HEAD Q - MINISTRY OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS

ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR:

1ST APRIL, 2011 TO 31ST MARCH, 2012:

(Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011): Order read for consideration in Committee of Supply [7th Allotted Day].

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]: Head Q – Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (cont.)

Resumption of Debate on Question [9th March, 2011],

"That the total sum to be allocated for Head Q of the Estimates be reduced by $100." – [Mr Zaqy Mohamad].

Question again proposed.

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National monument and heritage

Assoc. Prof. Fatimah Lateef (Marine Parade): Mr Chairman, it is important for us to preserve and upkeep certain premises in our society with regard our heritage and culture. Most of these national monuments commemorate significant events in Singapore's short history. These earmarked buildings may also have specific history, traditional, archaeological architecture and artistic values.

To date, the total number of national monuments we have is 63. How does the Preservation of Monuments Board gazette places and buildings as national monuments and how, if any, is the review done? Can the public provide their suggestions on the additional buildings to be added? What is MICA's approach to create greater awareness on this and help develop a sense of ownership and pride in our heritage? What are the other plans to enhance MICA's partnership with schools and community groups?

Finally, the commitment to preserve may be constrained by the importance attached to economic development, especially in the small country like Singapore. How is the balance reached and how does MICA emphasise maximising the commercial potential for old buildings?

Living culture and heritage

Dr Ong Seh Hong (Marine Parade): ( In Mandarin ): [For vernacular speech, please refer to Appendix A.] In 2008, I pleaded in Parliament to cherish our cultural heritage for the sake of our children. I quoted a saying, "better look for the root when it is still around; better not wait for the light to be gone before passing it on."

I am glad to see that "passing the light" was the highlight of this year's Chingay. When President Nathan's calligraphy "传灯" (pass the light) rose slowly in the sky and the whole stadium filled with the music of "传灯", everyone felt the deep meaning of passing the light.

"传灯" lyrics were written by local writer Du Nanfa 28 years ago, and music was composed by Zhang Fan. It did not cause much of a stir then. However, it became popular in Malaysia and China. A Chinese student studying in Singapore told me that when she was in Harbin, her school used to teach this song. They thought then that it was a Chinese folk song. Finally, it came to its birth place – Singapore. The story of this song touched me deeply.

Our ancestors came from all over the world, leaving us a rich diversified cultural heritage. We have Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and Peranakan cultures. Unfortunately, we did not preserve these cultures well and slowly they disappeared from our lives. Take performing art as an example, the Chinese dialect roadside wayang , traditional Malay and Indonesia music have all gone out of fashion. Regarding languages, few young people can speak dialects; Eurasians are worried that they will lose their unique Kristang language. The meaning of traditional festivals is lost, only their commercial value is emphasised. Many street delicacies and handicrafts, which were popular when we were young, have all disappeared.

Korea, on the contrary, values her traditional culture very much. They pay great attention to rituals. Kindergartens in Korea have special "ritual rooms" to familiarise children with traditional costumes, formalities in greeting, eating and serving tea. In secondary school and university, a special class is offered whereby students, dressed in traditional Korean costume, learn tea ceremony or Korean cooking. In addition, Korea still has over 200 country schools to teach the youth humanity. They open during the summer and winter holidays and teach four main values which are similar – loyalty, filial piety, rituals and respect for seniors.

Culture is the root of a nation and race. We are a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. We cannot forget our roots and we need more resources to make them go deeper. A tree will fall without roots, no matter how leafy it is. We need to have real content and a long-lasting value. Culture should not be a still photo. It should be a part of daily life and an important cohesive power. Our support for and development of the local cultural workers are urgently needed. We need to cultivate a strong cultural army to help sink our roots deeper.

We are a multi-racial society with a diversified culture. Hence, while we promote culture, we must also support ethnic cultures so that we have a flourishing diversified cultural scene. Cuisine, performance, arts and literature are means to achieve this aim. While we encourage ethnic cultural groups to play the role of preserving heritage, the Government's support is also crucial. These groups are facing two problems. First, space. Some groups rented space from NAC. Because the space is too small, they have to hold their activities outside. However, the rented space was taken back by National Arts Council (NAC) because of this. Many groups have great potential and innovative plans, but because of space constraints, their plans cannot materialise. For example, the Singapore Literature Association put forward the idea of setting up a Singapore Chinese Literature House. This is a good idea and the Association has since collected many Singapore-published books, including out-of-print editions. They are part of our cultural treasures. However, there is no place for them to exhibit the books. They tried to work with other organisations but were not successful. If these books are lost, it would be difficult to get them back.

These groups also face the problem of funding. They are not-for-profit and have to raise funds constantly, yet, they still need to pay taxes like other profitable organisations. I hope the Government can help in these two areas.

The lyrics of " 传灯" (pass on the light) is:

Every river is a legend,

From the remote hills flowing to the sea,

Every lamp is incense,

Lighting up gradually the dark night,

For the great earth and grassland, sun and moon,

For the sake of life and for blood ties,

Every river must keep flowing,

Every lamp must burn itself.

I hope we can treasure our cultural heritage to pass on the light! Do not wait till the lamp is gone!

*Cols. 4707-4710.

The Chairman: Mr Arthur Fong. Take both your cuts together, please.

Mr Arthur Fong (West Coast): We are a nation of immigrants. Our forefathers hailed mostly from China and India then. But they were mostly from Southern China and Southern India. Majority of our early Chinese settlers are from the province of Fujian and our Indians migrated from Tamil Nadu.

However, our immigrant stock is deepening and getting more complex in recent years. We have Chinese from the northern state of Heilongjiang, as well as Indians from all over India. It is now a common sight to see Caucasians living amongst us in our HDB estates. Not so many years ago, many are from European states, such as the United Kingdom, France or Italy. Now, we have quite a few residents from Eastern Europe.

This addition to our population stock is a plus, but does present some challenges to our cultural heritage. On a positive note, this diversity has added to Singaporeans’ gourmet choices! We only need to look at the types of cuisines offered at the restaurants and coffee shops at many of our food haunts. We have Chinese restaurants, yu tiao from Taiwan, Chongqing steamboat, noodle shops that serve Halal food from China.

In this regard, it is important to preserve our traditional cultures and a deeper appreciation of our heritage. Equally important is to refocus on what is our traditional culture and heritage especially in light of the changes and amidst the inter-twining social fabric of our society with the new immigrants. What is MICA and its agencies' plan to preserve our culture and heritage?

Social kindness and graciousness

Sir, my next cut. Many Singaporeans feel that we have become a fast-paced society. They are not wrong. The economic growth we have experienced and the faster pace of life can be seen and felt. Not only is the pace of doing business faster, if we look around, the physical landscape over at our business district has changed with new office buildings readying themselves for banks and law firms to move in, the addition of transport services to cope with increased use are all testament to a bustling city. Even older estates, like my ward in Clementi, has changed in a short 10-year period with more facilities and hip spots to serve our residents’ needs.

We have been fortunate to have good economic growth allowing us to provide our people with good education. A well-educated population should serve as the basic ingredient for a gracious and kind society. We have first-world infrastructures, but without the kindness and social graces, we would be nothing more than gorillas having English tea in nice western suits.

The English, known for their strict adherence to certain acceptable social graces have, in the last decade, had their image marred by the behaviour of football hooligans. How are we doing in our social graces?

Sir, in the early 1950s and 1960s, even right up to the 1970s, it is not uncommon to see people spitting on the street. Equally rare to see people giving up their seats to pregnant women or elderly folks on public transport. Queue-jumping is a norm and never thought to be a problem. But in present day Singapore, although we are still far from perfect, far from the ideal society where people give way to one another, be kind to one another, and be gracious to their neighbours, the score card is not all discouraging. We still have the uniquely Singapore seat reservation practice of the "chope already" system with tissue packets in hawkers’ centres. Although the queue-jumping, the throwing of litter out of one's flat and the parking of vehicles in the driveway of others still happen, the fact is we have improved to be kinder and a more gracious society.

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We have played our part as good and gracious hosts at major events held in Singapore. International guests from all over the world during IMF and APEC meetings have remarked how gracious and friendly Singaporeans they have had the opportunity to meet were. We had 20,000 volunteers out in force to give foreign guests participating the Inaugural YOG a good impression of Singapore. Graciousness of our people will indeed go a long way and is an important part of our branding.

But, Sir, we cannot turn on our best behavior during these events or when we have guests and then revert to our ugly self the moment the guests leave. We need to be kind and gracious all the time. We need that to be part of our lives and our DNA. Well, maybe that is stretching it a little, but I made my point. We need to work at it.

Can the Minister tell us what resources and initiatives his Ministry is deploying and planning for towards a kinder and more gracious society? In my cut on public service broadcast (PBS), I shall also reiterate the role of public broadcasting and its impact on this topic.

National identity

Mdm Ho Geok Choo (West Coast): With the sudden influx of foreigners to Singapore in recent years, Singaporeans are feeling a sense of anomie. One Singaporean tells me that every second person she encounters on the MRT is a foreigner, and that train carriages and public buses are a cacophony of incomprehensible tongues from far-flung outposts.

No doubt productivity, growth and connectivity to the world are important for Singapore but what can the Government do to improve its engagement with citizens so that they once again feel that the slogan "One People, One Nation, One Singapore" means what it used to mean to Singaporeans?

Mr Chairman, the Government has explained several times that Singapore needs foreigners to expand its talent pool; to work at jobs which Singaporeans are not keen to take up; to top up the population and increase the low birth rates. While the Government's arguments are sound, I am concerned about how it is communicating with the people. Has its ability to communicate been lost in a mounting stream of immigration visas?

Mr Chairman, the Government's message to the people seems to be that foreigners mean higher GDP growth. The Government needs to improve on its message that Singapore, as home, is much more than cold economics. What more can the Government do to make our citizens feel Singaporean again?

New immigrants and national identity

Mr Calvin Cheng (Nominated Member): Sir, I worry about how immigration will impact the national identity of Singapore. As a country, Singapore is still an infant and its national identity is still forming. We are a state but, in many ways, not yet a nation. Nations take many years to form and a national identity takes time to develop. The question is: as we take in these new immigrants at such a hurried pace, would it slow down the formation of our national identity? Would it make it even harder for us to become a nation? We are a state that is formed primarily by immigrants, although some have used this as an argument to argue that, as a result, we should have no problems taking in more immigrants. I disagree.

It is precisely because we are trying to form a nation out of immigrants that Singapore struggles with a national identity. We have to meld together people of different cultures, different histories, and up to half a century ago, loyalties to different nations. Forming a nation out of these disparate communities is like cooking a soup and our ingredients have been brewing for 45 years. But now, just as to stew is just about to be right, we throw in even more raw ingredients. In this case, will the "stew" of our national identity ever be ready?

Sir, it has often been argued a truly global city needs to always be opened to new immigrants. Singapore strives to be a global city. However, Singapore is not merely just a city. It is, importantly, also a state and a country hoping to be a nation. We are thus fundamentally different from and can never be a New York or a London. New York is a global city but, nevertheless, a city in the United States of America. London is a global city but, nevertheless, a city in the United Kingdom. A New Yorker may not be an American, but there are Americans who do not live in New York. A Londoner may not necessarily be a member of the British nation.

Singapore is different. It is a city-state – a city and a state. We cannot be a global city that is also part of a wider not so global and fundamentally local state. For us, it is one and the same. I thus wonder whether we are trying to square a circle. If Singapore is ever truly to become a global city, does that mean, by definition, we will never be a nation?

Sir, much has been done about the integration of new immigrants and this is to be applauded. However, in order to integrate them, we need a strong identity to integrate them into in the first place. Everywhere in the world, countries have to deal with the integration of new immigrants but older nations with a strong identity find it easier to do so. If we do not even know who we are, how can we expect our new citizens to become more like us?

Sir, much as I believe that we need new immigrants to counter our declining birth rates and add to the vibrancy of our city, I think we need a certain ratio of a core group of Singaporeans to be maintained. How do we define these Singaporeans? It is never easy to draw a clear line but I will give you a reply that I gave my mainland Chinese friends. Many of us from my generation will be the third generation on our island. Our grandparents came here. I explained to them that our surname seemed weird to a speaker of Mandarin because our ancestors came from southern China. Many of us in our 30s and 40s were born here post-independence and grew up in Singapore. We have many friends of many races but we all speak in the same accent. All of these, the shared culture background, the shared history of parents, our grandparents, bind us together and help us form a common identity. I am sure the Indians and Malays have similar stories as well and, together, our stories form our identity.

Sir, we cannot be xenophobic. A xenophobic, inward-looking nation cannot prosper especially one as small as Singapore. However, a country that keeps taking in new people soon find itself having an identity crisis. This is being seen all over the world.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom recently declared the failure of their policy of multi-culturalism. Germany is struggling with its Turkish immigrant population. Even America, the mother of all immigrant nations, wonders what it would be like when ethnic minorities outnumber those that have been in the United States since independence. If these old countries have problems, what more a country like us which is only 45 years in their making? A balance thus needs to be struck for Singapore. Otherwise, we will never have a national identity to integrate our new immigrants into.

Changing rules for a new social impact

Miss Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Mr Chairman, what does the Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and the Egyptian revolution have in common? They are all phenomenal – first growth, user-led movements that re-defined the rules of engagement between the private, public and people sectors.

While top-down centralised institutions and initiatives still have their place, the distributed preferential network of people-oriented and people-originated initiatives, linked by shared interest, strengthened by the pervasiveness of social media and open borders, are gaining ground. Interestingly, the recent ground-up Egyptian revolution was led not by political groups but shared-interest groups. Today's local leaders are at the heart of their communities. They inspire communities, let them decide what makes sense and galvanise groups for collective action.

This presents tremendous risks and opportunities for the Government. A case in point: the Egyptian revolution although successfully overthrew the entrenched Mubarak regime, offers no clear solution or leaders to Egypt's problems. Its people continue to suffer. We must not let this happen to Singapore. We need to understand this new phenomenon and urgently close the gap between the people and the public sector.

So, how do we close the gap? Simply up the collaboration quotient between the public and people sectors. Invest heavily in people sector events and initiatives. Help them scale up and scale overseas, just like we did with the private sector. The good news here is that we do have that experience with the private sector and we can transfer those know-how and skill-set to the people sector as well.

The top-down approach, whether Government plans and procures all things from MNCs to IOs to global events, takes care of citizens from cradle to grave, has its own limitations. While we enjoy imported top chefs and glitzy events to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, people are not content being mere consumers anymore. Singaporeans are better educated and self-confident today. They want to be producers and need bold support to develop and scale Singapore and people-oriented events and ventures. Perhaps, the Government will urge that it has supported major local events, and I agree. However, a closer look will tell us that many of these events originated as Government or agency-led events. While it serves its industry purpose, it does little to build the new social compact. Some observed that the Government appears to be less patient with local dark horses and too eager in bringing in foreign brand names. Undeniably, imports are quick wins but can be passing fancies. The former, however, will add buzz to the Singapore scene more permanently, cultivate a sense of achievement, pride and appreciation amongst Singaporeans and, at the same time, grow an exportable sector that will bring both financial gain and reputation to Singapore.

I urge the Government to channel bold support towards people sector initiatives that can potentially shine on the regional and global stage. Go beyond that of financial support, facilitate with know-how and network and build a pipeline of people/public sector success stories that has its heart rooted in Singapore even as they spread their wings and Singapore's interest and Singaporeans along.

Sir, the Government cannot know all or do all, but it must eye-ball the changing rules for a new social compact and the new rules require that the Government be more people-centric, create support frameworks that incentivise and facilitate people to be at their best. Ultimately, people have to be responsible for their own future. This would be the most sensible and effective way of ensuring that we build a cohesive social compact that cultivates in the inter-dependence, resilience, active citizenry to provide the peace and prosperity in nation-building. Sir, the more we celebrate locally, and people-originated events, enterprise and ventures, the more there will be to celebrate.

Cool Singapore

Mr Chan Soo Sen (Joo Chiat): Mr Chairman, some four years ago in this House, I commented that Singapore is seen to be good and not seen to be cool. I also argued that having a cool image is actually very vital in the next stage of economic development because we cannot compete on cost so we must compete on innovation and creation. Having a cool image allows people to want to pay more for things that are created in Singapore. That is why people are prepared to pay hundred times the price for an Italian wallet rather than the Thai ones because Italy is seen to be more cool than Thailand.

I must say that we have made good progress since then. We have staged a successful Asian Youth Games, absolutely spectacular. We had a charming Chingay parade and we have created new brand names such as "Awfully Chocolate". I think these are good progress but we have got to go further, both in terms of breadth and depth.

Let us examine Singapore's strengths. Singapore's uniqueness lies in our multi-culturalism. We would be seen to be cool if we could blend our many cultures to create products, services as well as performances that are uniquely Singapore. I think we were seen to be even more cool if, wherever we regionalise, we could also seamlessly blend with the cultures of the host countries that we go to create products, services, and maybe cultural performances that are truly unique, and that both we and our host countries are proud of.

I feel that to do this, we need to bring together people with deep knowledge in different cultures, as well as people with good creative and business sense, get them to work together, bounce their heads with each other, impact each other's professionalism in a stimulating as well as out-of-the-box environment. In this way, we could generate, nurture and grow the sparks of creativity. But all these ideas will still need to have things like incubators and the various start-up support schemes in order to make them into reality. All these would need funding support.

Mr Chairman, we have created organisations to do this for research and development (R&D) to strengthen our hard power. I would like, therefore, to suggest to the Minister to consider setting up a "Cool Singapore" Agency to nurture our soft power. We could consider web addresses such as www.cool.sg in case www.cool.gov.sg is not "cool" enough. Together, a cooler Singapore will be a more successful one.

Developing soft power

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong (Tampines): Sir, popular culture and the arts, literature, films, television dramas and even pop music, help to bind our people together and shape a sense of common identity. They also project a country's soft power in international affairs, its influence on other countries, and its appeal to people of other lands, through culture, values and ideas, as opposed to the hard power of military and economic capabilities.

In Asia, India, China, Japan and South Korea are fast becoming regional culture powers, symbolised by the rising fame of Bollywood, Chinese cinema, K-pop and manga .

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If I may just delve into the phenomenon on what is up with the Korean wave – the wave with these pop stars, soap operas and songs that has taken the world by storm, including Singapore. It has then help to lift the image of South Korea as an edgy and cool place. In Singapore, K-pop concerts are always an instant sell-out.

The appeal to our young is made most clear last December when the South Korean talent management company, JYP Entertainment, held a three-day audition at the community club as part of its talent search. JYP is behind the popular South Korean super groups such as 2AM, 2PM and Wonder Girls. More than 3,000 people signed up for their audition in Singapore hoping for a shot at becoming the next Korean pop star. Its TV dramas are also a hit with our audience. They use themes recognisable to Asians who share similar family and social structures. For example, many of the contradictions built into these structures lay at the heart of the number of smash hit Korean soap operas.

Sir, we need to develop our own version of JYP and our own Simon Cowell who can spot talent, develop them and market them. I wonder how many of the 3,000 who auditioned to become a Korean pop star were chosen and whether we ourselves could have held our own audition, selected some of them, packaged some of them, marketed them, developed their talent and produced our own "S-Pop" and have our own all-girl, "S-Pop" band. We can call them Super Girls instead of Wonder Girls but they will be catchy and they can make their mark in the world.

Sir, last night I watched on YouTube the Wonder Girls' version "Nobody", which was an instant hit in the US and other parts of the world. I looked at them and there was not anything particularly Korean about them. They were catchy, they were pretty, they were cute, very slick choreography but I do not see why our Singapore girls cannot do better.

Sir, we also need to invest in our scriptwriters and production companies to produce TV dramas and films that are accessible to audiences abroad and, yet, reflecting the Singaporean brand. Right now, I fear that the stereotype is that to be a truly Singaporean programme there must be Singlish, although I am not sure that may be the best cultural export from Singapore. We must think out of the box. I do not see why we cannot produce TV dramas that deal with the issues that resonate with audiences abroad such as love, family values, society, inter-racial relationships from an Singaporean angle. Our multi-racial heritage may be a Singapore strength. So is our history and landscape which is quite unique with our blend of old and new, east and west. Our diversity in terms of welcoming immigrants is also a strength and could make our films, books and arts more accessible to audiences abroad.

I would like to ask the Minister how he intends to cultivate talent to produce better TV programmes that could travel and to support them to develop export markets; also his plans to improve our PSB programmes in terms of its quality and its outreach; also Singapore films and literature, most are now seen as too obscure and self-referential to appeal to mass audiences.

