Yawning Bread. December 2006

There's public consultation and there's public consultation

    

  

 
On the front page of Singapore's 'Today' newspaper, 6 December 2006, was the story, 'Hong Kong spits out its bitter pill'. It carried the news that Finance Secretary Henry Tang had just announced that the proposed 5% Goods and Services Tax (GST) was dead.

This was just halfway through the 9-month consultation period.

"It is clear from the views collected that we have not been able to convince the majority to accept GST as the main option to address the (narrow) tax base problem," he told the media.

He revealed that government had collected 2,200 written submissions in the past five months of consultations -- with 65 percent opposed to the plan and 30 percent in favour.

 

The GST had been a major talking point in the Special Administrative Region, and various business, academic and civil society groups organised numerous forums on the topic. It may be of interest to Singaporeans that government leaders themselves often participated in these non-governmental forums, in order to sell their plan.

(It is rare for Singapore leaders to "stoop so low" as to agree to go to civil society forums to take questions from the public. At most, they go as guests of honour, give a keynote address, declare an event open and then ceremoniously depart without facing any questions form the floor.)

One example of Hong Kong leaders engaging with the public could be seen in public forum organised by the City University of Hong Kong in November. 

Among the speakers on the panel was Frederick Ma Si-hang, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury. He was there to put forward the government’s case and vision for GST.

"The objectives of the proposed tax reforms are to broaden tax base and to maintain our international competitiveness," he said, "We are looking for a long-term solution to a long-term problem."

Despite their efforts, opposition to the new tax was strong from the beginning. Surveys conducted showed that about 60% of Hongkongers were against it.

On 6 August 2006, the pro-business Liberal Party -– the second-largest party in the SAR's Legislative Council, with 10 members out of 60 -– organised a march against the GST. Depending on whom you asked, 3,000 to 10,000 people attended.

* * * * *

 
I myself don't hold any opinion about Hong Kong's GST, since I am not familiar with the matter of the government's finances. The purpose of recounting the above highlights, however, is to show Singaporeans how different the process is in Hong Kong compared to Singapore. The democratic deficit we have is as clear as day.

To start with, the Singapore government, which has signalled a 2 percentage point increase in our GST from 5% to 7%, has not indicated that there'd be any public consultation period. Going by past instances when the GST was introduced or raised, there would not be any.

The nearest equivalent we have is the one-month consultation exercise now for the proposed amendments to the Penal Code, but we should note, it's one month only, compared to the 9 months the Hong Kong government gave its citizens to voice their views over the GST.

Lawyer Thomas Koshy criticised this in a commentary article he wrote for 'Today' newspaper about 2 weeks ago.

While it would be wonderful if many Singaporeans do give their feedback on the proposed amendments by the Dec 9 deadline, it may be useful also to take this opportunity to reassess the process involved in seeking feedback from the public.

To start with, it should be clarified what exactly the objective of the public consultation exercise is. Looking at the detailed Draft Bill already prepared, one cannot help thinking it is a fait accompli in that the broad policy decisions have already been made. Otherwise why prepare the Draft Bill in such detail before the public consultation?

Indeed, why was the public consultation held off for the years during which the Penal Code review was underway, only to be conducted in a short space of time and after the Draft Bill is ready?

If the experts tasked with the review took years to craft the proposed amendments, is it reasonable to expect the public to come up with meaningful feedback in the spare time they have during the month-long public consultation exercise?

--'Today' newspaper, 21 Nov 2006, 
How useful, this feedback process? 

It's true, the review of the Penal Code had been going on since before November 2003, yet only a month ago was the public invited to comment -- and given just 30 days to do so.

Koshy also took issue with the paucity of detail in the Consultation Paper.

One wonders also at the sparse nature of the Consultation Paper which does little more than broadly describe the proposed changes in just eight pages. While it is obvious that much detailed consideration went into the Draft Bill, little of this thought process has been set out in the Consultation Paper.

The paper does little to assist in understanding the proposed amendments. For example, the various new sexual offences proposed set out a panoply of permutations arising from different combinations of variables, including the trio of orifices, the duet of the sexes and the toggle of consent.

The challenge of drawing a common theme from the various offences framed could have quite easily been ameliorated if the Consultation Paper had been less terse.

What were the broad policy decisions made, and what factors impacted those decisions? What is the position in other jurisdictions and are they relevant to us? What has been said by the courts about these issues? How do the amendments gel with our other criminal laws? The questions are many but answers are few.

-- ibid

 

7% GST for Singapore still on?

One of the justifications for the proposed 2% increase in GST for Singapore was that we would soon need to lower our corporate and top personal tax rates. This was in view of Hong Kong being able to cut their rates in order the attract investment. 

