SINGAPORE: The People’s Action Party’s (PAP) approach when it comes to policies has always been to bring Singaporeans together, even when it comes to difficult issues, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Wednesday (Apr 30).
Citing the repeal of the 377A, wearing of tudung in healthcare settings, and the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, Mr Wong said that the PAP government seeks to build consensus on such contentious topics.
“We try to forge as wide a national consensus as possible on these issues and to make sure we continue to expand our common ground and bring Singaporeans together so as not to accentuate our differences nor to seek to exploit these differences.”
“That’s the PAP way. That’s the PAP’s DNA,” said Mr Wong, who is also the party’s secretary-general.
“And that’s how, over the decades, we have been able to bring Singaporeans together, unite our people and forge a much stronger Singaporean identity today, and we will continue to take that approach.”
Mr Wong was addressing what Workers’ Party (WP) secretary-general Pritam Singh said in a rally on Tuesday, after the opposition leader said negative politics was a part of the PAP’s DNA and cited the ruling party’s “crippling” of opposition town councils over the years as an example.
Mr Singh had said this after Mr Wong expressed disappointment over the “negative attacks” on Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong and the rest of the PAP team in Punggol GRC by the WP in a previous rally.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday at the sidelines of his visit to a public housing estate at Tampines North with the party’s Tampines GRC slate, Mr Wong said the negative politics he was referring to were the attacks that the WP aimed at Mr Gan and his other Punggol teammates.
“They targeted Gan Kim Yong the entire night with personal negative attacks. That kind of negative politics, in my view, is unwarranted.”
“I don’t think we want to see negative politics in Singapore,” he said.
On the other hand, the issues that Mr Singh raised were matters of policy.
To this, Mr Wong acknowledged that when it comes to policy discussions, they are not static and there will always be room for improvements and debate.
MORE VOICES NOT NECESSARILY BETTER
Mr Singh had raised the example of how opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) are denied access to community clubs in their wards in his rally speech, as well as how Housing Board upgrading plans in opposition-held wards used to be de-prioritised by the government.
Mr Singh noted that this has changed, with upgrading plans in both PAP and opposition wards now being carried out “at the same time”, adding that the PAP “changed its strategy because their bullying sticks and disrespectful carrots did not work”.
On Wednesday, Mr Wong said municipal upgrades in opposition wards, were not withheld but “a matter of queuing and prioritisation”.
“And there was a logic previously that…if you didn’t support the PAP, then you don’t get it earlier than the ones that supported the PAP,” said Mr Wong.
“That logic, I think, is no longer wearable today.”
“It’s not just about whether or not it’s because of opposition protesting. Even Singaporeans themselves have explained to us and highlighted that they feel that there can be a better way of allocating and looking at how to go about prioritising.”
In any case, these are matters which Mr Wong said can be discussed in parliament.
Outside of parliament, Mr Wong added that policies will always be fine-tuned with inputs that the government gathers from multiple sources, including from Singaporeans directly.
”That’s what the PAP does. We listen to every voice,” he said.
Similarly, on the issues of community centres, which are managed by the People’s Association (PA), Mr Wong said that policies regarding it have been debated, reiterating that the PA plays a non-partisan role.
“But the WP and opposition parties will have a different view, and we are happy to debate and make adjustments along the way, if we think it’s necessary.”
When it comes to the quality of policy debates in parliament, Mr Wong said it does not mean that more voices necessarily leads to better outcomes.
“It depends on the quality…