Sir, we need to do more to expose our artists to international audiences and develop them, and also to host major film and literature festivals in Singapore. I support our continued participation in the Venice Biennale. It helps to put our mark in a major festival and, at the same time, we are also developing our own Biennale and I hope that more investments will be put into it so that we can draw people to Singapore and become a bastion of soft power in distributing our talents and our art forms.

Sir, we also need to invest in our traditional arts for their distinctive original contents, so I urge the Minister to support our traditional arts groups.

The Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew): Mr Chairman, I want to thank the hon. Members who spoke last evening and earlier this afternoon. Last night, many of them spoke on the importance of a vibrant arts and culture scene in Singapore and I certainly agree with them and I will direct my first set of responses to suggestions that they have mentioned and, a little later on, I will touch on identity, heritage and culture.

I agree with the importance of arts and culture in making Singapore our endearing home and a leading global city. An endearing home cannot be defined solely by a thriving economy, business-friendly environment and well-developed infrastructure. It must also be a place we are proud of, love and feel emotionally rooted to. Our arts and culture play a central role in enhancing this sense of home and national identity as it forms a part of our collective soul that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

In the last financial year (FY 2010), MICA spent approximately $235 million on arts and heritage, split almost evenly between both areas. This included funding to the National Arts Council (NAC), National Heritage Board (NHB), the Esplanade and the School of the Arts (SOTA). Over and above these, the National Library Board (NLB) received $175 million to support the operations of our public libraries.

Our investments in arts, heritage and libraries have borne fruit. In 2010, our people enjoyed an average of about 85 arts activities per day, a 2.6-fold increase from 10 years ago. Ticketed attendances rose to about 1.5 million, almost two-fold over the last 10 years. Non-ticketed attendances for arts, heritage and library events rose two-fold over the last four years to about 20.5 million.

As announced by the Minister for Finance, the Government has committed to increase funding for arts and culture over the next five years. Of this additional investment, MICA plans to channel an average of almost $80 million per year to new initiatives under the Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR) – something which was also raised by Mr Zaqy Mohamad. Over 50% of this $80 million will be set aside for building fresh audiences and increasing support to community arts and culture initiatives. The remaining sum will go toward building content and enhancing capability development.

However, Government funding alone will never be sufficient. I support Ms Audrey Wong’s call for greater support from the private and people sectors. In this regard, I would like to specially acknowledge the generous support of donors who gave $41.8 million in cash, in-kind donations and sponsorship to arts and culture in 2010, a 33% increase from 2009. Going forward, we will continue to cultivate and grow this pool of donors through our numerous stakeholder engagement programmes.

That being said, it is not just big donations that MICA is aiming for. Even a small contribution goes a long way because it is not just the money but, more importantly, the spirit of giving and moral support we show to the arts and artists. MICA has set up a web portal Give2arts.sg to encourage public giving. To date, the portal has netted about $80,000 in donations from a widespread spectrum of donors but, more importantly, it has also garnered us 1,600 volunteers.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad and Mr Arthur Fong asked for updates on the Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR). Following my announcement last year, MICA formed the 19-strong ACSR Steering Committee, led by Mr Lee Tzu Yang, Chairman of the School of the Arts (SOTA). The ACSR Steering Committee has recently submitted an interim report on its progress. I will now share their preliminary findings and recommendations.

The ACSR Committee re-affirmed the value of arts and culture, and that it allows us to express who we are as a people, and it strengthens Singapore’s position in the global competition for talent, investment and international mindshare. In our communities, the arts and culture fosters a sense of belonging by building shared memories and collective experiences. Arts and culture also provides platforms for interaction, fosters social cohesion, and bridges differences with our neighbours from other backgrounds. On a personal level, it adds colour to our daily routines and improves our quality of life.

To illustrate, let me share the story of the "Taxi Sifu Reading Club" which we believe is the world’s first reading club for taxi drivers. Mr Seng Han Thong would be glad to know it because he had quite a large part to play in this. The club has about 70 members who meet regularly and has covered a wide range of books, from literature classics to non-fiction and even motivational tomes. Over time, beyond simply participating, members have begun organising book discussions for the public, and some have even started to write. This reading club has also expanded the social networks of members and provides practical help in other areas, such as finding relief drivers. Mr Koh Chwee Liong is a committee member and he shares, "Each time when I am asked to lead a discussion, I have to fully prepare myself for it and, along the way, I learn much more. I have been stretched through the numerous debates and sharing sessions."

This is a clear example of how arts and culture is not high-brow and inaccessible, and that it is available to both the young and the old, blue-collar or white-collar, and that the arts and culture can be enjoyed by anyone.

The ACSR Steering Committee has put forward a vision of Singapore in 2025, that we should be a nation of cultured and gracious people, proud of our heritage, and confident in our Singaporean identity. Arts and culture will be an integral part of our everyday lives – a national pastime that feeds our minds, stimulates our senses, and expands our variety of leisure options. Singapore will also be home to many iconic cultural institutions, events, and star talent that represent the peaks of excellence that our people love and are proud of.

To achieve its vision, the ACSR Committees have proposed preliminary recommendations under three broad themes – "Arts and culture for everyone, every day", "Arts and culture everywhere" and "Building capabilities and raising new peaks of excellence". Allow me to elaborate on some of their proposals.

First, arts and culture for everyone, every day. To reach out to Singaporeans from all walks of life and in all seasons of life, the ACSR recommends widening exposure to arts and culture from our childhood to our golden years, expanding avenues for hobbyists to create original works and self-organise activities, and increasing access to training and support for practitioners.

Second, arts and culture everywhere. The ACSR envisions a trans-island arts and culture network, anchored in a downtown core, and extending to regional hubs, as well as civic and private spaces within our heartland neighbourhoods. Under this theme, the ACSR proposes setting up a network of heartland performing arts centres, with affordable rehearsal facilities for casual practitioners to hone their craft or to just come together for practice to build social bonds.

Third, building capabilities and raising new peaks of excellence. To bring our arts and culture to the next level, the ACSR recognises that we must do more to maximise the creative potential of our people and institutions, and raise the quality of our cultural offerings. In particular, the ACSR supports the continued promotion and cultivation of different tiers of peaks of excellence, from national peaks such as the Esplanade and our orchestras, to community peaks – community groups that have excelled, to emerging peaks in new art forms and genres.

I take this opportunity to thank the ACSR Committees for the good work that they have done thus far. In the next phase of the ACSR process, the Committees will be conducting focus groups and public consultation. We welcome the public and key stakeholders to come forward and share their views on the preliminary proposals. We look forward to receiving the final report of the ACSR in the second half of the year.

Mr Chairman, MICA agrees in principle with the broad directions of the ACSR. Even as the three Committees continue to refine their proposals, allow me to share MICA’s views on the issues raised in the interim report, and highlight a number of the preliminary recommendations that MICA is inclined to support, given the additional funding for arts and culture over the next five years.

MICA recognises that there is untapped potential for the majority of our people to harness the value of arts and culture in their lives and in their communities. Can we realise this potential? Can we dream bold and big? I am confident that we can.

While the ACSR and, indeed, MICA are not going to focus as much on hardware and infrastructure, let me just share the story of the Esplanade. This was an institution, an iconic building that was mooted in the first such study back in 1989. When it was first mooted, the Esplanade was greeted with scepticism by both locals and foreigners. There were strong reactions against building two very expensive "durians" – although, at that time, we did not know that that was the shape it was going to take – in the middle of the new downtown. It has been less than 10 years since the Esplanade opened. Today, it is hard to imagine Singapore or the Singapore skyline without the Esplanade. It has become a key platform for making arts and culture affordable and accessible to our people, for example, through its numerous non-ticketed shows and exhibitions.

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Let me share the story of Mr Chen Mugen who is a retiree. Lianhe Zaobao wrote an article sometime back about him and the Huayi Festival. During the Esplanade's Huayi Festival, he was able to catch the Singapore Chinese Orchestra at a subsidised rate for seniors. At the same time, he also enjoyed many of the free outdoor performances, including percussion and singing of old songs. He said, "The atmosphere was very lively and provided good entertainment for old folks like us."

I believe that with the ACSR recommendations and going forward for the next 15 years or so, we can similarly spark an interest in the arts and culture in our people, we can break down barriers to appreciation and participation, and we can bring our arts and culture to a new level in our next phase of development.

To bring the ACSR's vision to life, we must dispel perceptions that arts and culture is elitist, expensive, and restricted to "high art", ballet, orchestras. We know that it is far more than that and we must help people realise and understand that it is far more than that because arts needs to broaden its appeal. It needs to provide more opportunities for participation, so that more people can better appreciate the prevalence and pervasiveness of arts and culture in their lives and their leisure activities. We know that arts and culture can encompass even hobbies with aesthetic elements or cultural underpinnings. One such hobby is photography, which has, in recent years, evolved into a form of visual arts that people of all ages can enjoy.

Take Ms Rose Oh, for example. I think she is about 70 years old now and she was a pioneer member of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP) Photography Interest Group. They meet regularly for photography outings. This interest group provided her the opportunity to meet people around her age with the same interest and passion. In addition, she now re-shoots old photographs of her family members, she converts them to digital images to make videos, and she then shares them regularly at family gatherings. Over time, she has upgraded her skills and is now better at composing and framing pictures, better use of lighting. She is now able to get better shots of both her family as well as her own group activities. We need more examples like this. We need the arts to be able to infuse into the community and into the lives of the people.

Building on the ACSR recommendations, and against the backdrop of a broader definition of arts and culture over the next coming years, MICA intends to direct most of the additional funding for arts and culture towards four areas: (i) Broadening opportunities; (ii) Deepening engagement; (iii) Raising peaks of excellence; and (iv) Building capabilities.

First, broadening opportunities for exposure to arts and culture. I agree with Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Mr Arthur Fong, Mr Yeo Guat Kwang and Ms Audrey Wong, among others, that greater effort and resources are needed to allow arts and culture to touch the lives of more people, especially those living in the heartlands. We will therefore increase the range of touch points and step up audience development for arts and culture.

As a start, MICA will bring arts and culture into our homes through broadcast and new media, by enhancing local arts content on free-to-air channels. Viewers can look forward to more local arts programming on okto , greater arts and culture elements in programmes on other free-to-air channels as well as access to arts-related content on new media platforms such as MediaCorp’s xinMSN. MICA will also support the creation of more homegrown programmes that focus on traditional, youth and community arts, including coverage of events like the Singapore Youth Festival.

In addition, we will focus outreach to three target groups: students, so as to cultivate an appreciation for arts and culture from an early age; working adults, because we know that students who were active in arts and culture in school tend to "drop out" on entering the workforce for a variety of reasons; and senior citizens, given that arts and culture can be less physically demanding than other activities and caters to a wide range of interests and abilities.

For students, MICA is working with the Ministry of Education (MOE) on the development of more innovative teaching approaches and resources that will provide students with the opportunity to enhance their learning through arts and culture. In addition, we will work with MOE to increase access to high quality artistic instruction for students, either as part of the curriculum or as part of their co-curricular activities (CCAs). This is critical because we know that we can spark children’s interest and open up opportunities for them to pursue their aspirations in the creative fields. In so doing, we hope to cultivate our children’s creativity, life-skills and appreciation for diverse cultures and complement the curriculum they receive in the classroom, recognising that not all that they need to learn and do in life can be found within the covers of textbooks or be taught within the four walls of the classroom.

Ryhan bin Mohamed Astha is a student who has benefited from the exposure that MOE is giving students. He had innate talent but no formal musical training when he joined the band in Compassvale Primary School where he started learning to play the trumpet. He improved so much within a year that he qualified for admission into SOTA. Members would know that SOTA receives lots of applications, it is very selective in terms of how it picks its students. This is someone with no formal training until a year ago and he managed to qualify for admission. I understand that Ryhan is currently doing very well and continues to hone his skills through the specialised training provided by the school. We hope that more schools will provide such opportunities for latent talents like Ryhan to discover their interest in the arts and level up in their skills. I will speak more on SOTA later in response to Mr Sadasivan's points.

For working adults, one of the ways we can sustain lifelong interest in arts and culture is to set up a "Creative Lifestyle at Work" fund to encourage companies to organise arts and culture activities at the workplace. The fund could be tapped on to co-fund creative lifestyle activities, ranging from lunchtime concerts, to museum passes, to hands-on craft activities. This will create greater opportunities for our busy professionals to interact and to experience the value of arts and culture in improving mental well-being, stimulating creativity and enhancing capacity to see things from a fresh perspective.

For seniors, more can be done to integrate artistic and cultural elements into existing lifestyles and wellness programmes, and to bring arts and culture to the heartlands. This will allow our seniors to appreciate and to understand arts and culture in an environment where they are comfortable. At the same time, arts and culture offers avenues to tap on our seniors’ wealth of memories, experiences and stories, particularly in transmitting and promoting our heritage, our values and the traditional arts across generations. For example, we can envisage them as part-time guides for community heritage trails, reading mentors or handicraft instructors. This will add to their sense of fulfilment and socio-emotional well-being. We will want to work more closely with the People’s Association (PA) on this, on how best to offer such opportunities for our seniors in the years to come.

Next, we must deepen engagement for those with an interest to do more – hobbyists, community groups and high-level amateurs – but who might find themselves constrained by a lack of know-how, resources and training. In the year ahead, MICA will focus on seeding and sustaining community practitioners, enhancing community programmes and strengthening community infrastructure.

MICA intends to seed more interest groups in the community by providing the necessary start-up funding, equipment and facilities. These interest groups could eventually be empowered to galvanise community engagement efforts and seed new groups in their respective fields. The Community Drumming Network is a successful example, which has brought the joys of drumming to almost 5,000 participants across the island.

In order to equip community practitioners to self-organise activities, MICA, together with PA, plans to set up "Community Arts and Culture Clubs" in interested constituencies, as recommended by the ACSR. This is akin to the constituency sports clubs. These clubs will extend the promotion of arts and culture to the grassroots level, and spearhead events, showcases and competition platforms.

MICA also intends to set up a new community arts and culture fund that community practitioners can tap on to organise outreach projects, showcase their works, upgrade their skills and create original contents. This fund aims to encourage hobbyists and interest groups to take the lead in self-organising arts and culture events and activities for their communities with the participation of the residents.

To reach out to more audiences in the heartlands, we intend to expand existing showcase platforms, such as the Community Life Arts Programme as well as constituency and district-level competitions. We also intend to raise the level and profile of our District Arts Festivals so that they can become flagship community arts events that will resonate with our heartland residents, and which community arts groups can aspire toward in showcasing their works. In addition, residents will enjoy more ready access to information on community engagement programmes, through "cultural concierges" – community engagement officers based in all major public libraries.

The libraries themselves will also become community touch-points, where residents can enjoy or organise performances, exhibitions or activities such as reading clubs. Residents can even partner the National Heritage Board (NHB) in setting up community heritage galleries in the libraries. These will showcase the heritage of constituencies and could, in time, become resource centres for community history.

As we build up our community arts groups, programming and events, we also need to improve the venues and facilities at the district and constituency levels, and I know Mr Zaqy Mohamad and Mr Yeo Guat Kwang have highlighted this point as well. During the Budget debate, Ms Audrey Wong also noted that some artists are struggling to find affordable studio spaces and housing. Let me now touch on arts housing and what we have done over the years to make more space available to artists and arts groups, and how we have given funding to a larger number of groups. In fact, about 35% of NAC’s funding in 2010 went to grants, scholarships, residencies and arts housing subsidies for artists and arts companies. We recognise that even with more resources from Government, there is an even larger number of emerging groups and we will, therefore, never be able to fully support all groups. But we will continue to try and put more resources into this area.

Let me share with the House how funding to NAC’s Major Grant scheme recipients is distributed across genres. And mind you, these are only the Major Grants recipients. This is not the total number of recipients. But I thought it is instructive for us to get an idea because many of us are not aware of how the total support being given is distributed across the different genres.

In 2010, among all of NAC’s Major Grant scheme recipients, the top five received over half a million dollars each in total grants – not an insignificant amount. Four of these five groups happen to be theatre groups. If Members look at the pie chart* [ hon. Members shown a chart ], they will see theatre groups getting 54% of the support that is given to the Major Grant recipients, including rental subsidies. Dance, about 24%. Music, and then, arts and visual arts.

Looking ahead, we must ensure that the other genres are better supported, and promising new companies given access to sufficient resources in order to have the chance to thrive. In the longer term, we could even consider converting arts housing subsidies into grants and combining them with the other grants that we currently give as a total package, so that groups can enjoy greater flexibility in utilising the overall support given to them.

*Cols. 4705-4706.

We must also ensure that priority of public funding for arts grants goes to groups that can make significant contributions to our cultural development, that display high standards of artistic excellence, and are aligned with our national identity and values.

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In the meantime, we recognise that space is important and, as a start, we have increased the space for arts housing and shared facilities by over 8,000 square metres through the Goodman Arts Centre. The NAC’s new Framework for Arts Spaces will also benefit more than 250 artists and arts groups, or more than twice the number of groups that we have benefited over the last 10 years. NAC will also roll out more "pay-per-use" shared facilities that will benefit an even larger pool of artists and arts groups. In addition, we will look into developing Community Performing Arts Centres in the heartlands. For example, we can upgrade suitable school halls or theatrettes at selected regional community centres and open them up to the public and community groups. This will alleviate the demand from hobbyists and community groups for affordable facilities to rehearse and to present.

In order to ensure that these regional hubs are well-utilised, we will equip venue owners and place-managers with the skills and additional resources to hire instructors, purchase equipment and run arts exposure activities. Arts groups can also be co-located in these centres to add to their vibrancy and programming efforts.

Beyond regional hubs, at the constituency level, we will explore incentivising community clubs and other partners to house arts and culture groups within their facilities, thereby providing spaces for these groups to continue their practice and to thrive.

These proposals to strengthen community cultural infrastructure will not only serve the needs of practitioners, but will also allow residents to encounter arts and culture at their doorstep, in the very spaces where they live and are familiar with. Furthermore, the use of community facilities for presentation makes it convenient for family and friends to support these practitioners.

Next, let me touch on the issue of raising peaks of excellence. We should continue to develop and promote our national icons, such as our orchestras, national museums and the Esplanade, which can represent us on the world stage and are viewed with a sense of pride by our people. At the same time, we also must recognise and support new “emerging peaks of excellence” in the community that have done well, and are rising in standing and popularity.

An example of a community group that has excelled is the Mus’Art Wind Orchestra under the Jurong Green Community Club. It was set up in 1988 with just 20 musicians, and about 20 years later, in 2009, it went on to win first prize in the first division of the World Music Contest. So, they have come some way in the past 20 years. And I know there are more examples like this. Every year, the orchestra performs in the heartlands to reach out to the community, and continues to actively recruit students and residents from all backgrounds, who would like to continue pursuing their interest in wind music after leaving school. It is wind music because it is a wind orchestra.

We agree with Ms Audrey Wong that quality cultural content lies at the heart of these peaks of excellence. Beyond the NAC’s Arts Creation Fund which Ms Wong touched on, the Incubation Scheme under NAC's new Framework for Arts Spaces provides artists and arts groups support and platforms to develop and present new works. In addition, the NAC’s international residency programmes support local artists going overseas as well as host international residencies in Singapore. These programmes offer practitioners many opportunities to incubate and exchange ideas with their international counterparts. For example, last year, seven Singaporean directors and playwrights attended the La MaMa International Programme in Umbria, Italy.

Going forward, the NAC is looking into piloting a new Writers Residency Programme and we will explore other ideas for residencies under the Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR). We believe in the value of such programmes, the networks, the opportunities to interact and enrich themselves while interacting and mixing with people from different places and imbibing their views, perspectives and ideas. Beyond these residencies that NAC will support, there will also be privately driven residency programmes in upcoming clusters like the Gilman Village.

MICA recognises that research can support policy development and greater innovation in the arts and culture. NAC is finetuning its Research and Development Grant to proactively seed projects that catalyse greater innovation and collaboration with industry, academia, think-tanks and the arts community. In addition, we acknowledge the need for writers who can critique and analyse our cultural landscape, and will develop their competencies through our scholarships.

NHB's museums will continue to add to critical discourse through their collaboration with major scholars in their fields of expertise. And beyond this academic research and development, there will also be market-led R&D as well as more applied or practical R&D, but I will not touch on them at this point in time.

