Singapore must ensure no one is left behind as country progresses: PM

As Singapore progresses, it needs to also ensure the country's poor are not disadvantaged or left behind, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at a recent dialogue with Singaporeans.

He also stressed that in Singapore's meritocratic system, every effort should be made to bring everyone to a good starting point.

This would give everyone a fair chance to do well and compete, regardless of whether they are from rich or poor families or whether their parents have connections or not, he added.

Mr Lee was speaking to 530 grassroots leaders at a closed-door post-National Day Rally dialogue organised by the People's Association and held on Oct 14.

Transcripts of his opening remarks and part of the question-and-answer session were released to the media yesterday.

Economic cooperation is progressing, and President Jokowi hopes to attract more Singapore investments.

Mr Lee, who was in Bali earlier this month for an annual retreat with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi.

A significant portion of his speech was on the hot-button issues of income inequality and social mobility, topics that have dominated the national discourse in recent years.

Inequality and the lack of social mobility are threats to the Government's objective of improving the lives of everyone, he said.

But inequality is not unique, he noted. It exists everywhere, and it has always existed in Singapore.

"In every society, there is a certain amount of inequality and there is no society where the top and the bottom are the same," he said.

In Singapore, "if you look back 50 years, a lot of people were poor and lived miserably, and still there were rich towkays (business owners) and landlords. And there was a range from the rich to the poor".

PROGRESSIVE

Over the years, he said, the Government has worked hard to lessen the inequality through a progressive income tax system and high-quality and affordable housing, education and healthcare for all.

But Mr Lee believes safeguarding social mobility is even more important than reducing inequality.

The High-Speed Rail (HSR) was an issue potentially, but we worked out a two-year deferment for the HSR project and that was a constructive resolution of what could have been a spiky dispute. I hope that at the retreat, we will be able to look ahead, to discuss win-win opportunities in order to deepen our cooperation and friendship.

Mr Lee, who will travel to Putrajaya to meet his Malaysian counterpart, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, for a leaders' retreat next month./cite>

"Because people can accept that some are rich, some are poor, provided if I am poor I have a chance to work hard and get better off."

He added: "If I am poor, my children have a chance to study hard and improve their lives. And if they improve their lives, they will improve my life."

That is what happened in the previous generation, and many successful people today came from poor families, Mr Lee said.

"But if it is not like that, if people are poor, say, there is no hope, the doors are closed, that they will always remain poor, and their children too, no matter what they do, then I do not think people will accept it."

For that reason, a lot of government policies are targeted at preventing social stratification from taking root in Singapore, he said.

Citing pre-school education for all, Mr Lee said the move is to ensure that if parents cannot afford to send their child to a "posh place, you still have a good and affordable pre-school, which will bring you to a good point when you reach Primary 1, and you are at a good point to start your formal education".

Similarly, Housing Board towns are designed such that rental blocks and sold flats of various sizes are mixed, so that people of different income groups get to interact, he said.

"Because we want high- and low-income families to live together side by side, get along with one another, interact with one together," he said.

Mr Lee also outlined how, in the past few years, the Government has been tackling issues of concern to Singaporeans.

These include improving the frequency and reliability of public transport, increasing the supply of new flats, building more hospitals and polyclinics to reduce crowding and waiting times, and improving the education system and making it more affordable.

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