Bertha Harian

I suppose the media’s immediate questions for PM-designate Lawrence Wong will be :

Are you re-shuffling your Cabinet? When?

Whether yes or not yet, can give us clues on who’s in, who’s out, who will be moved upstairs?

Who will be your deputy or deputies?

When will you call for a general election?

These are the nuts and bolts questions that people want answered. And if not answered, you can bet that people will be taking bets on individuals and dates.

They are questions that the people can articulate but methinks that the overarching underlying sentiment is : Will anything change? If so, what?

The 4G is probably frustrated at questions about its vision and so forth and point to the Forward Singapore report and the recent Budget which is the first round of the report’s implementation of proposals.

People will remember skills training changes as the cornerstone of the Budget. I would add that the 4G has differentiated itself from past regimes with its focus on mental health issues, closing the gap in salaries between brain and brawn, and efforts to care for an ageing population.

The 4G has gone ‘social’ even if it doesn’t want to say it has moved left.

On evergreen issues, however, there’s hardly been any change on the policy front. Like housing affordability. (I wouldn’t count the new categories like Prime or Plus for mature and new estates as change)

On education, parents have yet to change mindsets on the importance of grades, no matter the many efforts to reduce its significance through changes in the scoring and streaming schemes.

And no matter how much money the G gives out in assurance packages, cost-of-living has moved to the front of people’s consciousness, backed up by CPI numbers. Let’s not even talk about its baby making efforts.

Electorally, however, what the G has going for it to counter negativity is its control over the management of information, dissemination of views and its law and order net. Only pesky netizens, who are a vocal minority, and alternative media are raising doubts about how well we are doing as a country. And that’s because they have their own outlet of expression.

Besides those four questions, what will Mr Wong need to think about?

Every analyst now seems to be talking about how Mr Wong has his work ‘cut out’ for him.

Our economic engine appears to be stuttering, never mind the silver linings that get prominently reported. We are buffeted by new technological waves and new or expanded global conflicts. Staying ‘principled’ in our foreign policy, skills training and re-aligning business practices through ‘transformation maps’ appear to be our only solutions to ride the wave.

We need more direction on this front. More new ideas from the 4G. I hope that our next Budget will be more economic than social. It also needs to open opportunities for our young people, so that they can be convinced that their lives will get better. Even if not materially, they need to be assured that they will be looked after simply because they are fellow citizens.

Yes, this is a tough job because generational changes have been so swift. And with it are values and attitudes which divide the generations.

Under the 4G, I am hoping to see a re-emphasis on values and the primacy of the people in policymaking, as well as a reduction in the transactional relationship between the governed and the government.

If you think it through, most animosity towards the political leadership stems from people’s angst over ministerial pay. It is a big demonstration of our material attitude towards life, our cost-and-benefit approach to everything we do.

The government’s approach is to say as little as it can about pay, in the hopes that nobody will remember. But people do. The late Lee Kuan Yew will tell us to be realistic. That good people will not enter politics if the pay is not at least commensurate with the sacrifices that have to be made. High pay will also reduce or nullify the need to use official positions for aggrandisement – something which has been and is being tested.

I would argue that there are other benefits besides salary: the power and prestige of political office and the respect of the people that goes with it. This can’t be counted in dollars and cents. As for the lack of privacy that is oft cited, let’s acknowledge that local media wouldn’t do anything that crosses into a politician’s private life – unless the politician says okay or asks for it.

I have one suggestion about ministerial salary which already missed its review deadline – that the 4G leaders put their money where their mouth is and peg a bigger portion of the salary to how much they manage to reduce income inequality. (There is already a small link) . That is, after all, one key objective of the Forward Singapore report.

This, however, must be accompanied by greater transparency, which the 4G has not been good at demonstrating. On this front, the 4G is very like the 3G, keeping cards close to its chest and other secrets that would be commonplace info elsewhere. (What the heck! We can’t even see slides presented to our children in school!)

The 4G has surpassed the 3G in some respects, by tying local media into money knots with SPH Media and using Parliament as the key if not the only space for discussion. The 4G also has the benefit of the work of past generations of leaders, with tentacles reaching deeper and wider in the economy and society. The space for differing views have been reduced or, at least, muted lest one be labelled a ‘government critic’.

I have written before that recent events have dismayed me. I did not like that we were kept in the dark about Speaker Tan Chuan Jin’s shenanigans for so long even as he performed on the parliament stage. I thought it was sly of the G to introduce constitutional amendments right after the presidential election as if it already knew its own man would win. He did. I cannot understand why a senior civil servant did not say no to a ministerial request that was personal rather than official. I wonder about the screw up over the public timings of former minister S. Iswaran’s arrest.

You might say these are little things. I think they have to do with values. You need to level with voters to gain trust. I think the Code of Conduct for ministers and MPs should be dusted over and strengthened to make it explicit that even a perception of impropriety will be frowned upon. That’s because, ahem, ministers are already paid pretty well. (See what I mean? )

When Mr Wong talks about a ‘refresh’ or a ‘restart’, he might want to look inwards besides setting forth a new agenda for Singapore. If we want a future with the 4G, it is not enough to ‘trust’ that they do right by us, but to know it too.