Let me move now to talk about building capabilities. In order to build "peaks of excellence", we must also develop a pipeline of qualified manpower by building capacity and nurturing leadership among practitioners and administrators, as Ms Audrey Wong had also suggested. While NAC has increased funding to its Capability Development Schemes by over 57% in the last five years, more resources could be directed towards improving Continuing Education and Training and identifying and grooming talent.

CET opportunities are especially important in a sector where many practise as freelancers, and need to continually upgrade their skills to stay relevant and employable. Last year, about 200 arts practitioners and professionals benefited from WDA's subsidised CET programmes in areas like performing arts, technical theatre, arts education and creative entrepreneurship. With additional support from MICA, new CET programmes will be rolled out in the coming years to reach an even wider pool of practitioners.

For a start, the NAC is working with partners on its Specialist Diploma in Arts Education. This diploma is targeted at arts and culture instructors in schools and community centres; and it aims to upgrade their instructional skills.

I agree with Ms Audrey Wong that the expertise of existing organisations like the Esplanade, LASALLE, the polytechnics, NAFA and other private institutions can also be better leveraged for capacity building. We will examine how best to ramp up our partnerships with them, as well as groom new CET providers in arts and heritage. NAC will also continue to support seminars, workshops, mentorships and apprenticeships to meet the training needs of practitioners and professionals.

MICA also recognises the need to unearth new talent. We intend to introduce new platforms, such as competitions, seed funding for new works in specific genres, and training courses and mentorships where potential gems can be discovered. And once discovered, we need to follow through with these talents, providing them with sufficient opportunities as well as mentorship so that they can flourish and eventually become leaders in their fields.

For a start, MICA will strengthen the linkages between school, community and national platforms. For example, the NAC’s young talent development strategy will be better integrated with MOE’s talent development framework, so that top school talents can be identified, showcased and developed. The NAC will also tie up with private arts schools to spot and groom promising talent.

MICA intends to enhance two initiatives that our talents can aspire toward at various stages of their development. The first is a national mentorship and apprenticeship framework. This framework will enhance industry training opportunities for serious hobbyists and promising entry level practitioners by matching them with established practitioners or organisations. And mentees and apprentices will benefit from the experience of their more established counterparts who will, in turn, have an avenue to transmit their skills and knowledge, and to grow as leaders.

NAC and NHB will also step up their investment in grooming the next generation of cultural leaders. They will offer more undergraduate and post-graduate scholarships to creative talents with leadership qualities and who are committed to advancing our creative industries. This will ensure that the sector attracts a share of the best and brightest who can, with some grooming and preparation, become the possible cultural leaders of tomorrow.

Let me move away now from the ACSR recommendations and talk about a number of other issues, one of which is SOTA.

I thank Mr Sadasivan for his very favourable comments on SOTA and what it is doing to help groom and prepare young artistic talent. But as he has pointed out, I think we really must offer opportunities to sustain their participation in the arts and culture. SOTA will involve its alumni in various activities, such as mentoring current and potential students, or the "Arts in Education Forum" where they can share their experiences on the impact of an arts-infused education.

In addition, the NAC certainly welcomes grant applications from SOTA graduates for projects and training programmes as well as their participation in a number of festivals that we organise, like the Noise Festival. This will provide young talents with access to the industry through linking them up with serious practitioners as well as, perhaps, in time to come, identify opportunities for mentorships, workshops and so on, for them.

On the literary arts, MICA will continue to develop this by inculcating a reading culture and supporting our local writers, in line with what Dr Ong Seh Hong and Ms Irene Ng have suggested. NLB promotes reading through a variety of initiatives run by its network of 22 public libraries that will shortly be joined by two other libraries in Serangoon and Clementi. I will elaborate more on the initiatives of NLB in my next response.

But NAC will extend more resources to help writers across all four languages through residencies, mentorships, publishing symposiums and funding for content creation in traditional genres like poetry and prose, as well as new areas like scriptwriting and spoken word.

NAC will also offer more showcase opportunities for local writers at major international fairs and festivals. And I know that our participation in the Edinburgh Festival was quite a successful one. We will help our writers explore the possibilities of translating their works to other media, such as film, radio and even into games. Given its Asian multi-lingual focus, the now-annual Singapore Writers' Festival will help focus attention on local writers in all four languages through panel discussions, book launches and workshops. Importantly, the 2011 Festival, which is the first time the festival will be held on an annual basis henceforth, will help develop new audiences by engaging youths through "Words Go Round", which is a year-round calendar of talks, workshops and literary open houses hosted by schools for schools. The public can also look forward to performances that present the written works in new forms, including song and rap, that I believe are appealing to the young.

Next, we will also explore awarding the bi-annual Singapore Literature Prize to be given on an annual basis and to expand it to include more genres and, eventually to dovetail it with the Writers' Festival, so as to better recognise our established or accomplished writers.

Sir, this concludes the first part of my response dealing with the arts and culture. We will certainly continue in partnership with the different sectors to build a vibrant arts and culture scene as part of the Government’s wider efforts to make Singapore an endearing home for all. By broadening opportunities, deepening engagement, raising excellence through capability development efforts, we hope to cultivate a nation of cultured and gracious people who are proud of our heritage and confident in our Singaporean identity.

Mr Chairman, with your permission, let me move on to speak on the need to preserve our heritage to instil the values of kindness and graciousness which Mr Arthur Fong has so eloquently spoken on, and to strengthen our national identity.

We know that these are building blocks in our journey as a nation, certainly things that we must not lose sight of, even as we press ahead and continue striving for excellence across all areas.

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In 2015, Singapore will celebrate 50 years of independence. Within this short span of time, we have accomplished much. We have built a robust economy and a world-class living environment. If we compare ourselves to the 50 or so nations that became independent in the 1950s and the 1960s and we chart out the development pathways that have taken place, for example, GDP per capita across years, I think Members will find a very interesting picture – that Singapore has moved ahead of the rest of the pack. As I said earlier, it is not just a thriving economy, it is not just a business-friendly environment, and it is not just a well-developed infrastructure that will matter going forward. We must, as a young nation, amidst the tides of change, through good times and bad, make sure that Singapore is more than just a temporary sojourn or merely a place to earn a living. We must make sure that Singapore is a home where many of us build our families and sink our roots. What makes this place home are the memories, the relationships, our way of life, the places dear to our hearts, our shared values and our collective hopes for the future. They make us feel comfortable and they help keep us emotionally rooted to this place. More importantly, we know that it is worth fighting for, we know that it is part of the Singapore spirit. And this is the spirit that will keep us going through hard times; the spirit that we hope to nurture and strengthen in our current and future generations; and the spirit that we want to share with all who may choose to call this place home. As we approach this milestone in our journey as a nation, we know also that it is timely to reflect on what Singapore means to us by commemorating our past achievements, by celebrating our present successes and by charting our shared future together.

Members have raised many interesting comments and suggestions and let me respond to some of them and elaborate on MICA's role in promoting our shared heritage, fostering a sense of belonging to Singapore and shaping our future as a people and as a nation.

Singapore is a young nation state made up of a rich diversity of cultures from some of the oldest civilisations in the world. The languages, religions and traditions of our different communities have added depth and breadth to our social landscape. Dr Ong Seh Hong and Mr Arthur Fong asked about the promotion of our traditional and living cultures and heritage. We do so in a variety of different ways.

First, developing the traditional arts. Last year, we announced that we would invest $23 million over the next five years, from 2010 through 2014, to develop the traditional arts. The funds would be used to strengthen capabilities of our traditional arts practitioners and sustain a broad, appreciative audience base.

Since then, the National Arts Council (NAC) has organised industry networking sessions and dialogues to better understand the needs of the sector. Several initiatives were also piloted to enhance the technical, artistic and administrative capabilities of these groups, and to raise their profile. These included a Chinese Dance Showcase for young talents, Malay dance workshops, master-classes by Indian music maestros, as well as IT training courses for traditional arts practitioners, conducted in partnership with NTUC Learning Hub.

In the coming year, we will augment the current support framework for traditional arts with three new initiatives. The first will see traditional arts groups receiving more support for mounting a production or exhibition under the Presentation and Promotion Grant scheme. The second is known as a Seed Grant scheme, which will support efforts to grow and professionalise emerging traditional arts companies with the potential to become champions and leaders in their art-form. Finally, NAC will identify and develop strategic partnerships with cultural and community organisations and arts intermediaries, so that audiences can enjoy greater access and exposure to the traditional arts. NAC will provide more details of these schemes next week.

Second, it is to promote our museums and community heritage institutions. As Mr Baey Yam Keng noted, students, teachers, full-time National Servicemen and senior citizens now enjoy free admission to the national museums. We hope that more will seize this opportunity to visit our museums. Even within these segments that have enjoyed free admission to the museums, we have not seen a significant spike in the numbers going to the museums since they were made free for them. But that said, we are prepared to give serious consideration to the proposal raised by Mr Baey to extend free admission to all. But, in the meantime, the public can enjoy our museums' free Open House days, free admission to the museums' permanent exhibitions on all Friday evenings and to the National Museum's living galleries every day from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm.

For the upcoming National Art Gallery, visitors can look forward to free entry to its Singapore, Children and Building History galleries, as well as to the rooftop plaza, which would house an exciting array of restaurants, public programmes and art installations.

In addition, we will continue to complement museum exhibitions with a wide range of community outreach programmes which will similarly deepen appreciation for our shared heritage.

For example, the National Heritage Board (NHB) launched "Imprints@ Yesterday.sg" in the second half of last year. This online series invited popular local bloggers to post on Yesterday.sg , which is our very own heritage blog. From "The Evolution of Nasi Lemak" by food blogger Putri Berendam to "Remembering Punggol End" by photo blogger Chen Wei Li, these popular bloggers' posts varied widely in form and flavour. And each post attracted an average of about 600 reads, three times that of regular posts on Yesterday.sg .

Beyond our museums, our three community heritage institutions – the Malay Heritage Centre, the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, and the upcoming Indian Heritage Centre – will also work with community stakeholders to develop travelling exhibitions, as well as new permanent galleries that showcase the histories and contributions of their communities. Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, which is currently undergoing an upgrade – we will complete it by the end of September. The Malay Heritage Centre will complete its upgrading in 2012, and we expect the Indian Heritage Centre to be ready by 2013.

The third area is preserving our built heritage. To Assoc. Prof. Fatimah Lateef's query, the Preservation of Monuments Board (PMB) identifies monuments for preservation based on a variety of factors – national importance, historical significance as well as other considerations that include the interests of different communities.

The PMB welcomes public feedback and suggestions on buildings and places with potential to be gazetted as national monuments. And these are reviewed by an advisory committee comprising representatives from various professions and different communities, and in consultation with building owners. To date, 63 historical buildings and sites have been gazetted as national monuments.

Even as we preserve our traditional cultures, we recognise that our culture is a living asset that continues to evolve. As Mdm Ho Geok Choo and Mr Calvin Cheng have noted, some Singaporeans may have, in recent years, felt that the increased presence of foreigners in our midst has shaken our identity. But there is another way of looking at it – that they have helped to enrich our identity too.

Dr Ong Seh Hong spoke about rivers in his very eloquent speech in Chinese and, therefore, let me try and use a Chinese proverb to reply to him: "海纳百川，有容乃大" ( Hai na bai chuan, you rong nai da ). What it means is that an ocean is great because it accepts all rivers flowing into it. Likewise, we should, as we have in the past, welcome those who want to contribute, who want to weather ups and downs together, and who want to weave their cultures into our overall social fabric.

Looking ahead, as our society becomes increasingly globalised and diverse, and as our aspirations rise together with standards of living and education, we must encourage our people to think and talk about what makes us Singaporean, how we can become stronger as a people and nation, and what makes us feel that sense of belonging to this special place called home.

There have been a number of points raised and examples given on how even very established and old nations, like the UK, Germany, the United States, are feeling the pressure of the influx of migrants, whether Turkish or Hispanics, flowing into their societies. But we cannot afford to be closed because that will result in a long, slow, inevitable decline, and we know that there are countries, including in the Asian region, that have closed their doors to migrants for many, many years and are now facing the pressures of an ageing population without that influx and infusion of new energies, fresh talent, and so on. We need to calibrate our numbers that we take in. We need to select carefully so that it is not just ability alone but also the affinity of these people to come together with ours to strengthen what we have here in Singapore. We need to increase the efforts to integrate new people into our midst, something that MCYS is indeed putting great effort into. So we cannot close our doors, neither can we open it too widely, but as the Government has done in recent years, to calibrate the numbers carefully and to strengthen the efforts and the resources put in to help people come together as one.

Let me share also some of what MICA is doing to strengthen the sense of belonging to Singapore, help us reflect on who we are, where we come from and what we stand for as a nation.

Into its eighth edition now, the Singapore Heritage Festival will continue to raise awareness and appreciation for our rich, multicultural heritage through its exhibitions, performances and events. It reached about 1.3 million people last year. This year, they are more ambitious. They have extended the outreach programmes and they hope to touch about two million people. More than just looking back on the past, the Singapore Heritage Festival will also explore our present cultural diversity and living traditions, customs and practices that define us as a nation.

This year's Heritage Festival seeks to uncover "what makes a great home" and why we call Singapore home. For the first time, the Festival's opening and closing events will be brought out to the heartlands, with more community partners brought in to help organise events. It will also use social media platforms to reach out to more people, including overseas Singaporeans.

Greater resources will be invested in allowing the unique identities of our heartland neighbourhoods to emerge and to be celebrated. This is beyond what the Heritage Festival is doing but it is an on-going effort that we need to put resources and support too. NHB has done some good work in this area. It has already, with the help of the communities, marked 11 heritage trails across the island, from Queenstown to Balestier. We will continue to strengthen heritage activities in the heartlands. For starters, we will work with residents, schools and grassroots to identify important areas in their communities, mark them as heritage sites, and incorporate them into new heritage trails. These could also include places of worship, cultural institutions, famous businesses and even hawker stalls. In addition, we will equip communities with skills and funding to develop their own heritage activities, through initiatives such as the recent "Heritage Town" competition, and the inaugural one was won by Joo Chiat, with the unanimous agreement of all the assessors.

NHB will also step up collaborations with partners like National Library Board (NLB), Ministry of Education (MOE) and National Parks Board (NParks) to bring exhibitions to regional libraries, schools and parks. And they want to consider transforming overhead pedestrian bridges into tiny heritage galleries showcasing the rich histories of their precincts. To engage children and families, NHB is also looking into the creation of heritage playgrounds where our kids can learn about one another's cultures as well as the history of their neighbourhoods.

Last year, Singapore announced that it would embark on the Singapore Memory Project, which seeks to capture the memories of our nation to weave a Singapore Story.

In 2010, we secured the contributions of over 40 community and institutional partners, and they have enriched the project richly. In the coming years, we will go out and target the public and invite them to share with us and to contribute personal stories that will enhance this narrative so that, at the end of the day, what we weave together is something that belongs to all of us.

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To build our cultural identity and foster community bonding, the Singapore Arts Festival this year will be a "people's and creation festival", celebrating art rooted in our local context and which resonates with our people. Its theme is "I Want to Remember", and so the 2011 Festival will feature an interactive "People's Exhibition" at six venues across the island starting in May. This exhibition will piece together our people's recollection of old performing places, like the National Theatre and Great World, through videos, photographs and other mementos contributed by the public. And there will also be the inaugural Kids' Arts Village that brings children together to collaborate on visual arts activities and performances.

As we chart our future together and we look ahead to what our society and our people will be like in the coming years, I am reminded of the words of the Roman philosopher, Cicero, when he wrote more than 2,000 years ago, about duties, and he penned something to his son. He asked his son, "What do I mean by a well-lived life, my son?" This is a rhetorical question. And his answer was, "I mean that you live a life that gives back to your country, gives back to your family, gives back to your fellow citizens." Words from more than 2,000 years ago and, yet, there is that strange resonance and it is equally applicable then as it is to us now. Indeed, as we chart our future together, we should not only ask "what do you see?", as a recent National Day song goes, but also "what can you give?" To these ends, we seek to nurture a gracious, cultured, knowledgeable people – a people who are not only able to serve their country, family and fellow citizens with their skills and intellectual abilities but, more importantly, they are able, they are willing to do so. So not just only able, but willing to do so.

Mr Arthur Fong has expressed that kindness and graciousness should be in our DNA, and I agree with him. Kindness and graciousness make our everyday interactions more warm and welcoming, especially in our urban and crowded environment. They uplift the hearts of the giver and receiver, it makes our people feel at home, it strengthens our social fabric by prompting people to consider the feelings of others, to help those in need and to treat each other with respect.

Sir, we thought of sharing with Members some of the slides that are being presented, charts, data and so on, and then we decided that we did not want to do so. Instead, the only takeaway that we wanted to leave with Members was some collaterals from the Singapore Kindness Movement, and hope that Members will take it with them, because we need all of us here to be ambassadors for kindness and graciousness. And rather than leaving Members with charts, diagrams and figures, we wanted to leave some of these with Members so that we, too, will be prompted to speak about it but, more importantly, to be living examples of kindness and graciousness.

I think we have made progress over the years, as Mr Arthur Fong has said, certainly so during the occasions when the spotlight was on Singapore. But he has also quite rightly pointed out that we need to do so on a sustained basis, on an everyday basis, because it is not just the foreigners and visitors we are targeting, we are doing so for ourselves – to make Singapore a better place for all of us. And so we need to do more to bring kindness and graciousness into our lives. And in the coming year, the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) will promote graciousness through sustained messaging and by affirming exemplary individuals. For instance, in April, we will introduce light-hearted signs on public transport to communicate the importance of graciousness to commuters. We will also affirm role models through a new initiative called "Kindness Magnified", which celebrates everyday acts of kindness by featuring them in the media throughout the year. And these role models who dwell amongst us and when we recognise them, encourage all of us to put into practice small, simple gestures of kindness. It runs against, I think, the instinct and the grain of human nature – there is a tendency for us to want to sit at the back of the hall when we come for an event, drive in the middle of the road and stand in the front of the bus, and sometimes no amount of cajoling would be able to nudge us to do otherwise. But I think if we are prepared to consider the interest and the needs of others and be prepared to do a little bit more beyond what our instincts tell us to do, I think it will contribute towards making Singapore an even better place in the years to come.

It is not something that the Government can do this alone. No amount of preaching and speaking will get it done. We need everyone's support to see kindness and graciousness at all levels – homes, schools, in the community, in the workplace – so that it becomes intrinsic to our everyday lives. So, please, help to spread the word, put on a badge, put up the car decal and, most of all, be living examples.

We know that these values are best inculcated from young, and I know MOE is doing more in this area, but we also need our parents to join hands with us and play a greater role in imparting such values and habits to our youth. It is being done and which is why I want to share this story . It is a letter in the Forum page, written by Ms Reema Bhatti, and it impacts the value of what some of these small acts of kindness can accomplish, whether at home or, in this case, in a school. Ms Bhatti's family recently returned from living in Dubai, where her son, who is mildly autistic, was bullied and ill-treated by his schoolmates. On returning, she enrolled him in Tampines Secondary School, and she wrote – I think this was several months ago – "Now, after only two weeks, my son is glowing with confidence, thanks to the support of the staff and his friends." Her son summed it up nicely with, "Mum, Singaporeans are very kind." So kudos to Tampines Secondary School and we hope that there will be more of this replicated in all our schools and institutions across Singapore. And we hope that each generation will be equally deserving of such praise.

Ms Irene Ng spoke very passionately about reading, and we know that it is important to provide the space and the programmes to promote a culture of learning. We are dedicated to meeting the reading and learning needs of our people through our libraries, information services and reading programmes. Our libraries continue to be an important public service, welcomed and used by many people. Book loans in 2010 rose by 5% to 33 million and electronic retrievals by 7% to about 48 million. The Member talked about commercial bookstores, lamenting that Borders is not doing very well, but market forces, I think, will determine how this sector will evolve with changing technology and reading habits. But what we can do, and what we are able to accomplish, is through the programmes and the resources that we put into the libraries, so that children and adults from all walks of life will have access to information and good materials.

