PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

11.00 a.m.

The Chief Secretary (Mr W. A. C. Goode): Sir, I have the Governor's consent under Standing Order 33 to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

As the Chief Minister mentioned just now, Sir, this Bill is designed to introduce an executive public service and thereby enable Singapore at this stage to obtain control over its own civil service. The Bill, in the main, Sir, incorporates the recommendations on the Public Services Commission which were made by the Malayanisation Commission in Part VI of its Majority Report. As hon. Members will no doubt recall, there were, I think, two main recommendations which were made by the Malayanisation Commission. The first recommendation was that the Public Services Commission should have executive control over appointments, promotions, dismissals, and the discipline of government officers in the public service. That, as I will explain in a moment, we seek to achieve through this Bill.

The second major recommendation was that the composition of the Public Services Commission should be changed in that the Chairman should be a Malayan and that the membership of the Commission should be enlarged from two to five members. As I have said, Sir, with some few exceptions, this Bill incorporates the recommendations made on the Public Services Commission.

There is, however, one very obvious peculiarity about this Bill, and that is, although as I have said it seeks to establish a Public Service Commission with executive control, in fact, that is the one thing which is missing from the Bill. Clauses 13 and 14 of the Bill, which lay down the functions of the Commission, prescribe that the Commission shall only advise the Governor. The reason for this apparent contradiction is that at the present stage, when we are still governed by the present Singapore Colony Order in Council, it would not be proper by legislation here to over-rule the provisions of section 11 of the Singapore Colony Order in Council; but, as was explained in the White Paper on Malayanisation, the Secretary of State has agreed that, save as regards a few specified appointments, the Governor shall act on the advice of the Public Service Commission subject only to the right to refer a recommendation back to the Commission once, and once only. The Secretary of State has agreed and that agreement will be embodied in Instructions sent from the Secretary of State to the Governor; and in due course we expect that a new Colony Order in Council will be made, and when that is made, then it will provide formally and finally for the Public Service Commission to have executive authority.

The functions of the Commission, as set out in clauses 12, 13 and 14 of the Bill, can be divided into two types. There is, first, those functions in which the Commission's advice will be accepted by the Governor. Those are the functions specified in clause 13, namely, appointments, promotions, transfers, dismissals and discipline. Other matters such as schemes of service, qualifications for appointment, which are dealt with in clauses 12 and 14, will not be matters for executive decision by the Commission. I think the reason for this should be apparent in that, for example, while it is proper that a Public Service Commission should apply a code of discipline to individual officers and that it should be responsible for enforcing that code, it should not be responsible for drawing up the code itself. The code itself is at present prescribed in our various Government regulations and that code should be subject to the decision of the Government and not to the decision of the Commission.

There is another field in which also it would not be right that the Public Service Commission should have the final word. I refer, Sir, to matters which are the subject of negotiation between Staff Associations and the Government: such matters, for example, as rates of pay where we have now established a machinery for the officers concerned, through their Staff Associations, to make their claims and do their negotiating direct with the Government. It would not, in the view of the Government, Sir, be right that the Staff Associations should in any way be deprived of their right to negotiate direct with the Government on matters such as pay, and indeed the Staff Associations have already got the ultimate right to go to arbitration on those issues. It is true that certainly in one other country, Australia, the Public Service Commission or its equivalent has been given authority by the Government to fix rates of pay, but we do not think that we should, at least at this stage, adopt that procedure here.

The matters which are the proper field for negotiation between the Staff Associations and the Government have been defined in the agreements which now exist between the Government and the Staff Associations covering the Civil Service Joint Council and covering the arbitration agreement, and I would like to make it quite clear, Sir, that nothing in this Bill will affect the existing rights and procedure of the Staff Associations in those matters.

I should perhaps draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact that the judiciary is deliberately excluded from the operation of this Bill. As was explained by the Chief Minister yesterday, the question of appointments and dismissals of Judges is a matter to be incorporated in constitutional arrangements and it is a matter which will be for discussion at the constitutional conference in London, and the results of that discussion will no doubt be incorporated in a new Order in Council in due course. So it is that the judiciary is deliberately excluded from the field covered by this Bill and it may be that a separate Judicial Service Commission will ultimately be agreed upon.

