Mr Speaker Sir, First and foremost, I wish to express my greatest appreciation to all the healthcare and other frontline workers whose hard work enabled our lives to continue throughout the pandemic.  Without them, we would not have been able to pull through this crisis.  I hope we will not forget that and will recognize their contribution by improving their remunerations and working conditions.   The White Paper has laid out a self-appraisal of our handling of the pandemic.  I wish to add on in areas that I felt had not been addressed or insufficiently. Firstly, was t ..read more

Mr Chairman, The PSP has recommended the Affordable Homes Scheme (AHS) and the Millennial Apartments Scheme to deliver affordable and accessible public housing to Singaporeans of current and future generations. I am sure Singaporeans will be excited to be able to buy a new flat in Tengah at $140,000 under the AHS and live in it for their entire lives without having to pay land cost, instead of paying $350,000 under the current BTO scheme.  The lower housing costs under AHS will allow Singaporeans to afford housing without depleting their CPF savings. They can look forward to a comfortabl ..read more

Mr Chairman, I refer to the recently released interim report of the Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness. PSP has high hopes of the Committee, which was set up just before our debate on Foreign Talent Policy in September 2021, but we have found the interim report to be inadequate in at least two areas. We hope the Committee will consider and incorporate our views in the final report. First, there is inadequate focus on the job security of Singaporeans. The report noted that the most common form of workplace discrimination is nationality which accounts for close to 60% of the complaints r ..read more

Mr Chairman, I have several questions pertaining to CPF contributions for platform workers. It has been announced that transitional assistance will be provided to platform workers who earn below $2500 to help them cope with the new requirement to contribute CPF.  However, those earning above $2500 will also have difficulty adjusting to a lower take home pay.  Will MOM be implementing the employee contribution in phases to give them more time to adjust?  Secondly, those aged above 30 can opt out of making CPF contributions.  If a platform worker opts out, does this mean the ..read more

Mr Chairman, First of all, I declare that I run an education company operating education centres and a private school. Allow me to quote extracts from Everychild.sg’s White Paper developed by Singaporean parents: “…the cultural norm among many Singaporean families is for a parent … to plan to take time off during the child’s PSLE year, rather than during the first 1 – 2 years of the child’s life… many Singaporean parents … prioritising giving their child undivided attention at the age of 11/12, which appears to the child to be tied to performance expectations, rather than the more unconditiona ..read more

Mr Chairman, I have questions for the Minister of Finance.  Firstly, the $1.4 billion termination payment for the Sports Hub was advanced from the Contingencies Fund and this House is now being asked to vote on replacing the amount in a Supplementary Supply Bill. The Contingencies Fund was created for urgent and unforeseen expenditure. Was the termination payment for the Sports Hub truly so urgent that it had to be advanced from the Contingencies Fund and not paid out of Budget 2023? Secondly, where and when was the $900 million earmarked for SPH Media Trust accounted for? Third, how doe ..read more

Mr Chairman, Two weeks ago, on 6 Feb, Minister Indranee answered Parliamentary Questions on the decision not to prosecute the KOM executives involved in a corruption case. She said that it was standard practice not to issue any statement if law enforcement agencies decided not to proceed after an investigation.  But if anyone has questions on the decision, the matter can be raised in Parliament. However, the answers given by her in Parliament were far from satisfactory. US succeeded in prosecuting KOM and imposed a huge fine of US$422m. But we were told CPIB is unable to find sufficient e ..read more

Mr Speaker Sir, We welcome the financial assistance that the DPM has announced in Budget 2023 to help Singaporeans cope with the rising cost of living and inflation.  However, we are not sure whether more of the same short-term, ad hoc financial assistance will strengthen the resilience of Singaporeans and help them move forward in a new era.  The dozens of short-term handouts like CDC vouchers, Assurance Payout, Cost of Living Special Payment, Public Transport Vouchers and so on, are more likely to breed dependency (“What’s in it for me?”) but unlikely to strengthen resilience. We ..read more

Mr Speaker, It was announced that the grant for resale HDB flats will be increased in order to make resale flats more affordable for first timers. This is exactly the price spiral I spoke about during the debate on public housing 2 weeks ago.  The resale grant will push up demand for resale flats and therefore increase resale prices, which would later necessitate a further increase in resale grant, feeding into a continuous price spiral.  More tax revenue would also be needed to fund the additional grants.  As land cost is determined based on resale transactions, the increase in ..read more

Mr Speaker Sir,   I thank the Ministers, Senior Minister of State, Minister of State and Members for making so many contributions which have enabled us to have a lively debate on public housing. I have certainly learned a lot from this debate because the rebuttal points have been specific and substantial. While we may differ in our policy ideas and recommendations, all of us in this House share a common objective of keeping public housing affordable and accessible for Singaporeans. I also agree with Ms Janet Ang that we are here to unite and not divide but that is provided the Gover ..read more