Singapore — Should the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) take the same tack at the Workers Party in Parliament?
At least one netizen thinks so and he decided to play consultant to Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Leong Mun Wai and told him he needed to adopt the Workers’ Party’s (WP) approach.
In a Facebook post on the SG Opposition page, Mr Hin Leong Ong gave Mr Leong this advice from Workers Party veteran Low Thia Khiang “for your consideration”.
This is the quote from Mr Low he offered:
“So I came to a conclusion. You can talk until the cows come home, debate until the cows come home in Parliament. The PAP will not change. It is the people, the electorate that have to show them, they have to change.”
Mr Low said this when he was interviewed for a Workers Party documentary posted to YouTube on November 30, 2017 to mark the party’s 60th anniversary. “Walking with Singapore: Road to 2011” is a two-part documentary.
In his post, Mr Ong advised Mr Leong: “Please focus your time and energy on winning votes at the grassroots like Workers’ Party”.
He was commenting on Mr Leong’s speech during the Oct 4 debate on the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act or Fica which was later passed. Mr Leong said his party, PSP, while strongly against foreign meddling in Singapore’s affairs, could not support the Bill in its current form.
“So is there a need to give this Government further powers to deal with foreign interference… Can’t we just tighten some of the existing laws slightly?” Mr Leong said in Parliament.
Mr Leong also said that a Bill as complex as Fica should not be “rushed” through Parliament amid a worsening Covid-19 situation in Singapore. It had been tabled three weeks ago oSept 13, he said at the time, and “many members of this House are probably not adequately prepared for a thorough debate today”.
Mr Leong did not succeed calling for consideration of Bill to be pushed back by three to six months, noting that a two-month public consultation was established for the Copyright Bill earlier this year, and that Pofma underwent a process lasting more than a year, which included a hearing by a Select Committee. /TISG