Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong:
On S’pore having a minority-race Prime Minister:
“Can we one day have a non-Chinese, a Malay-Muslim Prime Minister? It’s possible. Will it happen soon? I don’t think so because finally you have to win votes and these sentiments. Who votes for whom and what makes him identify with that person? These are sentiments that do not disappear completely for a long time, even if people did not talk about it or even if people wish they did not feel it.”
On foreign workers and retrenchments:
“If we just send away the foreign workers now, it will do us harm. For example – companies which are already in difficulty and they hire half foreign workers and half Singaporeans and you tell them that foreign workers must go out. And when you take Singaporeans, his cost will go up and the company may close. And if the company closes, even the half who have jobs may lose their jobs.
“So I don’t think it’s that simple. You send out the foreign workers and the Singaporeans will take over the jobs and you get paid more. I think our interest is to protect the Singaporeans and look after the Singaporeans but we must do it intelligently, we cannot just react and do something without thinking.” (Channel NewsAsia)
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In a system where the PM is ‘elected’ by the Members of Parliaments, it sounds strange to hear that a possible candidate, one that is capable and with a proven track record, may not come soon as the candidate has “to win votes and sentiments”.
Whose votes are these? Aren’t the parliamentarians the only ones here electing the PM? Are we hearing that the highly educated and capable elected Members of Parliaments here are still voting along the racial sentimental lines?
i have a bone to pick about the minority pm issue. doesnt that then go against the fundamental values of “meritocracy” portrayed by the govt? that anyone with the desire and capacity to achieve can do so within the system? Is the pm trying to say that the meritocracy is faulty because people cannot vote on criteria other than race? The pledge of this nation clearly states that we should unite “regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society”. Anyone who says that pledge and believes in its values should be ashamed if they cannot see beyond race when looking at someone to lead. Do we from the minority races tell our children “i’m sorry, but even the man doing the job now says that he doesn’t think you can make it to his job anytime soon because of your ethnic background which makes you disadvantaged”?
I strongly believe that we should instead look to Obama’s win just this week to inspire the spirit of our future leaders. You should be judged based on your substance and not your race or any other factor. The people of Singapore should get this message if we are to progress as a first world nation.
this statements, again while unsavoury, are truisms in itself: there are deep-seated prejudices and perceptions that requires to be surmounted before a minority candidate can realize his dream of becoming a prime minister. yes, we vote along racial lines, political parties dissect votes across racial lines, so the entire nation is still bogged down by the entire race issue. and this is not any candidate we are talking about voting, but the pm-designate. will people be receptive to a party who is led by a minority candidate? we haven’t had the litmus test yet. but what lee hsien loong says is probably empty but true: yes, a minority pm is possible – but not anytime soon.
to prove him wrong, get a minority candidate to helm a party and run. and win.
his second statement is another truism: you cannot kick the foreigners out. yes, they are taking our jobs, yes they undercut our salaries, yes they are taking our university places. but being protectionist is a laughable idea. as much as it galls us to have to admit other citizens at the expense of our own, practicality and viability cannot be ignored. globalization runs at its own pace, and our rejection of it would not ameliorate our living conditions.
i’ve been a frequent reader of the toc, and i am really quite surprised at the increasingly strident protectionist tone this site is adopting. i know that it reflects the sentiments of most singaporeans, but please do what’s right and not what’s popular.
when a PM says things like: “I think our interest is to protect the Singaporeans and look after the Singaporeans but we must do it intelligently, we cannot just react and do something without thinking.”
does it mean that they usually don’t look after Singaporeans and they usually do things without thinking haha we should sack the PM’s media checker
““I think our interest is to protect the Singaporeans and look after the Singaporeans but we must do it intelligently, we cannot just react and do something without thinking.”
If what this Joker says is true, Well, compare to Singpaore, Hong Kong government must be stupid and without brain to help the burnt investors against DBS’s minibomb because the gov is just reacted to do something without thinking.
Intelligently ? Who side to apply ? Your business or citizen ? You mean at the business side to use divide and conquer to slaughter the investor ?
