Sir, I stand in support of the Motion of Thanks to the President. Like many concerned Singaporeans, I am eager that Singapore and Singaporeans will indeed emerge stronger after this economic recession.

I would like to provide inputs to strengthen Singapore in three areas – namely, economic development; civic consciousness and social services – so that we can realise our vision of a stronger Singapore as we move on to another 50 years and more of self-government.

First, economic development. Sir, the Economic Strategies Committee announced by the Prime Minister yesterday is a much welcome move. The Committee has its work cut out for it in one of the most challenging global economic declines in 60 years.

Singapore's traditional model of attracting Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), especially global MNCs through tax and other incentives, needs updating for the following reasons:

(1) The recession and the economic packages, including bailouts of financial institutions, have left governments worldwide with huge fiscal deficits, which they are compelled to reduce. President Obama is one of the latest to announce changes to the US tax regime, in order to raise more than US$200 billion from overseas US companies over the next decade. The writing is on the wall that Singapore's strategy to offer appealing tax incentives to encourage MNCs will soon lose its relevance, diluting the flow of foreign investments into Singapore.

(2) MNC investments may continue to flock to investment destinations with larger hinterlands, like China and India.

(3) The risk appetite of Singapore's sovereign wealth fund managers, like Temasek, is unlikely to increase with the increased scrutiny of the populace, including PAP MPs, NMPs and Opposition MPs in this House. In its response to public call to become more transparent, Temasek has placed itself under tremendous public pressure and, sometimes, expected to perform even better than seasoned private investors like Warren Buffet, Li Ka Shing and Oei Hong Leong, whose asset portfolios were shaved by the billions. In fact, local tycoon Oei Hong Leong, reputed to be an investor with the Midas touch, was reported to be suing Citibank for $1 billion loss in his investments. With so many Singaporeans giving investment advice on the hindsight, I am not certain that the captains and crew of Temasek and the like will be motivated to take on higher-risk ventures for higher returns. Singapore must find other ways to pay its bills. Hence, the new Economic Strategies Committee will have an essential and challenging task ahead.

Sir, besides addressing the five strategies that the Prime Minister has outlined, I hope the Government and the Economic Strategies Committee will continue tracking the effectiveness of the Resilience Package of this year's Budget.

Sir, there have been mixed evaluations of whether big-ticket measures, such as the Special Risk-sharing Initiative (SRI) and the Jobs Credit Scheme, have achieved their intended outcomes. Although saving jobs and companies is appealing and expected of governments, there is a school of thought which argues that, instead of indiscriminately doing this, might it not be wiser for Government to not overly hamper market forces and artificially resuscitate weaker companies and/or let go of jobs, especially in industries that are set to either disappear or go offshore anyway? Some say Singapore will be stronger in the long run if we bite the bullet and help affected workers make the transition now through specific skills training and more portable healthcare and social security packages.

Sir, Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) or upgrading the workforce is definitely the right direction to head for a country whose main asset is human capital. However, I urge the Government to continue to hone the programme so that the billions of training dollars in some 800 courses will indeed reap skills upgrade in preparation for an upturn.

Sir, in the field of training consulting, it has been well known that many training programmes fail to deliver expected organisational benefits or improvement in knowledge, skills or attitudes. This has led to the development of a well-known and time-tested model of measuring training effectiveness by Donald Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick's four-level model evaluates training effectiveness from reaction to learning, to behaviour changes and to actual results. Much training dollars go to waste if training does not impact changes at the high level in behaviour or organisational results.

Sir, I applaud the Prime Minister's decision to commission an Economic Strategies Committee and I appeal to the Committee and the relevant Ministries to continue tracking the effectiveness of especially the big-ticket Jobs Credit, SPUR and SRI schemes. Let us fine-tune and even be confident enough to abandon or retire the schemes if they do not serve the purposes for which they were launched.

Next, on civil society: about graciousness and civic consciousness. Sir, in his Address, President Nathan has urged us to match our first-class infrastructure and environment with graciousness. Indeed, if we are to emerge stronger as a nation, as a people, Singapore needs to look beyond infrastructure.