At the national level, NLB's annual READ! Singapore helps our people discover the joy of reading and sharing through activities, such as story dramatisation and book discussions. Launched in 2005, READ! Singapore has reached out to over 160,000 participants from all walks of life. At the schools, NLB has partnered with MOE to launch the Whole School Reading Programme in 2010, which seeks to nurture lifelong reading habits in students through increased exposure, peer-to-peer encouragement and fun-filled reading activities. According to Mrs Angela Shasi, the teacher-in-charge of the programme at Huamin Primary School, her students have shown keen interest in the programmes conducted and a more positive attitude towards reading as a result. We are currently reviewing this together with MOE before it is rolled out to more schools.

Even in our MRT stations, we will embark on new initiatives, such as the SMRT Moving Words project, and this will feature works by Singaporean writers in train stations in order to stimulate interest in reading, promote local literature and familiarise our people with local writers and their works.

Going forward, we hope not only to nurture a gracious, knowledgeable people, but also to create an exciting "buzzy" environment for them to work, live and play in. As Mr Chan Soo Sen, Miss Penny Low and Ms Irene Ng have suggested, we must continue to invest in home-grown events and talent, raise their standard, build the Singapore brand, and make Singapore a "cool" home of choice. Let me highlight just a few examples.

The third Singapore Biennale opens at the end of this week, and it will continue to profile the best in the local and international arts community. This year, we will also profile the Merlion in a different way, and I think some Members would have read about it. We are converting it into Hotel Merlion, and I am sure some Members will be glad to know there are no hourly rates! But it will give us a chance to see the Merlion close up. If we remember the poem by Prof. Edwin Thumboo, "Ulysses by the Merlion", and he wrote:

"But this lion of the sea

Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail

Touched with power ..."

I think this was more than 30 years ago when he wrote it, and since then, a number of local writers have been writing about the Merlion, including people like Koh Buck Song, and so on. But that sparked off a deeper interest in the Merlion, and this time round, part of the Biennale in the heart of this new downtown, we are having Hotel Merlion. It will give everyone who is interested a chance to go up and to see it close up, and I hope it will help bring to life Prof. Edwin Thumboo's words describing the Merlion.

That is one of the locations. This year, island-wide, we will also have installations at the Old Kallang Airport, museums, etc. It will feature 63 artists from 30 countries, of which nine are Singaporeans, including film director Tan Pin Pin, and international award-winning video artist Ming Wong.

In addition, this year's iconic events, such as the Night Festival, will return with new twists, and last year's inaugural Children's Season, which introduced children to contemporary art at the Singapore Art Museum, will be extended to more places. As mentioned earlier, we will also continue to nurture "peaks of excellence" in our cultural institutions and talent, and help raise them to world-class levels.

We have enjoyed success in the music industry. In the 1980s, we had the xinyao era and, today, we have singers, such as Kit Chan, Stephanie Sun, JJ Lin, Taufik and the local duo, BY2, Tanya Chua, amongst others. So, while I do not quite call them the "S-Pop" groups, we actually have a number of artists not only known locally but are renowned across the region. As we celebrate their successes, we recognise the need to continually grow our local talent pool and help them penetrate new markets. The Media Development Authority (MDA) has, therefore, been working with partner agencies and industry to profile their music talent both here and abroad, such as at the Shanghai World Expo and the Singapore Entertainment Awards Celebration Concert last year. In addition, the Esplanade's annual indie music festival, Baybeats, not only showcases young musicians but also identifies and grooms budding musicians with potential.

Beyond the music industry, other home-grown offerings are finding their way around the world. A recent Monocle Survey on soft power ranked Singapore first among all Asian countries. Indeed, I think we have much to be proud of, from our "model of the compact city" at last year's Venice Biennale which garnered a lot of attention, because people were quite intrigued by what Singapore represents and how Singapore scaled across the world in terms of the green environment, in terms of how we could reconfigure living spaces.

Channel NewsAsia, today, brings Singapore into over 29 million homes and hotel rooms worldwide. Of course, we have our award-winning airline, which flies to 61 destinations in 35 countries. We also brought our culture to Paris in a four-month showcase that ended recently, which featured a Peranakan exhibition at the famed Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, and many of our local performances, food and films are increasingly known beyond the boundaries of Singapore.

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Our efforts have gone a long way to make Singapore's brand name cool, although frankly, I am not sure that that is what we try to set out to do in the first place, but I know also that the world is increasingly taking notice of what we do here. Surveys, such as Mercer's "Quality of Living Worldwide City Rankings", put Singapore first among all Asian cities in 2010. Recently, CNNGo rated Singaporeans as the second coolest people in the world. Not sure if we see ourselves that way but, certainly, some other people do.

From our complex kopi orders, to finding chilli crab, chicken rice and chapatti under one roof, from our Integrated Resorts to the F1 night race, from our public housing system to NEWater, what makes us Singaporean contributes to what makes us cool. We will continue to promote all these different aspects of our way of life, both at home and abroad. But we do so not because we want to stand out and be cool and wear these glitzy sunglasses but we do so because we want to bring our people closer together and, if they travel away and work and live abroad, we want to see how it helps them to remain emotionally rooted to Singapore, as Singaporeans.

As we approach 50 years of nationhood, we must continue to promote our shared heritage, foster a sense of belonging, and to chart our future and destiny together. As a nation, we have survived against all odds, we have kept our doors open, we have kept our people close. We have shaped a spirit of cohesion and respect, shouldered adversity with tenacity and resolve, and shared a common goal of making Singapore our home. This, indeed, is worth celebrating.

The Chairman: Mr Zainudin, take both cuts together, please.

Infocomm technology as an enabler

Mr Zainudin Nordin (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Thank you, Mr Chairman.

Mr Chairman, Sir, like many governments in the world, Singapore is studying how best to deliver services and engage her citizens through new technologies. Our country has been receptive to the latest infocomm technologies to radically transform public administration and service delivery. This has resulted in an increase in productivity and efficiency.

As we continue to develop at a steady pace, it is clear that businesses need to meet the growing demands and higher expectations of customers and interact with tech-savvy citizens who are empowered by the use of social networking tools.

Infocomm technology is an enabler that enhances innovation, productivity and competitiveness in other sectors of the economy. Technological trends, such as cloud computing and mobile services, provide opportunities for enterprises, to create new business models and generate value propositions. We have to continue to keep abreast of the developments and we should continually send our best people abroad to be trained.

A strong pervasive infocomm infrastructure thus plays a vital role in supporting the data intensive activities that take place across our economy. May I ask the Minister to update this House on MICA infocomm investments and infrastructural projects and elaborate on the benefits and multiplying effects that they would bring to our economy?

Design capability

I salute the efforts of MICA in promoting the growth of creative industries and the infocomm sector in Singapore. Much has been done to drive productivity at the industry level and help build capabilities for growth. To ensure Singapore stays globally competitive, we will need to enhance our ability to create innovative and distinctive products that meet the demands of consumers. This is only possible if certain measures are taken to ensure businesses and enterprises adopt creative solutions. This is where design and packaging are important for enterprises.

Not only does design help a company differentiate its products, recent studies suggest that the success of a product is significantly linked to the effort expended on design during developmental stages. Previously, the ESC has highlighted design as a key business capability to increase enterprises' productivity. Indeed, design thinking provides the creative process that allows enterprises to differentiate their offerings to stay ahead of competition.

The talent pools of designers should be expanded, Sir. These designers should also be given sufficient recognition in monetary terms as well as career prospects. Otherwise, they may just desert their profession and take an alternative route and go into other streams of Arts. Can MICA give an update on design-related initiatives and programmes that will enhance our design sector's capabilities and harness the multiplying effects of design? How is MICA helping enterprises to adopt design, especially since design could be a concept new to other businesses? How well are our designers paid compared with graduates from other sectors in the industry?

The Chairman: Mr Zaqy, take both cuts together, please.

Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network

Mr Zaqy Mohamad (Hong Kah): Mr Chairman, the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (NGNBN) has been well underway and broadband plans on the network have been launched since last September. Many homes in my constituency, for example, have had the fibre connected to their homes. However, most co-relate the NGNBN with faster broadband plans from the telecom operators and not much more. Businesses are more aware. Many are excited but most will welcome clarity and, in fact, it can share with us on its plans beyond faster broadband speeds.

Industry experts often cite that only content being delivered within Singapore will enjoy the high speed benefits of the NGNBN. Most of our users access content that are overseas, such as Facebook and other social networking sites, online gaming and other entertainment content. What are MICA's plans to have more content generated here and to have overseas contents providers reside in Singapore? How does our investment pipeline rate presently? In terms of local content, how can we develop more homegrown content creators and players?

On the broader NGNBN agenda, can MICA provide the update on services that consumers and businesses can look forward to on the NGNBN? How is MICA helping the ICT and media sector innovate and generate new services that make full use of the capabilities of the next generation broadband network? Related to the open-access principle of the NGNBN initiative, can MICA also give an update on the progress of the newest project and how are our service providers responding to it? How will Singaporeans benefit from this project and what new offerings and services can we also look forward to?

Infocomm technology and media capability development

Mr Chairman, as we move into the next phase of development of our ICT and media sectors, we also need to build the capabilities and talents in place to drive this engine. The sectors can only be as world class as the talents they have within them. Recently, the Singapore IT Federation (SITF) conducted a survey with 126 companies, locals and multi-nationals. The top business concerns of these companies were (i) the ability to recruit talent, (ii) manpower costs, and (iii) the ability to retain talent. Interestingly, all the top three issues were centred on manpower concerns on Singapore's growth. What is MICA's assessment of the current manpower supply for the ICT and media sectors? What is being done to encourage the young to take up ICT and media disciplines, and can we make such careers attractive?

In the same survey, most respondents also expect difficulty filling the following positions – in the following order of priority – solution and architecting, sales and marketing, project management, followed closely by managerial C-level positions such as CIOs, CTOs, IT managers, software development and R&D. These are all high value positions and what initiatives does MICA have to develop managerial, technical and creative talent to support growth in these sectors?

I am heartened that the Minister also announced the Manpower Development Programme (MDEV) last week at the SCS Gala night. It is a step in the right direction. But we also need to work towards matching the supply of manpower to industry demand. The survey has given an indication of what the industry needs and I would like to hear how MDEV can help address the talent gap in Singapore.

The SMEs typically have a tougher time in getting good resources. How can MICA assist growth companies to better enable them to attract good ICT and media talents? With world-class infrastructure, we should also try to nurture world-class ICT leaders and entrepreneurs. Today, the barriers to create such global leaders in this sector are much lower. We have a well-exposed Internet-savvy population. Many in the industry often ask, "why can we not create the next Facebook or Google, software giants like Microsoft or Oracle, or online gaming powerhouses"?

I would like to hear if MICA has plans to drive greater entrepreneurship and harness top talents who can feature strongly to make Singapore a world-class international ICT and media hub in Asia. If there are any lingering doubts whether we can make this happen, I conclude my cut with this question, "Why not?"

Building a unique service proposition for Singapore in media

Mr Calvin Cheng: I am very pleased with the increased Budget that MICA is getting this year. I am sure many players in the media industry are rubbing their hands with glee, hoping for the largesse to be spread. In the coming months, MICA and MDA will surely be swarmed with a variety of ad hoc projects that need financing and there will be much pressure to cave in to these demands. I think this will be wrong.

An increased Budget should not be used opportunistically. Now is not the time to share the bounty. Now is the time for MICA to cover a long-term vision and invest the money in a sustainable way to ensure that the media industry will have long-term recurring returns. Now is the time for MICA to build the unique service proposition (USP) for Singapore.

It is a cruel reality that whenever we try to draw up an economic vision for Singapore, we have to bear in mind our small population and limited market size. It is no different for media. Firstly, because of the small domestic market. I do not think we will ever develop media products with a strong indigenious flavour. Phua Chu Kang may be a hit in Singapore but because of its strong parochial character, it can, at the most, be exportable to Malaysia. An Australian or American will "catch no ball".

If you look around at all the successful media markets in the world, they either have a large domestic market to produce local products for or they have to produce in English and target the world. This makes business sense. Unfortunately, for us, and I may offend some by saying so, nobody wants to watch Asian people acting in English. I thus suggest that in the long run, MICA and MDA invest in a vision that makes Singapore the production house for our greater ancestral region. A Malay movie sitcom, film or song not only targets the 500,000 Malays in Singapore but can potentially reach the estimated 180 million Bahasa Melayu or Indonesian speakers. A Chinese production can not only be watched by 2.8 million ethnic Chinese in Singapore but to the 1.4 billion in China.

This is the meaning of a hub – a production hub that uses our ethnic and geographical advantages by reaching out to the far larger commercial market. Secondly, our vision needs to be premised upon the fact that we are not needed. We are, in the larger scheme of the world media market, pretty much irrelevant. Recently, I have been in conversations with Chinese movie studios about moving some of their operations to Singapore and they asked me bluntly, "Why should we go to Singapore?" Honestly, I had no good answer. I wanted to say, "We can finance you", but that would have been a good answer 30 years ago but, nowadays, the Chinese are swimming in money. I wanted to say, "We can connect you to the West", but we forget that the Chinese now are fully capable of connecting themselves to anyone, on private jets, no less.

Does the West need us to connect them to China? Does Bollywood need us to reach out to the rest of the world? Maybe only in a fantasy movie. However, we do have one advantage. At this juncture – and this window may close very soon – Singapore is still one of the few places in Asia with a stable political environment with strong IP protection. IP protection and the rule of law are very important to content owners who have ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars into their products. In most other places in Asia, pirated versions of movies hit the streets even before they hit the screen.

The second pillar of our media USP thus should draw on this. Singapore can be a place where Westerners, particularly Hollywood, can safely contract with Asian media producers, particularly the Chinese, knowing that their IP would be protected by a fair, efficient and neutral jurisdiction. Joint ventures, co-production deals should be encouraged to be done here in Singapore where a system is put in place to facilitate easy negotiation, settlement and arbitration. In the long run, Singapore's media industry will also benefit when the giants do their deals here.

Sir, the purists in our midst might be disgusted by the raw commercialism in my suggestions, but we have to be realistic. In order for the media industry to thrive in the long run, it has to make sense commercially. It cannot forever depend on the largesse of the Government or on charity. The Arts is important. But the Arts is not the luxury of beggars. Only if the media industry as a whole is sustainable commercially can the lucky few indulge in making documentaries about stray cats. MICA thus needs to invest long term in a system and vision that achieve this.

Local broadcast and production industry

Ms Audrey Wong Wai Yen (Nominated Member): Sir, since I started my NMP term, I have received many emails from actors, talents and production crew about production companies delaying payment to them – in many cases, not paying them at all. In one recent case, a talent management company tallied up the total owed to them and to other individuals for a film production and the amount came up to over $300,000. The welfare of crew and talents, health and safety protection is also an issue.

Sir, there is a need to increase professionalism and raise the business in ethical standards in the local production and broadcast industry. Would MICA consider measures to do this? For instance, encouraging staff of production companies as well as those who work freelance, to acquire relevant skills or to upgrade in areas like financial and human resource management and corporate governance. Or, perhaps MICA could consider adopting a principle of "Best Sourcing" and award grants and commission work to those production companies that demonstrate sound professional practices, so as to encourage the industry to raise its standards all round and ensure fair treatment of all who work in the sector, which I believe still has potential to grow, despite Mr Calvin Cheng's caveats. After all, Singapore is a very media-savvy population and I think we need to take advantage of this while we can.

The Chairman: Mr Low Thia Khiang, take both your cuts together.

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Broadband speed

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): Mr Chairman, Sir, telcos here have been offering internet services to consumers based on access speed. With the advent of OpenNet, telcos now offer high speed Internet access with different maximum bandwidth. These plans provide breakdowns of download speeds, upload speeds and even differentiate between local and international traffic.

However, the thing that bugs most consumers is that advertised "up-to" speed is just a theoretical speed that is rarely achievable. Many users experience fluctuation in speed. As a consumer, my question has always been, "Am I paying for the speed claimed in the plan?"

I am disappointed to read in a recent news report that the three major telcos here have objected to IDA's proposals to get them to disclose average internet access speed in addition to the theoretical maximum access speed. They cite the complexity of the many factors to take into consideration when attempting to measure average speed, including consumer broadband set-up, application download and even the device used to access Internet.

However, Sir, if it is so difficult to measure average speed, how is it possible to claim a maximum speed and, based on that, the amount charged to the consumer on this maximum speed? This is shortchanging the consumer.

IDA was reported to have said that the responses have been generally positive and will review its position after the feedback. I would like to know what is the IDA's position on ensuring the ISPs do not shortchange Singaporeans who use their service, or will the Government lean towards protecting the interests of telcos, since the Government is the majority shareholder, anyway?

Protection of online privacy

Sir, the modern lifestyle in Singapore has made Singaporeans more and more exposed. We are exposed not because we have less cloth on our clothes due to the hot weather, but because of the rapid changes in technology.

If you drive, whenever you drive past an ERP gantry, your vehicle's IU number will be registered. When you stop at certain traffic junctions, there may be cameras capturing video footage. When you enter a carpark, the parking system again knows what time your car enters and leaves the building. The LTA is also reportedly looking at implementing a future ERP system using GPS technology.

If you travel by public transport, the contactless card system keeps tabs on the stations and bus stops where you start and end your journey. When you make purchases using the same card, again the system keeps track of where and how much you spend.

When you go to certain sensitive areas or neighbourhoods for lunch, your image may be captured by CCTV [ Laughter ]. At lunch, when your friend pulls out a smartphone to take photo of you and post on Facebook and Twitter, you can possibly find your own image shared to millions of Singaporean online. When you sleep at work, the next thing you see could be a video of you snoring on YouTube.

This is how much technology has infiltrated our lives. However, Singapore's online privacy laws are almost non-existent. Recently, a young man in the United States, named Clement, jumped to his death after unwittingly becoming a star of a video that was streamed online. Do we want to wait until a similar tragedy happens in Singapore before we start to consider online privacy laws?

I am of the view that it is time that the Government introduced a privacy law in Singapore to protect the identity and privacy of individual Singaporeans. The law should also cover the use of personal data collected by various agencies and commerical institutions.

Supermarket lucky draws

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Thank you, Sir, for allowing me to join in this debate. Sir, the confidentiality of a person's particulars is very important, especially when it can be used for all sorts of crimes. The person's name and identity card number can be used for fraud and cheating cases. The address and phone numbers may be used for burglary, break-ins and crank calls.

Sir, I am concerned that most shopping centres and supermarkets are holding lucky draws and promotions and that they require participants to give their full particulars before they are eligible to participate in the lucky draws to win prizes. Hundreds of people participate in the lucky draws, often giving away their particulars willingly without knowing the dangers.

How do the shopping centres and supermarkets that organise those lucky draws dispose of those lucky draw tickets? Do they burn or throw them away in bins where members of the public can pick them up and make use of their particulars? I would suggest that the Ministry fine-tunes the requirements for participants in lucky draws to protect them.

Better regulation of data roaming charges

Mr Lim Biow Chuan (Marine Parade): Each year, the Consumers' Association of Singapore receives several complaints from consumers who have received hefty phone bills from their telcos for overseas data roaming charges. These are consumers who are not aware that they need to turn off their data roaming function when they travel overseas. As a result, they were shocked when they receive bills ranging from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. I myself received a bill for a few hundred dollars when I was on a three-day family holiday in Thailand. I was not surfing the Internet nor was I checking my email. My phone was just receiving data when it was idling in my pocket.

May I ask the Minister whether the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) would consider imposing a requirement for telcos to automatically cease the supply of data roaming when a customer is overseas? This is similar to a phone line without the auto-roam function. The data roaming should be activated only when a consumer contacts the telcos to activate the data roaming when overseas. Perhaps, IDA can also review the charges imposed by the telcos for such data supplied.

Sir, I have also received complaints from residents about poor mobile signal coverage resulting in dropped calls or simply no available phone lines. For residents living near the sea, their complaints were that they were being billed for Indonesia overseas calls, just because they were living in Marine Parade. I understand that the IDA will be reviewing the standards for telecommunication in-building and island-wide coverage. May I ask the Minister whether IDA will require the telephone companies to improve their reception signal strength so that there will be fewer dropped calls?

How about telecommunication signal strengths when shopping inside underground buildings like ION Orchard, or at nex at Serangoon or when driving in underground tunnels or when one is near the boundaries? Would consumers be assured that they will be able to receive phone signals?

Consumer protection

Mr Zainudin Nordin: Mr Chairman, Sir, the increasing popularity in the usage of smartphones is largely due to the excellent national broadband and mobile infrastructure which support 3G and wifi services in Singapore. It is logical that the Government moves in tandem with this recent development and tailors initiatives according to this trend.

