CannotTahan, whenever it has come to explaining and justifying
its decisions and actions, such as NS, GST, ERP and government
salaries to name a few, the government has always taken the stand
that it bases decisions on necessity. That being the case, why
would the Singaporean government try to attract overseas
Singaporeans back if it was simply out of generousity instead of
necessity? It's simply out of character for them.
I left Singapore in 1994, well before foreign talents became a
debated issue. However, if I was to have left more recently, it
would be the pull factor of Australia rather than the push factor
from Singapore that would have driven my decision.
Still, let's say for example that you have a point and that FTs are
a cause of migration out of Singapore. That point in itself defeats
the "second-class citizen" argument against migration, does it not?
The first-class Singaporean citizen sees the second-class foreign
talent coming in, making good money and having a nice life. Why,
then should the Singaporean not want to take a stab at being a
comfortably and happy second-class citizen somewhere else?
Over more than half a century, Australia has received waves of
immigrants, starting with the Greeks and Italians, then the
Vietnamese, then the Southeast Asians, Eastern Europeans and
Africans. Over that period there have been a number of lean
periods, none of which resulted in any backlash towards the
immigrant population.
I'm sure at this point somebody's going to mention the Cronulla
riots as an instance of racial disharmony in Australia, but that
had nothing at all to do with the foreign talents issue. The
impetus there was that a mob of Lebanese youths had finally worn
out their welcome at Cronulla by beating up a lifeguard and
harrassing women at the beach for years - even Lebanese women have
outright said that these youths were offensive.
