Picture Of The Week

One advantage of the new digital television broadcast transmission (DVB-T2) is the ability to screen capture in glorious high definition, full 1920 x 1080p resolution. You can even see if the speaker is wearing his designer hearing aid or not.

What did his debating adversary say to make him so upset? It's not like some one yelled, "Ooi! Your mother wears army boots!" or "Look out for the flying shoe!" Altercation wise, 10 minutes is not too much of a verbal joust, but somehow a few key blows must have connected. Some possibilities:

"... I also noted that when the PAP has to make a policy U-turn, they call it policy shift. I don’t know whether that is a shift or it’s a flip-flop."

"Mdm Speaker, I thank the PM for praising the WP’s ability to fight in the elections."

"We don’t oppose all the policies but where we think that there is a need for us to oppose and it concerns the future of Singapore, like the Population White Paper, we did so. "

"We have said our piece but we have to respect the decision of the Government to move on. But our message has got across."

"... allowing the Government to move forward, not to jam up the Government. It is a mark of a responsible Government and a mark of first world Parliament."

Crouching Tigers Hidden Heroes

The Workers' Party was recently accused of being inarticulate about many things, but come election time, they turn into tigers and heroes. Strangely, their members of parliament (MPs) seem to have quite a bit to say during the "Debate on President’s Address 2014". More than the oldest member in the house anyway. Maybe they should have livened up the proceedings by throwing shoes and stuff.

MP Sylvia Lim’s speech - Towards a Safe, Fair and Just Society - touched on two essential services that are supposed to ensure that we live in a safe, fair and just society, namely challenges for the Home Team and Access to Justice. She was surprised to discover that new NPPs (Neighbourhood Police Post), called e-NPPs or enhanced NPPs, offer electronic services, but are completely unmanned. Ah Kong will have to learn to type if he needs help. Access to justice, she noted, means the rich have the resources to engage expensive lawyers, but the poor have to make decisions based on their means. This sometimes includes pleading guilty, when they do not have the resources to contest their charges.

MP Png Eng Huat’s speech pleaded the case for our pioneer generation workers, in particular the anxiety of not knowing what is to come after retirement. The anticipation and excitement of being able to finally collect their lifelong CPF savings in full at retirement age, which was 55 then, dashed to bits with the shifting of the goal post to 62 and beyond. Instead of looking forward to grandchildren bouncing on their laps, they had better be familiar with bouncing checks.

MP Lee Li Lian’s speech lauded the Presidential commitment to keeping the pathway upwards open to all Singaporeans, regardless of their background or circumstances, but brought home the harsh reality faced by vulnerable groups. Guys ensconced in ivory towers need the occasional reminder of what ground zero is like. Her Mandarin portion commented on financial incentives introduced by the Government such as Baby Bonus and Child Development Account to encourage having more children. They need to be complemented by a change in attitudes and mind-set of employers with regards to flexible work options.

MP Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap’s speech asked the hard questions. Is the social safety net doing its job? Is the social safety net performing to help Singaporeans pick themselves up after a fall? Is the social safety net pulling families out of the poverty trap? How do we know that the temporary poor are indeed temporarily poor and are moving up the government’s different scales of help closer to median income self-sufficiency? What do you think?

"Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister may be right to say that there are no dead poor in Singapore because no one here lives under the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of $1.50 a day. But as he acknowledges, there are the relatively poor and the temporary poor. These are Singaporeans who are experiencing a fraction of the standard of living enjoyed by the average Singaporean. We need to know whether the government’s multiple lines of assistance, the social safety net, is helping them and whether the overall situation is improving year on year."

MP Pritam Singh’s speech weighted on Defence Diplomacy and better management of the Defence Budget. But splurging on expensive F35s is pretty pointless when, "Unfortunately, we are not in a position to determine or prevent a conflict in the South China Sea beyond offering ourselves as a neutral arbiter and an advocate for a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea." Focus instead, on more immediate worries closer to home.

NCMP Yee Jenn Jong’s speech on education and social mobility is close to his heart, as he declared, he owns businesses that provide services and products to schools. He frets about the reproduction of class stratification. In 2008, the PSC revealed that 47% of the PSC scholarship recipients that year lived in HDB flats, and 53% lived in private housing. This is an over representation of private housing as up to 85 per cent of Singaporeans live in HDB flats.

NCMP Gerald Giam’s speech is about managing risks, incentivising hard work and constructive politics.
MediShield Fund having a capital adequacy ratio of 161% in 2012, which is more than 40% higher than what the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) expects of commercial insurance funds, means that it is collecting a lot more in premiums than it is paying out in claims, transferring too much risk to citizens. Socializing risks, privatising gains - does that ring a bell? That has to be a damper on incentivising hard work.
Low Thia Khiang has more to say about constructive politics.

Going For The Jugular

Devadas Krishnadas, CEO of consultancy Future-Moves Group, nails it when he fleshed out the sweetheart deal between the Government and the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board:

"The Government issues Special Singapore Government Securities or SSGS to the CPF with a coupon rate matching the rate of return on CPF monies.
The SSGS is non-tradable and the CPF is the only purchaser of these securities.
According to the Accountant-General’s Department, SSGS amounted to nearly S$250 billion as of March 2013. What happens is that the CPF monies are transformed, via this mechanism, into investable capital. This capital, when variously invested, then earns a return which permits the paying of the coupon, which in turn allows the CPF to pay interest to its members."