Beyond just providing for a modern and up-to-date infocommunication infrastructure or the hardware, I think it is important for MICA to come up with a comprehensive strategy that would allow the Government to develop the content or software that could leverage and maximise the grand infrastructure. Similarly, expand on its current range of services to reach out to the citizens and guide them to be smart and responsible users.

Sir, improvements in mobile telecommunications technology have allowed more innovative and convenient services to be delivered over mobile phones. The vibrancy of the mobile telephone market lowered cost and increased usage of mobile phones. However, downsides, such as unsolicited services and building disputes, have also emerged.

Can the Minister share with this House how is MICA ensuring that mobile telephone operators and mobile service providers keep up their quality of services to meet customers' needs and expectations? Also, what is MICA doing to protect customers' interests?

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: Mr Chairman, Sir, I thank hon. Members for their comments and suggestions on what is part of MICA’s economic portfolio. The infocomm, design and media are sectors with significant innovative potential for greater value creation. In responding to Members, I will elaborate on how MICA will develop the infocomm, design and media sectors to bring about benefits for enterprises, especially SMEs and consumers. I will finally end with something on what MICA is doing to protect the consumers.

Last year, MICA’s focus was to boost the skills, innovation and productivity of our workforce and contribute towards the growth of globally competitive local enterprises. In tandem with Singapore’s strong economic recovery in 2010, our infocomm, media and design sectors have regained growth momentum.

However, even more important than the growth of these sectors, is how they can help enable innovation, productivity and increased competitiveness across other economic sectors, and how they can help enrich the lives of consumers. This will be a major focus area for MICA in the coming year.

Mr Zainudin Nordin asked about MICA’s infocomm infrastructural projects and design-related initiatives. Let me start with infocomm infrastructure. In recent years, we have witnessed a global explosion in demand for bandwidth and speed. Strong growth in online services and social media has brought about a massive increase in content and data delivered over the Internet. MICA recognises the need to support these bandwidth-intensive activities, so that our enterprises can benefit from these technological and social trends. We have prepared ourselves well, by investing in a next generation infocomm infrastructure that is high-speed, pervasive and secure.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad asked about the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (NGNBN). This ultra-high speed optical fibre network will be a core backbone of our infocomm infrastructure, providing broadband access speeds of one Gbps and beyond. This is at least 10 to 100 times faster than the fastest public networks today. Deployment of the network has achieved 60% coverage nationwide at end 2010 and is on track for 95% coverage by mid 2012. Commercial services were launched since September 2010. To date, there are more than six service providers offering over 30 fibre-based broadband access plans. For residential, 100 Mbps plan prices range from $39.90 to $68, which is cheaper than non-NGNBN plans of the same speed sold at around $100.

But he rightly pointed out the real benefit of the NGNBN lies in the delivery of innovative solutions. Today, several service providers have packaged their broadband access plans with value-added services, such as online storage, video chat, video search engines, music stores to their hosting. We expect more innovative services to emerge. For example, high definition video conferencing and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) will experience little or no lag time with the bandwidth afforded under the Next Gen NBN. Next Generation Interactive Multimedia Applications and Services (NIMS) project will encourage the development of interactive services and multimedia applications over IPTV under a common feature set-up box. We will share updates on this programme at another time.

The higher speeds are not just for gaming or TV. They also allow enterprises to re-engineer business processes for increased productivity. One example is the access to cloud services, where enterprises can buy services online on a "pay-as-you-use" basis as and when they need them. This helps enterprises, especially the SMEs, reduce upfront infrastructure and software costs. For instance, StarHub has launched an electronic human resource management cloud service for businesses. Instead of buying their own servers and programmes, SMEs can actually subscribe and use the cloud services at a fraction of what they would otherwise have to invest.

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) recognises the importance of increasing the vibrancy of the services market to lower costs for enterprises and consumers. They have been working with the industry to set up Next Gen Innovation Centres where service providers can gain access to technology expertise from the big players throughout their project life cycle of conceptualising, test-bedding and deploying innovative solutions. To date, IDA has established three Innovation Centres with Cisco, Oracle and IBM.

Another initiative is the Next Gen Services Innovation Programme, which co-funds the deployment of impactful services over the NGNBN. IDA has awarded seven proposed services through its first call for proposals in 2010. Services which are now commercially available include SecureAge Technology’s secure storage as a service product and AsiaSoft Solution’s software as a service environment for businesses. IDA is evaluating its second call for proposals and there have been responses which include cloud-based e-learning and gaming services.

The NBN is complemented by the upcoming deployment of mobile 4G technology which potentially offers speeds five to 10 times faster than 3G technologies. I understand that all mobile operators are currently conducting 4G trials, and we can expect deployment, I am told, as early as at the end of this year. This would be timely as manufacturers would also have rolled out more 4G-enabled devices by then.

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In addition to high-speed, our infrastructure must have the necessary connectivity and hosting capacity to support the development of content-rich services and to lower the cost of delivery. This will in turn attract more Internet traffic and network providers, and draw world-class Internet and media companies to host their content and services here. Hence, infrastructure forms the first part of the response to Mr Zaqy Mohamad’s question on anchoring content providers in Singapore.

A new initiative that would strengthen Singapore’s data hosting capacity is the development of a Data Centre Park by IDA, EDB, EMA and JTC. We offer a stable and trusted location for hosting of data and content. However, residual plots for data centre development in Singapore are difficult to find. The new Data Centre Park will provide economies of scale, with ready-built facilities that allow enterprises and data centre players faster speed to market and flexibility to scale up their operations upon demand. The Data Centre Park will increase Singapore’s current data centre capacity by about 50%. More details of this project will be released later this year.

To enhance data connectivity, the Singapore Internet Exchange (SGIX) provides a central point for international and domestic Internet service and content providers to exchange traffic with each other. SGIX minimises situations where Internet traffic from one domestic provider to another has to be routed overseas before returning to Singapore, and reduces the need for international providers to establish multiple linkages with local providers. SGIX has been operational since June 2010 and has attracted more than 20 providers as members.

We are mindful that digital growth is achieved on a sustainable basis. Studies have shown that green practices can reduce data centre energy consumption by up to 55% and in turn generate cost savings for enterprise users. IDA has worked with SPRING Singapore and BCA to introduce two green initiatives.

The first is the Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres, a certifiable standard under SPRING Singapore that helps data centres establish policies, systems and processes to improve energy efficiency. This Standard was launched in January this year, and is a world’s first in integrating energy and environment management systems together.

The second initiative is the BCA-IDA Green Mark for Data Centres, which is a rating system for data centres to assess and benchmark their energy efficiency and other green features with each other. This system will be implemented in a year’s time.

IDA will also launch a Green Data Centre Innovation Challenge this month, to provide opportunities and funding for Green Data Centre pilot deployments. Lest Members wonder why we are putting so much resources and energy into this, the top 10 data centres in Singapore use energy that is equivalent to that used by 130,000 households.

Mr Chairman, Sir, trustworthiness has been Singapore’s competitive differentiator. Our approach towards building a trusted infocomm ecosystem includes two aspects. The first is the protection of consumer personal data, which I will cover later in my reply. The second is the security of our infrastructure, which is guided by our national Infocomm Security Masterplan, complemented by initiatives such as the National Authentication Framework (NAF).

The NAF is on track for launch in the second half of this year. It will provide a nationwide platform for strong authentication to safeguard against unauthorised access to sensitive information, such as those transmitted in banking, healthcare and Government online services. Consumers can look forward to greater assurance and ease of using a single authentication device for multiple services, while businesses can enjoy cost savings from the use of a common platform. The NAF expects to service three million end-users and handle over 200 million transactions annually by 2015.

Let me now address Mr Zainudin Nordin’s questions on design. Besides lower cost, higher speed and better quality, enterprises must consider how best to compete on innovation and design to create new value, new user experiences and penetrate new markets.

The Design for Enterprises (DFE) initiative was launched by the DesignSingapore Council, SPRING Singapore and IE Singapore, as a national programme to help enterprises understand and adopt design as a strategic differentiator for competitiveness and growth. For the design industry, designers can tap on the Capability Development Programme to upgrade their skills and the Overseas Promotion Partnership Programme to develop international markets. Young designers can seek the DesignSingapore Scholarship to pursue full-time tertiary education, while design industry associations can use the Industry Association Development Scheme to roll out industry-wide development programmes.

Last year, the ESC further recommended to leverage on design to establish Singapore as a hub for innovation and enterprise. The DesignSingapore Council has studied the recommendations and introduced several initiatives since. A key overarching initiative is the National Design Centre (NDC). We need to raise awareness of the benefits of design, lower barriers to adoption, and cultivate the spirit of innovation and R&D through design. NDC will serve as an integrated hub, providing enterprises and designers with facilities, resources and opportunities to use design competitively and collaborate in projects for commercialisation. The DesignSingapore Council will also establish an Asian Insights Design Innovation lab in the NDC to give enterprises a leg up in developing innovative products, services and experiences catered to the Asian lifestyle and consumer preferences. Let me illustrate with an example. Electrolux introduced a unique gas hob designed with Asian cooking in mind. Unlike the usual gas hobs that have flames in a circular ring, its new keyhole hob features a flame that is concentrated in the middle which emphasises Asian wok-cooking. There are many more opportunities to develop innovative products like this for the Asian market.

Another initiative in the NDC is the Design Thinking and Innovation Academy (DTIA) which aims to infuse design thinking in public and private enterprises. DTIA will promote and develop capabilities in design thinking and design-driven innovation by conducting master-classes, workshops and mentorship programmes. DTIA aims to train 2,500 people in design thinking by 2014.

Mr Chairman, Sir, Singapore designers are well sought after by the industry. Our design graduates enjoy high employment rates, with starting salaries comparable to graduates of other disciplines. With DesignSingapore Council’s new initiatives, we believe our home-grown designers will have even greater opportunities to hone and apply their skills in a wide range of economic sectors.

MICA is mindful that the adoption of infocomm and design is a business transformation that needs to be guided and supported. Hence, we have put in place assistance schemes to facilitate enterprises, especially SMEs, to take the first step.

For design, the Design Engage Programme provides co-funding grants to support enterprises in the strategic adoption of design innovation. Another co-funding grant, the Design for Business Innovation Grant, was launched in August last year to match-make enterprises with suitable design consultancies and support the consultation fees for their design project. The Productivity and Innovation Credit also applies to investments in design. Thus far, 53 enterprises have benefited from these schemes.

For infocomm, IDA, SPRING Singapore and IRAS introduced the $25 million iSPRINT scheme last year, to help SMEs acquire and implement infocomm solutions. As at January 2011, more than 750 SMEs had been funded, generating a projected $400 million in value-add over the next three years. Let me illustrate the extent of impact that iSPRINT generates. The Association of Employment Agencies initiated the development of a sector-wide infocomm solution that automates employment agencies’ operational processes and improves turnaround time. As the solution was built as a cloud service, the cost of adoption for employment agencies is only 40% the cost of implementing their own infocomm systems. Pilot deployment of the solution has shown good results, with sales staff saving about two hours per sales transaction. The association plans to have over 100 agencies adopt the solution over the next six months.

According to IDA’s survey in 2010, only half of our SMEs use at least one infocomm business solution. And so, more needs to be done. I am pleased to inform the House that iSPRINT will be extended with $85.5 million of funding from the National Productivity Fund for another five years. With this extended scheme, we aim to help another 5,000 SMEs adopt at least one infocomm business solution by March 2016.

MICA is also mindful that for Singapore to benefit from a vibrant infocomm and media ecosystem, there has to be sufficient infocomm and media professionals. Mr Zaqy Mohamad asked about capability development in these sectors. Let me address them.

At present, we have a steady supply of about 5,000 infocomm tertiary graduates annually. IDA has also been enabling continual skills upgrading through the Critical Infocomm Technology Resource Programme where more than 42,000 people have undergone training since 2005. To continue to meet industry demands, IDA developed a new four-year manpower development roadmap that we unveiled just last week. I will not go into the details here.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad also asked whether Singapore could create the next Facebook or Google. IDA has initiated programmes to attract and nurture infocomm technopreneurs and start-ups to infuse innovation, new business models and capabilities into our infocomm ecosystem. One programme is iStart, which has helped local start-ups gain access to market connections, investment funding and high-quality international mentors, including those from Silicon Valley.

Another programme is iBEST, which seeks to anchor 40 high potential international venture capital-backed start-ups in Singapore. These start-ups are required to hire at least 50% local manpower, hence exposing our local infocomm talent to new jobs, knowledge and skills. There are also schemes like the Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme, Technology Innovation Programme and other programmes under SPRING.

We really do not know if we can, over time, have someone as big as the giants we know today. The challenge is whether they would be tempted to sell out early. I have spoken to a number of these young entrepreneurs, and some of them were quite successful in the initial phase, so I ask them why. And they say, "my expertise is in this particular phase. I am not sure I have the expertise to bring it to the next level. Hence, I think I am better off selling and then re-starting the cycle." From their point of view, it is a very rational progress and development. What we have to do is to put in place the environment, mentorship, other funding support and opportunities for them to network with the best to see if some of them are prepared to stay with the programme for the long haul.

For the media sector, the number of tertiary graduates is about 2,000 annually. We work closely with the institutes of higher learning, media associations as well as WDA and their Continuing Education Centres to establish bridging programmes and attachments with leading local and overseas media companies. To groom young talents, MDA’s Media Education Scheme offers scholarships to students and industry professionals to pursue a broad range of media-related courses locally and overseas, with an obligation to contribute to the local media industry upon graduation.

Under the International Media Manpower Programme, MDA seeks to anchor top media talents in Singapore to boost the capability of local media companies and enhance Singapore’s reputation as a global media city.

We strongly encourage infocomm and media companies to invest in R&D, new technology and staff training, as well as take maximum advantage of IDA and MDA schemes and the enhanced Productivity and Innovation Credit to restructure, improve efficiency and grow their businesses to offset the impact of higher labour costs over time.

Mr Calvin Cheng spoke about building a unique service proposition for Singapore's media sector. We fully agree with that. Our media industry cannot solely focus on the domestic market. Hence, the Singapore Media Fusion Plan has identified the growing Asian media market as an opportunity and the Government has committed $230 million to this Plan over the next five years. We are seeing good progress. Mr Calvin Cheng has listed a number of our stengths but it also includes areas like technical competence, production of factual entertainment content, good quality cost balance as well as our rigorous legal and intellectual property regime. These are attracting collaborations from the international community. For example, Singapore’s Beach House Pictures and Very! produced documentaries "Hidden Cities" and "Partners In Crime" for AETN All Asia Networks’ History and Crime and Investigation Channels respectively, while Scrawl Studios is now working with SLR Productions, an Australia company, to adapt the well loved and internationally successful book, "Guess How Much I Love You" into animation.

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MDA has also secured Government-to-Government media co-operation and co-production agreements with 13 countries including Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom and Sweden. The latest is our co-production treaty with China, which makes Singapore the first country in Asia with such an agreement with China. Members may wonder why this is so important. China accepts 20 foreign films a year. If a Singapore film is treated as a foreign film, we know we stand little chance against the Hollywood blockbusters. But a film that is produced under the "co-pro" agreement is treated as a local product. Hence, I think it gives us greater opportunity to access this market. These agreements overall facilitate networking opportunities and encourage co-productions between Singapore and foreign companies where part of the production work is carried out here in Singapore.

Our aim is to build a commercially scalable and viable media industry that is largely financed by private capital, rather than to rely heavily on Government funding. To date, about $1.5 billion of media funds have been anchored in Singapore, of which $620 million is committed to be spent in Singapore over the next five years starting from FY2011.

Let me also further address Mr Zaqy Mohamad's questions on anchoring content providers. MDA and IDA offer a wide variety of development and funding schemes to grow the creation of innovative content and attract digital media players. MDA's INVIGORATE+ and Content360 TV, which support local game and television content development and commercialisation for emerging media platforms, and IDA's Digital Marketplace Programme which attracts international media service providers and content owners to hub here in Singapore are just some examples.

Ultimately, for Singapore to be a centre for producing Asian content purposed for both the East and the West, we need a globally connected, self-sustaining and vibrant media ecosystem where creative talents can do their best work. And this is what we aim to do with the Mediapolis. Today, MediaCorp and Infinite Frameworks Studios have signed on to Mediapolis, and more companies are being engaged. Some of them, I understand, are quite promising. As demand builds up, there are plans to facilitate a multi-tenanted building for smaller companies and those who prefer not to develop their own buildings. The present 19-hectare Mediapolis site should be fully completed, we believe, by 2020, and an adjacent 18-hectare site has been earmarked for future expansion. MDA launched the Mediapolis Phase Zero initiative to incubate start-ups and test-bed new concepts in the media sector, while IDA has developed a Media ICT blueprint to guide the industry in ICT design, implementation and service delivery for Mediapolis.

Let me now address Ms Audrey Wong's concerns on the professionalism of local production houses and I want to assure her that MDA pays keen attention to this area. The issues of late payment and contract disputes had occurred from time to time but MDA's assessment is that such problems were confined to selected companies or projects and they do not believe this is a systemic problem in the media industry. We also recognise that non-payment may be due to unfortunate circumstances where production companies' projects fail and cashflow problems set in. Such challenges could be faced, of course, by any SME in any industry. But when non-payment cases are raised, the MDA will assist to facilitate a positive resolution between production companies and freelancers. We have also assisted production companies to ease cashflow through link-ups with financial institutions and other financiers.

Beyond this, MDA has been working with various parties to better educate industry professionals on their obligations and rights as well as encourage media companies to adopt best practices to raise industry standards. Specifically, the MDA has engaged Association of Independent Production Houses (AIPRO) and MediaCorp to explore establishing a standard of best practices and guidelines for the engagement of freelancers, and look into how payment schedules could be revised to better suit the cashflow requirements of productions. NTUC and e2i are also in discussion with AIPRO to work out a standardised contract for freelancers.

Mr Chairman, Sir, several Members have raised questions concerning consumer interests. Let me first address Mr Low Thia Khiang and Mr Chiam See Tong's questions on information confidentiality and consumer personal data protection.

As consumer personal data becomes increasingly valuable in the information goods and services market, there are growing concerns that the consumers' personal information is collected, sold or used without their consent, be it in the Internet or through filling up of forms for lucky draws or the purchase of goods.

I had recently informed the House that the Government will be introducing a Consumer Data Protection Law that will provide for the protection of consumer personal data in Singapore. The proposed law aims to protect individuals' personal information against misuse by regulating how businesses collect, use, disclose and retain consumer personal data, including through online means. In addition to protecting individuals' interests, the proposed law will enhance our overall competitiveness and strengthen our position as a trusted hub for businesses.

Consumer personal data protection, we know, is a complex issue and, therefore, MICA will be carrying out further consultation with the public, private and people sectors to address their concerns. As I mentioned earlier, we intend to introduce new legislation for consideration by Parliament in early 2012, and to set up a Data Protection Council to oversee the legislation.

This is different from what Mr Low mentioned, which is about the protection of the privacy of individuals. So, one, we are doing is the Consumer Data Protection Law; and the other point he mentioned is protecting the privacy of individuals. Privacy generally relates to the prevention of intrusion into an individual's private life; while data protection concerns the protection of an individual's personal data against misuse. An intrusion into an individual's private life need not necessarily be derived from a misuse of an individual's personal data and vice versa . And so they cannot be said to be one and the same. For example, privacy issues include the taking of photographs by a stranger of a person performing an activity – eating, exercising, etc. But this alone would not constitute a data protection issue. So what we are doing, first and foremost, is to govern the proper processing of personal information such as the collection, the use, the disclosure and the transfer of this data, and to make sure that this is appropriately regulated.

Having said all these, the public must remain vigilant when giving out personal information, when filling up survey, contest or registration forms, the terms and conditions ought to be read closely to determine how personal details will be used; and we will also ensure businesses refrain from collecting personal information other than what is necessary and should inform consumers about the purpose of collection and ensure that the information is used only for that purpose stated.

Mr Lim Biow Chuan, Mr Zainudin Nordin and Mr Low Thia Khiang spoke on the quality of our telecom services. For the past six months, IDA has studied but it intends to implement measures in several areas that pertain to key consumer concerns.

