyond the immediate affected firms.

Happiness doesn't make good policy

By Charles Kenny, Center for Global Development

If you want to understand how far the craze for measuring happiness has spread, look no further than that venerable U.S. institution, the Girl Scouts. Last week they rolled out a new badge for excellence in understanding “the science of happiness.” And that should help the aspiring statisticians in their ranks, at least; politicians have taken to happiness polls like kids after another package of Thin Mints.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently suggested adjusting traditional economic indicators with a measure for happiness. Charles Seaford of Britain’s New Economics Foundation notes that government officials in Australia, Britain, China, Ecuador, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States are joining France in moving toward tracking measures of the subjective quality of life. In Britain, the Office for National Statistics’ Integrated Household Survey now asks how satisfied people are with their lives; Labour Party advisor Richard Layard has called for subjective well-being polls to replace GDP altogether as the measure of a country’s progress.

Happiness polls certainly measure something that matters, and results regarding “what makes you happy” are consistent across countries. Those who say they are happy smile more than average; they sleep better and are seen as happier by friends, family, and psychologists. People who say they are happier go on to live longer, healthier lives. Not least, the polls suggest the value to happiness of short commutes and long holidays, two things we can all get behind. But wonderful though it may be to imagine calculating the costs and benefits of government action in giga-smiles per minute, there are real problems with using measures of happiness as the basis for policymaking.

Consider the much-discussed link between happiness and income. We know with a fair degree of certainty that recessions make people unhappy, unemployment makes them even more so, and unusually rapid growth can lead to a temporary boost in reported well-being in a country. But while more money makes people happier in the short term, they may not stay that way: The link between long-term income growth and happiness is hotly debated. A 2002 study by economists Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Paul Frijters looked at changes in the happiness of Germans over time, asking subjects about both income changes and how satisfied with life they were on a scale of zero to 10. The results suggested that it would take an 800,000 percent increase in income to raise the average German’s reported satisfaction by one point on that 10-point scale. (In fact, happy people earn more as a result of their good humor: Who would you rather hire — Eeyore or Tigger? So governments might want to encourage happiness to improve economic performance, rather than the other way around.)

One conclusion from that evidence could be to say long-term GDP growth really doesn’t matter and we should be focusing our attention elsewhere. But it is also worth asking why so few people go around asking for a pay cut from their employers or refusing to accept their lottery winnings. Perhaps we care about other things in life than improving our answer to a pollster about how happy we are. We might value the prestige or the experiences money can bring, even if those things don’t make us declare we are ecstatic in a poll. The same applies to children: Analysis of the relationship between kids and life satisfaction suggests that people with kids are less happy than those without kids, but that doesn’t mean kids aren’t important to their parents.

In fact, over the short term, happiness poll averages vary as a result of all sorts of daily hassles and small pleasures rather than anything we really want policymakers to focus on. Princeton University economist Angus Deaton has looked at daily tracking polls of subjective well-being in the United States during the financial crisis and suggests that, while they did track the performance of the U.S. stock market, scores were nevertheless “affected more by the arrival of St. Valentine’s day than a doubling of unemployment.” He concludes, “In a world of bread and circuses,” monitoring changes in happiness polls “picks up the circuses but miss the bread.”

Adding to the difficulties of using happiness to guide policy is the fact that it has more to do with humans’ inherently social nature than with the kind of absolutes that government policies can easily affect. Happiness researcher Carol Graham at the Brookings Institution reports that unemployment matters to happiness scores in general but matters less so when many others are unemployed. And being thin makes you happy in the United States and sad in Russia. Being absolutely rich matters a little, but what really matters is being richer than your peers and neighbors. These kinds of complex and context-dependent relationships are tough to manipulate from Washington.

In fact, the nature of happiness can actually be a barrier to sensible policies. Over the long term, individual happiness reports just don’t change very much; people have a “set point of happiness” they return close to even after disability or bereavement, for example. And Graham notes that people’s immense ability to be happy even in grim circumstances means that they end up tolerating conditions that they shouldn’t; high death rates from easily preventable disease or kleptocratic rulers, for instance. How else to explain Nigeria ranking above Germany in average happiness or Colombia above Canada and the United States? Is the policy conclusion that Nigeria is doing better on what really counts than Germany?