Who are Singaporeans that are protected and look after ? The business-man of DBS or the citizen ?
PM, stop been a clown by putting ambiguous meanings behind your statement.
Most Singaporeans aren’t stupid anymore.
Kicking out the foreign workers to get jobs back for Singaporean? This is going to be a tough call.
We need to analyze why foreign workers can take up jobs with pay that is 30% or so lower than Singaporean. Don’t they need to eat, pay for transport, pay for room rental etc? Well the difference is that the pay that they are getting here is still substantially more comparing it with what they get in their home country. Thus to them is still a very good pay. But we Singaporean compare the pay with what? There is no comparison. The foreign workers can work her for 4-5 years, save a good sum of money and go home as a rich man. But can we do the same?
“I think” usually means ‘not sure’, ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’.
Well, by possible it can mean that Jeyakumar takes over when young lee is KIAed..
To Mr Singlish
The problem is Singaporeans treat Singapore as home, they need to buy a house, provide for their parents, and children’s education and therefore their overall expenses are higher. The foreign workers, many of them are here alone and prepared to fly by nite, and therefore they will work as long as the pay is substantially higher than their home country. Being Singaporean, our fault?
As usual, the PM must be talking rubbish again.
Otherwise, how does one explain how
JBJ, an ethnic Indian, won the Anson by-election; and
David Marshall, an ethnic Jew, was our first chief minister.
Three words that refute claims that Singaporeans are racist in their voting: Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam.
Also I find his argument for foreign workers remarkably naive for someone who is supposed to be so highly educated. It sounds like the argument a taxi driver would make. Come to think of it, I have heard far more reasoned arguments from taxi drivers. Now I was from a “foreign worker” family. My dad came here on an employment pass, we became PRs, I served my NS and became Singaporean (despite being rejected for citizenship once when I applied after my NS, and no I had no disciplinary record there, so the myth that PRs who do NS automatically get citizenship is also false. They expected me to defend Singapore despite rejecting my citizenship application. Go figure.). Today I am a Singaporean, like my entire family and I do like to think I paid my dues and this is my home. Anyway I digress.
I have heard every argument there is against ‘foreign workers’, and more than once have faced really rude people on MRTs insulting me for my country of origin and being told ‘go back to f***ing Bangladesh’ (despite the fact that I am not from there). I am sure I am not the only one. Foreign workers come here and want to provide a better life for their families, and are human beings too. The pay here for my dad was decent but not enough to go back as a ‘rich man’. He wanted to provide a better life for us and hence chose to leave his job there to come here, like so many thousands of immigrants who came to Singapore in the 19th and early 20th century. I don’t buy the argument that most foreign workers treat Singapore as a place to just work and then go back. Given a choice most of them would want to bring their families here and settle down, but they can’t given the amount of hardship they face even getting to Singapore. So for them it’s a catch 22. When working here they are told that they are taking jobs away from Singaporeans, but when they want to work and contribute to the economy, and put their roots here, they face a lot of xenophobia and almost a sense of hatred amongst locals and asked to go home, and when they do, are accused of just making money and leaving. i.e. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. How many of us seriously, are willing to work cleaning out sewage drains or clearing HDB block rubbish or cut grass or do dangerous work like prune trees or construction work? Yet how do we treat them? We treat them almost like subhumans. So many of them have suffered injuries doing dangerous work, live in squalor (just walk into a dorm in little India to see how many squeeze into a room), some of them have to sell their bodies for a living (a trip to Orchard Towers or Geylang can be very illuminating, seeing young women virtually forced to satisfy the sexual desire of perverts), and on top of all that are subject to second class treatment wherever they go. Would any Singaporean (myself included) be willing to put up with that?
If the government wants fewer foreign immigrants, it should simply legislate that companies pay them the same as Singaporeans. That would remove the incentive for companies to hire them over locals. Anger against the foreign workers is both self-defeating and misguided. Remember, at one point all our ancestors were ‘foreign workers’.
