SDP puts out own 'White
Paper'
By ROBIN CHAN
THE Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has responded to the
Government's Population White Paper with a proposal that it
believes will shrink the number of people here.
While both the White Paper and the Workers' Party
alternative plan propose varying degrees of population growth over
the next two decades, the SDP wants to reduce the 5.3 million
people who are here now.
The 38-page paper provides six recommendations to
present a "new approach" to Singapore's population challenges.
"What we are advocating is that the current
population level of 5.3 million can and should be reduced because
of all the current problems we are seeing," said SDP chief Chee
Soon Juan at the launch of the paper at Bras Basah Complex.
"And if we don't take care of these problems right
now, we are going to see them coming back to haunt us."
The release of SDP's paper comes a week after
Parliament passed the White Paper on Population with a vote of 77
to 13.
Titled "Building A People: Sound Policies For A
Secure Future", it makes controlling immigration the focus of its
alternative policy proposals.
Among them is a stringent points-based system to
control the quality and quantity of foreign professionals called
the Talent Track Scheme.
It would require all potential foreign job seekers
to be assessed and given points based on a set of criteria,
including age, number of dependants, qualifications and level of
skill, in order to get permission to work here, get permanent
resident status or citizenship.
This will be supplemented by what the party calls
fair employment laws such as a minimum wage of $7 an hour and a tax
on a foreign worker's income instead of a levy.
It says the measures may be able to reduce the
number of low-skilled foreign workers from about 900,000 today, to
300,000 to 450,000 by 2020.
Another proposal in its paper is to develop a
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) to be used alongside the
conventional gross domestic product.
The Singapore GPI would measure the performance of
a basket of indicators across economic, social, security and
environmental needs.
Eventually the party believes it should also be
used as a benchmark for ministerial and civil servant pay.
The paper was presented by party treasurer Vincent
Wijeysingha and Mr Jeremy Chen, an SDP member and PhD candidate at
the Department of Decision Sciences at the National University of
Singapore.
Home, The Straits Times, Friday, February 15 2013, Pg B5