This isn’t to say that politicians shouldn’t care whether their people are happy. But life is complicated and so is what makes up a good one. It is time to give up looking for a single indicator to capture how we’re doing at it. And if leaders still really want to help raise national reported well-being, Deaton’s results do suggest one approach. He reports that just thinking about politics makes Americans absolutely miserable, far more down in the mouth than the entire impact of the financial crisis. The implication: Maybe politicians should talk a little less — about happiness and about everything else, too.

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of “Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More.”

To the Bhutanese, Singapore could well be Shangri-La: Khaw Boon Wan

TODAY, Esther Ng, 20 Oct, 2011

Happiness and Bhutan have been brought up in Parliament several times since Monday, and Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan yesterday weighed in on the debate.

His visit to Bhutan a few years ago left him with "deep impressions". A tiny nation straddled between India and China, it was not unlike Singapore.

"The challenges of a tiny nation are real and huge. We are not a continental economy like the United States or China. We live in a troubled and troubling region," said Mr Khaw. "Against all odds, we have done well in the last 50 years when we had so little."



On Monday, Workers' Party MP Sylvia Lim (Aljunied GRC) had cited Bhutan and its Gross National Happiness indicator when she questioned if the Government was too focused on gross domestic product growth, at the expense of Singaporeans' happiness.

Yesterday, Mr Khaw said Bhutan was no "Shangri-La". When he was there, he saw "unhappy people", toiling in the fields, worried about the next harvest and whether there would be buyers for their products.

The Bhutanese have studied Singapore because it has "successfully transited" from Third World to First, and managed to create a harmonious society.

"In their mind, Singapore could well be the Shangri-La and they want Bhutan to emulate Singapore," he said.

A more open approach to governance & No one gets left behind: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Debate on The President's Address, 20 October 2011

A more open approach to governance - PM Lee

TODAY, Tan Weizhen, 21 Oct, 2011

As Singapore embraces the "new normal" in politics, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday that his Government would take a "more open approach" to governing the country, which would include sharing more information with the public and engaging the citizenry more.

Mr Lee, who was speaking during the debate on the President's Address, noted that a more diverse population today desired a closer engagement and a different relationship with the Government. And the Internet, he acknowledged, had a role in shaping people's interactions with one another.

"So how do we respond to this new political situation? I think first of all we have to take a much more open approach to government and to governance, the way we organise ourselves, the way we conduct our affairs," Mr Lee told Parliament.



The way forward, he said, was to engage more with the various stakeholders, which included critics, and to share more information with the public - be it population trends or even investments by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation.

While not everything could be disclosed, such as the overall size of Singapore's financial reserves or defence plans, wherever possible, the Government would "disclose more rather than less", Mr Lee said.

The Government, he said also hoped to engage Singaporeans more in decisions that affected them. This could include specific matters such as CPF; broader topics like immigration and population; or issues like animal rights or special needs children.

But even as Mr Lee spoke of the new direction that his Government would take, he reminded Singaporeans that the Government had implemented many policies whose benefits were often "not obvious".

"Everything the Government does is to benefit citizens ... But Government is complicated and very often the leap from the measures to the benefits are indirect and not obvious. So the result is anxiety, sometimes opposition, sometimes a lot of angst," Mr Lee said.

No other law offers a better shield than the Internal Security Act: DPM Teo Chee Hean

Law allows Govt to take swift pre-emptive action, which makes it uniquely effective and relevant

TODAY, Teo Xuanwei, 20 Oct, 2011

In the face of ever-evolving security threats to the Republic, the Government finds that no other law offers a better shield to protect the country than the Internal Security Act.

And what makes it uniquely effective, and therefore relevant, is that it allows the Government to take swift, pre-emptive action to snuff out threats "before they cause us serious and possibly permanent harm", Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said yesterday.

That is the security imperative for a small country at risk of "many powerful forces and influences that intersect here", said Mr Teo, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, as he addressed Parliament.

In a 30-minute speech, he set out the Government's most extensive position on the ISA since Malaysia decided last month to abolish the law.

