Acknowledgement to the Chair

4.07 pm

The Second Minister for Finance (Ms Indranee Rajah): Mr Speaker, we have come to the end of the Committee of Supply (COS) debate. It is customary for the Leader to do a wrap-up before we have a break. Soon, we hope.

Mr Speaker, it has been a long two weeks for Members, not least for yourself, having somewhat less liberty than Members to move in and out of the Chamber.

Over the last two weeks, we had close to 70 hours of debate, 58 Members spoke over the two-and-a-half days of the Budget debate and we have covered 661 cuts over seven days of the COS debate.

With the approval of the Government's fiscal policy for FY2023 and the estimates of expenditure in the COS and the passing of the Supply Bills a few minutes ago, this Parliament has taken an important step forward in positioning Singapore well for the post-pandemic future. The policies and strategies that we have debated and approved will help us navigate a world that is vastly different to the one we knew before the pandemic – a world that is much more complicated and unpredictable, characterised by slower growth, higher inflation, greater geopolitical contestations, fragmentation in the global economy and a looming climate crisis.

Budget 2023 will enable us to adapt more nimbly to this changed world and to secure our future, anchored by a fair, sound and sustainable fiscal plan.

Let me do a quick recap.

Against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions and an evolving world order, we reaffirmed the need to uphold international law and a rules-based multilateralism, whilst maintaining a strong defence to safeguard of sovereignty and security. Russia's invasion of Ukraine serves as a continuing reminder that Singapore's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, must never be taken for granted.

In the face of a looming climate crisis, this Budget builds on previous Budgets and reinforces our commitment to sustainability and strengthens Singapore's climate resilience. In Budget 2021, we unveiled the Singapore Green Plan 2030. In Budget 2022, we took bold steps to raise our national climate ambitions at a time when many countries were struggling to stay the course, including our move to increase the carbon tax. Budget 2023 continues our efforts to work with our businesses, communities and individuals, with a view to achieving net zero by 2050.

Apart from climate resilience, we also discussed food resilience and how to diversify food imports, produce our own food and keep food affordable in the HDB heartlands. Members also spoke about the need for companies and workers to adjust to major structural shifts, including an accelerated green transition, digitalisation, greater economic nationalism and protectionism, and this brings about both opportunities and challenges.

This Budget focuses our efforts on helping businesses and workers ride the winds of change while helping them tide through this period of weaker growth and higher inflation.

On the economic front, we endorsed our approach of attracting high-quality investments and developing new growth sectors, such as sustainability in the tourism and transport sectors, strengthening global and regional cooperation by forging new cross-border agreements with like-minded partners in overlapping areas of interest, such as the digital economy and sustainability, to enhance market access and create new opportunities for our businesses and encouraging economy-wide innovation and extending the necessary bespoke support to help our SMEs grow into globally leading companies through various measures, including the Enterprise Innovation Scheme, SME Co-investment Fund and the Singapore Global Enterprises initiative.

Recognising that economic transformation must go hand in hand with digitalisation, we reiterated the need to build an inclusive Smart Nation. We agreed to empower our people and businesses, especially the less digitally savvy to go digital with confidence in safe and secure online areas or spaces and to build stronger defences against scams, online harm and cybersecurity threats.

We recognise, as we always have, that the end goal of economic growth is to provide Singaporeans with good employment opportunities and wages. To that end, we supported the appointment of Jobs-Skills Integrators to better translate skills training into employment outcomes. To ensure no workers are left behind, we supported the Uplifting Employment Credit, the Enhanced Enabling Employment Credit and the Progressive Wage Credit Scheme, and we agreed to protect all our workers by keeping the workplaces safe and inclusive and to safeguard their future by enhancing retirement adequacy.

In this Budget, we also rightly acknowledged the cooperation, hard work and sacrifices of everyone in our long fight against COVID-19, especially our healthcare workers who soldiered at the frontline of our pandemic response.

We considered how to protect and better support our healthcare workers in their careers. We will apply the valuable lessons learned to transform the Public Service and our healthcare system to serve Singaporeans better.

We approved additional support measures under the Assurance Package and Enhanced Permanent GST Vouchers Scheme with most support extended to the lower-income families. We also topped up the ComCare Endowment Fund to provide additional support to the lower-income families.

Through our endorsement of these moves, we signalled to Singaporeans that they can be assured that we will see them through this challenging period of rising inflation and cost-of-living pressures.

Families, marriage and parenthood took centrestage in this Budget and aptly so, given that the Budget Statement was delivered on Valentine's Day.

We increased the financial support for the early years of raising a child. We doubled unpaid infant-care leave and Government-paid paternity leave, sending a strong signal to fathers of the need for paternal involvement when a child is born and to encourage greater shared parenting responsibilities.

