ANNUAL BUDGET STATEMENT

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Debate resumed.

Dr Toh See Kiat (Aljunied): Mr Speaker, Sir, once again we meet in this House to discuss the Government's policies for the new fiscal year and the monetary means they are using to implement their policies.

The Singapore Government is a strong believer in the effectiveness of market forces as a means to allocate scarce resources. The pricing mechanism appears to be particularly effective in regulating demand and supply of goods and services, except where there are monopolies, duopolies and cartels. The price mechanism is, in fact, such an efficient tool to modify Singaporean behaviour that its wide use has earned us the dubious reputation of being a "fine" city. Every unacceptable social behaviour has its price, from littering to spitting to smoking in public places.

For better or worse, monetary disincentives do hurt our pockets and monetary incentives do cheer up the masses, especially in these increasingly hard times - and Singaporeans have responded accordingly. So we jack up university fees in arts courses so that people will go into engineering; Accident and Emergency clinic charges so that people with non-emergencies will turn to other clinics; and increase taxi fares and Additional Registration Fees so that people who do buy cars really do so because they need to. In this way, we curb high demand for limited resources and channel demand to under-utilised facilities in the national interest and to promote Government priorities, and I think that is a good thing. In so doing, however, I believe we have become too trigger-happy in using price mechanisms. It has become the Jack of all Ministries and Master of all civil servants. Some of these incentives are present in this year's Budget. I am, however, not criticising any of them specifically, but I am merely raising a matter of broad principle.

Monetary disincentives are painful but, I submit, not necessarily the most effective measure to deal with certain matters, such as the overuse of services with inelastic demand - some would say that would include A&E services - or to channel university students to do courses in which they have no aptitude nor interest. Policy makers should not just go for the easiest route but should look to more creative, non-monetary options if they wish to modify Singaporean behaviour along the lines of what they have determined are good for the public at large.

Money as a policy tool may often be effective but is always uncreative. It can become the panacea and "easy way out" for all sorts of things that Government wants to encourage or discourage. In so doing, we invariably create a very materialistic and, if I might say so, uncouth society where "only money talks", because, in this case, the Government is the unchallenged leader and the trend-setter. Is that good ultimately for our society when we are all trying our level best to produce more volunteers and promote a more civic society?

Money is too blunt a tool even if it is effective. We should perhaps ban all Government officials from suggesting direct fiscal solutions till they have proposed at least two other non-monetary options first. If monetary incentives and disincentives are indeed the only justifiable option, we should require our officials and the Government to spend a little more time garnering public support and culling public feedback before the policy is cast in stone. This way, Government is more visibly accountable to the people and public feedback is not seen as merely post-policy (or post-Budget) chipping away at the policy's edges. There will be no more unthinking resort to monetary mechanism as a first, rather than as a last, option. Surely, there must be plenty of alternatives always - albeit these alternatives may require patience, time, gentle persuasion and tedious education efforts. I surfed the Internet discussion groups, for example, during the A&E fees furore and found at least seven sensible non-monetary suggestions on resolving the problem.

Even if these methods are time-consuming to implement, we should not totally discount them. Not every policy needs to be implemented overnight and we can explore these options slowly. We took one year to persuade Singaporeans to accept GST. We have six months to educate them on the benefits of the ERP. I know the Ministry of Communications has been working very hard to win support from the public and has been working behind the scene with special groups to justify and fine-tune the ERP plans. Like them, I hope other Ministries will not stinge on the efforts to educate the public on their own future policies.

Even with increased A&E charges, it later appeared (as the debate heated up last year) that the proposed increased fees to deter excessive use of A&E for non-emergency cases was actually justifiable because the increases were lower than the costs that the hospitals were incurring. If that were so, why did not the Ministry take them through to the public in the first place, painstakingly perhaps, so as to win the hearts and minds of the public? Why could not they do it upfront rather than as a kind of afterthought? We have an increasingly educated and sophisticated electorate - we must not think that all this explanation is unproductive or wasteful or will indeed go over their heads. Let us all have the benefit of knowing all the deep thinking and sound analysis that went into each Government policy and not just be told to accept unquestioningly the eminent conclusions they have reached.

Let us work together towards being a society that responds more caringly and sensitively to matters of Government policy, rather than to always turn to the over-ready financial beating rod.

Sir, I support the motion.