The Workers’ Party logo is probably one of the most recognisable, which even the young ones can identify with. That is exactly what happened when Nathaniel Koh was on his regular house visits in Marine Parade GRC with his fellow party members recently.
“During our visit to residents of Marine Drive on Thursday evening, I spoke with a Primary four student from Tao Nan School who was very happy to recognise the Hammer logo and said very gently, “I know the Workers’ Party. It’s an opposition party,”” posted Koh on Facebook.
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Continuing on his house visit, a topic that Koh had with a resident is a common issue that many Singaporeans had brought up with political parties.
“Another conversation I had was with a young woman in her late 20s who was concerned about whether she could afford a HDB flat with her partner in the future, given their income levels and increasing cost of living.”
WP’s member of parliament Jamus Lim recently urged the government to deal with the high cost of living and to act now to address inflation. The party also rejected the GST hike, which is set to rise from seven per cent to eight per cent in 2023. It will further increase to nine per cent in 2024.
“Over the past six years, inflation was sufficiently contained that our real wages grew by almost 3 percent annually. But if inflation had grown at the rate it did this past six months, our incomes would have shrunk instead,” said Lim.
“The government has announced that it will press ahead with the GST hike in 2023. The Workers’ Party has argued in Parliament against such a move at a time of heightened inflation risk and with other options for revenue generation”, said the party earlier in the year.
“The Workers’ Party does not support a GST hike. We agree with the government that ‘we must expect global inflation to broaden to other areas and even to pick up further’. Inflation continues to rise and is at a decade high, and Singaporeans are bearing the brunt of it”, the party added.
Another resident that Koh spoke to during his rounds at Marine Parade GRC, was a lady in her mid-50s that was finding it hard to secure a part-time job due to her age.
“She has been trying to get a good part-time job for a couple of years. But has been discouraged that whenever, upon being asked, she reveals her age to the potential employer, she gets a “I’ll call you back” response but almost never gets a call back,” shared Koh who was also joined by Fadli Fawzi.
Both Koh and Fadli contested at the Marine Parade GRC in the 2020 Singapore General Election. The WP’s team included former non-constituency member of parliament Yee Jenn Jong. They garnered 42% of the votes against the PAP team led by Tan Chuan Jin and Edwin Tong.