CRIMINAL LAW (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate - [21st September]:

The Chief Secretary (Mr W. A. C. Goode): Mr Speaker, Sir, as I explained yesterday, this Bill is divided into six Parts dealing with a number of different matters which all have this in common: that they are additions to our permanent criminal law which we consider necessary in present circumstances, and they are all measures which we hope will only be required for a limited period. So we have brought them together in this Bill making temporary provisions to amend our criminal law.

I referred yesterday evening, Sir, to Part I, the Definitions, and to Part II, which contains stern measures directed against Communist terrorists and secret plots.

We now come, Sir, to Part III of the Bill. This also is directed against Communist terrorists, but against those in the Federation. It is designed to give full assistance to our friends in the Federation in denying supplies to the terrorists in the jungles of Johore. It provides for control of the movement of persons and vessels in the Straits of Johore. Clause 10 (1) prohibits movement in the main Strait between the island of Singapore and Johore during the hours of darkness. Clause 10 (2) prohibits absolutely at all times, whether by day or night, movement between Pulau Ubin and Johore. Clause 10 (4) exempts from that control the area south of Pulau Ubin which is roughly opposite to Changi Point. The effect of clauses 11 and 12 is to declare this area in the Straits a port under the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, and to apply to it certain provisions of that Ordinance which relate to administrative control of shipping and the issue of clearances and so on. Clause 12 gives power to the Harbour Master, who is, in fact, the Fisheries Officer, to issue permits to fishermen and other people who need to use these waters.

The areas to which these various clauses refer are described in the first five Schedules of the Bill. Those descriptions are not very easy to follow, and I have had a map prepared, a copy of which I will table, Sir, and another copy I have had placed in the Library in case Members wish to refer to it. These areas have been prescribed now for many months and are, I think, well known to all persons who use those areas. All these arrangements have been working for some time, and we are confident that they have achieved their main purpose of denying supplies to the terrorists in Johore. It is necessary that this control, which was imposed to help the Government of the Federation, should be continued as long as the authorities in the Federation are carrying out food denial measures in Johore.

Part IV of the Bill, Sir, is quite simple. It prohibits the public display of foreign flags, except by accredited Commonwealth and consular representatives.

Part V is more controversial. It makes it necessary to give 14 days' notice of a strike or lock-out in an essential service. The essential services to which this Part applies are listed in the sixth Schedule. We have, Sir, limited that Schedule to services which we consider to be vitally necessary for the health and life of the community. Hon. Members will probably notice that we have not included in that Schedule public transport. Now a sudden stoppage of public transport in this city, as we know from experience, must cause very grave inconvenience and hardship to the community; but, nevertheless, we reached the conclusion that we should not regard it as being vitally necessary to the health and life of the community, and so we have not included public transport in the Schedule.

I would emphasise that this Part of the Bill does not, of course, prohibit strikes. It only requires that 14 days' notice should be given so that some sort of emergency arrangements can be made to ensure a minimum service necessary for the well-being of the public. I expect it will be argued that this Part is restriction on trade union activities. Of course, that is so, but it is our view, Sir, that workers in these essential services, and indeed the Government, have an obligation towards the public which must be recognised, because a strike in these services does not only affect the workers in the industry, but it affects the daily life of everybody in the community. A strike in these services can only be carried out at the cost of harm to the public. These workers, after all, are, in the main, the employees of responsible organisations - the Government, the City Council, statutory authorities - organisations which can be expected to follow a good employer policy. They are primarily concerned with service to the public rather than with seeking profit, and their general policy is considerably under the direction of the Government.

It is true, of course, that this period of 14 days gives the employing organisations time in which to arrange to carry on their services to some extent, and to this extent the sharpness of the strike weapon is blunted. But, as I have said, we feel that the over-riding interests of the general public cannot be ignored, and I think the House will agree that recent experiences in strikes in the City Council have shown that the strike is still a very potent weapon and must still cause great hardship, and, ultimately, a danger to public health, even after the 14 days' notice has been given.

