Everything Also Complain

From ‘Hold referendum on population growth’, 31 Jan 2013, ST Forum

(Kelvin Quek): AS A born and bred Singaporean, it is my right to have a say in the size and composition of the population (“Population could hit 6.9m by 2030“; yesterday). Unlike measures like the certificate of entitlement, Electronic Road Pricing or goods and services tax, population policies have an impact that cannot be reversed in one or two generations.

It is all the more worrying since Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself recently admitted that the Government does not have 20/20 foresight and finds it difficult to predict economic changes, the property cycle, population trends and the number of homes needed (“PM throws light on what led to infrastructure strain”; Tuesday).

So let the citizens have a real say. Let us hold a national referendum to see if Singaporeans are supportive of having a population of six million by 2020 and 6.9 million by 2030. The referendum can be carefully crafted to present various choices to Singaporeans, including the scenario of very low economic growth or even economic stagnation if we cap the population at 5.5 million or six million. If more than two-thirds of Singaporeans are against having a population size as projected by the White Paper, then the Government should plan for an alternative scenario.

If a large majority agree with the White Paper’s conclusions, then at least we know that we share collective responsibility for the consequences.

The chance of a National Referendum happening to let Singaporeans vote for or against the 2030 population crunch is as likely as a tsunami sweeping us of our feet. The first (and maybe LAST) ever NR was in fact held before we even gained our Independence in 1962, when we had to decide what flag to use in our merger with Malaysia among other stuff like citizenship and language policies . This was like Polling Day, except that instead of ticking for a party, you voted for various scenarios. The people chose the Lee Kuan Yew-backed ‘Alternative A’, which granted Singapore control over labour and education, despite us having to convert our identities to become Malaysians. The decision to merge was already a done deal, and the whole referendum process appeared to be a cosmetic matter of going through the motions, or in commonspeak ‘wayang’. You could say the same thing about our National Conversation, which has probably expended the amount of Post-It pads equivalent to a stack of White Papers as tall as the Singapore Flyer.

The reason why the PAP is generally reluctant to hold such resource-intensive opinion polls is because asking Singaporeans if they would prefer to live in a state of 7 million people is a no-brainer. We were already upset when you were talking about 6 million people. It’s a stupid question to ask, yet the obvious answer is not one they want to hear, because they’d know better. So it’s likely that our government will trudge ahead, telling us how their  expert-endorsed, concise ‘Land Use Plan’ would achieve a SWEET SPOT.  If there were ever a poll on the matter it would be asking us if we’d like to turn Pulau Ubin from a nature spot to a hub of seaside executive condos or a ring of luxury hotels. It’s like a grubby sommelier asking if you’d prefer the red or white wine after already putting you on tab. I’m not sure if the people who sort our land resources out are actual population experts, or a bunch of nerds addicted to Simcity.

Why, in our 48 years of nation-building, have we stalled on referenda? According to Goh Chok Tong, he did not ‘believe’ in such things because referenda should only be held on ‘life and death’ issues, and not something like say the elected presidency for example. In 1987, when he rejected calls to vote for the ‘Team MP’ or now known as the GRC system, he said the consent of voters would only be needed if the proposed legislation brought about ‘fundamental changes’ to the Constitution and our Sovereignty as an independent nation. Turning our once idyllic fishing village into a gambling haven also didn’t seem to warrant a Referendum in 2004, yet it remains uncertain these days if the Government had made the right choice about casinos without consulting the general public, with so much investment in damage control and prevention. In fact, I think the National Conversation system was set up PRECISELY to ward off any suggestion of the more decisive Referendum. If you deliver a dud platform for airy-fairy topics of discussion, you provide citizens the illusion of ‘ownership’, when it’s really a distraction from your actual powers as a citizen. It’s like a desperate father giving his kid a digital watch to play with instead of an iPad.

I would argue that overloading our tiny island with new citizens IS in fact a ‘life and death’ issue. You could have people losing their careers and minds in the heat of competition. You’d have the weak and elderly fainting, wheezing, getting heart attacks or beating each other silly from the sheer stress of taking public transport. Not to mention the spread of re-emerging Third World diseases that we’re struggling to contain even today like influenza, dengue and TB. You’d have the national identity diluted by foreign invaders, hence the ‘sovereignty’ of being Singaporean. Ministers like Khaw Boon Wan and DPM Teo are convinced that things will go according to plan, telling us ‘not to worry’ like singing a lullaby while shaking the baby. There’s a reason why they call it the population ‘bomb’ and not the ‘sweet spot’, an embarrassingly corporeal catchphrase that brings to mind the brink of an orgasm or releasing a long-suppressed fart rather than what should be better simplified as ‘balance’. But why feed us with boring energy bars when you can spin candy floss, and all this sugarcoating of a serious, even dangerous, logistic nightmare is giving me the cavities in addition to the heebie-jeebies.

For subjecting Singaporeans to the terror of squeezing and squirming our way through every facet of our lives, the White paper is not so much a predictive model of an economically sustainable wunderkind nation, but really a user’s manual titled ‘How to Live in a Box and Still Call Your Nation a Liveable City’.  When the country bursts at its seams and the Government hangs the WHITE flag, it’s already too late giving them the RED card for the WHITE paper. I’d like to see our President do something really, if only to stop the masses, the foreign labour and jobless hobos from camping on Istana grounds when they have no place left to live. You don’t have to be a crowded nation to be successful. You just need smart leaders, you know, with 20/20 foresight.

Postscript: Khaw Boon Wan later clarified (2 Feb 2013) that 6.9 M was the ‘WORST CASE SCENARIO’ and that hoped that the actual figure would be turned out to be ‘much lower’. So what’s the ideal population for Singapore then? Just a few days back, he said a ‘high quality of life’ was still possible for 6.9 M people and that we shouldn’t ‘worry’ about a thing. Now it’s not so much a population explosion that I’m ‘worried’ about. I’m worried if the Government knows what exactly it’s doing with the White Paper forecast. This concession after all the comforting and confidence seems like a forced U-turn to me.

Filed under: 1960s, 2013, Environment, Politicians Tagged: | environment, goh chok tong, Khaw Boon Wan, Politicians