At this late stage of the debate on the Presidents Address, I will focus on the coming security challenges, and evolving the political system including responding to the Prime Ministers Statement yesterday on changes to the system.
The coming security challenges
The security landscape of Singapore is set to become more demanding than ever in the coming months.
The opening of the 2 integrated resorts with casinos is just a few months away. This event has the potential to threaten the quality of life in Singapore for all of us if mishandled from a law and order perspective.
I am aware that the law enforcement agencies have been making extensive preparations for this event. The casinos will demand tremendous resources towards meeting criminal activity of an unprecedented nature in Singapore. Indeed, the MHA Addenda states that the Ministry is studying how overseas organisations deal with transnational crimes and criminal organisations, and strengthening measures against loan shark activity. It is foreseeable that police would need to have heavy presence both inside and outside the casinos, both in uniform and plainclothes, to battle the problems caused by foreign gangs, prostitution, illegal money-lending, money-laundering, casino fraud, robberies and thefts, among others. These are complex problems and our approach must be wholehearted from the beginning, otherwise it will be much more difficult to recover if organised crime takes root here.
In 2005 when the casinos were debated in the House and among the public, thousands such as the group called Families against the Casino Threat in Singapore (FACTS) campaigned against them. The government assured Singaporeans that measures would be put in place to reduce the collateral damage to society which the casinos would bring. The Home Affairs Minister told Singaporeans that the Ministry would do its best to keep Singapore safe and secure, which would need adequate resources.
Last August, when the House debated an adjournment motion on security lapses, the Second Home Affairs Minister showed a table of police-officer to population ratio in Singapore, Hongkong and New York. Singapore was seen to have the smallest ratio at 239 officers per 100,000 population, which was 60% of Hongkongs ratio and 55% of New Yorks ratio. We were also told of huge numbers of ovetime hours clocked by Immigration officers. At that time, without counting the added demands of having the casinos, it was already acknowledged that the Home Team was stretched and strained, and unable to clear their leave, leading to a Human Factors study on operational fatigue within the Home Team. This study confirmed work overload and understaffing in several areas, even before the casinos are functional.
Since preparations for the casinos commenced, there has been further draw down on manpower as experienced officers have been drawn from other units to man the new units in charge of casino-related matters.
Meanwhile, our population of 4.84 million is expected to continue to grow, to a capacity of 6 million eventually. This population also has a high percentage of foreigners who bring new law enforcement challenges due to language and lifestyle differences.
In addition, on the community policing front, there is a public perception that police presence in housing estates has dropped from the levels in the 1990s when the Neighbourhood Police Posts were in full swing. This can be explained by the fall in intimate patrols such as foot and bicycle patrols, fewer house visits, and shortened NPP hours.
MHAs Addenda states that it will recruit 1,500 additional officers into the Home Team as a whole, with these officers being spread to police, immigration and other units. Will this be sufficient to meet the challenges in the coming months and years? How does this figure compare with the findings of the Human Factors Study? Will Singaporeans find that the spillover effects from the casino were not sufficiently contained because of inadequate resources, leading to a deterioration in the quality of life in Singapore? The government must make these answers known in the coming months.
Evolving the political system
The Member for Hougang has already touched some aspects of why the existing political system cannot be said to be robust. He cited how the executive government controlled Parliament due to its overwhelming majority and why the only real check on the ruling party had to come from outside it through elected opposition Members.
Our firm belief is that it is the threatened or actual loss of elected seats which will temper the dominance of the ruling Party. More than any Parliamentary debate, this threat of loss of territory reminds the government of where its mandate comes from and that they govern at the will of the people. It also enables opposition MPs to prove that they are able to take care of constituents and work with them directly to improve their lives.
Some PAP members in this House have different views and they all believe that continued domination of the PAP in political, social and economic arenas of our society is the best way forward and best assurance of the future of Singapore. Some PAP MPs also believe that the PAPs self checks to ensure a clean and non-corrupt government is the most viable approach, as opposition parties may becomes corrupt when they take over the government. We believe we can leave it to Singaporeans to judge and to decide whether they agree with this thesis.
I would like now to respond to the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday on changes to the political system.
Overall, my distinct impression is that the ruling party now realises that it has gone too far with the GRC system, and that this has affected the political development of its own MP s. The ruling party may also realise that the demise of the Opposition is not good for the PAP nor for Singapore.
Let me now move to the specific changes announced.
First, the proposals regarding the size of electoral constituencies. It is natural to welcome the formation of more SMCs, from the legal limit of 8 to 12. The Workers’ Party’s position still remains that we should revert the entire system to SMCs. Though the PAP’s claim is that GRCs ensure minority representation, we have seen that in Singapore’s past, minority candidates were elected as individuals, without any need for such affirmative actions. The PAP’s own minority Ministers and MP s, and the late Workers’ Party Secretary-General JB Jeyaretnam, are testament to this. Be that as it may, this increase from 8 to 12 is a step in the right direction as far as we are concerned.
Next, the indication that the size of GRCs will be reduced overall is overdue. It will ensure that each candidate identifies more with the voters and is more accountable for outcomes. It also lowers the barrier for electoral competition, which should in theory increase the likelihood of contest and enable more people to vote. However, this will mean extensive reconfigurations of existing boundaries, which will cause confusion among voters and affect the work of political parties. As such, the new configurations should be made and justified many months in advance of the elections.
I next refer to the proposal to assure at least 9 opposition members in Parliament through the NCMP scheme, up from the current legal default minimum of 3. Though this can never replace having elected opposition MPs, it is overall supportable because it will give greater recognition to the desire of voters who cast votes for opposition candidates in significant numbers, which would otherwise be shut out in a pure first-past-the-post system. It will also facilitate opposition parties serving the people in Parliament based on results obtained at General Elections.
Regarding the NMP scheme, the Workers’ Party continues to be against the scheme as we believe that MP s must contest the election as an essential precondition, to obtain some sort of mandate from the people.
There are still other unsatisfactory aspects of elections in Singapore which we believe should be changed. These include removing the Prime Ministers Office from being in charge of elections and having an independent elections commission, and having greater transparency and public accountability in the way the electoral boundaries are drawn.
Nevertheless, overall, the Workers’ Party believes that the changes announced yesterday are improvements over the current system.
Finally, Sir, as the ultimate beneficiaries of such changes should be the people and not political parties, the people’s views on these changes should be actively sought before they are finalised.
