STATUTORY BODIES AND GOVERNMENT COMPANIES (PROTECTION OF SECRECY) BILL

Order for Second Reading read. 4.25 pm

The Acting Minister for Labour (Prof. S. Jayakumar): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The purpose of this short Bill is to protect secret or confidential information relating to the affairs of certain statutory bodies and Government companies which are specified in the Schedule. The Bill prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of such information by existing as well as former members, officers, employees and agents of these specified organizations.

The organizations specified are those which handle sensitive documents and information, the improper disclosure of which could be detrimental or damaging to the national or public interest. Although we have the Official Secrets Act, that Act does not extend to the disclosure of information which is concerned solely with the affairs of a statutory body or a Government company. There is no general provision dealing with the protection of secrecy of information received or generated by statutory bodies and Government companies (except where official secrets entrusted by the Government are involved). Further, no provision exists which prohibits former officers and employees of such organizations from making unauthorized disclosure of information. This Bill seeks to remedy the situation so that the secrecy and confiden- tiality of sensitive information of such organizations can be better protected.

The inclusion of the statutory bodies and Government companies in the Schedule has been made with great care. Only those statutory bodies and Government companies handling or likely to handle sensitive information which warrants protection by penal sanction have been specified in the Schedule. As a safeguard, the Bill also provides that no prosecution will be instituted without the written consent of the Attorney-General.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Mr Deputy Speaker, you do not want me to make any declaration that I have no pecuniary interest in this Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker: That is up to you. I was just reminding you earlier on.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Mr Deputy Speaker, this Bill seeks to throw a veil of secrecy over all affairs of a statutory body or a Government company. The Minister has set out the purpose of this Bill. That is quite evident from the Bill itself, that it seeks to throw a blanket, as it were, over all affairs of a statutory body or a Government company. What the Minister has not tried to explain to this House is why it is considered necessary to enact this Bill at this stage. He has referred to the Official Secrets Act. That Official Secrets Act spells out clearly the circumstances in which a person may be prosecuted for divulging information which he should not divulge and which information is considered to be detrimental or prejudicial to the safety or the national interest of Singapore. This Bill does nothing like that. It does not go out to spell any circumstances under which the man may be prosecuted, the man or woman. It virtually gives a carte blanche to the Attorney-General to decide whether anyone should be prosecuted or not for disclosing any information on the affairs of a statutory body or of a Government company, however innocuous, however trivial the information or document may be.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, claim is often made that in Singapore we have a democratic Government, that all our public affairs are conducted democratically. It is the essence of democracy - I do not have to remind Members of this House and the Minister - it is the essence of democracy that the conduct of public officials and the affairs of statutory bodies and companies should be subjected to the scrutiny of public opinion so long as whatever is subjected to their scrutiny does not endanger the safety of Singapore.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, clause 3 of this Bill makes it an offence for any person to disclose to any other person any secret or confidential document or information which he has obtained or to which he has access by virtue of his position as such member, officer, employee or agent. One might suppose that it is only a secret or confidential document or information that it is intended to be protected by this Act. But that begs the question, Sir, because who decides whether such information is confidential or secret?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, if I may illustrate what I am saying. After I became a Member of this House, I tried to obtain some information from the Prime Minister's Office, and my precise inquiry was whether I may be supplied with the rules of the Residents' Committees. The official that I spoke to at the Prime Minister's Office said, "Oh, these rules of the Residents' Committees are not available to any person." So I had to remind him firmly that I was not just "any person but I happened to be the Member of Parliament elected by the voters of Anson." After some haggling over the phone, he said, "Well, it is all confidential, but if you want, you write in. So I had to write in and eventually, of course, I got it. But is that the sort of thing - rules designed to regulate the activities of the Residents' Committees are not to be disclosed, it would seem, even to a Member of Parliament if he does not happen to be in the official group of Members of Parliament in that club?

There is yet one other instance, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir. Again, about three months after I was elected, I wrote to the Ministry of Social Affairs asking whether I could be supplied with a list of persons in my Constituency who were receiving public assistance. And what did I get? "Oh, no, you can't be supplied with that list." This is the sort of thing I get, but I am becoming used to it, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir.

Now it would appear that we are going to extend all this even to Government companies and statutory bodies. If this Bill becomes law, and I am sure it will, it would mean that the public may not get any information about the affairs of a Government company or a statutory board. They will be told quite blandly, "I am sorry. If you look up the Statutory Bodies and Government Companies (Protection of Secrecy) Act, 1983, you will see that we cannot disclose any information." Why is it necessary to keep all the activities of statutory bodies and Government companies under wraps?

As I have said, if we are as we claim, a democratic society, should we not open the doors wherever they can be opened without detriment to our national safety, without prejudice to our national interests? Should we not open the doors not only of Government Ministries but also of statutory boards and Government companies to public scrutiny?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, in many countries there is this freedom of information available to a member of the public. Members may know that in Australia they have just passed quite recently a Freedom of Information Act under which any member of the public can telephone any Ministry or department and require information and he has got to be supplied with that information, unless the information falls within the exception laid in that Act. Should we not be thinking along those lines if we claim to be a democratic society, or should we as it were wrap the blanket more closely around ourselves so that nobody may even be able to look into what we are doing?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, it has been said that the discovery of what has been known as Watergate which led to the downfall of the President of the United States was only possible because information was made available and it had to be supplied. Is that not the sort of society that we should be aiming for, so that the public are kept informed of what the various Government companies are doing, what the Ministries are doing, what the statutory boards are doing? One might say, "Well, the statutory boards put up their reports. You get the information in the reports if you look at them." Do we get the correct information?