Let me address them in turn. The first concern is on unsolicited chargeable SMS messages, otherwise known as premium rate services (PRS). Such services include mobile ring tones, quizzes, information or game downloads. Currently, IDA has in place requirements which prohibit all telecom service providers from charging for unsolicited services. For PRS providers, IDA has imposed additional rules, including stringent advertising requirements and the need for PRS providers to constantly remind consumers, via SMS, of their subscriptions. IDA views any non-compliance by such PRS providers seriously and will not hesitate to penalise operators in breach of the PRS requirements. However, recognising the ease with which consumers can unwittingly subscribe to PRS, IDA plans to require mobile operators to offer a PRS barring service, so that consumers have an option to block chargeable PRS. To facilitate the barring, IDA intends to set aside a prefix number to which mobile operators can migrate PRS to. This measure will help parents better prevent their children from accidental subscription to PRS, because it is now easier for them to block this specific prefix number.

The second concern is the unknowing incurrence of high data roaming charges. Currently, mobile operators have several measures to protect consumers against high data roaming charges. These include SMS alerts on usage, special plans which cap data roaming charges with unlimited usage in selected countries, and so on. Consumers, of course, can also switch off the data roaming function on their mobile phones. Nonetheless, we know that consumers still face difficulties. To further protect consumers against data roaming bill shocks, IDA intends to require all mobile operators to offer consumers two new options. The first is a free data roaming service suspension option that caps consumers' data roaming usage at a specified dollar quantum in data roaming charges. The service is automatically suspended once your data roaming reaches this specified dollar quantum that you have set. The second is to provide more convenient means for consumers to de-activate data services before travelling overseas. These measures will allow consumers to better control their usage of data roaming services and prevent bill shocks. We will also encourage all consumers to be diligent, seek to understand the prices and terms of mobile services, and the features of the smartphones that they are using. Ultimately, this is the best assurance that consumers do not face any surprises in their bills.

The third concern is on the actual broadband speeds which consumers experience. Presently, IDA has in place a quality of service framework for fixed-line broadband services, covering network availability, latency and international bandwidth utilisation, but not minimum standards on broadband speeds. In IDA's public consultation on network neutrality, the IDA proposed that service providers improve information transparency on the expected average broadband speeds achievable for their broadband plans. As Mr Low has noted, the service providers did not welcome this proposal. IDA understands that there are many factors affecting consumers' fixed-line and mobile broadband surfing experience, such as the types of equipment, devices and applications being used and the website content provider's system configuration, bandwidth connection, and so on. But, nonetheless, to enable consumers to make more informed choices between service providers, IDA intends to require service providers to publish the typical speeds which consumers can expect of both fixed and mobile broadband services, in addition to the theoretical maximum speeds advertised. And IDA will also publish its own audit of the speeds and the methodology it uses in carrying out its audit.

A fourth area of concern, highlighted by Mr Lim, is the mobile coverage along the coastline and within buildings and tunnels. IDA is aware of signals spilling over from overseas mobile operators near the coastline, and is constantly working with their Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts to minimise signal spillage. But this is the nature of radio-frequency signals, they are no respecter of borders, they do not carry a passport when they cross borders. And so it is not totally possible to eradicate such spillage given the close proximity with our neighbouring countries. Indeed, mobile phone users in our neighbouring countries also experience signal spillage from Singapore mobile operators. This is one area where we strongly encourage end-users to play their part by configuring, manually, if necessary, their mobile phones to select the desired local network rather than through auto-roaming features.

With regard to mobile coverage within buildings and tunnels, IDA has in place Quality of Service standards that require 95% coverage on street level and in road and MRT tunnels as well as 85% coverage at public access areas within buildings, including basement areas with services to the public, such as shops, food courts and supermarkets. However, where there may be good mobile coverage in one area, there could be specific spots in the same area where coverage is not optimal as mobile signals could be blocked due to the building structure or technical limitations. While IDA has not imposed any financial penalty on the three mobile operators as they are able to meet the current QoS, IDA has imposed financial penalties on the operators for delaying rollout of 3G coverage at certain MRT tunnels. So, no penalties for buildings because they are actually currently meeting the QoS but penalties have been imposed on them because they have delayed the rollout of 3G coverage in MRT tunnels. IDA has directed the operators to achieve full 3G tunnel coverage by end July this year.

I will just briefly touch on what we will be doing to address some of these four areas of concern. IDA will be announcing in detail its measures on these areas next week and they will provide more information then. IDA will also continue to study other areas which require greater regulatory control to protect consumers' interests.

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Mr Chairman, Sir, the focus of this year's Budget is to strengthen Singapore's economy and society for the future. Our efforts in MICA in harnessing the multiplying effects of infocomm, design and media will enable increased competitiveness in our wider economy and, we believe, create better jobs for Singaporeans. Our continued investment in these sectors will generate greater vitality in our society, enriching the way we live, work, learn and interact.

Public service broadcast

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: Mr Chairman, with the removal of the radio and TV licence fees, there are segments concerned that the support for Public Service Broadcast (PSB) will be reduced and this may impact the quality of programming. What are MICA's plans to improve the quality of programming and to ensure that our programmes remain in sync with viewers' expectations?

Today, we can be proud that PSB funding has made local television hits, such as the "Little Nonya". For programmes in other mother tongue languages, such as the Malay and Tamil channels, funding is usually a challenge as the advertising revenues on these channels are lower but production costs are the same on a per unit basis. How can MICA help to better promote language use and talent development in the various national languages?

There is also common perception that the amount of repeat telecasts on our free-to-air channels, including the English channels, is also high. One of the objectives that I see PSB fulfilling strategically is to promote artistic and creative talents through independent production houses, many of whom produce for free-to-air channels. With greater PSB support, independent artistes and media professionals will have more opportunities and this may create a more vibrant media industry. Does MICA have plans to promote a more vibrant media production sector and cultivate creative talents beyond a regular supply of talents from MediaCorp?

Increasingly, we also find more young Singaporeans accessing content from the new media. Perhaps, MICA can consider doing more to extend its PSB-funded programmes through new media channels, even creating programmes fit for purpose for the new media, to keep pace with viewership patterns of young Internet-savvy Singaporeans.

Mr Viswa Sadasivan (Nominated Member): Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) has always been, and continues to be, an important and essential contributor to nation building. It fosters deeper appreciation among our people, especially our young, of the trials and tribulations we endured in our journey to nationhood.

The announcement that the radio and TV licence fees will cease, while being well received by residents, has raised concerns in the broadcast sector, especially among independent production companies. The key concern is that this could result in reduced funding for PSB programmes. The fact is that the primary source of PSB funding has always been the receipts from the radio and TV licence fees.

MDA has been prompt in giving the assurance to industry players, that "MDA remains fully committed to supporting PSB programmes". This assurance is timely and appreciated. However, what is still unclear is whether the level of support and the amount of funding will continue to see a growth, in keeping with rising cost of production, or at least, be sustained.

In recent years, there has already been growing concern in the industry that PSB funding has stagnated or, even possibly, declined because of competing demands on MDA's total funds. And this, when the radio and television licence fee receipts as the sacrosanct source of PSB funding was still in place. MDA would now have to find alternative funding directly from the Government to fill the gap. The concern is, firstly, whether MDA will continue to seek enough funding from the Government to sustain at least the current level of PSB output and quality. Second, whether the Government will continue to give what MDA asks. And, third, whether this funding will see increased fluctuations year-on-year, which makes it challenging for production companies to plan for and invest in resources. I would appreciate the Minister's response to these questions.

Allow me, now, to make two suggestions – with policy implications – that I believe would help foster a better environment that promotes greater interest in quality PSB content.

First, let me touch on the need for easier access and use of archive footage. PSB programmes, especially those that trace history and evolution, use archive footage for authenticity and emotive quality. Currently, such archive material are owned by and stored at MediaCorp. Media production companies, or students from tertiary institutions, must go down physically to search, which could take hours and cost a few hundred dollars each time. Cost for one-time use of the footage can be quite prohibitive, about $2,500 per minute of usage. While it is understandable that MediaCorp, being a commercial entity, needs to charge a fee, it would help very much if it could review the fees. Alternatively, MDA could provide a subsidy to help offset the cost of using archive footage for at least "approved projects". The idea is to encourage greater usage of archive footage, not only by media production companies, but by students and members of the public at large.

Therefore, generating greater awareness of what is available in the archives and providing easier access become a priority. In this regard, it would be useful to have a Government-subsidised one-off exercise to facilitate online search for such archival content. This would not only improve productivity by eliminating physical search at MediaCorp and reduce search fees, but also help generate greater awareness of and interest in archived material. The aim is to make this precious archived content part of our National Archives. After all, it is part of our collective heritage.

The second suggestion pertains to IP of MDA-funded productions. Currently, for programmes that are fully funded by MDA, the production company does not have any share of the IP. MDA retains the IP in full. While I can see the logic in this, I feel it makes more sense for the production company to have the IP, either in full or at least in part, to incentivise it to produce quality PSB programmes which, in turn, have better potential for distribution and sales. This is the right thing to do in my view, especially if the production company is responsible for the bulk of creative content. This arrangement would, in turn, meet MDA's mandate, that is, to generate better content and spur promising enterprises to scale up.

To the best of my understanding, these two suggestions are in keeping with the practice and conventions in developed countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, where media production companies have grown in size and stature, as have the quality of their PSB productions.

Mr Arthur Fong: Mr Chairman, I applaud the scrapping of the radio and TV licence fee. When I meet friends, they all said, "Ah, finally!" But I shared with them my concerns. The withdrawal of the fees may affect the quality and the quantity of the free-to-air television programmes. Already, we are seeing re-run of re-runs on television.

Through the Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) funding, Singaporeans had the good fortune of watching good quality locally-created television serial, such as "The Little Nonya" that Mr Zaqy has spoken about. Programmes, such as "The Little Nonya", are also the pride of Singapore. CNA is also beamed to many living rooms in Asia. Kudos to the documentary teams who have produced such programmes with an Asian flair.

Sir, while I appreciate that this is the digital age, and majority of Singaporean homes are equipped with cable television, this is a luxury not enjoyed by all. Many of the low-income families depend on the free-to-air television programmes for their entertainment.

Sir, the importance of Public Broadcast Service cannot be overstated. I ask the Minister's assurance that the termination of radio and television licence fee would not result in poorer quality of PSB-funded programmes. There is also a knock-on effect on the many small production houses that have developed and continue to develop to provide content in this space. Sir, I have met some talented members of such outfits. They are entrepreneurial, passionate, young and did I mention, talented. Some of our older, experienced retired production personnel from the MediaCorp, SBC, TCS days are also working with such outfits. This provides a healthy talent pool of production and creative personnel and adds value to the industry.

In encouraging Singaporeans to be gracious, many such PBS programmes have been effective in promoting somewhat, acceptable behaviour of our people in everyday situations. Can the Minister address these concerns, please?

Mr Seng Han Thong (Yio Chu Kang): ( In Mandarin ): [For vernacular speech, please refer to Appendix A.] Mr Chairman, every year, the Government collects $120 million from radio and TV licence fees. Now that the radio and TV licence fees have been abolished, will the Public Service Broadcast programmes that have benefited from the radio and TV licence fee collection be affected? In response to this question from reporters, Minister Lui Tuck Yew said funds from other areas will be directed to fund these programmes. He also said that among the top 10 most popular programmes, seven or eight of them will continue to receive funding support. Audiences of Mandarin programmes are concerned if their top three favourite programmes will be affected. The first is the long-running programme "星期二特写" (Tuesday Report), second is "财经追击" （Money Week） and, third, "前线追踪" (Frontline).

I would like to ask the Minister: does he mean that the programmes will not be affected, or that the programmes will be minimally affected? This reminds me of a saying "出兵三十二，收兵十六双，点兵都不少，个个都受伤" (The army left with 32 soldiers, and came back with 16 pairs of them. None were left out at roll call, but all of them were injured).

In addition, if the funds were directed from other areas, will the Channel 8 News programme be affected? The Channel 8 News programme has the highest ratings and will have the biggest impact on our Mandarin audience. Another area that MPs are very concerned about is whether the parliamentary reports will be affected. Or will the impact be minimal?

*Cols. 4711-4712.

Mr Baey Yam Keng (Tanjong Pagar): Mr Chairman, with the termination of the radio and TV licence fees, the Government will forgo about $120 million collected every year to fund about 3,000 hours of content on our free-to-air TV channels. I would like to ask the Minister how the amount to be spent on Public Service Broadcast be determined in the future. Presently, the amount is dependent on the licence fees collected. Going forward, as the Government funds the programmes directly, how does it decide whether to increase or reduce the amount? If our population and the number of households and the number of television or radio sets increases, does it mean that the amount will increase correspondingly, which it would have, if the licensing scheme had continued? In addition, would the Minister share with us how MICA decides on the proportion of the various types of programmes for the various platforms, including radio, television and the new media?

The PSB programmes play an important role in informing and educating the public about important social and cultural issues, and national policies. They also promote social cohesion and harmony, and strengthen our national identity. Thus, I hope that the Minister would consider using this platform to promote more works by our local artistes and writers to promote local culture, heritage and Asian values. The likes of the Chinese drama, "The Little Nonya", are encouraging, given the profile of the Peranakan culture and it received high viewership ratings. I understand that PSB funding contributed part of the production costs and I also accept that, on its own, MediaCorp may not have the financial resources or want to take the risk and invest in the extensive research, sets and costumes and location shoots for this Chinese drama. I hope more PSB-funded programmes will be as successful and meaningful so that we do not always have to cite "The Little Nonya" as a good example of PSB programmes.

However, the budget to produce a good television programme can be quite high. I would like the Ministry to also tap on, perhaps, an older but I think equally effective medium – the radio. For one, it is more accessible, in the car or on the iPhone. More importantly, it is much less resource-intensive.

As a child, I used to be glued to the radio set, following episodes of radio drama. Currently, I find that we have too many airtime hours across various radio stations devoted to songs, music and talkshows. The Ministry has said that we need to promote more local content creation in Singapore. Besides print publications, we need to find more avenues for these works to reach out to more audiences. It would be great if some of these stories, whether scripts or novels, can be presented on television, film or the stage, but we should also look at radio as an easier and more cost-effective channel. Certainly, adapting a novel for the small screen, big screen or on air requires different specific skill sets, but I believe there is a common trait of compelling story-telling. Perhaps, the radio could be a good test-bed to assess the potential and viability of further investment into these local works to be presented on other platforms. Hopefully, this will lead to a few of our home-grown writers winning critical acclaim or gaining commercial success on the international scene.

Finally, I would like to request for more programmes for children in our mother tongues on radio and television. The growing use of English in our homes has significantly reduced the chances for our children to be exposed to their mother tongues. Having more interesting programmes in mother tongues targeted for children will be useful in creating a more conducive environment for them to be exposed to the language beyond what they learn as a subject in the classroom.

Ms Audrey Wong Wai Yen: Let me take the House back to the year 1984 when the first episode of the Chinese television drama, "The Awakening" or "雾锁南洋" was telecast by the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. It was a sensation. Our very own home-grown blockbuster television series, showing us the Singapore of our grandparents and parents. Today, we have "The Little Nonya" and other television series, some of which have a following in other countries. I am sure making "The Awakening" was a risk as our television audience was still used to a diet of foreign dramas. That is one reason to be thankful for Public Service Broadcasting.

With the scrapping of radio and TV licence fees, people are understandably seeking assurance from MDA that the quantity and quality of broadcasting will not diminish. The value of PSB is that it goes beyond narrow commercial and advertisers' interests. It promotes social cohesion rather than sensationalism. I am glad the Minister has announced more arts and culture programming in the media. And I also hope that there will be more and better current affairs and children programmes. Like Mr Baey, I also would like us to look into radio programming and to developing radio as a medium for our cultural needs as well as for communication and more creative programming.

The Chairman: Order. I propose to take the break now.

Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 3.20 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 3.01 pm until 3.20 pm

Sitting resumed at 3.20 pm

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]:

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]: Debate in Committee of Supply resumed.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Head Q (cont.) –

The Chairman: Ms Sylvia Lim is not here. Mr Teo Ser Luck.

Dialects in films

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports and Minister for Transport (Mr Teo Ser Luck): Mr Chairman, Sir, I look forward to every Lunar New Year not because I can collect hongbaos, which I am no longer eligible to, or I can give more hongbaos . It is because I enjoy the local films that are launched during every festive season period. These local productions are getting better and better every year, and they are very progressive. They resonate with many of the heartlanders, especially those who understand the language and a lot of them use dialects. To some, the language and jokes are as local as you can get. Sometimes when you go to the cinema and watch some of these local film productions, you can see long queues. This is a progress made by the local film productions. One of the phenomena that I realise is that some of these films do particularly well in the local box office. I also realise that those films which have done quite well included a larger part of the dialogues in dialect. But not all the films use the same amount of dialects. Like the "12 Lotus", it uses a varying degree of dialects.

Recently, there were two films screened during the festive season: "Homecoming" as well as Kelvin Tong's "It's A Great Great World". "It's A Great Great World" has a large amount of dialogues in dialect, as compared to Jack Neo's production "Homecoming" which has a smaller amount of dialect. Both films did differently in the box office. So I would like to ask the Minister if there are any benchmarks set for the amount and volume of the dialects permitted in such local films. What are the criteria to be considered in allowing dialects in films when we are not out there trying to promote dialects in this country?

The Internet generation and elections

Mr Calvin Cheng: Sir, recent events in the Middle East have shown the power of the Internet to not only change the political landscape of a country, but to even help overthrow governments. Closer to home, the 2008 loss of the two-thirds majority by the ruling coalition of Malaysia was partly attributed to the influence of the Internet. In that very same election, a prominent blogger was elected to Parliament.

Sir, it seems that the Internet is a technology that not only disrupts businesses but also politics. It may go even further than that. To many who have adopted the Internet in their adult lives, it may seem like a technology, something they have learnt to use. However, to those who have grown up with the Internet – the Internet generation – the Internet is not merely a technology, it is their way of life.

The Internet is estimated to have started in the mid-1990s. Those who are 21 to 30 at the next election in Singapore, which may be in a matter of weeks, would have been five to 14 in 1995. This generation has practically grown up with the Internet. They do not remember a world where the Internet did not exist. Sir, this generation, as a result, behaves and thinks in ways that their elders cannot understand. This is the generation that puts their lives up for public display on blogs, writes about their innermost thoughts and shares it with thousands of strangers. This is the generation that makes friends and keeps friends not through going down to tea dances, but through social networks. This is the generation that would tweet about the most private moments of their lives.

Whatever information they offer freely of themselves, they demand it also. Do not know a thing – well, "Google" it – and the information is expected in milliseconds. This is the generation that does not pull out a copy of Encyclopaedia Britannica to research but expects to find the gospel truth on Wikipedia. They think they are entitled to say whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want. They think that the Internet has finally given ordinary people the power to seek the truth from people who they think are hiding the truth, and they get angry when they think they are being lied to. In China, nothing is more fearsome than a flesh-search (人肉收索), where millions of netizens combine efforts to ferret out information about people they think might have done wrong.

The impact of the Internet and the Internet generation will be difficult to predict in the next election. Already at the last election in 2006, we have seen an inkling of what may happen. There was already use of some message boards and socio-political blogs to spread information. No doubt, this election will see even more of this and the pervasive use of Facebook and Twitter to gather support. The young may not bother turning up at rallies, but you can be sure that they will turn to the Internet to gather every bit of information they can find.

Sir, governments around the world have reacted to this change often with regulation. This is pointless. Although Egypt has shown that one can pull the plug on the Internet, this would be cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. No country can function without an Internet connection to the outside world nowadays, especially one as open as Singapore. And even China has struggled to maintain its great firewall. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are so readily available nowadays that to try to put up a firewall around an entire country is a joke. Moreover, with anonymous proxy servers all over the world, everybody can be anybody. Chasing anonymous people around cyberspace is like trying to catch a ghost – time-consuming and ultimately futile.

Instead, I would rather that the Government uses education as its reaction to the Internet, to make sure that the Internet generation has a beneficial rather than a pernicious effect on the political landscape. Firstly, netizens have to know that the social rules that apply to the real world should apply to the Internet as well. If one is a polite person in the real world, why would one want to turn into a rude, ranting obnoxious maniac on the Internet? If one would not be racist or insult other people’s religions, or slander another human being normally, why would one think it is okay to do so just because it is a blog or a Facebook account? If anonymity means that you are free to become a beast, then a beast you are, Internet or not. Be the person you would be on the Internet, as you are in the real world.

