By Jeanette
Tan | Yahoo!
Newsroom – 14 hours ago
Former National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan has
called for Singapore to continue bringing in more foreign labour in
the coming years — as much as the country’s resources are able to
sustain.
Speaking for the first time in Parliament this week as debate on
the government’s population white paper neared the close of the
third day, Mah said Singapore’s continued ability to attract
foreigners will ensure its sustained
competitiveness.
Saying it was quite clear that Singapore cannot be as open as
before due to resource constraints and time needed for people to
adjust, Mah also argued that to be totally closed even for a few
years as the Worker's Party suggested would lead to lost jobs, and
businesses leaving and unlikely to return.
"...[W]hich leaves us with a balanced option: let in some foreign
labour to supplement our local workforce but not as much as before.
Business will want more, some people will want less — the numbers
can be calibrated," he said.
“I support this. I say go for the maximum that our resources —
land, water, energy — can support, whatever that number is. It
shows that Singapore is an attractive place, a thriving, vibrant
city, one where people want to come here to live and work and
play," he
declared.
“If we lose our competitiveness, our verve and vitality, our
cohesion and confidence, not only will we not have foreigners
wanting to come here; our own sons and daughters will leave for a
better life,” he added.
Mah cautioned that after spending a lot of time “looking inwards,
talking about our discomforts, our space”, the debate has not yet
posed the question of how Singapore will compete with the outside
world, something Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong alluded to
as well when he spoke earlier Wednesday.
“It is almost taken for granted that the good life will continue
even if growth slows,” he said. “We expect more infrastructure to
be rolled out even as growth slows — more houses, more rail lines.
We want more subsidies for healthcare and housing, but please,
let’s have less foreign workers and a slower pace of
life.
“Where will the revenue from all this come from?” he asked, citing
a footnote in the White Paper which said the government’s revenue
comes from income, consumption and asset taxes, all of which are
dependent on economic growth.
“I believe size matters. I believe we need a bigger population with
better-educated and trained citizens, as well as talented
non-residents to supplement our home-grown talent," he
said.
The former cabinet minister spent some time speaking at length
about the external challenges he perceives important to Singapore —
from the more than 6 million university graduates who emerge from
various parts of China every year to whether or not Europe will be
able to recover from its economic woes.
In these, he stressed the importance of “rid(ing) the wave with
them and not be(ing) caught in the tide and
drown(ing)”.
“We are still a small city state — in fact, we are tiny city
state,” he said. “We still have no oil or gas or gold or diamonds.
Politics has entered a new normal, but we need to earn our living
through wits and hard work, and our need to be useful to the world
— that hasn’t changed.”
He also called the debate on the 6.9-million projection figure a
“semantics trap”, saying the number has been called many things: a
target, a possibility, a projection, and a worst-case
scenario.
“We have been caught in a semantics trap — in other words, what was
said has been taken to mean something other than what was intended.
People believe what they choose to believe,” he said, adding his
worry that members of the House “are not being fair to
(them)selves” when debate places excessive focus on the
number.
“Population is not an exact science; it’s never been... frankly,
right now it’s hard to convince people that the White Paper is on
the right track, or people cannot understand why we are talking
about bringing in more people when in their own day-to-day
experience they feel the squeeze on trains and buses,” he
said.
Mah joined a growing group of MPs petitioning that the government
conduct a review of the White Paper assumptions in five years’
time, so that citizens will see a clearer picture of how things
have changed — whether congestion is easing up, housing prices have
stabilised, fertility rate is going up, and whether companies can
be more productive and cope with less foreign
labour.
“Will these happen? And if so, by how much? It would be a much more
informed and meaningful debate by then.”
Mah’s speech comes at a politically volatile time for the
ruling People’s Action Party,
which is facing grief from Singapore citizens at its handling of
the massive influx of foreigners in recent years that has diluted
what is now being dubbed the “Singapore core” — the pool of
Singapore-born and bred citizens — as the city-state continues to
struggle with an ageing population and one of the lowest total
fertility rates on the world.
))))))))))))
No shame ah, kena voted out still
wanna talk cock. Voted out , he has
nocredibility.
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