NOMINATED MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

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NOMINATED MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT:

(Motion): 6.08 pm

The Deputy Leader of the House (Mr Mah Bow Tan): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move,

"That this Parliament, in accordance with section 1(1) of the Fourth Schedule to the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, resolves that there shall be nominated Members during the term of this Parliament."

Sir, the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore provides for the appointment of Nominated Members of Parliament

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(NMPs). However, before they can be appointed, Parliament must resolve, at the beginning of a new Parliament, that there shall be NMPs. Once Parliament so resolves, the public will be invited to submit nominations to a Special Select Committee (SSC) of Parliament. Representatives of major functional groups will also be asked to nominate. The Special Select Committee will then recommend the nominees for the President’s approval.

Over the years, we have increased the number of NMPs from two to six, and then later on to nine, and we have also finetuned the selection process. Apart from inviting the general public to submit the names of suitable persons, six major functional groups, namely, business and industry; labour; the professions; social and community service organisations; tertiary educational institutions; and last but not least, media, arts and sports organisations. So these are the six functional groups. They are also invited to propose candidates for consideration.

Sir, the merits and usefulness of having the NMP scheme have been thoroughly debated since the Constitution was first amended in 1990 to provide for it. At subsequent sittings of Parliament which considered the motion to have NMPs (we had three of these sittings, ie, in 1992, 1997, and then 2002), we also exhaustively debated the need to continue with the scheme. In each case, Parliament voted in favour of NMPs.

Sir, the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, in his Second Reading speech in 1989 to amend the Constitution to provide for NMPs, summarised the reasons why the NMP scheme was proposed, and there were three reasons:

(1) to build consensus;

(2) to encourage political participation and contribution, to get those who can

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contribute to good government to serve, and

(3) to accommodate constructive dissent and alternative views.

So these were the three reasons that were given for the NMP scheme.

Since we implemented the scheme in 1990, Parliament has granted 41 individuals the privilege to take part in the proceedings in this House. Some of them have served more than one term as NMP. In the last session of Parliament, nine new NMPs were appointed. While not all of them made the same level of contribution to the debates in this Chamber, it is my view that they generally acquitted themselves well.

Members in the House in the previous session of Parliament will recall the many valuable contributions and impassioned speeches from NMPs such as Dr Loo Choon Yong, Ms Eunice Olsen, Dr Geh Min and Assoc. Prof. Ong Soh Khim. They spoke on a broad range of topics ranging from sports and casinos to competitiveness and entrepreneurship, from the environment to juvenile delinquency, to R&D, to scholarships.

Sometimes, they were critical of Government policies, at other times, they supported our policies. They added fresh perspectives to the debates in this Chamber, with their objective non-partisan views. They did not have to resort to political posturing. In summary, I believe that they have been a plus for our Parliament. I therefore commend Members to once again vote in favour of the motion.

Sir, when the same motion was moved by the Leader of the House in 1992, 1997 and 2002, the Party Whip was lifted. For this motion, I wish to inform Members that the Whip would also be lifted, on an exceptional basis.

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Question proposed.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I know that the points to be brought up may be a repeat of what I had already said, but I think they are worth repeating.

Sir, I have objected to the appointment of the Nominated Members of Parliament from its inception in September 1990. I have not changed my mind. I therefore do not support the motion in the name of the Leader of the House.

Nominated MPs are not democratic. They do not represent anyone. They only represent themselves or, at most, the ruling Party which appointed them into Parliament. In any debate in Parliament, NMPs are supposed to be non-partisan. They do not take sides. They are supposed to remain neutral. They are said to represent a third voice, if there is such a thing as a third voice. I personally do not think so. One is either for or against the issue. Sitting on the fence, according to one renowned American Secretary of State, is immoral. Therefore, I do not think that the NMPs of this House would want to sit on the fence. But this creates a dilemma for them.