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Parliament that Hong Kong would be able to cut its corporate tax rates as soon as it implemented its 5% GST, which should make up for the loss from direct taxation.

Singapore would have to do the same in order to compete, and thus a GST rate hike was needed here.

 
The government organised a generous total of 3 focus group sessions -- for invited guests only -- to obtain feedback. How certain persons become "invited guests" remains a mystery. No minister sat in on any of these focus group sessions to dialogue with the participants; instead the sessions were chaired by junior members of parliament who generally took the line that they were there not there to present the government's case, but merely to act as facilitators.

Nonetheless, when pressed, they sometimes revealed their positions, which aren't always a pretty sight. Their arguments can leave a thinking person less than impressed with the quality of thought behind the legislative proposals. For one example, see box on the right.

Outside of these 3 invitation-only focus groups, no public forums were organised by the government.

Some civil society groups did organise small forums themselves, but given the very short time period, it was difficult to get sufficient publicity out. In any case, the propsect of ministers attending to speak and answer questions was virtually nil, unlike Hong Kong.

Two other things you might have noticed about the process in Hong Kong: there was a march and there were opinion surveys. A march is out of the question in Singapore, unless organised by the government to show support for the government.

Opinion surveys are few and far between. The mainstream newspapers take great care as to what topics to survey people about, perhaps to avoid coming up with findings that are embarrassing to the government. As for privately-organised surveys, there is very little funding available. From a project that I was part of some years back, I learnt that even private funding agencies are extremely reluctant to fund any project with political overtones; they're wary of the government's reaction.

* * * * *

 
Hong Kong does not have universal suffrage. The method for electing its Chief Executive is also unacceptably indirect and susceptible to manipulation by Beijing. But while it may not have the forms of a democratic republic, it certainly has a lot more of the substance than we have, starting with respect for and a liberal attitude towards civil rights and public opinion.

That's why their public consultation process looks and feels so different from ours. That's also how the Hong Kong government can back down altogether, whereas in Singapore, nobody seriously expects the government to make any significant changes once they have staked out their ideological position, e.g. on the GST or on the criminalisation of homosexual sex.

Even its courts have a degree of spunk we can only dream of. See how its Court of Appeal struck down the law that imposed an unequal age of consent for homosexual sex, on the ground of discrimination, in the essay What we've yet to see, hear or speak of.

Interestingly, PAP Member of Parliament Hri Kumar told reporters last weekend that

the party "must be wary of focusing on the form and ignoring the substance". Mr Kumar added "There is no point in having dialogues, either in person or electronically, if you have nothing interesting or useful to say, or are not willing to listen …

-- 'Today' newspaper, 4 December 2006

Alas he was only talking about PAP MPs engaging with youths, not about the bigger issue of whether there is real democracy in Singapore.

© Yawning Bread 

 

Logic has little to do with whether the law stands or not…

Here is an excerpt from a report by a young woman who attended one of the focus groups. It's not a verbatim record of the exchange, but based on her memory soon afterwards.

The young woman was arguing for the repeal of Section 377A which criminalises "gross indecency" between men. Ellen Lee and Indranee Rajah were the People's Action Party (PAP) backbenchers chairing the session.

EXCERPT BEGIN

Me: What two people do in their bedrooms, what happens between two mutually consenting adults, is really no one else’s business.

Ellen Lee: That’s where you are wrong

Indranee [Rajah]: Logic has little to do with whether the law stands or not… It is more about maintaining the status quo. [follows up with point about religious groups being upset]

Me: But we are supposed to be a secular country. What if I am a Hindu or Buddhist, and I want to be gay? It is not right for the Muslims and Christians to force their values on me. So what if two people have gay sex? Your typical Christian or Muslim family is not going to be affected if this happens. Their homes, their mortgages, their families, their careers, their salaries, none of this is affected just because two people have gay sex. So I do not see the logic of them trying to keep this law, when it does not affect them.

Indranee [Rajah]: You are right, it does not have a physical impact on them. But it is more of an emotional impact, and what kind of message we are sending by removing the law. We have to look at parents. They might be afraid that their children will turn gay, if they see other people being gay, and they think it is okay to be gay.

Me: But there is ample scientific evidence that homosexuality is inherent, or due to womb conditions. So no one really chooses to be gay.

EXCERPT END

From a separate source, I heard that at around this point, a mother stood up to say "you spoke about parents not wanting their children to be gay, but there are parents of gay children who do not want them to be treated as criminals."

Did you notice the admission from Indranee Rajah that logic has little to do with whether to retain the law? Do you not find it alarming that laws are going to be passed on such a basis? If they don't feel embarrassed to be taking such a position in public, do you think they're really prepared to listen to arguments?

 

Footnotes

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