OPENING OF PARLIAMENT (Delay)

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Dr Tan Cheng Bock asked the Prime Minister why was the Opening of Parliament delayed for more than four months.

The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Wong Kan Seng) (for the Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, Sir, there has not been any undue delay in the Opening of the New Parliament. The time between the General Elections and the Opening of Parliament in the previous and the present instances was similar, being 144 days and 142 days respectively, or just about 20 weeks. In the earlier two general elections in 1988 and 1991, the interval was slightly shorter, about 18 weeks.

Sir, a reasonable period of time between the General Elections and the Opening of Parliament is necessary to take stock of the tumultuous global and domestic developments, and to prepare policy positions and plans for our new term of office.

But before the Opening of Parliament on 25th March, the Prime Minister, the Ministers, the PAP Members of Parliament reached out directly to our community leaders and the public to discuss the actions against the terrorists in Singapore, the new terrorist threats that we faced, communal and the tudung issues, as well as economic challenges we face. The Government also very quickly set up the Economic Review Committee to review our economic policies to revitalise the economy, and remake Singapore. So the Government has not been tardy since the General Elections. In other words, we have not been sitting on our hands.

Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah): Mr Speaker, Sir, can I ask the Minister whether we could convene Parliament one month after the General Elections, so that Parliament can be operationally ready in case there are urgent matters to discuss? I am sure Members of this House are fully aware that many issues happened after the General Elections, and this House has got no opportunity to discuss all these issues. Therefore, I would request that following General Elections in future, at least a month, we should all be sworn in and this House will be ready to tackle urgencies.

Another question, Sir, is whether this is going to be the trend.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: I do not think we can predict what would be the trend in the future because nobody can tell us what is going to happen in the future. While we can set some rules, I do not think we should be so rigid as to say that we should meet immediately one month after the General Elections (GE). There could be many reasons why we cannot meet immediately. But if there are important or urgent reasons that we have to meet immediately after the GE, then there is no doubt that the Government will seize upon the opportunity to do so. But, here, we cannot commit that in future we will have a sitting one month after the GE. Much depends on the circumstances. I think the less we tie ourselves down with rules, the better it is. We should do what is necessary, what is useful, and what is important.

Besides, immediately after the GE, there are many issues to be settled. Many of the programmes that the Government put up before the GE are ideas that we should pursue, and we need time to thrash them out; we need time to think through the major issues, and in this instance, for example, the key challenges we face today are economic restructuring and the new threat of the terrorists. So these are the two key challenges and therefore these are not issues that we can immediately come back to Parliament after the GE and settle. We cannot solve the problems even after the Budget. It will take some time for issues to be studied and to come out with programmes to resolve some of them. We cannot resolve all of them even in the Budget in May.