Celebrate Hope, Welcome Change Tan Jee Say Hello Singapore, Happy National Day and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Thank you all for coming. You have created history as pioneers of this unique celebration event. Happy occasions should be celebrated in this joyful, non-pompous way like casual family outings. We thank Gilbert Goh and his organising committee for giving us this opportunity and to all of you for turning up to celebrate National Day and Hari Raya together with other Singaporeans. Hope and Change The title of my speech today is “Celebrate Hope, Welcome Change”. There is much to hope for as we review developments in the past few years. Change is in the air. By change, I mean real change, not cosmetic change. I spoke about regime change at the previous two public protest rallies, the first against the Population White Paper on 16th February this year and the second at the subsequent May Day rally on 1st May. In between, I was interviewed by the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post which reported my suggestion that Singapore’s old order could fall in the 2016 general election. When I first broached the subject of regime change a year earlier at a Rotary Club dinner, the reaction was mixed. One senior surgeon walked up to me and said change was inevitable after 50 years. Like him, more and more Singaporeans are warming to the idea of change and are openly talking and writing about it. In the last few years, we can see for ourselves the rot in senior levels of government, the incompetence and even the PM’s open admission of a lack of foresight. A great many Singaporeans are now convinced that the only way to save Singapore from declining further is a change of government. The latest person to openly declare his wish is blogger Andrew Loh who wants something different this National Day, a different Government. Awakening Singaporeans have woken up. The first signs of awakening showed up in the 2011 General Election when a sizeable number of Singaporeans shed off their fears and voted for the opposition. 3 months later in the presidential election, a majority of Singaporeans registered their unhappiness with the government when 65% did not vote for the government-endorsed candidate. This outcome is most revealing for it shows that the core support for the government party does not exceed 35%. With one-third of the vote usually going to the opposition, there is now a large swing vote of about 30-35% . If enough swing to the opposition, the ruling party will be out. Indeed this happened in the Punggol East by-election. An active blogger analysed that if a swing of 13% similar to that in Punggol East were repeated throughout the electorate in 2016 assuming no change in constituency boundaries, the majority of parliamentary seats will go to the opposition. So the prospect of a non-PAP government is within sight. Government surpluses We must congratulate all Singaporeans who have contributed to this awakening. In addition to active ones, we must not forget the silent participants who turn up at events like this one in Hong Lim Park. Just with your presence, you show your utmost concern and love for Singapore and are a vital source of encouragement to us here on the stage. I must also mention the civil activists and bloggers who have been fearless in questioning and exposing the PAP. There are many of them but space allows me to mention just a few. In addition to Andrew Loh, we have Alex Au, lawyer M. Ravi, cartoonist Leslie Chew and Leong Sze Hian who never fails to impress and amaze us with his excellent grasp of statistics and frequent expose of the flaws and hidden meaning of official published figures in immigration, unemployment, earnings, inflation and many other areas. His latest expose drew attention to the huge discrepancy in the government surplus figures disclosed in the annual budget statement versus the monthly digest of statistics. The latter is in conformity with the accounting standards of the International Monetary Fund which require land sales and capital receipts to be included. This “IMF figure” shows a surplus of $36 billion last year, more than 9 times the $3.9 billion figure stated in the budget statement. This discrepancy was not unique to 2012 but occurred in past years too. In fact, going back to 2005, the earliest year that we currently have the relevant data, the total cumulative surpluses in the past 8 years amounted to a staggering $187 billion, which is nearly 11 times more than disclosed in the annual budget statements. Political control You may ask: why is the government highlighting the much lower surplus figure in the budget statement that the media used for its reporting? Shouldn’t they pat themselves on the back by disclosing the wonderfully super surpluses? I can think of one answer – it suits their purpose of political control. By stating only a marginal surplus year in year out, it can continue to harp on Singapore’s vulnerability and justify its tight control over the population by maintaining a siege mentality in its governance. On the other hand, if it reveals the super huge surpluses, Singaporeans will realise how over-taxed they have been all these years as surplus is the excess of revenue over government spending. It will demolish the government’s argument that it cannot afford to increase spending on housing, healthcare, education and other welfare needs without raising taxes. Change of tactics, not change of heart We have to thank bloggers like Leong Sze Hian for helping us see and analyse Singapore’s fiscal position in its proper perspective. If knowledge of Singapore’s super strong fiscal position becomes widespread among Singaporeans, there will be increased pressure on the government to do the right thing by helping Singaporeans cope with high costs of living. We now see the Government giving in to such pressure. In his National Day message yesterday, the Prime Minister hinted at policy changes to build a fair and just society. He promised more will be done to help Singaporeans in education, housing and healthcare particularly the healthcare needs of elderly Singaporeans. Wow, what a change! What has happened to their policy stance that welfare subsidies will make people lazy and destroy the work ethic? Or their view that subsidised healthcare will induce more people to abuse the system as if people will deliberately fall sick to take advantage of health subsidies? Have they suddenly wised up and become more caring? No they have not. It is only a change of tactics, not a change of heart. They are doing it for their own political survival. They know more Singaporeans have seen through them and will vote them out in the next general election if they ignore our needs and our demands. Using our surpluses and reserves to invest in Singaporeans So congratulate ourselves that we are gradually succeeding in getting them to do the right thing. But they will only do the minimal to keep themselves in power. To get real change, there is no substitute for a change of government. Only then, can Singaporeans take full advantage of our strong fiscal position and huge surpluses to invest in the well-being of our families. We in the opposition have the plans and the resolve to do so. In the last general election, I spoke of a $60 billion plan to regenerate the Singapore economy and create jobs and enterprise for Singaporeans. I was asked where would I get the $60 billion from. I said it was small change but PAP ministers, MPs and election candidates laughed at my suggestion. Obviously they were ignorant of Singapore’s strong financial position. What is $60 billion compared to the budget surpluses of $187 billion accumulated in just the past 8 years especially when the sum of $60 billion is to be spread over 5 years which means only $12 billion a year? Here I am comparing with only surpluses in the annual budgets. If I compare with the foreign exchange reserves managed by GIC, the small change analogy becomes even more mind blogging. I have estimated these reserves to be between $700 and $1,000 billion if we assume that GIC started with a sum of US$100 billion. Leong Sze Hian thinks the reserves are around $900 billion. So the $60 billion represents only between 6 and 8.5 % of our foreign exchange reserves. Isn’t this small change to invest in our country’s long term future? So fellow Singaporeans, there is hope and a bright future for Singapore. Continue to put pressure on the PAP government and do not be afraid to vote them out in the next general election. We will organise ourselves and be worthy of your vote and confidence in us to invest our surpluses and reserves in responsible ways to advance the interests of all Singaporeans. Thank you for your support. Happy National Day and Selamat Hari Raya. Good night. Tan Jee Say 9 Aug 2013
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 11:51:54 +0000