I think it is right, too, that in these services where so much more is at stake than the interests of the employers and the employees, there should be a compulsory period during which efforts at conciliation can be made and during which the full implications of a strike can be appreciated. In these days, unfortunately, we have hot-heads amongst our labour leaders who, for their own ends, will provoke strike action before all efforts to reach agreement by negotiation have been tried and exhausted. Their technique is to reach a quick snap decision and force an immediate strike. Surely these tactics should not be allowed in essential services, and the l4-day period may well give time for wiser and more moderate counsels to prevail over irresponsible leaders without, I suggest, doing any damage to the real interests of the workers.

Part VI is general and contains powers of search and arrest, and provides for matters of procedure. I think the most important clause is clause 30. That gives a special power to disperse assemblies at times of tension when passions are being aroused and there is a danger of a crowd being turned into a rioting mob, as we have experienced recently and in 1950. The clause provides that whenever the Chief Secretary declares that an immediate threat to public peace exists, then any police officer not below the rank of Inspector may disperse any assembly of ten or more persons. The point of this clause is that there must be an immediate threat to public peace. There must be a situation where tension and emotions have been aroused and there is an atmosphere of crisis, and there is a danger that a spark could set light to a serious conflagration - circumstances in which any gatherings present a real threat to public security. Then the declaration can be made. The provision is designed only to deal with an immediate threat, to provide time for passions to cool off, and so Members will see that subclause (2) provides that the declaration can only remain in force for a maximum of 48 hours, though it can be renewed.

The powers and penalties provided throughout this Bill, Sir, are, as I have said, supplementary to those contained in the permanent legislation dealing with these matters, and we have deliberately refrained from amending the permanent law in the hope that these new powers and penalties will only be required for a limited period, because we hope that as the people of Singapore gain experience of the working of democracy under the wise, restrained and sound leadership of Members of this Assembly and other leaders, and as workers and their trade unions gain experience of sound and effective trade unionism and begin to appreciate the danger to their own interests of violent and precipitate action: - as these things happen, Sir, we hope that the people of Singapore will no longer be at the mercy of Communist terrorists and will no longer be stampeded by irresponsible leaders headlong into hasty and violent action.

In order that hon. Members of this House can have full time to consider these clauses in the light of this debate, I shall not ask to take the Committee stage today but shall put it down for our next sitting on 12th October.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew (Tanjong Pagar): Sir, on a point of elucidation on the sixth Schedule. The Chief Secretary put forward a point that all the services there listed are either under the Government or City Council or public corporations; and that they are model employers and unlikely to behave as employers solely out for profit.

Will he explain the appearance in that Schedule of No. 11 - "Bulk distribution of fuel oil and lubricants"?

Mr Goode: I may have been guilty of a slip of the tongue, Sir. What I meant to say was they are "in the main". Whether I left "in the main" out or not I cannot recall, but, of course, the employees in the bulk oil fuel industry are not Government employees, or employees of statutory corporations. They are, on the other hand, employees of very large and responsible concerns who do have the interests of the public very much before them.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to direct my remarks on this Bill to the section which deals with strikes and lock-outs. To take the point which the Chief Secretary has just taken, I must say that I profoundly disagree with his view of the responsibility and good conduct of the organisations which distribute fuel oil and lubricants in bulk. As a matter of fact, I am closely associated with the unions in two of the companies which distribute these lubricants and fuel oil in bulk. I must say that my experience of them has been somewhat disappointing.

To begin with, the moment a union was formed in their companies, the employers issued, without consultation with the union or union officials, a directive listing the employees who, in their opinion, should not join the union, the people they considered either supervisors or confidential stenographers, who should not participate in trade union activities. In the light of the somewhat acrimonious correspondence that arose between the union and these employers, my impression is that to allow such a company the added protection which the Chief Secretary has justified on the grounds that the employers are more or less model employers - to allow them to have this added protection is, in my opinion, completely unwarranted.