That move led to calls by 16 former detainees for Singapore to do the same and a subsequent rebuttal of their claims by the Home Affairs Ministry.

Yesterday, he urged the House - which included Member of Parliament Janil Puthucheary (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC), who spoke about the legislation on Tuesday - to think prevention first, and not in terms of prosecution like they would for other laws.

"The ISA allows an overall assessment of the threat posed by a person to be presented and considered in totality, unlike a criminal case that is tried before the courts which considers only specific acts directly related to that charge," he said.

This is why, said Mr Teo, it would be inadequate to replace the ISA with a specific Terrorism Act, for instance.

Such a legislation, if it did not have a broad scope and provisions for preventive detention like the ISA, would not have allowed "pre-emptive action against those who have not yet committed overt deeds that warrant prosecution, but nevertheless belong to a wider terrorist network".

So even if the Terrorism (Suppression of Bombings) Act - enacted in 2007 - had existed in 2001, the only liable individuals would have been the cell involved in taking manifest action to carry out the bombing plot then.

The legislation could not have been used against most of the Jemaah Islamiyah network, not all of whom were actively engaged in terrorist operations, stressed Mr Teo.

In contrast, the ISA "allows the Government to act quickly to prevent a threat from developing into something very serious such as a bombing; or to stem an organised pattern of subversion which promotes civil disturbances and disorder".

Equal treatment for all full-time NSmen: Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen replying to questions in Parliament on the disruption of National Service by Dr Patrick Tan, son of President Tony Tan

Channel NewsAsia, S Ramesh, 20 Oct 2011

Singapore's Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said his ministry is acutely aware that all full-time NSmen must be treated equally, regardless of their background.

Dr Ng said the equal treatment for National Service (NS) has been and must remain a cardinal principle because without strict adherence to this fundamental tenet, the commitment to NS will be severely eroded and the institution of NS weakened.

Replying to questions in Parliament on the disruption of NS by Dr Patrick Tan, the son of President Tony Tan Keng Yam, Dr Ng said the disruption was in accordance with prevailing policies to obtain his medical degree. In addition, a longer period was granted to those admitted to US medical schools.

He assured Singaporeans that neither Dr Patrick Tan, nor any other individual who has disrupted their NS, was given any preferential treatment because of their "connections".

Some allegations that Dr Patrick Tan had received preferential treatment were made during the Presidential Election campaign in August.

Dr Ng said the policy to allow full-time national servicemen (NSFs) to disrupt for medical studies in Singapore dates back to 1973. Then, Singapore needed military doctors to serve in the Singapore Armed Forces, a policy which continues today for local medical graduates.

From 1981, this policy was extended to allow NSFs to study medicine overseas because the number of local graduates was insufficient. From 1981 to 1986, 38 NSFs were disrupted to go overseas.

This was further tightened in 1986 to take into account basic military training and their physical employment standards.

Dr Ng said 86 applicants were disrupted under this scheme. Among them was Dr Patrick Tan, who went to the United States to study medicine in 1988. Then, he had completed his Basic Military Training and was halfway through Officer Cadet School.

However, he added that from 1992, disruption for overseas medical studies was no longer allowed as the number of local medical graduates had met SAF's needs.

Government must evolve communications approach: Yaacob Ibrahim

TODAY, Esther Ng, 21 Oct 2011

With the population more educated and vocal, and younger Singaporeans more adept at using social media and receptive to all kinds of news and views, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Yaacob Ibrahim said the Government "must evolve its communications approach and style".

Addressing Parliament yesterday, he added: "Openness, empathy, responsiveness, authenticity and transparency are key pillars in good public communications. Guided by these principles, we can go a long way to expand public spaces to deliberate issues objectively and constructively, and more importantly address the challenges facing Singapore."

He said the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) will work closely with other ministries to ensure that the voices of Singaporeans are heard and considered in policy formulation. Dr Yaacob added that social media is a valuable platform that agencies can use to do this, and MICA is spearheading efforts to better equip public officers in social media engagement.

The levelling up of online engagement will serve to complement existing efforts and broaden the Government's communication outreach, Dr Yaacob said.