In any event, NMPs cannot be effective. They do not represent any constituents, but they are also barred from voting on certain important subjects, for example, any amendments to the Constitution or Bills relating to the provision of money, or grants to the Government, taxes and public funds. They also cannot vote on any motion of no confidence against the Government and a motion to remove the President from office.

The appointment of NMPs to Parliament is a waste of taxpayers' money. Now that the PAP is having a massive renewal exercise after each election, the new PAP MPs recruited are

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touted to be the best and the brightest. Some have even been appointed to office before they have any experience as an MP. This move is to show the public that the PAP has the best crop of capable candidates to be their Members of Parliament.

Sir, if that is so, then the PAP has enough talent on its side to offer fresh and good ideas. Surely, there is no need to appoint NMPs to further contribute fresh ideas in this House. Or is it that, inwardly, the PAP is not really that confident of its new MPs and need NMPs to bolster them up?

Sir, to me, the appointment of NMPs is purely for political reasons. The thinking behind its formation, I believe, is something like this. The PAP perceives that Singaporeans generally want them to rule the country and, at the same time, the people of Singapore also want the Opposition's voice in Parliament. So, to comply with these wishes, the PAP introduced the idea of NMPs and they can serve as the voice of the Opposition in Parliament. I think that is the reason why NMPs are appointed. The NMP concept is definitely more useful to the PAP than to the people of Singapore.

Sir, I do not support the motion.

6.17 pm

Ms Sylvia Lim: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I, too, rise to speak against the motion.

Sir, the Minister has earlier referred us to the original aims of the NMP scheme as elucidated by the then-Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in 1989. In addition to the rationale given by the Minister earlier, ie, to strengthen our system, provide more opportunities for participation and to have a more consensual style of government to allow dissenting voices to be heard, he also said

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that the NMP scheme would cater for "Singaporeans who can contribute but who for good reasons have no desire to go into politics or to look after a constituency to enter Parliament."

Sir, firstly, has the NMP scheme really strengthened our political system? To be fair, this is hard to assess because the backdrop is one where the ruling party has continued to consolidate its power by other means. For example, since 1988 till now, the size of the electoral group representation constituencies has increased from three to six Members, and the GRC populations have also increased from about 50,000 to nearly 185,000 voters today.

Secondly, Sir, should those without a desire to go into politics or to look after a constituency enter Parliament? While I do agree with the Minister that the NMPs can bring fresh ideas, the question is: for whom do they speak? They do not offer themselves for election by the public, do not have any mandate from the voters, nor do they answer to the people. Should they then be empowered to make laws affecting Singaporeans?

Sir, Singaporeans must decide who should be in Parliament. The NMP scheme generates intellectual discourse without political pressure, as the NMPs do not take votes away from the ruling Party during the elections. And if this is what then-DPM Goh meant by "consensual style of government", then it sidelines ordinary Singaporeans from the process.

Finally, Sir, history has also shown that the ruling Party has attempted to use the NMP scheme to convince the voters that there is no need to vote for Opposition MPs. For example, in the 2001 election, literature circulated by a PAP candidate urged voters not to vote for the Workers' Party candidate as the NMPs were there to check on the Government.

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Sir, the Workers' Party does not support the NMP scheme and, for these reasons, I oppose the motion.

6.20 pm

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I listened very carefully to Mr Chiam. He made quite a number of points - seven points according to my notes - and every single one of those points has been made by him in the past debates in 1992 and 1997, and every single one of those points has also been explained and responded to in every one of those debates. So, I guess we could, of course, rehash and go through Hansard , which I have a copy here. It is about this thick and I could refer him to just the pages. But to be fair, these are important points that he has raised, and I think I should address them very briefly.

