Outline of Min\(Cys\)'S Speech
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Speech by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports at the Committee of Supply Sitting 2008, 5 March 2008, 2.15pm Preamble 1. Mr. Chairman, Members of this House, this is my fourth occasion as Minister of MCYS. Each year, the MCYS COS debate gets longer. This year, we budgeted 6 hours and 35 minutes. I don’t intend to go as long as that and with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I intend to wrap up the MCYS COS debate by this evening. 2. What I have just circulated to Members are a series of handouts. They are handouts as in attachments, not money. They summarise the progress of our initiatives last year and what we will do this year. 3. Before I attempt to answer some of the urgent questions Members have asked, I would first like to share a personal story. 4. Exactly 80 years ago, a young man on business trip to China fell ill. That young man was my grandfather. When he passed away 80 years ago, he left behind a young widow. This young widow had two children and was on the verge of delivering the third child, my mum. 5. You can imagine the deep grief of a young widow. Back then, there was no MCYS, no Public Assistance, and no ComCare support. Nevertheless, her two brothers gave her an allowance. She was not penniless but money was tight. 6. My mum had a tough life. She could never really enjoy taking luxury. She worked hard. She became a teacher. It was not easy even near the end of her teaching career. And in those days, MOE was not as enlightened as it is now. 7. My uncle went on to become a doctor and became a GP in Albert Street. Those of you who know him know that he never took a single day off. 8. Why am I sharing this story? I want you to get a sense of what I am feeling, of my innermost attitudes toward poverty, toward family, toward social safety nets. I want to express what I bring to bear on the policies I make in MCYS and what I have learnt. 9. Firstly, life can be tough, life can be unfair, and life is unpredictable. Bad things can happen to good decent people. Regardless of this, we all need hope. The second thing I have learnt is that you need family support. Let us not even talk about MCYS first. The very first foundation is family support. Who is going to be there for you when you need help? The third lesson is that it is all about discipline and hard work. No matter how wealthy you are, if we lose that discipline or work ethic, we will fail. 10. At least for me, my mum has successfully transmitted those values. The question now is whether our youth born in the times of plenty spend more time thinking about how to spend their inheritance compared with our parents’ generation. Page 1 of 9 11. At the end of day, while money is important, it is also not enough. All the wealth in the world will not buy you success. Nor will it eliminate all the social problems in the world. 12. Let me ask you, is the real problem the lack of money? Is it the poverty of material wealth or is it usually the poverty of relationships? Those of us who live long enough will agree the long-term problem is a poverty of relationships. We all need families, we need friends. And it is not just about families. We also want a caring, compassionate society. We will fail if society degenerates into nothing more than a society of selfish successful individuals looking to spend more on themselves. 13. I remember Sam Tan’s brilliant speech last week. I read the speech three times. I resonate with his views that it is not about the dilemma between the young and old, or between rich and poor, but between the head and heart. The head knows it cannot be overly generous, yet the heart wants the head to be so. 14. But I also read with great distress Mr. Siew Kum Hong’s speech. I am a debater, and that was a brilliant debating speech. I actually share his hopes. He wants Singapore to be a generous society that helps its most vulnerable members. But the danger is in the rest of his speech. In order to fulfill this hope, he said that you should be prepared to waste, to have a bloated bureaucracy, all in the name of a helping hand. 15. I believe we need a lean, efficient, rational, disciplined and competent government. There is also a need for compassion, generosity and emotional support in our society. However, these are best delivered by community organisations rather than by a bloated bureaucracy. That is why we believe in many helping hands. Instead of Dr Loo Choon Yong “cheerfully” paying more tax, I prefer him to cheerfully donate his money and time to VWOs. And I am glad that he has done so, being named by Forbes as a hero of philanthropy along with Mr Sim Wong Hoo. So let each sector do what it does best – a community which cares and a government which is sensible. MCYS Key Initiatives in 2007 Supporting the Low-Income and Needy The Public Assistance Scheme 16. In this context, I would now ask you to look at Annex B which describes our Public Assistance (PA) scheme. Much angst has been surfaced over this scheme by Members. Last year, we had a long debate whether $290 is enough. This year, it is raised to $330. I am sure we can have another long debate over whether this new amount is enough. 17. But let us put things in perspective. The PA cash allowance that we have been arguing about is only one of four components of help that PA beneficiaries receive. There are three other components. Page 2 of 9 18. Look at the second component which consists of the considerable government subsidies for rental housing, totally free medical care, rebates for utilities, services and conservancy charges. Their children also receive free education through the MOE’s Financial Assistance Scheme. 19. The third component comes from ‘Many Helping Hands’ – community support from Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs) who provide additional hong baos, free meals, befriending programmes, senior activity centres, home help services, day care services and a host of other innovative services. I was quite sceptical when I saw the amount of hong bao money a PA recipient receives. However, I came to know of three organisations which actually give about $300 to each PA recipient each year. I am sure that there are more organisations which give similar hong baos to this needy group. 20. Fourth, we know that PA recipients also get disproportionately more under the GST Offset package, Senior Citizens’ Bonus as well as this year’s Growth Dividends. 21. An elderly PA recipient living alone will therefore receive $330 a month, while a family with two adults and two children will now get $1,020 a month. 22. If you add the first and fourth column in Annex B, a single elderly PA recipient actually receives about $450 a month in cash and rebates from the Government. Once you include the second and third column of subsidies and community support, the figure goes up potentially several-fold. For a family with two adults and two children, monthly cash and rebates come up to $1285 a month. When you include the free healthcare, the subsidy is very substantial. PA recipients are the only people in Singapore given a blank cheque in healthcare. Even NTUC is unable to push through this idea for its low-income members. 23. The point here is not to make a case that we are treating PA recipients very generously. The point is that nobody should go hungry in Singapore. I had lived in London for 5 years. I look at the housing, the life and the hopes of the people on welfare. I can assure you that they are not better off than our PA recipients. Hence, while you comment on how much we give to PA recipients, I would urge you to compare our situation with other countries. And I say to you, in terms of housing, education, healthcare and opportunity, SIngapore is still the best place in the world to be poor. Our social safety net is robust. You have an equal chance to succeed. All Singaporeans I have spoken to have a story that tells me that they have opportunities and hope. Therefore, let us not destroy the foundation of success by eroding their work ethic and self-reliance. People with Disabilities 24. I note the concerns of members of House for people with disabilities. The Government has not forgotten about the disabled. I would like to refer Members to Annex D showing what we have done for the disabled. I asked my staff to make sure that the pie chart was done to scale and you can see that we have spent a lot and are spending a lot more to help the disabled. 25. Between 2002 to 2006, we spent $400 million on the disabled, and from 2007 to 2011, we have budgeted $900 million. We have not forgotten the disabled. How Page 3 of 9 are we spending the $900 million? Primarily on education. We want to equip the disabled with knowledge and skills so that they can fulfil their potential and make a living for themselves, and integrate into society.