He also felt more can be done to boost the level of cyber literacy and etiquette among Singaporeans. Several Members of Parliament (MP), such as Ministers of State Amy Khor and Mr Lawrence Wong, had shared their concerns on the Internet becoming a "conduit for undesirable behaviour".

While many netizens were respectful of other Internet-users, Dr Yaacob noted some, hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, have been less than considerate, "posting comments that incite racial or religious animosity, spreading misinformation, and even cyber-stalking".

He cited the case of the two Singapore youths who had traded racially insensitive remarks on Facebook, making vulgar comments about each other's religions.

Dr Yaacob agreed with MP Lam Pin Min (Sengkang West) who earlier this week highlighted the need to enhance the "digital quotient" among Singaporeans, and said the community can play an important role in defining socially-acceptable norms.

"We hope to engage the community for their views and together build a culture of civility and responsible behaviour on the Internet, where a diversity of views can thrive for the benefit of all," he added.

Chan Chun Sing Sing maiden speech in Parliament on 18 October 2011

The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports will provide more help to high-risk families, the elderly and disabled, and is prepared to exercise greater flexibility at the margins and extend more support where needed, to ensure that those who genuinely need help do not fall between the cracks. This was announced by Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Chan Chun Sing in Parliament on 18 Oct.

Ag Minister Chan outlined three approaches to enhance the social safety net:

(i) helping “in-risk” groups, and preventing “at-risk” groups from falling into the former category;

(ii) improving social support and services in a more holistic and client-centric manner, focusing on the individual instead of the scheme; and

(iii) working towards better integration across different help agencies within the public-private-people sectors. 

Elaborating on plans to help the needy, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob said that the Government will strive for a “no wrong door policy”, which will enable those in need to receive help regardless of which government agency they initially approach. She added that assistance would be better synchronised through closer partnerships with key touch points such as Community Development Councils (CDCs) and Family Service Centres.

Even as the social safety net is reviewed in the longer term, MCYS will also gear up for short-term challenges that may arise as a result of the deteriorating global economy. As shared by Mdm Halimah, “We will refine our ComCare schemes to help those affected by the downturn. For example, for families that need more time to get back on their feet, we can be flexible in providing a longer period of assistance.” More resources will also be allocated to social service agencies to help them cope with increased workloads and potential drop in charity dollars during the downturn, and to CDCs which deal directly with residents and provide targeted help like job training and financial aid. 

On the issue of social cohesion, Mr Chan said that society must work together to prevent a permanent underclass from emerging in Singapore. “Even if the current generation cannot do as well, we must endeavour to help their next generation do better. Social mobility provides hope. Hope and shared vision underpin social cohesion. A country divided will collapse, even without external challenges.”

Tan Chuan-Jin's maiden Speech in Parliament, 19 October 2011

Minister of State Tan Chuan-Jin's Speech at the Parliamentary Debates on President's Speech 2011

WHY WE SERVE

Mr Speaker Sir,

I have not been to Bhutan. But I am very happy to congratulate you on your new appointment, and hope that you will be kind if we over step our time.

I have learnt many things since stepping forward to serve in this capacity as a new Member of Parliament. I have certainly learnt much from all of you here these few days and certainly from the next few days ahead.

I realise that, for one thing, there is great value in speaking earlier in the week. As I listen to each speech, I’m sure some of you are checking off at the same time, all the things that I was planning to say. When Denise Phua spoke of courage and doing the right things I checked it off. When Sylvia Lim spoke about Happiness and Our Pledge, I struck it off again and when Janil Puthucheary shared about pragmatism versus compassion, there goes another couple of points.

And my dilemma was…and I learnt this yesterday as well…. whether to fine-tune? Or should I throw the baby out of the bath water? Or was it with the bath water?

Well, whether ‘with’ or ‘of’, I thought Denise Phua put it best. Let your conscience guide you and do what is right. And may all of us be guided by our conscience in this House.

Let me register my respect and admiration for your passion in not just saying and criticising, because, really, anyone can do that, but in walking the talk. You push for specifics and you make things happen. You fight for those who are not able to fight for themselves.

Recently, a resident came to see me for assistance.

