Committee

Mr Speaker: Committee stage, what day?

Mr Goode: Now, Sir. Sir, I move,

That this Assembly will immediately resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill.

Mr Chew Swee Kee: I second it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee.

[Mr SPEAKER in the Chair]

Clauses 1 to 5 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6-

Mr Goode: Sir, I move an amendment as set out in the Order Paper, that is

At page 2, line 36, to leave out the words "require the Superintendent of Census to".

The purpose of that amendment, Sir, is to delete the reference to the Superintendent of Census because it is possible that the post of Superintendent of Census will not be filled after a census has been taken, and it is better, therefore. to leave it to the Minister to obtain the extracts from the Statistics Department.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out, be left out." put, and agreed to.

Mr Goode: Sir, I move a further connected amendment,

At page 2, line 39, to leave out the words "by him".

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out, be left out." put, and agreed to.

Question proposed, "That clause 6, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr Marshall: Is the Hon. the Chief Secretary aware that Section 17 of the Census Ordinance now requires amendment in view of the amendments he has now made to clause 16? This comes from making hurried amendments. Section 17 says:

"Any census officer and any person employed by the Superintendent of Census in the preparation of the abstracts to be made by him under the last preceding section-".

Sir, this can no longer apply because we are not referring to the person employed by the Superintendent of Census in the preparation of abstracts to be made by him. I may be wrong, Sir. I have looked through the Ordinance very quickly - I have had no notice of this - and it may well be, Sir, that the Minister in charge of the Bill would like to defer consideration of the Committee stage to a later date, in view of the amendments, and to seek assistance from the Attorney-General's Department as to whether any consequential amendments may be required to other sections of the Ordinance.

The Chairman: The matter certainly does not arise under the present Bill, except incidentally. I take it that the Hon. the Chief Secretary will take note of it, unless he wishes to say anything?

Mr Goode: I only wish to refute the suggestion that this Bill has been hurriedly drafted.

Question "That clause 6, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 6, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7-

Mr Marshall: On the Schedule, Sir, it seems to me that under item 6, being as it is, the citizen may be compelled to give information of an extremely personal and confidential character. The words are:

"Any other information with respect to which it is desirable to obtain statistical information with a view to ascertaining the social or civil condition of the population."

I think I know what is intended but I was wondering, Sir, whether the Hon. the Chief Secretary would consider eliminating the extremely wide wording of this particular part of the Schedule.

The Chairman: Is the Member moving an amendment?

Mr Marshall: No, Sir. I am just drawing the attention of the Chief Secretary to the extremely wide character of this particular aspect of the Schedule.

Question proposed, "That clause 7 stand part of the Bill."

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Sir, if the Hon. the Chief Secretary will assure the Member for Cairnhill that he is not proposing to carry out a Kinsey Report, a copy of which I once saw at the Member for Cairnhill's bungalow by the sea, I am sure the Member for Cairnhill will be quite happy, and so will we.

Mr Goode: Sir, unlike the Member for Cairnhill and the Member for Tanjong Pagar, I am not familiar with the Kinsey Report, but I can explain that the drafting of this item 6 in the Schedule has been based on the following consideration. The present position, as I said in moving the motion, is that the law imposes no restriction whatsoever on the type of particulars which may be asked in the census. We gave thought to specifying in this Schedule some limits within which the questions might be asked. We do not, of course, intend - nor is it practical - to hold a census of the whole population of Singapore, to ask questions of too intimate detail. But the census, inevitably, of course, does ask questions which could be described as of a personal and a confidential character. For example, one of the kind of questions is to ask a person whether he is now widowed or divorced, and he might well maintain that that was his private business. But to get back to the wording of clause 6, which I think is the one which causes some concern, we took a look, Sir, at legislation in other places, and we took a look at the corresponding legislation in Ceylon. There, the limit is referred to as relating to the social, civil and economic conditions of the population. We thought, Sir, that that went too far, that the primary purpose of census information was much more concerned with welfare conditions than with economic. We then turned to the United Kingdom Act, and the words which appear in this Schedule are taken from the United Kingdom Act. It is truly wide but I do not think there is any reason to expect that it will be abused here in Singapore, and I would again remind the House that there is a very severe limit on the type and the detail of questions which can be asked in a whole population census. Inevitably, the questions have to be limited to very simple questions which can almost be answered with a "yes" or "no", and there is a limit, a practical limit, to the number of questions which we can ask. I feel, Sir, that I can, with confidence, commend to the House the use of this phrase which has been used in the United Kingdom for some years.

Question, "That clause 7 stand part of the Bill" put, and agreed to.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Mr Goode: Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill, as amended, be reported to the Assembly."

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments.

Third Reading

Mr Speaker: Third Reading, what day?

Mr Goode: Now, Sir. Sir, I move, "That the Bill, as amended, be now read the Third time."

Mr Chew Swee Kee: I second it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, accordingly read the Third time.