Come on Singapore, wake up and be realistic……
As long as there is Change for the better, any color is fine with me. Any color.
So the PM says that the cost for a company to hire singaporean is more than a foreign talent or foreign worker…
hmm…what is that extra cost? employer CPF? NS liabilities? the high standard of living, thus requiring a higher pay? higher corporate tax? high office rent?
is a singaporean software engineer worse than an Indian engineer? if less capable, why? are our universities not producing top-class engineers?
what about the benefit of hiring a Singaporean versus a foreign talent? i’m sure there are.
Could the govt be in a position that can help REDUCE the cost for a company to hire Singaporeans? or, if a company hires more Singaporeans, could the govt offer the company other operating cost reductions?
The point i’m bringing up is that whatever costs, what shortcomings of hiring Singaporeans over foreigners, can be changed through policies and legislation.
How much is Singapore govt tyring to support its people, or is the Singapore govt more concerned about supporting business?
i think its sad that the PM was able to say this, without anyone challenging him more – either in parliament, or via press, or via any other means. I know we’re paying for the best leadership in Singapore – but even the best can be questioned, right?
“And when you take Singaporeans, his cost will go up and the company may close. And if the company closes, even the half who have jobs may lose their jobs. ”
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Hearing this left me with the following questions:
1. Will this give the MNCs a good reason or excuse to hire foreigners instead of locals?
2. Does it indicate that singaporean workers are over-valued or non-deserving of current pay?
3. Does foreigners need to pay for extremely high price HDB, Cars and ERP? Do they need employers to pay mandatory CPF ? Lets say for same position, foreigners earning 80% of local pay. Local spends the extra 20% on HDB . That makes it even. Or should locals accept foreigner pay , that is 20% pay cut and use this salary to pay the HDB?
4. If a problem is mentioned, what is the next needful thing to do? Provide a Solution correct or not?
Today, I am saddened by some words spoken by some man.
Give me another choice and I’ll take it.
I am convinced that Singapura should one day have a Malay PM and President because of its Geographical location.
As long as he provides me a non-malay a Choice, I will choose him.
the constraint i see now is the lack of choices.
In times like these and all the issues that surfaced. What has alternative party done? I have no clue.
So, give me another choice, I will choose him Malay or not Malay, it does not really matter to me more than having a choice.
Selamat wong – the ultimate accountable accountant of the 1st class honors fahrenheit not degrees
Just one comment:
Protectionist policies are not the way to go but there is clearly a genuine problem in Singapore if Singapore workers are worried about their jobs being taken by foreign workers.
I noted with interest that when Obama was running his successful campaign, he did not say ‘Send home the foreign workers’. He said ‘job creation’ and the immediate urgent task is to create new jobs for Americans.
So perhaps in Singapore, there must be something worryingly wrong if Singapore workers are so petrified. Maybe it is because there is no message of hope from the Government for them? Perhaps it might sound silly in bad economic times to talk about job creation but I think the American economy is in worse shape with lots of retrenchment and high levels of unemployment but the message is couched positively: Job Creation, not get rid of foreign workers….
Maybe the Singapore Government needs to learn how to say ‘Yes, we can’ rather than telling people ‘No, we cannot’.
One other comment on a minority-race PM.
Anyone looking at our political system will be well aware that the people of Singapore have never ever had any choice of who the PM is. Singaporeans only vote for the politican parties and the winning political party then chooses the PM. If that is so, then the question of whether Singapore will have a minority-race PM appears to be within the perogative of the winning party (which for many years is the PAP). So isn’t it really up to them whether we will see a minority-race PM?
Afterall, none of the past few PMs have been chosen by the people, strictly speaking..haha
USA changed president.
Would that not bring down the entire USA?
Even 8 years of Bush and Iraq war did not bring down USA.
Which country leader no change for many decades in a row?
USA Changed.
TW Changed.
PH Changed.
NZ Changed.
UK Changed.
AUS Changed.
MY Changed.
FR Changed.
?? can Change ?
APATHY ensures no change. Just my 1 cent.