Ruling party remains unreceptive to alternative views, WP new faces charge
Workers’ Party candidate Gerald Giam introducing his team-mates for East Coast GRC (from left) Mr Mohamed Fairoz Shariff, Dr Daniel Goh and Mr Leon Perera at the rally in Simei yesterday. Dr Goh spoke against the PAP’s vision of a ‘future-ready’ population and economy. Photo: Ray Chua
SINGAPORE — The new faces of the Workers’ Party took to the podium yesterday with calls for the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to remove its “binary worldview” towards governance and development in Singapore.
While acknowledging the good intentions behind several government policies, for example, in building up a two-third Singaporean core in the workforce, promoting bilingualism and building hawker centres, the WP candidates also hit out at the PAP as a “crushingly dominant” party unreceptive of alternative views.
Mom-and-pop businesses and heritage landmarks such as the old National Library and Bukit Brown were some of the things that had to make way for the PAP’s “single-minded pursuit of development”, Nee Soon GRC candidate Ron Tan said.
He also pointed to the dilution of the hawker culture and dialects as two other examples of how the PAP’s “narrow definition of progress” comes at a cost, with communities lost and attachments weakened.
While hawker centres were created as common spaces for Singaporeans to congregate and forge a national identity, they were not managed well because inflated rentals due to subletting, which were stopped only in 2012, had made it difficult for hawkers, he said.
And because of the eradication of dialects, Mr Tan said many children could not hold conversations with their grandparents: “This makes me sad. I wonder how many stories and lessons on values and morals were lost because of this.”
While dialects have made a comeback in the government materials to promote policies, “it’s too late”, he charged in Hokkien.
“The PAP’s black-and-white, us-and-them, binary worldview has brought great progress in some areas. We are economically first in the world, but culturally we have become poorer,” he said.
Seeing the world in binary form is a “convenient narrative” for the PAP to retain its monopoly, he said. “Do you think you need more Opposition voices in Parliament to cure the PAP’s binary vision?” he asked the crowd.
The PAP’s vision of a “future-ready” population and economy in which foreign talent features prominently is another that needs to change, according to WP candidate Daniel Goh, who has been among the most vocal in the party on population policies.
“The problem with a future-ready approach is that the Government will not appreciate the deep skills of many jobs. (It) treats administrators, managers and planners as highly-skilled,” he said. “But when it comes to middle-tier workers with deep skills, the future-ready approach treats them as replaceable with cheaper foreign labour,” he added, cautioning that Singaporeans may be transformed into “ever-learning machines guided by a small pool of talents”.
The Population White Paper hit a raw nerve for him when it mistakenly referred to nursing as a “low-skilled job” — for which the Prime Minister apologised. Dr Goh, who recalled the kindness, charity and humanity his mother demonstrated as a nurse, said: “Singaporean nurses are the true talents that make our healthcare systems work.”
He called for the Republic to adopt a “talent-ready approach” instead, whereby non-professional Singaporean workers such as cleaners and gardeners are also regarded as talent and respected.
“In a talent-ready approach, the Government will support institutions that will empower us to become talents. The Government will foster a talent-ready society that frees the people to excel in diverse ways,” he added.
One of the problems with the PAP, charged Mr Leon Perera, Dr Goh’s team-mate standing in East Coast, is that it claims credit for things that go right, but when things go wrong, they are “airbrushed from history”, citing MRT breakdowns and foreign worker policies as examples. “Is this never-ending self-congratulation healthy for our country ... This is going to breed complacency. Ultimately, it will lead to the decline of Singapore,” said Mr Perera.
The PAP expects voters’ “blind faith” by not presenting specific plans for future years, he said and compared this with the WP’s proposals so far, with which people were free to disagree.
“The entire PAP campaign in this General Election is all backward-looking, designed to make you think that this election is about the past 50 years. But you’re voting for the PAP leaders today, not the PAP leaders 50 years ago,” he said.
Referring to the WP’s proposal of cross-partisan public consultation committees that debate Bills, Mr Perera said this would allow for “free and fair debate about Singapore’s problems and solutions”. “Not one where we only hear the good stuff,” he added.
