SINGAPORE STATE ARMS AND FLAG AND NATIONAL ANTHEM BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

2.53 p.m.

The Minister for Culture (Mr S. Rajaratnam): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

As there is a Government motion coming up for debate later on on the State Flag and National Anthem, I will confine my remarks to matters relating to the Bill.

The objects of the Bill are quite simple and straightforward. It provides for the Yang di-Pertuan Negara to make regulations for the control of the use of the State Arms, Flag and Anthem. These are the new symbols of an authority and loyalty and it is right that there should be rules to ensure that they are accorded the respect they deserve. These rules will cover matters like the places and times at which the Arms and Flag of the State may be publicly displayed or the Anthem played. Some of the rules will prescribe the correct way of flying the Flag and how the State Arms should be displayed, or prescribe that the State Flag should be flown in Government buildings such as Courts, Secretariats, and so on. There will also have to be rules about the display of the State Flag by ships in harbour; but more important, there will have to be rules to prevent afront to or abuse of our new symbols of loyalty. For example, some bright free enterpriser might take it into his head to adopt the State Flag or the State Arms as a trade mark. Then you might find the market flooded with under-clothing, toothpaste, hair lotion and goods of that sort using the State Flag or Arms as a trade mark. Mr Speaker, Sir, you will agree that such misdirected patriotism must be discouraged.

There will also have to be rules to prohibit the indiscriminate playing of the National Anthem in public places. It will not do for every bar in town to open and close for the day to the strains of the National Anthem; nor would it add to the dignity of the State National Anthem if it were jazzed up into a rhumba or a samba or a conga.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Bill, in other words, seeks to ensure that the new State symbols are not wilfully brought into contempt, ridicule, and hatred. These are symbols of national pride, and there should be rules to see that there is no affront to it.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole Assembly.

Assembly immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. -[Mr Rajaratnam].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read the Third time and passed.