The second point is that the Chief Secretary in his remarks has completely overlooked the main point - his omnibus point - that all the sections have been collected together in one Bill because they are of a temporary nature, and that with a change of circumstances in the, we all hope, not too distant future, they may become unnecessary. But when he propounded his arguments why in these services the strike instrument should be blunted, he did not indicate that it should not be blunted when the Emergency has passed away. The arguments that he propounded would hold equally well if there were no emergency situation. His view is that these services are essential to the life and benefit of the community and that, therefore, there should be a time-lag to allow this strike weapon to be blunted and to allow conciliation proceedings. It is pertinent to remind him that if his main argument still holds that this law is only for the period of the Emergency, then all those other arguments that he has put forward are irrelevant and cannot hold water as they stand, because they contradict his main point.

As more or less a trade unionist myself, one who has been in close association with the unions, I cannot, of course, subscribe to the view the Chief Secretary has expounded, that the leaders in many of these unions in the essential services are irresponsible hot-heads. Very often, my feeling was that the venerable and elderly managers, who met the workers over trade disputes, were quite ignorant and foolish people who did not know that they were dealing with a human problem. These people are only concerned with their workers as cogs in operating their purely mechanical system for which they are responsible.

The Minister for Labour will be the first to agree with me when I say that the strike weapon can be abused by anyone - responsible or irresponsible leaders. I think he will also agree with me that the leaders in these unions - water, gas, electricity, public health - are not irresponsible leaders. I should hate to imagine the fire service leaders are irresponsible, because if they are, then a prominent member of the Labour Front must be responsible for that. We have nothing to do with that.

Postal and telegraph services and undertakings, port, dock, and harbour services and undertakings - to many Members in this Assembly, they just list up particular categories and groups. But to me and to my colleagues, they refer to certain persons and certain committees, and I resent very much the suggestion that they have in the past acted in an irresponsible manner, or that they are likely in the future to act in an irresponsible manner. I think some of these unions, like the water, gas, electricity and public health unions, were former clients of the Hon. the Chief Minister, and he would be the first, I think, to stand by the good conduct in the past of his clients.

If the Government feels that it is necessary to take this step, we shall not resist it, but we ask them to remember that it is not democratic, that it is not fair to blunt the strike instrument, and that all these extraordinarily stringent regulations should be set aside as soon as conditions permit.

The Minister for Labour and Welfare (Mr Lim Yew Hock): Mr Speaker, Sir, talking on essential services in reply to the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) who brought attention to bear on item 11 in the sixth Schedule -"Bulk distribution of fuel oil and lubricants" - the answer to that is this, Sir, that it would not be possible to maintain all the other essential services - all the other ten listed - if distribution of fuel oil and lubricants is not also under similar control. To my mind, Sir, the best solution to this question of strikes in essential services could be resolved in a different manner, instead of having it in a temporary provisions law.

As far as strikes in essential services are concerned, I think, in the interests of public health and public life, that they should not be allowed to take place without a notice period, but protection for the worker should be provided for by compulsory arbitration. That is the only solution. There should be compulsory arbitration in essential services, and if the awards of the arbitrators are not satisfactory to the unionists, then, of course, the unionists will want to strike; but before then, there will be that safety valve - that all disputes as regards conditions of employment could be referred to a compulsory arbitration board where all matters could be resolved in a friendly spirit, or in a proper manner, instead of having to resort to a strike.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar has said that I know that the leaders in the unions in these essential services are not all irresponsible men. Sir, there are all types of leaders - some are responsible, some are not responsible, no matter in what organisation they may be. The object of this measure is not to blunt the strike weapon at all. In fact, the strike weapon has never been blunted in so far as the essential services are concerned. A 14-day strike notice is necessary in order that my Ministry can bring both parties together in an endeavour to settle the dispute amicably. When that cannot be done, then, of course, the workers will go on strike.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: The employers have got a separate labour force!

Mr Lim Yew Hock: No. The City Council, for instance, Sir, have had two strikes - one last year and one this year. The labour force that they employed was not meant to break the strike. It was meant to look after the health of the public, so much so that even with the employment of a temporary labour force, this did not prevent the City Council Labour Unions Federation from winning their strike last time. More-over, Sir, these requirements do not deprive the workers of the strike weapon at all.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Mr Speaker: Committee stage, what day?

Mr Goode: 12th October, Sir.