REVISED SALARIES OF ASSEMBLY STAFF

Mr W. A. C. Goode: Sir, I move the motion standing in my name as No. 5 on the Order Paper,

That this Assembly, having taken note of the Second Report of the Select Committee on the Assembly Staff, hereby resolves that the following revised salaries be approved with effect from 1st April, 1956: - Clerk of the Legislative Assembly $1,670. Clerk Assistant $630: 680: 715: 750-35A-1,030/bar/1,100-40A-1,420. Second Clerk Assistant $560: 630: 660: 690-30A-930/bar/960-35A-1,240. Chief Reporter and Editor $820-30A-940. Reporters $730-25A-880.

Members of the House will recall that we had laid before us some time ago the Second Report of the Select Committee which was appointed to inquire into the conditions of service and the establishment of the Assembly Staff.

Mr Speaker: Order, Mr Chief Secretary. Have you signified the Governor's recommendation or consent? I am afraid I did not hear it.

Mr Goode: I am obliged to you, Mr Speaker, Sir. I am afraid I did omit to do so. I should, Sir, formally convey to this House that I have the consent of His Excellency the Governor as required under Standing Order 33 to proceed with this motion. I apologise for not having started with that.

As I was saying, Sir, Members of the House will, I think, be aware that some of the recommendations in that Report have aroused considerable controversy and it has been necessary for the Government to give considerable thought to those recommendations before deciding how far we could in conscience move that they be implemented.

The motion that stands in my name this afternoon, Sir, contains the decisions which we have so far made and for which I now seek the approval of this House. Hon. Members will see that we have accepted many of the recommendations, though some have been modified. We have accepted the recommendation that the post of Clerk should be of what is called Superscale status but we have put the appropriate salary at $1,670 and not $1,950 as recommended by the Select Committee. We have accepted in full the recommendation of the designations of the post of Clerk Assistant and Second Clerk Assistant and we have accepted the salaries recommended for those two posts. We have also accepted the new designations of Chief Reporter and Editor and Reporters and we have accepted the salary scales recommended except that we have curtailed the upper limit. The Select Committee recommended that the Chief Reporter's scale should go up to $1,000 and we are proposing that it should stop at $940 and they recommended that the Reporters should go to $940 and we consider that they should stop at $880.

There is one further important point that I should mention and that is the motion seeks approval for these new scales and salaries with effect from the 1st of April, 1956. Now, the Report of the Select Committee recommended that the changes should be made from the 1st of April, 1955, in recognition of the additional work and responsibilities undertaken by our staff during that period. That recommendation, Sir, raises a very real difficulty to the Government in that it impinges on the principle of back pay. We have for some time now tried to establish the principle in the Government service that alterations of salary scales should not be made retrospective but should come into force from the date on which they are approved and it is likely to be embarrassing to us and indeed, I think, perhaps to the Assembly if we depart from that principle in the case of our own staff. I am pursuing an alternative suggestion of finding some other way of recognising the services that our staff have rendered to us. That suggestion I should like to leave without prejudice to an ultimate decision. But in the meantime, Sir, it is important that we should get the present salaries of these posts fixed so that we can proceed to appoint the proper officers to the posts, and for that reason, I seek approval today for the new scales to be effective from the beginning of this month, the 1st of April, without prejudice to any subsequent solution we may wish to bring forward to the representations for recognising the work done in the past. Sir, I move accordingly.

Mr Lim Yew Hock: Sir, I rise to second the motion and reserve the right to speak at a later stage.

Question proposed.

Mr Lim Choon Mong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I happened to be on this Committee. It should be noted that in all Select Committees, the Members are chosen in such a manner that there is always a majority of Government Members. In this Committee, I am sure, Sir, you being the Chairman, know a lot of the details. Decisions on such matters were reached usually after voting and the decisions taken at that time were done when there were two Government Members and one on the Opposition. It seems, Sir, that if in a Select Committee, a simple thing as salaries of personnel cannot be agreed upon between Members of the Government Benches themselves, it does show us that the Government is vacillating one way and the other. It has no definite idea as to what is best and what is not as good. This is a clear case of Government indecision!

The next point I would like to say is that at that time when the decisions were taken, we were not thinking about personalities but we were thinking only about the work and the responsibilities of the officers, and it was agreed by all present that they were doing a great deal more work than other officers receiving the salaries they were then receiving, so that there was a recommendation that they should be given a higher scale. I do not see what difference there is or how much it will benefit Government and save its money by cutting down the maximum of $940 for Reporters or $1,000 for the Chief Reporter and Editor.

Recommendations made by the Select Committee in this case are of no use and if decisions taken at Select Committees can be treated in this manner,. then we might as well do away with Select Committees. We might also say that the Hon. the Chief Secretary be allowed to make his own decisions because in this Report here, hon. Members will notice that the only person who said "No" to these various schemes was just the Hon. the Chief Secretary.

Government has always talked about democracy. Government has always talked about rule by the majority. Government is now falling back on such a matter. It is no more the voice of the majority. It is, "Where the majority voices an opinion that suits us, then we will implement that and if it voices an opinion that is not to our liking, we will throw it away and fall back on what you might call red tape colonialism which we will continue to make use of, if it pleases us."

The Chief Minister: Democracy is not ruled by a Committee.

Mr Lim Choon Mong: Sir, I must oppose this motion.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, Sir, I, fortunately, was not present at any of the Select Committee meetings which deliberated on this staff matter. That was not because it would have been without any purpose. But I am now in a better position to put my point of view and my Party's point of view. I support the proposal of the Government, which varies from the recommendations of the majority of the Select Committee.

Now, Mr Speaker, Sir, there is a tendency, and it is interesting to note that the Liberal-Socialists support this tendency, that with independence, everybody grabs something more. That is not the spirit of Merdeka. With Merdeka will come greater responsibilities, harder work, a greater sense of purpose and a sense of endeavour. We must resist this tendency that Merdeka means grabbing the white man's job, grabbing the white man's house, grabbing the white man's car and shaking legs like he used to shake legs before. That is not our idea of Merdeka. I am sure that the Assembly staff will forgive me if I say this, that whilst they are not being handsomely paid, they are adequately remunerated more than they were in the last Council and, as the years go by, if the conditions of work should become more and more onerous as the responsibilities and duties of this Assembly become more and more enlarged, the matter could be reviewed. For the time being, it is fair that the Clerk of the Assembly should get what is known, as the Hon. the Chief Secretary has said, as a superscale post and not the equivalent of a Permanent Secretary's post. The other scales of the Clerk Assistant, the Second Clerk Assistant, the Chief Reporter and Reporters are fairly evenly graded out taking into view that at the top of this pyramid is the Speaker at $3,500 a month.

Mr Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member does not know what the Speaker's salary is. It is not $3,500.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg your pardon. I had always believed that it was $3,500 but I am glad to note that the Hon. the Chief Minister is a little niche above that.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this Assembly, having taken note of the Second Report of the Select Committee on the Assembly Staff, hereby resolves that the following revised salaries be approved with effect from 1st April, 1956: - Clerk of the Legislative Assembly $1,670. Clerk Assistant $630: 680: 715: 750-35A-1,030/bar/1,100-40A-1,420. Second Clerk Assistant $560: 630: 660: 690-30A-930/bar/960-35A-1,240. Chief Reporter and Editor $820-30A-940. Reporters $730-25A-880.