Parliament endorses Population White Paper
SINGAPORE: After five days of intense debate, Parliament on Friday
passed the amended motion to endorse the White Paper on Population
with 77 ayes and
13 nays.
Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Eugene Tan abstained from the
vote.
Workers' Party MP Low Thia Khiang called for division on the
amended motion to endorse the White Paper. In a division, the vote
of each Member is collected and tabulated through an electronic
voting system.
Other than opposition MPs, who all voted against
the motion, NMPs Faizah Jamal, Janice Koh
and Laurence Lian also voted 'no'.
The amendment, proposed by MP Liang Eng Hwa and passed by MPs,
among other things, explicitly states that the White Paper
"supports maintaining a strong Singaporean core by encouraging more
Singaporeans to get married and have children, supplemented by a
calibrated pace of immigration to prevent the citizen population
from shrinking".
"Although the Amended Motion captures some of the Workers' Party
concerns about the White Paper, fundamentally the White Paper still
forms the basis of the roadmap forward to 2030, which the House was
asked to endorse," said WP chairman Sylvia Lim in a
statement.
Explaining the party's reason for voting against the amended
motion, she said the party "believes that the path proposed by the
White Paper will further dilute the Singaporean core and weaken our
national identity" and lead the Republic to "require unsustainable
population injections in the future".
Ms Lim added that the party believes that the greater well-being of
Singaporeans "lies in sustainable economic growth driven by
increases in our productivity and in our resident workforce, rather
than further increases in our dependency on imported foreign
labour". Demographic challenges must be "addressed fundamentally
and urgently" but focusing on increasing the total fertility rate
and growing the resident labour force participation rate, she
said.
Earlier, both Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime
Minister Teo Chee Hean addressed the House.
Concerns over the impact on the Singaporean core and caps on the
foreign workforce were among the issues debated over the last five
days.
Speaking on a range of topics, Mr Lee pledged that Singaporeans
would not be "overwhelmed" by a flood of foreigners and sought to
assure Singaporeans that their interests are at the centre of all
the government's plans, and economic growth and population policies
are just a means to improving citizens'
well-being.
Over the next few years, the conversation on population will
continue, said Mr Lee. He listed three areas for discussion:
marriage & parenthood, the economy and the Singapore
identity.
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