We will also better support parents in balancing their work and family commitments, through flexible work arrangements.

As Minister in the Prime Minister's office, helping oversee marriage and parenthood measures, I also want to add that these measures are just the beginning of an important shift, where the whole-of-society moves to become one that values family well-being and supports caregiving, both for the young and the old and acts accordingly.

We reaffirmed the critical role that early childhood education plays in a child's holistic development and agreed to close the gap in preschool enrollment rates. KidSTART will be scaled up nationwide, and Government-supported preschools will be expanded. We will strengthen the multiple progression pathways in our education system and in our society.

From babies and children, we looked to the other end of the age spectrum and committed to refresh our approach to aged care, anchored on preventive care, to help our seniors age gracefully by staying healthy, active and engaged in their communities. We also topped up the Elder Care Fund and MediFund to provide targeted assistance for seniors with long-term care and healthcare needs.

Every year, there will be one Ministry that receives intense interest and the highest number of cuts. This year was no exception and this year the distinction went to the Ministry of National Development, not surprising with the high interest in housing issues.

The Minister for National Development assured Singaporeans that we will continue to make public housing affordable and accessible, and that we will redouble efforts to deliver keys to those who have been waiting for their Build-To-Order (BTO) flats. We will increase the supply of BTO flats and give additional priority to younger married couples and families who are trying to buy their first home.

Being a nature-loving nation, no animal was left behind either. From flats, we moved on to animated debate on rats, cats and cockerels. This year did not see the appearance of otters or wild boars, but no doubt, they will find their way into future Budgets.

Mr Speaker, as you can see, we have covered much ground in the last two weeks. Now, it remains put all our plans into action. On this note, I would like to thank Members for their active participation and strong support over the past two weeks.

And Mr Speaker, on behalf of this House, I would also like to express our appreciation to you and your deputies for presiding over the proceedings in a fair and even-handed manner, and ensuring the standing orders were observed. We are extremely grateful to the Clerk of Parliament, Deputy Clerk and the other Clerks of Parliament, the Parliament Secretariat and staff, interpreters and translators, all of whom have been working long hours, and tirelessly over the past fortnight to ensure that the proceedings went smoothly. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. [Applause.]

4.18 pm

Mr Speaker: Due to recent developments, I have seven goals to achieve today, or rather, seven points to make in the wrap-up speech. Firstly, thank you to Leader for her comments and her thanks, I really cannot agree more.

What we do here will not be possible without the quiet work of so many behind the scenes, whether in big or small ways, it matters. Similarly, as we set forth and translate these policies into action, the work of so many on the ground ensure that they are not just words, but deeds.

I had lunch yesterday with our KidSTART team, their families, the children under their Healthy with KidSTART "What's For Lunch?" series. It was sponsored by Prudential. I was hugely encouraged by every parent I spoke to who found the programme so very useful to their parenting journey. We are grateful to our KidSTART practitioners, like Ms Pearl Goh whom I met, who visit them at home to work with them.

And we have partners, like Prudential, who sponsor important programmes like that, are providing food and nutrition for the families. We have folks like Huda Ali, who come onboard as host for cooking programmes, along with Chef Mazlan, to help families learn how to cook in nutritious and delicious ways, because families often think that healthy food equals expensive food.

But they actually go the extra mile too. Huda, for example, brings her son to demonstrate how parents can involve their children when cooking at home, how to put into practice the techniques that are taught by KidSTART on conversing with their children during such activities. We almost never see these actions and they go beyond the policies that we launch here. And these folks play such critical roles to make sure that we are not just going through motions.

This is a significant strength of ours here in Singapore that we must never take for granted. In many places, many of you who have lived and worked abroad, you will know that things do not always get realised. So, thank you to all who play an important role.

Secondly, for all the sound and fury, which I have to admit this year was relatively genteel and civilised – so please keep it that way – there is actually more agreement and alignment than not, and to be honest, there is no way and in all our respective organisations, we know that there is no way that every single person would agree with every single thing, not within Government, nor the Opposition, nor society at large. And this is natural and is to be expected. We all have different views, needs and wants.

We do need to articulate them as clearly as we can, forcefully, passionately, in Parliament. But when the dust has settled, I think it is important for us to agree to disagree in areas that we do not find agreement on, but also come together, unite and support a shared agenda, so that we can move forward decisively together. If you cast your eyes back to not just this Budget, but the Budgets preceding this – and certainly all the Budgets that I have presided over – there is really a lot more alignment than disagreement. And I thank you for that.