Secondly, whereas education in the past focused on rote-learning information, memorising historical facts, and swotting up knowledge, education now has to focus on information processing, analytical skills and the ability to differentiate fact from fiction. In the past, if I read something in Encyclopaedia Britannica, I know it to be a fact, and I can safely commit it to memory. Now if I read something on Wikipedia or on the Internet, I have to first ask myself whether it is really a fact. This is crucial. Our Internet generation has to be equipped with the critical thinking skills to sift through the tons of misinformation and disinformation to be found on the Internet, to be able to tell truths from lies, and to carry a healthy dose of scepticism into cyberspace. This is crucial to the political process, as a democracy functions well only if the electorate is able to make reasoned and rational choices made on correct information. The next election will no doubt see some anonymous irresponsible people spreading lies, mistruths and unfounded rumours in cyberspace. Trying to clamp down on these troublemakers may be difficult; much better to equip our people in the long run with the critical thinking skills to ascertain fact from fiction.

Finally, in the Internet age, it will get harder and harder to have a monopoly of information, not only because the Internet makes it easier to verify facts, but also because the Internet generation cannot be fobbed off with morsels of information. People in power have to be more forthcoming with information and be fully aware that anything they say, once it is on the Internet, it will be there forever and will spread like wildfire. Some things will have to be kept secret, as no state can allow a total freedom of information. The electorate needs to accept this and not make irresponsible and unreasonable demands. Openness does not mean anarchy.

The Internet generation may prove a wild card in the next election. But, at the end of the day, only a wild card. A good government who delivers a royal flush would still sweep the table and, I trust, in this upcoming election, as always, bread and butter issues would still inevitably win the day.

3.30 pm

Cyber wellness

Dr Ong Seh Hong: Thank you, Mr Chairman, Sir, for giving me the privilege to make the last cut for this year's COS.

Mr Chairman, the Internet is a wonderful vehicle. It has become an essential part of life, especially for the youngsters, as what the earlier hon. Member has just deliberated in his speech, that at the press of a button, we can be inundated with all sorts of information.

As a practising doctor, I also observe that the cyber age has changed and re-defined the doctor-patient relationships. Today, we see patients who are knowledgeable of their conditions even before the consultations have started.

Sir, the Internet, whilst having many advantages, is also a place where a lot of dangers lurk quietly to haunt our innocent and unsuspecting youths. Youth are, by nature, impressionable and susceptible to guile and deceit. A lot happens within and outside of the Internet domain, but not enough of the seedy side of the Internet is exposed and reported. For instance, what is the extent of sexual grooming and exploitation that goes on via the Internet on young and innocent boys and girls? How do we police sexual preying on the Internet? Is the Penal Code adequate as a deterrent to cyber crimes?

Some students in a local school recently posted pictures of two of their female schoolmates in a toilet. They probably thought that it was a harmless prank. But once up on the Internet, it is impossible to delete. I can imagine how devastating it would be for the two female students. In another case, a young man in America, whose privacy was painfully violated, could not live with the trauma, so he committed suicide. These are just a few isolated incidents. There are many more.

Sir, cyber sexual hunting, cyber bullying – all these are serious issues. The target groups are often the defenceless youth. We have an obligation to protect them and it is important to raise awareness and educate the public on the threat of all these cyber bullying, cyber crimes and cyber sexual hunting. Close cooperation with the parents is another instrument to combat the scourge. We must also work closely with the schools to reach out to all the students.

I noted that MICA has rolled out Cyber Wellness Programme for a three-month period. May I know if MICA intends to make this a continuous programme and reach out to all children because every child in Singapore has access to Internet and every one of them is vulnerable? What more is MICA doing to "vaccinate" our youth against cyberspace ills?

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong): Mr Chairman, Sir, I would like to first thank some of the Members who are wearing this badge to signify their support for the Singapore Kindness Movement. Your support will give a lot of encouragement to my colleagues in MICA to roll out more and better programmes to make Singapore a more caring and gracious society.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I thank the hon. Members for their questions on public service broadcast programmes, local films and cyber wellness. Let me first address the queries on the public service broadcast (PSB) programming.

With the abolition of the radio and the TV licence fees, the hon. Members are concerned about whether the PSB programming will continue to receive strong support from the Government. Members' concerns underscore the important role that the PSB programming has played over the years in informing and also educating our people about our heritage, culture and history; and in fostering and strengthening our social cohesion and Singapore identity. PSB programming does so in an engaging way, with a diverse offering of locally produced and foreign acquired programmes. These programmes range from dramas, information, arts and cultural as well as sports and children's programmes. Many of these programmes may, otherwise, not be produced without PSB funding as they tend to be commercially less viable. Significantly, PSB funding has also contributed to growing Suria and Vasantham to serve the needs of our Malay and Indian communities.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I would like to assure the House that the Government will continue to place a high premium on PSB programming in recognition of the important national and the social objectives of the PSB programmes. The funding support for the PSB programmes for the coming new financial year will be comparable to previous years. Moving ahead, the Government will continue to provide funding support that is in line with the country's PSB needs. So, there is no change in the Government's support for PSB programmes, with or without the radio and TV licence fees. Just now, Mr Seng Han Thong mentioned in Mandarin about his concerns and worries for a few very popular Chinese programmes that may be affected by the PSB programme funding. He spoke in Mandarin and so I would like to respond to him in Mandarin.

( In Mandarin ): [For vernacular speech, please refer to Appendix A.] Mr Seng Han Thong expressed concern that a few popular television programmes will be affected after the radio and TV licence fees have been cancelled. He also wanted to know that in the event that these programmes are affected, will the impact be great? I want to tell Mr Seng that so long as these are good programmes that are popular with audiences, their funding will not be affected.

( In English ): Mr Viswa Sadasivan and Mr Arthur Fong talked about raising the quality of PSB programmes, and Mr Zaqy Mohamad asked how PSB could develop creative talents and the independent production companies.

MDA has been working closely with the broadcast industry to foster a more competitive environment to spur the generation of fresh programme ideas for PSB and also to provide more opportunities for our independent production companies. These efforts are aimed at developing a sufficient pool of local talents to produce high quality programmes. For instance, MDA has been steadily increasing the proportion of PSB programme hours outsourced by MediaCorp to independent production companies. Today, there are over 2,000 locally-produced PSB TV programme hours supported by MDA annually. Of these, nearly 40% is produced by local independent production companies. This is a significant increase from 26% in the year 2005.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I am also happy to report that our PSB programmes have done quite well. They are among the most-watched programmes on free-to-air TV. Examples of top-rated programmes last year produced by both our independent production companies and MediaCorp include the dramas, "Together ( 当我们同在一起 )" on Channel 8 and "Vettai" on Vasantham, and the information programmes "Spirit of Singapore" and "Budaya 360 (Culture 360)" on Channel NewsAsia and the Suria, respectively.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad has queried what is being done to reduce the repeat rates of programmes on free-to-air channels. I am aware that this has been of concern, particularly for the minority language channels, Suria and Vasantham. I am pleased to inform the House that with funding support for fresh PSB programmes, both channels actually have been able to reduce their prime time programme repeat rates from an average of 30% to 40% in the year 2008 to the current average of 10% on each channel.

Given the important national and social objectives of the PSB programmes, it is also crucial that these programmes reach out to a wide audience. Mr Baey Yam Keng has called for more PSB funding for radio programming, including radio dramas, while Ms Audrey Wong wants more PSB programmes on radio and TV. Mr Zaqy Mohamad and Mr Seng Han Thong have also called for the use of new media to broadcast PSB programmes. I fully agree with the hon. Members that it is important to leverage on the various media platforms and channels so that more people can enjoy and benefit from the PSB content.

Today, PSB programmes are broadcast mainly on MediaCorp's seven free-to-air TV channels as they are the most wide-reaching TV channels and impactful broadcast media. On average, seven in 10 people tune in to the free-to-air TV channels during the prime viewing hours of 7 pm to 11 pm.

For radio, an average of six in 10 people are tuned in daily. Hence, funding is also provided for PSB content on the ethnic language stations, such as Warna 94.2FM, Ria 89.7FM and Oli 96.8FM; the English news station 938LIVE; and the classical music station Symphony 92.4FM. PSB funding also provides for dialect news bulletins on Capital 95.8FM for the elderly. PSB funding has also been extended to funding radio dramas, such as the family-based radio drama "Happiness 2530" on Radio 100.3. This is in addition to the radio dramas broadcast by the Y.E.S. 93.3FM and the Capital 95.8FM. We will explore the need for further funding support for radio dramas if there is sufficient demand.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I share Mr Zaqy Mohamad's sentiments that we ought to also reach out to our young Net-savvy Singaporeans. Today, about half of our people access the Internet daily. Since last year, MDA has started supporting the creation of web-only content, which is an extension of PSB programmes produced for TV. This web-only content is made available on the xinmsn online portal, which is a tie-up between MediaCorp and MSN. In addition, PSB programmes, first telecast on the free-to-air TV, are now made available on the xinmsn 's "Catch-Up TV" offering to reach out to more viewers. The xinmsn 's video site is currently the fourth most accessed multimedia site in Singapore.

Mr Seng Han Thong has asked about how PSB programmes can better serve and involve the community. To ensure that PSB content remains relevant to our communities, MDA consults and engages the various citizen-based Programme Advisory Committees. MDA also collaborates with other Government agencies to co-fund the provision of PSB programmes that meet social and community interests. For instance, MDA has collaborated with MCYS to produce programmes, such as "Mr Pakar" (or Mr Expert in English), which promotes positive family values.

In addition, PSB programmes also seek to foster social cohesion and also bring communities together. In January this year, we saw the debut of "Talam" (Indian Beat) on Vasantham. The programme aims to promote community bonding amongst the various Indian ethnic groups in Singapore. It features a range of community events and showcases personalities and organisations from different Indian communities.

Mr Viswa Sadasivan has suggested that archived PSB content could be made more accessible by reducing the cost of using such footage, and that a portal should be set up to provide public access to past PSB programmes. While footage owned by third parties are subject to their commercial considerations, MDA has worked towards assisting producers. For example, MDA had negotiated with MediaCorp to extend preferential rates for the use of footage in PSB programmes. MDA will also further explore ways to make archival footage accessible, especially for non-commercial and educational uses. As for the idea of the portal to provide access to past PSB programmes, I am very happy to share that MDA has, in fact, embarked on digitising PSB content which can eventually be made available for public access online. So, this is work-in-progress.

Mr Sadasivan also suggested that, to incentivise quality of PSB content, PSB programme rights owned by MDA should be transferred to the producers. Whilst there are various models, I wish to share that the current rights arrangement MDA has adopted is based on international practice where the financiers of a programme own its rights. This is similar to what is practised by our counterparts in the United States, Australia and France. This allows for MDA to centrally manage and also facilitate the use of PSB content to benefit the greater public, schools and the industry, not just confined to the producers.

*Cols. 4713-4714.

However, for a token fee of $20, schools can use PSB content for educational purposes. Producers are also not hampered from using the intellectual property of their own productions. For example, producers need only obtain a licence at no more than $100 for licensing and merchandising activities, like producing DVDs. MDA will continue to review the rights arrangement in consultation with the industry. Ultimately, the aim is to ensure that public access to PSB content is not hampered while addressing the industry's needs.

3.45 pm

Mr Chairman, Sir, to ensure that our PSB programmes continue to reach out to viewers and listeners and are also well received, I am pleased to share with the House that MICA has set up a PSB review panel in October last year. The panel is to look into ways to enhance the quality, effectiveness and the reach of the PSB content. I chair this review panel which comprises representatives from the MDA citizen-based Advisory Committee, the broadcast industry and the academia. Sir, as part of its deliberations, the panel held a dialogue session with the broadcast industry to gather their views and also to understand the challenges and opportunities in delivering PSB content more effectively. In addition, a survey to gather the public's views on the performance and effectiveness of the PSB has also been conducted. The panel will complete its review and make its recommendations by the middle of this year.

In conclusion, I would to assure the House that the Government will continue to provide strong support for PSB programmes, so that we are able to engage our people through a diverse, high quality and socially relevant programmes on traditional and the new media platforms.

Mr Chairman, Sir, let now address the points raised by Mr Teo Ser Luck with regard to films. Mr Teo asked about the criteria and the guidelines on dialect in films. Film exhibitors are encouraged to screen the Mandarin version of Chinese films. This is to support the Speak Mandarin Campaign, which aims to ensure that Chinese Singaporeans are proficient in Mandarin. Is the Campaign still relevant? Several Members, including Mr Teo Siong Seng and Mr Chan Soo Sen, have expressed in this House that the standard of Mandarin among Chinese Singaporeans needs to be improved. So, there is more to be done and our dialect guidelines for films and broadcasts remain important. Having said that, films with dialect content have been allowed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the film's artistic merit and also the context and relevance of the dialects in the film. Some examples of local films with dialect content include "Singapore Dreaming", "Money No Enough 2" and "Blood Ties". Over the years, MDA has exercised flexibility by allowing films with a substantial amount of dialect, if the dialect usage is contextually relevant, and this includes "881" and "12 Lotus", which was mentioned by Mr Teo Ser Luck just now. They featured getai songs and some Hokkien dialects. The latest example is "It's A Great Great World", which features a range of dialects spoken by tradesmen and the older folks from the 1940s to 1970s, and it reflects the lifestyle of a bygone era in Singapore. Sir, MDA will continue to be flexible in allowing films where the use of dialect has merit and relevance.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad has asked about the implementation of the recommendations of the Censorship Review Committee (CRC). MDA has been working closely with the industry and the community to implement the recommendations of the CRC. The initial recommendations which have been implemented include the step-up public education and also the cyber-wellness initiatives, which I will elaborate further in the later part of my speech. In the middle of this year, the public can expect to see improvements to our classification system as well as greater industry co-regulation. Sir, I would like to assure the House that MDA is on track to implement the majority of the recommendations of the CRC by the end of this year.

Mr Chairman, Sir, content regulation is not peculiar to Singapore and it is, indeed, a common practice based on the norms, values and the sensitivities of one's own society. The intent is to offer diverse choices while protecting the young and not to impede the growth of the industry. Hence, I am pleased to note that our local film industry is growing commendably. From our feature films produced in 1998, the number has grown steadily to eight films in 2003, 23 films in 2007, to a total of 61 films in the past three years from 2008 to 2010. MDA recognises that films can be an important media to promote Singapore, Singaporean identity and also help to reach out to and engage our people. Hence, we set up the Singapore Film Commission (SFC) in 1998 to nurture, support and promote Singapore talent in film-making, the production of Singapore films and the development of the film industry in Singapore.

In 2008, the SFC launched the New Feature Film Fund, which offers our Singapore film-makers the opportunity to express their views and perspectives of Singapore through the film medium. The Fund provides up to $500,000 to support the production of their films, which are released in our local theatres, thereby reaching out to fellow Singaporeans. For example, the Fund supported our local filmmaker Wee Li Lin’s romantic comedy, "Forever", which was released in our cinemas just last week. It also supported "Perfect Rivals" by Han Yew Kwang, which will be released later this month. The Fund also helped Boo Junfeng realise his debut feature film "Sandcastle". The film is about an 18-year-old Singaporean boy's coming of age story, set against the back drop of Singapore’s past and present developments, and the Singapore family and social values. The film premiered at the prestigious International Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival to full-capacity screenings.

Apart from SFC-supported films, film-makers are also doing well with the support of private financing. Notable examples include "Singapore Dreaming", "12 Storeys", "Army Daze", "I Not Stupid", "881" and, most recently, "It’s a Great Great World". These films have struck a chord with local audiences through their depiction of our country as well as their exploration of social issues of concern to Singaporeans.

In addition to feature length films, I certainly agree with Mr Seng Han Thong’s call to promote the making of short films. The SFC has been supporting our film-makers through the Short Film Grant. Since 1998, this grant has supported the productions of more than 500 short films. Many of them reflect our heritage, culture and values. So I am happy to share with Mr Seng that our short films have done well locally and internationally. Some notable examples include "Ah Ma", or grandmother in English, by Anthony Chen, which won a Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, and it was the first time a Singaporean had won an award at Cannes, and "Monkeylove" by Royston Tan, which won the Grand Prix Award at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival. I note Mr Seng’s concern on the grant application process. Typically, what is required in an application are basic information, such as film storyline, budget and production schedules. The SFC is prepared to review and simplify, where necessary, the application process to encourage more aspiring film-makers to come forward to make use of the short film grant.

In conclusion, Sir, I would like to assure the House that MDA believes in helping our local film industry to flourish and also to contribute to Singapore’s development as a cultural capital.

Sir, let me now move on to the cyber wellness which has been a concern to quite a number of MPs. It is important for us to note that cyber wellness should be a shared responsibility among the Government, the industry, the community as well as parents and individuals.

Dr Ong Seh Hong has asked about our efforts to promote cyber wellness, especially among our young, and how we can be more discerning when consuming information purveyed on the Internet. Given the cloak of anonymity on the Internet, not everything in cyberspace is true or can be trusted, a concern also raised by Mr Calvin Cheng. This is a real concern, given that we live in an increasingly connected world, where our people have fast and easy access to information – and misinformation – at their fingertips. So, over the last three years, more people are indeed going to online sources for news and views on local issues and current affairs, although the local mainstream media remains the top source that they turn to. This trend is revealed in an annual survey commissioned by MICA to find out the media consumption patterns of Singaporeans and permanent residents.

The survey conducted last year showed that among the media sources that they turned to for news and views on local issues and current affairs, 93% of respondents indicated that they watched local TV channels. This was followed by 54% who read the Straits Times and 32% who tuned in to the local radio stations. For online sources, 20% of the respondents visited blogs, discussion forums or social networks for news and views on local issues and current affairs. This had risen from 9% in 2008 and 13% in 2009. So we can see that the trend is increasing steadily.

Significantly, we recognise that the amount of information one can get online is virtually limitless. While there is useful and enriching information in cyberspace, there is also a lot of undesirable and harmful content as well as untruths and misleading information. So Dr Ong Seh Hong has also pointed out the dangers lurking in cyberspace, such as cyber-bullying and sexual grooming. How then do we separate the wheat from the chaff? How then can we protect our young, in particular, against the dangers in cyberspace? In this regard, the Government has made the promotion of cyber wellness an important national agenda, as evidenced by the setting up of the Inter-Ministry Cyber Wellness Steering Committee (ICSC) in 2009. The ICSC, which is co-chaired by MICA and MOE, funds cyber wellness projects initiated by the public, the people and the private sector.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I am pleased to say that to date, the ICSC has supported 16 projects, which include educational and awareness programmes for primary, secondary and post-secondary students as well as their parents and educators. These projects have reached out to 28,000 participants. The Inter-school Cyber Wellness Video Challenge is one project that was recently concluded. Students created video responses to several cyber wellness scenarios, based on their understanding of cyber wellness principles. The challenge reached out to over 20,000 students and attracted 132 entries from 80 primary and secondary schools. So all the video entries are shared online at www.savvysurfer.sg , so that the cyber wellness messages can reach out to more members of the public.

Sir, let me now show Members a short video of some of these messages, which the competition organisers had worked with students to produce. So, just sit back and relax. [ Hon. Members were shown a video. ]

Sir, talking about innovation and also grooming creative talents, actually, they are starting in our schools, and many school students actually participate in these activities. Other activities were all by the ICSC, very active.

Sir, to complement such private sector efforts, MDA launched a nation-wide Cyber Wellness Campaign last month, which was supported by 23 partners. It aims to promote discerning and responsible use of digital and traditional media.

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The campaign focuses on key cyber wellness topics, such as privacy, moderate gaming and Internet use, handling inappropriate content and managing cyber bullying. The activities include a roving bus exhibition, an online competition, a resource portal as well as talks and activities organised by partners. These are expected to reach out to 40,000 students, parents and educators in the first three months of the campaign, ie, from February to April this year. In particular, the roving bus will travel to 41 primary schools and 13 public locations. Due to the overwhelming response, MDA has decided to extend the roving bus exhibition to early next year to reach out to more primary schools. MDA actually heard the call by Dr Ong before he made the speech.

Unfortunately, it is not just the young who need to learn how to discern the information on the Internet. With the increasing ubiquity of Internet, we hear of adults who are duped by online money-making scams, who fall prey to identity theft, and are also taken in by misinformation on the Internet. For example, I believe some Members may have, at times, received scam emails, such as a bank manager who asked you to send him your bank account number, with promises of great returns. Or you may have been informed that you had won a great deal of money in an international lottery. But, clearly, neither the bank manager exists nor have you ever bought a lottery ticket in the first place. I certainly would agree with Mr Calvin Cheng that it is important, even for adults, more so for the young, to be discerning about the information gleaned from the Internet, and consciously make an earnest effort to check the credibility of information they receive.