Mr Chiam has three main points, in my view. The first one is that it is not democratic. The question is: why is it not democratic? Is democracy only about elected Members of Parliament? If so, then why is it that they have nominated members in the House of Lords? They are not elected. Why is it that they have nominated members in the Malaysian Senate? They are not elected. Are they not democratic countries? Many countries have a two-chamber system. We have decided that we will have a single chamber. I do not think anybody can say that, with the NMPs in Parliament, we are not a democratic society. The central tenet of democracy is that the people are allowed to have a free and fair election for the government of their choice every few years. This is something that Singaporeans enjoy and would very dearly love to keep. Nobody can say that Singapore is not a democracy just because we have NMPs in Parliament. That is the first response I would like to make to Mr Chiam's point.

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Sir, the second point is that they are a neutral voice, they are non-partisan and, hence they are not considered to be as good as elected MPs or the Non-Constituency MP. We have never said that the Nominated MP is equal to the elected MP or indeed to the NCMP. What we are saying is that we would like to have a system whereby a group of individuals come to this Chamber who have something to say, who make a contribution in Parliament, non-partisan. They do not have to say something because they have to say something. Opposition MPs cannot play that role. They must oppose. When we say something, they find ways and means to trip us up, find fault, embarrass, to score points. And that is their job. When was the last time that an Opposition MP supported a Government policy? But what we want in this Chamber is not just views from PAP MPs and, of course, predictably, the opposing view from Opposition MPs, but we also want other voices, voices that look at it in an objective and non-partisan way.

It is like in a school debate. You have the proposition and the opposition. If you are put into the proposing team, you have to say one thing; if you are put in the opposing team, you have to say the opposite, even though you do not believe it. So, I am sure, some Members of the Opposition may sometimes find themselves in a very difficult position. But that is their job. Then we have the speakers from the floor. These are the people who contribute to the debate as well. They make their views heard. Sometimes they speak in favour of the motion, sometimes against the motion. And I believe that they also contribute to the debate. So, in the same way, the NMPs play a very useful role. They contribute to the debate in this House and, as I said, many of our NMPs in the past and in the recent Parliament have made significant contributions.

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The third point Mr Chiam made is that NMPs are appointed for political reasons. He believes that people want the PAP to form the Government to run the country but they also want some opposition voices in Parliament and, therefore, this is the PAP's way of providing for opposition voices in Parliament. That is not the case. Nominated Members of Parliament do not come to this Chamber to either support or oppose the Government. The then-Deputy Prime Minister made it very clear that what we are looking for are non-partisan voices, professionals, people who are knowledgeable in their field, have something to say and contribute. If they support the Government policies, it must be because they believe that that is the right thing to do. And if on certain issues they oppose, this is again something that they believe they have to oppose.

I do not see why having NMPs in Parliament would in any way make people feel that our MPs are not doing a good job in Parliament. How the people view how we do our job in Parliament is dependent on us, on what we say and how we behave and how we contribute in this Chamber. The NMP scheme is not in lieu of the Opposition; it is in addition to both the Government as well as the Opposition MPs in this House.

And I say this to the NCMP as well, because she made essentially the same point, that this is not to discourage people from voting for the Opposition. People will vote for the Opposition if they believe that they have a platform worth voting for, and they will reject the Opposition if they feel that the Opposition's platform is not workable.

So, on this basis, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to commend to Members once again that we should support the NMP scheme and continue to have NMPs in this Parliament because they are a plus to our House.

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6.26 pm

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I am sure the Minister knows that the House of Lords has a different function from the House of Commons. The Members of the House of Lords are all appointed Members. I agree that they are not elected. But it has got a different function. They do not represent the people and do not purport to represent the power of the people. They are there just for purposes of reviewing whatever the House of Commons has done, in particular, Bills that need to be approved by the Queen.

Sir, if we want a second chamber, then we should set up a second chamber. Why sneak in the Nominated MPs? As the Minister knows, in a democratic country, the sovereignty of the state rests with the people. Of course, all the people cannot speak on their behalf, so they elected MPs. Their power is handed to them to speak on their behalf. So we have this House of Representatives, which is what the Americans call their Lower Chamber. So ours is like the House of Representatives. We are all representatives of the people. We take responsibility for them, and whatever they want us to say in Parliament, we say it for them on certain issues.

