Opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) is appealing against the High Court’s latest decision dismissing its application to cancel the correction direction over its claim that Singapore’s population would reach nearly 10 million by 2030.
The matter initially arose from a comment put forth by Secretary-General Dr Chee Soon Juan during a televised 2020 General Elections (GE) debate, where he said that the People’s Action Party (PAP) was “toying with the idea” of having a population of 10 million.
“The word ‘toying’ denotes the consideration of an idea, especially in a casual manner. This is far from an assertion that the government was ‘aiming, targeting or planning’ for a population of 10 million,” said SDP in a media release on Friday (May 13).
On Tuesday (May 10), High Court Justice Woo Bih Li dismissed SDP’s application to cancel the government’s correction direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).
Background on what happened
During the GE debate, Dr Chee asked Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan if the government had plans to increase the country’s population to 10 million, noting this was mentioned by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.
Dr Chee later posted a 2019 article from The Straits Times on his Facebook account, which highlighted Mr Heng’s comments at a Nanyang Technological University forum.
According to the article, Mr Heng cited former chief planner Liu Thai Ker who said in 2014 that Singapore should plan for a 10 million population to remain sustainable in the long term.
However, Mr Heng later clarified this statement did not mean Singapore should increase its population to that size and that he was “far from endorsing this.”
SDP also published a press release on its Facebook page citing Housing and Development Board (HDB) chief executive Dr Cheong Koon Hean in a 2018 lecture entitled “Anticipating Our Urban Future – Trends, Threats and Transformation.”
“Building flexibility into our plans also requires us to develop plans which can accommodate a larger population. Dr Liu Thai Ker has advocated planning for a projected population of 10 million,” said Dr Cheong in the lecture.
“His view has generated debate. No doubt, there will continue to be much discussion on what might be an appropriate population size for Singapore,” he added.
Dr Cheong calculated that Singapore’s population density would increase from 11,000 people per square kilometres to 13,700 people per sq km by 2030.
“Given our land area, this means that our population would go up to nearly 10 million by 2030,” said SDP in the same post.
The party also cited former foreign minister George Yeo when he said, “If you plan for more and we don’t reach that number, then Singapore will be very spacious.”
“The corollary to Mr Yeo’s statement is as such – if we had planned for more [people] and attained that number, Singapore would have successfully anticipated a bigger population,” said SDP.
PAP then hit back at SDP’s claims, noting the 10 million population claim was a “key plank in SDP’s election campaign”, and a “falsehood (which) renders the campaign pointless, and calls into question the integrity of the whole party.”
In its latest statement, SDP said, “Taken into context what Dr Cheong, and in particular, Dr Liu and Mr Yeo have additionally expressed publicly, the idea of a population size of 10 million – having been discussed among former and current senior government officials – cannot be dismissed out-of-hand.”
Hence, the phrase “the government was ‘toying with the idea’ of 10 million people” is a reasonably-formed opinion and is a statement that the government has not issued a POFMA against, it added.
“While we respect the decision of the Judge, it is our opinion that the statement made in our post on HDB CEO Dr Cheong Koon Hean’s lecture also should not be construed as a statement falsely and deliberately made without any basis.”
“The SDP will seek leave to appeal Justice Woo’s ruling,” said SDP. /TISG