I have had occasion before this to refer to the Annual Reports and the Financial Accounts and Statements of the Housing and Development Board. I have complained not once but twice that those Financial Accounts do not tell the whole story about the Housing and Development Board's activities. I have referred to the profits that were secreted away, and I see that even in the Report for the year ending 31st March, 1983, those profits derived by the Housing and Development Board from its MND Holdings have not been consolidated in the accounts. It would appear that I can just go on talking in vain.

I say, Sir, that rather than introduce a Bill to cover up all affairs and activities of Government companies, we should really have a Bill making available information. Some of these boards are public utilities. The public would want to know what they are doing. They are entitled to this information. What is sensitive about their undertakings? What about the Government companies? Should we not know what they are doing? After all, the taxpayers are the shareholders. Are the shareholders not entitled to information? Why are we closing the doors?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I say that this Bill is thoroughly bad in principle and I shall vote against this Bill.

Prof. S. Jayakumar: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I shall be very brief because the hon. Member for Anson has given a lengthy speech based totally on a wrong reading of the Bill. Inadvertently or otherwise he has interpreted the Bill's intention as weaving a veil of secrecy over all affairs. He asked why should this Bill hinder the right of any one to ask questions about the organizations named in this Bill. If he had only taken the trouble to read the Bill carefully, this Bill does not say anywhere in any of the provisions that any of the statutory boards or a Government company is barred from divulging any information.

What is the gravamen of this Bill? It relates to unauthorized disclosure of secret or confidential information by a person who was in the employ or is in the employ of a statutory board. The issue is whether a person who was in the employ of a statutory board or a Government company, without authority of the statutory board or a Government company, should have the right to freely disclose to a third party confidential or secret information: The issue is not the right of the Member for Anson or anybody else to ask questions. The record speaks for itself. Other Members of this House and the Member for Anson at past sessions had not been prevented from asking questions, Questions for Oral Answer, Questions for Written Answer, and to raise matters during the Budget or other Sittings to elicit information and response from Ministers.

So all this edifice that he has erected about sinister motives of this Bill is completely unfounded. The issue again is very simple. If a person was or is in the employment of a statutory board or a Government company and has access to secret or confidential information, should our law permit him, without the authority of his employer, to divulge this information to whomsoever and in whatsoever circumstances? The Member for Anson seems to think that it is permissible. If that is his view, well, he is entitled to it. This Government cannot continue to let the gap in this law remain unfilled, and the purpose of this Bill is simply to ensure that persons in employment cannot resort to unauthorized disclosure of secret or confidential information without the penalty of the law.

Mr Jeyaretnam: On a point of clarification, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Yes.

Mr Jeyaretnam: I have not misread the Bill, if it may please the Minister. The Minister talks about unauthorized information. But that is begging the question: who decides whether any information is autho- rized or unauthorized? Of course, the company will decide - something which it does not want the public to know - to say, "Well, this is unauthorized, my dear boy. We cannot breathe a word of this to anybody else." Why should the company be made the sole arbiter of what is authorized and what is unauthorized? That is my point.

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not propose to dwell on this. If the Member for Anson has his way, the employee would be the arbiter of what he is entitled to disclose, and that we cannot have.

Mr Jeyaretnam: We can take it to court.

Question put, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Mr Jeyaretnam: I claim a Division, Sir.

Mr Deputy Speaker: We will take a Division.

The House divided: Ayes, 43; No, 1; Abstention, 1. Ayes No Abbas Abu Amin J.B. Jeyaretnam Ahmad Mattar Ang Kok Peng E.W. Barker Chan Chee Seng S. Chandra Das Bernard Chen Eric Cheong Yuen Chee Ch'ng Jit Koon S. Dhanabalan Fong Sip Chee Goh Chee Wee Goh Chok Tong Ho Kah Leong Ho See Beng Abstention Howe Yoon Chong Hwang Soo Jin M.K.A. Jabbar S. Jayakumar Koh Lip Lin Lau Teik Soon Lee Yock Suan Liew Kok Pun Lim Boon Heng Lim Chee Onn Othman Haron Eusofe Phua Bah Lee Ayes (cont) Rohan bin Kamis Saidi Haji Shariff Seah Mui Kok Sia Kah Hui Sia Khoon Seong Sidek bin Saniff Augustine H.H. Tan Tony Tan Keng Yam Tan Soo Khoon Tay Eng Soon Teh Cheang Wan Teo Chong Tee Wan Soon Bee Eugene Yap Giau Cheng Yeo Choo Kok Yeo Ning Hong Yeo Toon Chia

Question accordingly agreed to.

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

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Prof Jayakumar].

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