Sir, when I did a quick poll of several professionals on the topic "The Singapore I Would Like to See", almost all of them mentioned the need for our society to be more civil and gracious. In a National Graciousness Index Survey conducted by the agency, Singapore Kindness, Singaporeans scored 58 out of 100 marks. Earlier this year, a Singaporean even felt it necessary for him to quit his banking job to start a non-profit agency called Gracious Singapore Limited to help bring about a more gracious Singapore.

Sir, I agree with the constant call by our leaders to be more gracious and develop a higher sense of civic consciousness. As I visited the temporary market in my ward with NEA officers and my grassroots leaders to urge food sellers to practise more stringent hygiene standards, it baffles me that we have to remind people in the food business to sell clean food. Is there not a moral obligation or a duty amongst us to do that without being reminded and graded?

Recently, when a worker in my ward requested for visitors not to feed the many pigeons at a popular mall because of residents' complaints of litter and bird flu risk, the said worker was beaten up by an unhappy pigeon feeder with a big spade. Although many of my residents, I must say, return to say "thank you" after successful appeals on their behalf, I know of others who threaten to call the press when my fellow MPs and I do not give in to unreasonable demands or demands that are detriment to the good of their neighbourhood. Sometimes, the demands escalate to setting fires on their MPs, throwing chairs at them or threatening to beat them up. Even NMP Siew Kum Hong himself, a proponent of free speech, had to file a police report recently for alleged untruths and insults hurled at him by some netizens.

Sir, many of us take for granted those who pick up and clean up after us and reserve the words "please" and "thank you" for no one and especially not to those who are of lower social status than ourselves. "Think of yourself, but think of others too", we keep saying to the youths, on the flawed assumption that only the younger people of this country need that advice . But we need adult models too, as well as opportunities for all of us to perform our civic duties. All Singaporeans, especially us adults, must determine to practise basic courtesy, control and civic consciousness, so that Singapore is not just developed economically, politically but also civilly.

Sir, on social services, I would like to highlight three principles of engagement.

Ex-US President Dwight Eisenhower said, "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

Sir, in the provision of social services in Singapore, I believe that the principles of engagement between Government and its people are either not clear or, if they are clear, not fully accepted yet. Unless we hold crucial dialogues – not monologues – to clarify perspectives regarding these principles, there will always be tension between the Government and the people.

Principle 1 – Family as the first line of defence. Sir, I believe that this principle underlying the design of many social service programmes in our country is either not communicated or accepted by those seeking Government's help. Out of the many applications for financial assistance in my GRC, only an average of about 36%, which are clear-cut welfare cases, gets approval from our Community Development Council (CDC). Although nearly all applicants get some form of temporary help through the ComCare Fund administered at the grassroots level, 65% of applicants are disappointed by the unsuccessful outcomes of their applications. Very often, after the investigation and house visits by CDC officers, applicants are found to have family members who can potentially support them but choose not to. To many of these applicants – most of them elderly – their first port of call is the Government because they do not want to bother their children, or their children have chosen to abandon them. Exercising their rights under the Parents Maintenance Act is not anyone's favoured course of action.

Sir, we need to communicate, explain and seek understanding and more acceptance of this principle of "Family as the first line of defence" in our country, so that we can address the high expectations of Government's social service programmes which it is unable to fulfil.

Principle 2 - Equality of opportunity. Sir, the second principle of social service support that we must uphold and seek agreement as much as possible, between Government and people is that there should be equality of opportunity to all, even if equality of outcomes cannot be guaranteed.

Sir, to ensure a stronger and cohesive Singapore, the "Singapore Dream" must be potentially within the reach of every Singaporean. Many of us would agree that we are not equally talented and that, indeed, a CEO or a Cabinet Minister will earn more than a security guard or the rest of us. But we must protect with gumption the principle that, whilst there is inequality of outcomes in life, there must never be, as much as possible, inequality of opportunities.

Inequality of opportunities can be unproductive, leading to corruption, politics of envy and social unrest. If people are excluded from access to the "good life" and blocked by the elite from upward mobility, then they will look for other, possibly more violent, ways of getting their share of the economic pie. The needy and the disabled in our country must be accorded more than lip service equal opportunities in education, physical access, healthcare, security, employment and lifelong learning. The best antidote for inequality of opportunities is equal chance of access to quality education in pre-schools, mainstream primary and secondary schools, special schools and employment.

