SINGAPORE: It is a “balancing act” to respect the past but not allow it to constrain Singapore’s options for the future, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday (Aug 23) – his 100th day in office.
Mr Wong said in his first National Day Rally speech last week that his team would honour and respect the past by upholding the fundamentals that served Singapore well. However, he added that his team must also be bold, look for better solutions and choose the best way forward for the country.
Elaborating on this during a press conference on Friday, Mr Wong said multiculturalism, an ethos of self-reliance and a focus on families are important values and fundamentals that his team wants to preserve.
“So if we understand what these are, then we don’t discard and we retain them, even as we think about making bold changes,” he said.
A “clear illustration” of this is how his team thought about unemployment benefits, he said.
“It’s something that the government, all this while, for many, many decades, has had reservations about. For good reasons, because we have seen how unemployment insurance in other countries has led to negative effects.
“But it doesn’t mean that we cannot do something different in Singapore, appropriately designed for our circumstances and well-designed to minimise the negative effects we’ve seen elsewhere.”
During his National Day Rally speech, Mr Wong introduced a new SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme to help lower- and middle-income workers with temporary financial support if they lose their jobs. Job seekers will get up to S$6,000 (US$4,600) over up to six months while they go for training, job matching and career coaching.
“(The scheme) allows us to find that right balance, doing something different, something new. But at the same time, putting in place appropriate conditions that will also require individuals to do their part, to work hard, to get career coaching, to get skills training and job management.”
Responding to a reporter’s question about how the Budget will be adjusted to accommodate the additional expenses, Mr Wong said: “We will find the budget … a lot of the initiatives that we are undertaking under Forward Singapore, which I’ve announced, will require additional resources.”
He added that the government had already started thinking about rising expenditure requirements due to aging populations and rising social expenditures, and knew that it would have to put in place tax changes and adjustments to ensure sufficient revenue for the medium term.
“We will make sure that … all of these new social initiatives that incur additional resources will be met by sufficient revenues in a way that’s fiscally sustainable.”