MDA shares this concern. Hence, it organises an annual month-long nation-wide public education campaign called the "Media Fiesta", to educate the public to use media in a responsible and discerning way for work, learn and play. This year's fiesta was launched just last week. A new feature, this year, is a showcase of Internet filtering tools, parental locks and also cyber wellness tips to help parents guide their young to be more discerning when using media and the Internet. Parents play a crucial role in educating and guiding their children, and it is important for them to be aware of what their children are doing online.

Sir, besides parents, the community also plays an important role in promoting cyber wellness and the discerning use of the media. I am happy to say that most of the projects supported by the ICSC are initiated by the community or voluntary organisations. Beyond this, I also note that there are a number of initiatives launched by the various public and private organisations to equip the young and their parents to be more discerning and responsible Internet users. For example, TOUCH Community Services and Fei Yue Community Services offer ongoing programmes and counselling services for the young and their parents to manage the impact of the Internet on their lives.

I am heartened to see such display of community spiritedness by our voluntary and community organisations in helping to foster cyber wellness among our people, and I encourage more organisations to come forward. If we all continue to work together, I am confident that, over time, we will succeed in building a strong culture of cyber wellness among our people.

Mr Chairman, let me conclude by assuring the House that MICA remains committed to fostering a society where our people are well-engaged through quality and diverse public service broadcast programmes and local films, and are responsible and discerning in their use of traditional and new media.

The Chairman: We still have time. Any clarifications? Yes, Mr Chan.

Mr Chan Soo Sen: Mr Chairman, Sir, I believe the Minister did not respond to my proposal to consider setting up a "Cool Singapore" agency to nurture our soft power with the web address of www.cool.sg , which I have checked and it has not yet been used.

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: Sir, I think it is something that we do not want to over-engineer. "Coolness" is almost something that comes when you are not shining the spotlight on it, because that puts a lot of heat and you would not be "cool". The more important thing is that we want this to come out naturally and, before you know it, people are taking notice and they are affiirming that what you do is actually on the right track. I mentioned the example CNNGo, which rated us as the second "coolest" people. We do not think of ourselves that way, but others – when they look at us, when they come to visit Singapore, when they get a flavour of what is happening in the society – think that we are doing all right. I think that might well be a better way to achieve it, rather than to engineer a process, engineer organisations, with the sole and stated objective of trying to be "cool". When one tries too hard to be "cool", he "ain't cool".

Mr Calvin Cheng: Sir, I have got three clarifications. Firstly, regarding the major funding to the various sectors of the arts, I would like to know why there is a preponderance of major funding to theatre and so little, 1.1%, to the literary arts. Is it because the threatre sector is a lot more vocal?

Secondly, I would like the Ministry to consider extending the kindness and gracious campaign to the cyberspace, ie, target it at the cyberspace. I think netizens, from my experience, need it a lot more than normal citizens.

Finally, I know the "Little Nonya" has been cited a lot as an example of a successful PSB funding for projects that are not otherwise commercially viable. Actually, I disagree. The "Little Nonya" has proven itself to be very commercially viable. It was even exported to China and it was so well received that in the KFC in Shanghai, there are now nonya chicken wings ( niang re ji chi pang ) being sold. So, how does one ascertain whether something is commercially viable? Where "Little Nonya" is concerned, does the Minister think that MediaCorp has not tried hard enough to make it commercially viable before coming for PSB funding? And since it has been commercially viable, would they consider returning the PSB funding to MICA?

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: On major funding, yes, the theatre groups, I think they have about 54%, as I have shown in the pie chart, for a variety of reasons. Theatre groups, by and large, are larger groups and, hence, more funding is given to them. This is so in line with what happens in other countries. When we look at the data, we also try to do comparisons with how other countries fund their groups and how it is distributed across different genres. So, it is skewed in the direction of threatre groups. But having said that, as I have mentioned earlier, we do want to try and bring a slightly different balance going forward. If Members look at all the grants funding that we give, including to the so-called smaller companies, the situation will not be as stark. So that drops from 54% to about 43%, and the literary arts groups would have gone up to 6%-plus, because the groups are actually smaller and some of them, like individuals and so on, do not come under grant funding.

The second part on extending the kindness and gracious movement to the cyberspace, I agree with the Member that it is something that ought to be considered. On the "Little Nonya", I will let my Senior Parliamentary Secretary deal with it.

Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong: Sir, I thank Mr Cheng for his interest in "The Little Nonya". After its successful run, it has grown so big that it has become a matured Nonya rather than a little Nonya!

Sir, nobody actually would know the fate of a production when it is still on the drawing block. But without PSB funding, "Little Nonya" would never get to see the light of the day. So I think it is important for the Government to give the necessary support and encouragement to the industry, to dare to try out new things, so that when they make an attempt and it becomes a successful production, they will be encouraged to try even more. That is what creativity and innovation is all about.

Mr Calvin Cheng also talked about whether the Government should take back the PSB grant to this "Little Nonya" since it is so successful commercially. Our Finance Minister has just delivered a very generous Budget this year. But in the spirit of generosity, we should actually give more encouragement to our industry. If they have made it a box office success, we will take this as an encouragement. If they do not succeed, we will take it as the support. So I think either way, the industry will be convinced that the Government is putting that money where the mouth is, to give them the support, so that they will be able to continue with their creative creations and, at the same time, to realise their dream. That will be an overall plus for the Singapore industry's development.

Mr Baey Yam Keng: Sir, I would like to thank the Minister for agreeing to look into my suggestions to offer Singaporeans free admission to our national museums. I would like to ask the Minister if he could elaborate on the basis of the assessment. I hear with concern when the Minister shared that the take-up rate among the groups currently enjoying free admission is not high. Does that mean that the Ministry has set a certain target before it will extend free admission to the general public? I would argue that precisely because the take-up rate is not high, we should expand the groups enjoying free admission. But looking at the existing groups, it is not surprising that the response is not high, at both ends of the children and senior citizens, as they are typically not as independent and mobile. Hence, they are unlikely to visit the museum themselves even though it is free. As for National Servicemen, I think they will prefer to spend their precious book-out time maybe with friends and dating, unless the Ministry promotes the museum as great dating haunts. I hope the free admission review could be done promptly and a favourable outcome is impending.

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: Sir, as I mentioned earlier, this is something that we are prepared to look at seriously. I added the caveat that free admission may not be the solution that we are looking for and, indeed, it could well be a panacea. When we looked at the examples of other countries that have introduced free admission, what we found was that after the initial surge, it actually plateaued and stagnated. There was a certain interest, certain boost, as a result of this free admission and then it came back down and reached a steady state again. I mentioned about the groups that we have given free admission to and it really has not resulted in a spike that we had hoped to see. It could be for a variety of reasons, some of which we have cited. But, again, going forward, I think if we do introduce free admission to all Singaporeans, we may well want to consider it in a segmentised basis, perhaps to the permanent exhibitions first before we see how it can be opened up further. This is something that we are prepared to look at seriously.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong: Sir, I am very happy to hear about the plans to set up a Community Arts and Culture Club in constitutencies and also the intention to set up a Community Arts and Culture Fund. Can I ask the Minister when will these be put in place? Can I also register the interest of Tampines in this? Another related point is his announcement about regional hubs being built up in different parts of Singapore to bring the arts to the heartlands. As the Minister knows, we have a big plan for Tampines Town Hub and one of the major features is the performing arts centre right in the hub. I wonder whether the Minister will support our plans to also make sure that it is a regional arts hub for the East.

My other point is to relate the discussion about the "Little Nonya" to my point about soft power. I agree with the Minister that we have made great strides in developing our local talent, but the point about soft power is exporting our cultural products, making a mark with our cultural talents abroad, not so much in developing our talent for local consumption, but making sure that they travel, making sure that they get the support to reach a wider audience and to make an impact. The "Little Nonya" is one example of soft power, in the sense that we invest in it, we make sure that it can travel and we do not ask for the money back, because it is an investment in our soft power. Can I ask the Minister whether he will invest more in MediaCorp, more in our independent production houses and more in our music industry, knowing that in a globalised world today, these are really instruments of soft power that will stand Singapore in good stead?

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RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: Well, this is a continuation of the lobby process when I visited Mr Masagos' constituency during the Ministerial Community Visit (MCV). They were pressing me hard on. I said I was prepared to consider that. Today, we bring people to the arts into the downtown core. Going forward, I think it is good that we can do more to bring the arts to the people in an environment that they are familiar with and are comfortable in. So, that is what we want to do. With regard to having the equivalent of the community sports clubs currently in the constituencies, we will want to establish that as quickly as possible over the next one, two years in interested constituencies. I certainly hear the Member loud and clear with regard to the interest in Tampines GRC.

Just to add on to the reply that Senior Parliamentary Secretary Sam Tan gave about the "Little Nonya", we provided funding to make it a richer programme so that there could be more research done and there could be greater detailing in the sets and plots. Perhaps it would be a bit too far to say that without our funding, maybe it would not have been made but certainly I daresay it would not have been as rich and as successful, the costumes, the sets, the production may not have been what we see of it. We look forward to more of these good ideas coming from either the independents or from MediaCorp and where they are worth spotting, we are prepared to do so. What we have included in some of these PSB support that we give to them for productions like these is that if they are successful overseas, we also hope to be able to get some benefits and some returns, not least of all, in so-called "soft power" terms.

For encouraging our talent to go aboard and help fly the flag for Singapore, we do so in a variety of ways, not least of which is MediaCorp productions. Our singers are doing pretty well in China, in Taiwan, in the larger Asian region as well. For example, JJ Lin, Stephanie Sun with a new album, Tanya Chua. They are well-known names, maybe better known outside of Singapore than within Singapore. We bring them abroad, over to Europe, so, for example, Ming Wong at the Venice Biennale, this year Ho Sze Yuan, films art installations, and so on. We have been winning prizes at some of these occasions and I think it helps bring the spotlight to what young people and artists in Singapore as a whole can do. That is good for Singapore overall. Of course, the most recent one was the Peranakan Exhibition in Paris. Paris was carefully chosen because it really is the cultural capital of Europe, and perhaps even the world. And we wanted to be able to bring something from this part of the world, giving a flavour of Singapore, the uniqueness of that cultural identity that we have, the cross-fertilisation between the cultures that we have experienced in the past and continue to have today, to a different part of the world that is less familiar with us as a country and as a society. Great acclaim. It was very, very well-received, not only just the Peranakan exhibition but also the events that accompanied it. That has helped to promote and boost the image and impression of Singapore, especially of the arts and our society.

Ms Audrey Wong Wai Yen: Sir, I would like to first thank the Minister for elaborating on the initiatives to make arts, culture and heritage part of our lives and I think we are in for exciting times ahead.

There are three points on which I would like to seek clarifications. First is about the regional arts hubs and the heartland performing arts centres. My first question is, who would be running these? Second question, in relation to this is, in order for these hubs to run successfully, you need the people with the know-how to run them, you know whether it is technical production or curatorial expertise. So do we have a gap in these skills? Does MICA have a plan to develop this pool of people?

Second clarification is on the Creative Lifestyle@Work Fund, which I think is a really new initiative and quite exciting. The question is, how will the companies and individuals, that want to implement arts and cultural programmes in the workplace, find the information to help them do so? How would they find, for instance, arts workshop providers, facilitators, concerts and such programmes? Information about our local arts is scattered at the moment. Would MICA consider some kind of structure to aggregate all these information about what is available so that it makes it easier for the companies to launch programmes?

My third point for clarification is about the question of raising professional standards for the broadcast and production sector. I would like to know if MICA or MDA has a framework for CET and continuing professional development for the sector.

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: On the regional arts hubs: we are hoping that the people on the ground will be able to run these. So rather than let them be run by NAC and then have them very centralised, very similar, very uniformed, we are hoping that there would be people on the ground would be able to take care of the hubs. Where NAC can help is actually in terms of funding and training for instructors, for technical people and so on. Having said that, this is our thinking on this. We will have to see whether it really works because I do agree with the Member that sometimes we can build the facilities but, in terms of programming, in terms if making sure that it runs properly, that is quite another set of skills altogether.

I am not so sure that we have a gap in skills as opposed to having sufficient people with the right set of skills. And that, I think, is the challenge. When, for example, the IRs came out, they are having "Voyage de la Vie" and "Lion King" and so on. In the preparation, they were really pulling a lot of people with the technical know-how out of the industry into their sphere. And because they were able to pay better, we – meaning NAC and our institutions – actually lost some of our people as well. Less so a gap in skills as opposed to having insufficient numbers per se.

Creative Lifestyle@Work Fund. Yes, we can aggregate the information and we can make it more readily available but what we are hoping for is that companies will take it upon themselves to find creative ways to use these funds to seed programmes that will more readily engage their people. Some of them could have danced in school, in the university; some of them could have been playing instruments; some of them could have been interested in anime , for example. We want the companies to be creative rather than for us to dictate. A means to bring people together with unity and not uniformity, meaning not to replicate programmes over and over again unless there is indeed interest within their respective fields.

The Member's third point really is raising standards. To date, we have about 200 seats for CET training across a variety of fields and that is done, for example, with Tisch as well as some of our own institutions. I think going forward, we are actually working not only with WDA, which funds some of the CET today, but also with our own institutes of higher learning, institutions like polytechnics, ITEs, and so on, to try and develop more appropriate programmes, including, as I have mentioned earlier, one of the things that we are going to introduce is a Specialised Diploma in Art Education.

Miss Penny Low: Mr Chairman, the Minister has partially answered my question but I just like to seek further clarification. In my cut about the New Social Compact, I asked whether the Government would support people-initiated and local events and ventures. The Minister gave the assurance that indeed there has been such a support. But both the examples the Minister gave of the Biennale as well as that of the museum event were Government-led or Government agency-led events, which I have stated, would be endowed with both the Government funding and machinery to help it come to fruition and scale up and, in fact, give Singapore quite a lot of international attention. My question really is, would the same kind of help and investment be given to a people-sector event or initiative that did not originate from a Government agency or Government initiatives. So that is the first question.

Secondly, is that the Minister was also my visiting Minister at Punggol 21. In the midst of building the Punggol 21 CC, we negotiated with an arts group to co-locate there, but the plan did not work because they did not have adequate funding. So my question to the Minister is, whether he would also then consider funding this particular group and co-locate it in our CC? On the scheme that he has announced, can he announce more details on how they would be reaching out to the Arts School to get them to apply and what are some of the criteria?

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: I think I am going to stop making Ministerial Visits to the constituencies. If I visit mine, as I always do, maybe I also would deserve one of these. But let us look at that separately.

On people-initiated local events, I think what we do fund more of, for example, specific ideas, items under the Arts Creation Fund. If we are looking at a large-scale event like the Arts Festival or the Biennale, I would say we are probably not ready to do it yet, simply because I think unless that group has a proven track record of smaller scale events, ramping it up, scaling it up, being able to curate it properly, getting the audiences to be interested and recognising how it plans to grow and develop the venture. I think it would be difficult. I would say, first of all, to start on a smaller scale. We are prepared to do more of this at the community as well as the district level. For example, if Members want some of these groups here to organise a community arts festival within your constituency, we are prepared to lend some support. But if you are talking about a national event as a first step, first jump into this venture, probably a little difficult.

Mr Viswa Sadasivan: Sir, I like to seek clarification on the PSB. Perhaps the Ministry could consider broadening the definition of "PSB". Currently, it seems to be limited to the Broadcasting Act which basically refers to the national broadcaster. The reason I am saying this is because, clearly, if the plan works out, we are going to see a proliferation and a flourishing of activities in the various constituencies in all parts of Singapore. It will be a waste if many of these activities do not get sufficient coverage, and there is a limited amount of airtime that MediaCorp can allocate for the coverage of these various activities. I believe Tampines GRC tried several years back to have a community channel. But a lot has changed since then. Today, in the Internet-driven media scene, there is plenty of opportunities, for example, for YouTube channels to come about. One of the things that could happen, for example, is, at the CDC level, we could have YouTube channels created where PSB programming can be produced, in conjunction with the polytechnics in that particular CDC to churn out programming on the Internet, so that the residents of that particular district can have a stronger sense of belonging where you feel that many of the activities that you initiated, are involved in, also gets airing. But this perhaps requires a broadening of the definition of "PSB" and I am just wondering whether the Minister would consider being a little bit more flexible in providing funding for such activities and initiatives at the ground level.

Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong: I thank the Member for raising these clarifications. The PSB funding is primarily given to MediaCorp. It has also been set aside to groom and develop the industry. And in this PSB Review Panel that I chair, we also look at one other area where we would like to have this PSB-content and programmes to reach out to greater audiences through new platforms. The Member's suggestions would be taken in by the review panel. We will take his suggestions and see whether it is feasible to incorporate it into our review and the recommendations. Anyway, I thank the Member for his suggestions.

Mr Zainudin Nordin: Sir, just one clarification. Recently, I attended the Seri Gala Temasek where they recognised all the old Malay artistes of the 1950s and the 1960s, and most of them came from Singapore. Since then the Malay movie industry has gone and shifted to Malaysia. Incidentally, I saw a revival of Malay movies in Malaysia and, most of the time, funded by busnessmen, and some of the stars are from Singapore, acting in Malaysian movies.

I am asking if there has been any initiative to revive some of our local Malay film industry, as some of the local talents are finding other avenues to express their creative talents and they often land in Malaysia.

What more can we do to assist some of these talents?

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RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: We will be happy to hear proposals from the groups, if there are good scripts and good ideas that they want to pitch to us. For example, the different film grants that we have been talking about, including what the Senior Parliamentary Secretary mentioned about the $500,000 that we are prepared to fund first timers, like Wee Li Lin and people who have benefited from it. It is not limited to English films alone. So, if there are good ideas that involve the Malay community, actors and actresses from the Malay programmes, we will be happy to listen to them as well.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: Mr Chairman, we have had a meaningful session with a variety of cuts and clarifications which started with the development of the arts and heritage sectors to make Singapore more private and inclusive, including the heartlands, and we went on to see how Singapore's economic growth model will be supported by the various programmes in the infocomm design and media sectors. And, finally, we also heard how we can ensure quality programming on a free-to-air broadcast and at the same time protect our young and old from these days of Internet. There was also a bit of lobbying. So, if the Minister wants to come to my constituency, he is welcome to do so.

Sir, with that, I just want to thank the Minister and the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for all their clarifications and comprehensive replies. I would also like to thank the men and women from MICA for providing the background for this session.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment by leave withdrawn.

The sum of $652,872,200 for Head Q ordered to stand part of the Main Estimate.

The sum of $325,288,300 for Head Q ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.

The Chairman:

The Chairman: I shall now deal with the remaining heads of expenditure in respect of which no amendment stands on the Order Paper Supplement. In respect of the Main Estimates, they are Heads B, C, D, E, F, G and Z. I propose to take these heads of expenditure en bloc .

Question, "That the sums stated for Heads B, C, D, E, F, G and Z which appear in the last column of the Schedule of estimated expenditure under the Main Estimates on page 6 of Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011 stand part of the Main Estimates," put and agreed to.

The Chairman : In respect of the Development Estimates, they are Heads B, C, D, E and F.

Question, "That the sums stated for Heads B, C, D, E and F which appear in the last column of the Schedule of estimated expenditure under the Development Estimates on page 7 of Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011 stand part of the Development Estimates," put and agreed to.

Question, "That the sum of $58,227,732,257 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the public services shown in the Main Estimates for the financial year 1st April, 2011 to 31st March, 2012, contained in Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011," put and agreed to.

Question, "That the sum of $20,656,869,000 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the public services shown in the Development Estimates for the financial year 1st April, 2011 to 31st March, 2012, contained in Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011, " put and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported.

Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

The Minister for Finance (Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to report that the Committee of Supply have come to certain resolutions.

First Resolution reported –

"That the sum of $58,227,732,257 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the public services shown in the Main Estimates for the financial year 1st April, 2011 to 31st March, 2012, contained in Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011."

Second Resolution reported –

"That the sum of $20,656,869,000 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the public services shown in the Development Estimates for the financial year 1st April, 2011 to 31st March, 2012, contained in Paper Cmd. 1 of 2011."

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That Parliament doth agree with the Committee on the said resolutions."

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions accordingly agreed to.