I do not think there is any other particular point that I need mention at this stage, Sir. I would, in conclusion, repeat that this Bill re-enacts the provisions of the present Public Services Commission Ordinance with the amendments which follow from the recommendations of the Malayanisation Commission. The reasons for asking that the Bill should be put through on a Certificate of Urgency are, of course, that, as Members will have seen from the White Paper, we wish to start Malayanisation if possible from the 1st of January next year and we wish to get the new Public Service Commission established so that it can start its task at the beginning of next year by selecting the first local officers to take over the nine posts of Permanent Secretary grade.

There is one further point which I think I should mention, and that is that it is the intention of the Government that the contents of this Bill will be included in the new Colony Order in Council which the Chief Minister hopes to obtain in the near future. There again, that is in accordance with the recommendations of the Malayanisation Commission which was emphatic that the composition, establishment and the working of the Public Service Commission should be enshrined in an Order in Council so that the Commission is shielded from day-to-day decisions in the Legislative Assembly. Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

11.14 a.m.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, we support the principle of the Bill. The proposed Public Service Commission differs from the previous one in that it will serve different ends and work towards different goals. The old Commission was a purely advisory body and unless the Governor chose to accept its recommendations, its deliberations and decisions would come to nought. Now for the first time we shall have a Commission whose conscious aim would be to select men of integrity and ability to work the apparatus of state, men on whose integrity and ability the future efficient administration of this country depends.

But whilst we are all in agreement with the machinery which this Bill proposes to set up, we have very grave doubts as to the intentions of the Government, or perhaps it may be of the Governor, with respect to the men to be chosen to fill this Commission. Singapore is a small place and one hears all kinds of curious goings-on. There are even rumours that a distinguished record in the field of sports might win somebody a seat on this Commission. There are also rumours that an office in some established church might entitle a person to a seat on this Commission. There is considerable dissatisfaction over the person who is unofficially the Chairman-elect of this Commission. Sir, if this group of five men are not people with imagination, ability and learning, they will not be able correctly to appraise the candidates and choose the men who will run the government machine.

It is absolutely vital that the features which have marked the old Commission - feeble and flabby men chosen to sit on the Commission because of their docility and servility to a colonial government, men who dare not take over the chairmanship of the Commission until a white man has shown them how to do it - should be wiped out. In the proposed Commission we must put men who are going to choose the future workers of the State on the basis of ability, integrity, drive and a spirit of independence, not a spirit of servility.

Sir, the service today is filled by the English-educated elite. Most of the people in the service are either our friends, our neighbours or were our class or college mates; and we know the gibes that are going on amongst the student generation - if you want a good cushy job in the service, then be nice to your professor, be nice to your master, and keep clear of politics and other dangerous and controversial issues. The result is that we will have, at best, an able but a docile instrument with no imagination and no guts.

There is another type of students, those who have rebelled against the system, those with a great deal of drive, impatient and exasperated with the existing system, so much so as to want to go over to the other extreme and to destroy the whole machinery of government.

This question of the Public Service Commission was one of the issues which divided the political Parties when they went to London. We stated then and we say it now that we will not be bound unless it is done with scrupulous honesty. We will not be bound by the men whom the Governor may choose to put on this Commission. If we are going to have people who have distinguished themselves by looking after the sporting interests of the Colony of Singapore to sit on this Commission, then let us scrap the whole thing. Let us have the boldness and courage to choose men who, whether we agree with their political views or not, are men whose spirited opposition to colonialism, whose fervent desire to see an independent and vigorous country free and absolutely divorced from all those evils of colonialism, will be able to choose other men who will be as equally spirited and as equally determined to build this independent State. With this one reservation concerning the personnel of the Public Service Commission, we support the machinery which this Bill proposes to set up.

Mr Goode rose -

Mr Speaker: Mr Chief Secretary, in reply?

Mr Goode: Yes, Sir. I have no doubt that my hon. Leader the Chief Minister will, as he always does, give very full weight to the views expressed by the Member for Tanjong Pagar when he comes to advise the Governor on these points.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.