Thirdly, I am struck by what Nominate Member of Parliament Mr Cheng Hsing Yao had just shared, and I believe there is a resonance with many, and his speech best listening to again, and to be read as well and with Leader's response.

There are some valuable thoughts for all of us to ponder, what kind of Parliamentarians and leaders do we want to be here in this Chamber? What kind of leaders do we want as citizens, because how we respond and signal will shape the type of people we choose, and how they, in turn, choose to behave. But notwithstanding that, I think we all here have choices to make too. Mr Cheng shared a few principles to guide us, I will work on that, and offer perhaps, three themes, related in some ways to think about.

So, my fourth point is really about what are our thoughts on the issue of form versus substance. Ee live in a very visual world, fueled by social media. Attention span can be frightfully short. Policies are "tl;dr" – too long; did not read. And if the form and style appeal, does that trump substance? If a person is deemed "cool", so does that mean that what he or she says must be right? We see how this phenomenon manifests itself all around the world.

It is not meant as a criticism. It is an observation that I think we all note and see, but is this happening here as well? Does it worry us? Should it worry us? And are we, as citizens, concerned enough to do something about it? And if you need so, what exactly should we do?

Fifth, what are our thoughts on facts versus perceptions and emotions? I shared last year, now I will say that again. We live in a world where there is far more information than there has ever been in history. And this will increase exponentially, but we are not necessarily better informed.

Are we evidence based? Are we facts driven? And truth be told, most of us do not often read everything. And because we have such a high level of education. We are educated, we think we know, we scan, and we form opinions very quickly. And if you touch your hearts, I think many of us could be guilty of that, too.

So, storytelling is important, and we know it is an important tool and we use that quite regularly in Parliament. But we also know it is powerful because it stirs emotions. We have seen stories that are being shared that are, well, sometimes not quite true or half-true or presented without the proper context.

In Brexit, and I think has been clearly documented without dispute, how various parties on both ends, or on multiple ends, made campaign statements that are clearly false. And they are real-life outcomes that result from this environment. So, again, we need to ask ourselves, should we be concerned? Is this already happening here? How do we respond?

Sixth, I often run leadership and related workshops in SAF, Civil Service, social and private sectors, our universities and among the various questions I often would ask of our leaders or would-be leaders is that: do we aim to do what is right, or to do what is popular? Do we do the hard right, or the easy wrong?

I believe that all of us know what the correct answer is and should be, but given the earlier few points that I mentioned and what we see happening around the world, what do we, as leaders in the political environment, what should we do? Do we pander to popular sentiments, knowing that it actually does work?

Or do we try to make what we believe would be right, but perhaps, a less popular decision? Do we promised dreams that cannot be fulfilled, because we know that we do not have to actually do it for real? And the truth is, this is probably the norm in most societies. So, the question again is, what do we want for our own society here in Singapore?

For the seventh and last point, I think I will just want to end and say that I really do feel that our best days are ahead of us. Yes, we are, like every country, buffeted by the same pressures similar to many other societies and parliaments, and it can seem overwhelming. When we look at the disruptions, we seem to be recovering from COVID-19, and then there is a war and high inflation, and so on.

And we also know that we are not perfect, because if we really want to nitpick, there are lots of things that we can criticise, either we do it publicly or we do it privately. There are many areas where we can improve, there are things that we can do better, and certainly, all of us can lead better.

But to be fair to ourselves, we are in not bad spot, we are in a decent place. In fact, more than a decent place. We are not falling apart as a nation or as a society. When I work with foreign counterparts, as many of you do, when we meet Singaporeans living abroad, it is clear that we have a strong reputation and standing. If anything, it has grown stronger after the whole COVID-19 situation. This did not happen by chance, and where we are, our standing, our reputation, the way we are valued and respected, all these have been achieved despite the limitations that we sometimes see in ourselves.

So, the question is, can you imagine how much further we can go? How much better we can be, if we begin to iron out the kinks, if we begin to actively seek to improve and to develop better leaders at all levels, there are far greater heights that we can climb, and we can all do even better for our people and our nation.

And that is what is before us here in Chamber. Yes, we cannot and should not take it for granted, but we have an incredible base to build on. This year's Budget is yet another foundational piece to stage us for the better years ahead.

And we are all part of this journey together. Every Singaporean who plays their part, big or small, makes that difference. Like those involved in the KidSTART programme, and it is completely evidence based, the impact on our families and their children will last a lifetime.

So, let us all do what we can. Let us all just try our very best. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

Mr Speaker: Order. We do have some time savings. So, I will do what is popular and raid the time reserves. I propose to take a break now. I suspend the Sitting and will generously take the Chair at 5.00 pm. Order. Order.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 4.29 pm until 5.00 pm.

Sitting resumed at 5.00 pm.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]