Why should boarding schools, an elite feature in the Singapore education system, be a privilege only to the elite? In my work in the low-income and disability sectors, I find many children and youths from needy background who will benefit greatly from boarding schools. But many of them will never get close to this privilege due to the exclusivity of boarding schools. And why cannot the rest of the so-called non-elite schools enjoy the boarding school experience at some time in their school career? Why should children, unfortunately born with congenital diseases, be deprived of basic medical coverage linked to their disease and not be insured up to the same basic health quantum as their able-bodied peers?

Sir, we need to ensure equality of opportunities to all. Inequality of outcomes in life is not inherently bad. Few of us would argue that those who are more talented or those who hold jobs of high accountability or risks should be paid more. But I want to put in a qualifier. Inequality of outcomes in life is acceptable, I believe, only as long as:

(1) All Singaporeans have the opportunity to move up;

(2) The living standards are improving for the average person; and

(3) There is tangible help for those who genuinely need a leg-up, ie, (a) those who cannot make it due to their age, health or lack of family support; or (b) those who suffer temporary setbacks, eg, casualties of this economic recession.

Sir, as leaders, we must do all we can to ensure that there is equality of opportunities to all Singaporeans, rich or poor, disabled or not.

The third principle that I would like to speak on, in designing social service support, which I believe, must be communicated and contracted between Government and the rest of Singapore, is this: work must come before welfare. I share the stories of two of my residents – Mr Lim and Mr Tan (not their true names) – the facts of which are validated by the social service agency serving both of them.

The first one – Mr Lim is a wheelchair-bound, middle-aged gentleman aged 57, I believe, who, despite his constant pain in his nerves and limbs, has been assisting at our neighbourhood link at Beach Road for the last four years. Despite his low English proficiency, Mr Lim has learnt the use of the computer and is the key data entry operator scanning the entry cards of all the elderly clients at this centre. He likes work.

Mr Tan, another wheelchair-bound man in the same age group, lives in a rental flat. He has an NEA licence giving him permission to street-hawk, but Mr Tan has never exercised this licence. He visited several doctors and was given a medical certificate that certified him to be unfit for work for the rest of his life. Mr Tan, according to his support agency, has been seen to be walking within and outside his flat, and he enjoys playing with the children and his dog in the neighbourhood. He is a constant client at several social service agencies and is articulate in demanding that he be granted the full right of a 'public assistance' recipient. Several agency staff, when I asked them, are convinced that Mr Tan prefers welfare to work. He has written eloquent letters to them to demand for higher welfare quantum. Most recently, in one of his letters which was copied to me, Mr Tan threatened to tell The Straits Times if he does not get more monthly allowance.

Sir, based on the testimony of the social workers working with him, Mr Tan is unlikely to receive more welfare from the State as they are convinced that he can at least work on a part-time job, being more qualified and healthier than other welfare applicants.

Sir, I share this story not to pass judgment on Mr Tan but to illustrate the point that we need to repeatedly clarify and communicate more convincingly the gospel of 'Work Before Welfare' and other key principles in designing social service programmes.

In conclusion, Sir, for Singapore and Singaporeans to truly emerge stronger when this crisis is over, I contend that:

(1) The new Economic Strategies Committee and our leaders need to track the effectiveness of the Resilience Package that has been implemented, and be bold enough to change or abandon any schemes that do not serve the long-term good of Singapore;

(2) All Singaporeans, young and especially adults, must develop a stronger sense of civic consciousness and graciousness;

(3) Government must communicate, explain and uphold the three "Principles of Engagement" underlying Singapore's social support services, namely, (a) family as the first line of defence; (b) equality of opportunities for all; and (c) work before welfare.

Sir, I always encourage people with disabilities and their families, when they are faced with life's challenges, to not keep asking, "Why Me?" and instead say, "Try Me!" I believe that Singapore will be a stronger player when we emerge from this economic crisis if, in the face of challenges, we can respond together "TRY US!"

Sir, I support the Motion of Thanks to the President.