So, the purpose of the House of Commons - in our case, we have only a single chamber - is for elected representatives to be in Parliament to speak on behalf of the people. But in the case of Nominated MPs, they do not represent anyone. So how can you call them to be democratic? They are not democratic. They speak only on their own behalf and they do not speak for any constituency or part of constituencies. At least the NCMP has got some representation in Parliament and therefore they can be called democratic.

Sir, I do not agree with the Minister who says that the NMPs are democratic.

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6.28 pm

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, does that mean that the Member of Parliament for Potong Pasir does not want to have other views in Parliament, other than his views and the views of the other Members in this Chamber? Why is he afraid to have other people in this Chamber talking and putting forth their views on issues even though they are not elected and not represented?

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Chiam, you can clarify, please.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, if the Minister wants just views, I am sure there is no need to get Nominated MPs to give fresh views. In Singapore, we have many professional people and experts. You can go and get their views. Why should you bring them into Parliament to give their views?

I think that is really not relevant to the issue at all.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: I am asking the Member whether he is worried that there are people who would actually come to this House and speak on issues which concern the people, even if they are not elected? What is wrong with that?

Ms Sylvia Lim: Sir, I wonder if the Minister could clarify a statement which he made earlier when he asked when was the last time that an Opposition Member supported the Government. If you look through the Hansard , you will see that there are actually, over the years, many motions on which the Opposition MPs have actually supported the Government. I wonder if he could clarify what he meant by that. He appears to suggest that we oppose for the sake of it.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: If the Member is able to cite certain cases where the Opposition has supported Government

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policies, then I will be very happy. All I can say is that those are the exceptions that prove the rule because, generally speaking, the Opposition Members have not supported Government policies, not because they are not good policies but because they are in the Opposition. And that is really the essence of what I am trying to say. The Opposition's views are constrained. When they speak, they have to oppose the Government. With the NMP scheme, which I commend to the House, the NMPs who come to this House add value to the debate over and above what we are saying, over and above what the Opposition Members are saying. Here is a group of people who represent certain interests, who have certain specific views. They come to this House, with our blessings of course, because we decide whether we have them in this House. They come here and add value to the debates in this Chamber. And there is nothing undemocratic about it because, as I have explained, we are not the only ones who have Nominated Members in this House. The House of Lords may have a different function, according to the MP for Potong Pasir, but essentially, the crux of the matter is that they are not elected by the people, but appointed. And they are as democratic as any other Parliament. In fact, apart from the two examples I cited, in the debate to amend the Constitution, the Deputy Prime Minister at that time gave a long list of about 20 other countries which also have Nominated Members of Parliament in different variations.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Last clarification, Mr Chiam.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I do not think the Minister mentioned one point I brought up. I said that, nowadays, after every election, there seems to be a massive number of new PAP MPs. Is he admitting that with so many bright young fresh PAP MPs coming to Parliament, there are still not enough people to give

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ideas to the Government and they still need to have more Nominated MPs to supplement the ideas given by the PAP MPs?

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Sir, I do not think the Member of Parliament needs to worry about the PAP MPs. I think he knows that the PAP MPs are able to acquit themselves well. If he sits in the Chamber and listens to their maiden speeches, I think he will know that they are able, as the Prime Minister said, to not just find their voice, but also their feet.

However, having said that, what is wrong with having more views, more people in this Chamber, debating, giving us the benefit of their views and their wisdom? What is the problem with having more of that? If we are really serious about canvassing a broader range of views on different issues, then I think we should not be worried or concerned about having NMPs in this House.

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Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That this Parliament, in accordance with section 1(1) of the Fourth Schedule to the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, resolves that there shall be nominated Members during the term of this Parliament."