She is a young mother of three. She had to stop work at a fast food outlet suddenly because her older son, a young teenager, had enough and told her that he was not interested in helping to look after his younger siblings, both whom were very young. The middle child has some psychological problems as he was traumatized when her husband, his father, was arrested for drug related offences. He is jailed for 10 years.

The son had fallen into bad company in the neighbourhood while hanging out at the Internet café. But what struck me most about her was how strong spirited she was. She shared with me her joy in being able to work, to stand on her own two feet to provide for her family, however simple it may be.

But now, she was at a loss.

As we chatted, she confided that she had attempted suicide before but she had moved on and with steely-eyed determination, she emphasised that she would not go down that path again.

There was none of the griping, grumbling at the world nor a sense of entitlement. She asked me simply, almost apologetically, if there was anything I could do to assist her.

ISA still relevant in Singapore: DPM Teo Chee Hean

ISA still relevant in S'pore: DPM Teo
CNA, 19 Oct 2011

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean has told Parliament that the Internal Security Act (ISA) continues to be relevant to the country.

He explained that over the years, the government has used the ISA in good faith and in a measured way in the prevailing security situations it has had to face, keeping Singapore safe and its people secure.



Mr Teo said the government has used the ISA as a last resort when there is a significant threat and other laws are not adequate to deal with the situation.

He said: "The difficult decisions that a government has to make to protect its people must be made based on an individual country's context and circumstances at the time.

"In Singapore, we have a law called the ISA, which empowers the government to act, but it comes with a system of safeguards and provides the detainee certain rights which must be accorded to him."

Since Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that his country will be abolishing its Internal Security Act, there has been much debate on the future of the preventive detention law in Singapore.

Mr Teo made it clear that determining what is a security threat to Singapore that requires the use of the ISA requires judgement. That decision must be made by the elected government of the day, at the given time and based on the situation at hand.

He said the ISA allows the government to act quickly to prevent a threat from developing into something very serious such as a bombing, or to stem an organised pattern of subversion which promotes civil disturbances and disorder.

Mr Teo told Parliament that the government needed to use the ISA from the 1960s till the late 1980s to counter the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). In the 1990s, it was rarely used except in a handful of espionage cases.

Lawrence Wong's Maiden Speech in Parliament, 18 October 2011

Lawrence Wong is Minister of State for Defence & Education

Mr Speaker Sir, I support the motion of thanks to the President.

I was here in this House 5 years ago – but seated in the Gallery, as a civil servant, watching from the sidelines rather than participating in the debate.

I still remember the-then President warning that the global environment would change “rapidly and often unpredictably”. I don’t know what Mr Nathan had in mind when he said those words. But I don’t think he or anyone in this House could have anticipated what happened in the ensuing years. Globally, we lived through the biggest bank bail-out in history and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Singapore too suffered its worst recession since independence. 

Understandably, this roller-coaster ride caused anxieties for many Singaporeans. I’ve talked to many residents, first during the General Election, and then over the last few months, in my house visits and Meet the People Sessions. One experience with a 60-year-old resident stood out. I first met him shortly after I was elected as a Member of Parliament. My helpers warned me that this was going to be a difficult case. I looked at his case file – it was very thick. He had been coming to the MPS since 2009 when he lost his job as a driver. Since then, he had been looking for a job, but without any success. He was angry and lost his temper easily. But the anger stemmed from a deep sense of despair, hurt and hopelessness. I continued to see him several times over the past few months and provided him with temporary assistance through ComCare and NTUC vouchers. I also encouraged him to apply for a taxi licence, because he had driven a taxi many years ago.

Recently, he came to see me again. This time, he looked like a completely transformed person with a new lease of life – well-dressed, clean-shaven, and his hair properly combed for the first time. He then took out a freshly-minted taxi licence from his pocket and showed it to me. The pride and joy was visible on his face. I was delighted for him.  

But this resident is still not out of the woods. He has just started driving, and needs to earn enough money to pay off his outstanding debts. So he still has lingering anxieties and concerns about the future. And there are probably many others like him – people who have gone through the roller-coaster ride of the last 5 years. They do not feel that their lives have improved, and they worry about the unexpected twists and turns that may lie ahead. They see prices and bills going up, and worry about their future and their children’s future.