An astute commentator, a Ms Chung, completes the rest of the story which may never see the light day until the current political scene is changed out:

"This article didn't answer the following:-
(i) transparency of how funds flow between CPF, GIC and Temasek;
(ii) the high rates of returns for our SWFs vis a vis CPF interest;
(iii) the rate of increase for MS is higher than inflation; and
(iv) whether there can be increased flexibility for people to use their CPF, esp for those caught in dire life situations not of their making.
v) If you are 55 and you sell your flat... if you don't meet the minimum sum AFTER refunding the CPF utilized + interests; they will withhold the proceeds from the sales to cover the shortfall... Does this makes (sic) absurd sense???"

Until the incumbents decide to come clean, it will always be hard for Singaporeans to understand CPF. The face off in parliament is not about constructive politics, whatever Uncle Tony Tan had in mind.

Politics (from Greek: πολιτικός politikos, meaning "of, for, or relating to citizens") is defined as the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level. There are no holds barred in the range of unsavoury methods employed in politics, which include promoting one's own political agenda among people, manipulating laws for selfish reasons, and exercising force, including warfare against adversaries. In the latter, short of another Operation Spectrum, we are witnessing high-handed tactics against political opponents and abuse of governmental resources, including civil servants, to serve partisan goals. The type of politics, as Mr Low Thia Khiang pointed out, that is constructive only for the incumbents.

Enjoying a ringside seat of constructive politics in parliament

A Choice Of Colours

The video clip posted by Lee Hsien Loong on his Facebook page of the Indranee Rajah response comes on right after Low Thia Khiang's speech. For a guy whose delivery in dialect is more powerful than in Queen's English, this is one command performance that resonates. The keystone of his message, and probably why it was clipped, is this reminder:
"If the people continue to support a government party that uses high-handed tactics against its political opponents, we are endorsing a bullying political culture. If the people support a governing party that uses governmental resources, including civil servants, to serve its partisan goals, we are condoning the abuse of political power as an acceptable culture."

The mainstream media refers to it as a "heated debate", but if you watch the lacklustre retort of Rajah, it comes across as a tired response, with the speaker looking, and articulating, a decade older than her actual years. You would be tired too, repeating the unchanging rote of a programmed automaton. If her demeanour spells her party's enthusiasm for "putting Singapore at the heart of what we do", it explains the lethargic efforts at addressing the housing, transport and foreign invasion issues.

Anyone playing the devil's advocate could easily twist Low's words, and shame him for blaming the electorate for the current state of affairs. Not unlike blaming the people of Germany for the undulating support of a little corporal from Bavaria during WWII. Maybe not that easy, since criticism is now seeping in from unlikely circles.

Inderjit Singh (Ang Mo Kio GRC) is best remembered for taking a leak in the little boys' room to avoid voting for the Population White Paper. This time round he decided to be conveniently overseas, when he posted "hard-hitting" comments on the President's Address:
"I encounter a fair number of residents who question the rationale of government policies. They feel the Government does not understand their needs and concerns but instead craft policy while seated in, what effectively seems like a different world, an ideal clean and sterile policy lab or ivory tower perched high up."

We wish he would give us more leaks, the types provided by a Edward Snowden or Julian Assange. That's the only way for folks to stop swallowing the blue pill, and start opting for the red one.

A Question Of Libel

British historian and author David Irving specialises in the military and political history of World War II and believes the Holocaust never happened, just like some Japanese who think the Nanking Massacre never took place. When American academic Deborah Lipstadt called Irving a Holocaust denier, falsifier, and bigot in her book "Denying the Holocaust", he sued her and her publisher Penguin Books on 5 September 1996.

Although the book was first published in the United States in 1993, Irving decided to sue in an English court. And for good reason: English libel law puts the burden of proof on the defence.

Under American libel law, a public figure who claims to have been libelled must prove that the statements in question are defamatory, that they are false, and that they were made with actual malice. Furthermore, reliance on credible sources (even if they turn out to be false) is a valid defence. In contrast, English defamation law puts the burden of proving the truth of allegedly defamatory statements on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff. A defamatory statement is presumed to be false, unless the defendant can prove its truth, and reliance on sources is irrelevant. This has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world.

Lipstadt was intimidated by the lawsuit, since she was a humble professor of limited financial means. Irving is the author of some 30 books, including "The Destruction of Dresden" (1963), "Hitler's War" (1977), "Churchill's War" (1987), and "Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich" (1996).

To cut a long story short, Irving not only lost the case, but in light of evidence presented at the trial a number of his works that had previously escaped serious scrutiny were brought to critical public examination.  Irving was shown to have misstated evidence; misquoted sources; falsified statistics; misconstrued information and bent historical evidence so that it conforms to his neo-fascist political agenda and ideological beliefs. The expenses arising from the court proceedings forced him into bankruptcy, and he lost his home.

Professor Lipstadt was fortunate in that many rallied to her cause when she was in dire need of support. Although gratified by the court ruling, she reminded us to be vigilant, "I do not delude myself that, though my battle with Mr Irving may be over, the fight against those who will pervert the historical record for their own political and ideological goals has ended". Especially those with the financial clout to unleash expensive litigation.