Another minister tries telling jokes

Whether a policy will be popular at the ballot box is not a factor that the Government takes into account before implementing it, Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam said yesterday.

Instead, the Government’s focus has always been about getting policies right, he said, using the recently-announced Pioneer Generation Package as an example.

 The Government would not have fully funded the S$8 billion package from its current account surplus this year if it were “thinking purely in terms of electoral calculations”, said Mr Shanmugam. (Saturday’s Today)

Come on pull the other leg, it’s got bells. So Shan is trying to be Tharman, telling jokes?

Notwithstanding the criticisms in TOC, TRE, and the other usual suspects, there is quiet satisfaction among the oldies (and the children) that I know, that the package while not that generous shows that the govt is willing to listen. And why is the govt listening? There is an election coming in which it wants to obtain more than the 60% of the popular vote. So it does what elected govts do, buy votes. In our case, it’s will our money, not borrowed money as is common in the West. Whatever the method, it’s still vote buying.

My other serious point is that by saying govt “will do what’s right, not what’s popular”, he implies that the unpopular measure is always  the right policy. Come on pull the other leg, it’s got bells. He cannot be serious. The transport policy of Raymond Lim (if commuters want basic comfort, they will have to pay GST),  and the public housing policy of Minister Mah (prices fly in a recession) were unpopular, and wrong. By sacking them (OK not denying they were sacked, and they didn’t get cushy GLC jobs did they?), and reversing their policies, the govt admitted they were wrong.

Minister should stick to his day job of being the pet minister, administering to the concerns of pet owners. And making them happy enough with his performance to vote for the PAP: Most pet owners are “Calm Persistence”: their votes matter. The contradiction that the PAP has to solve if he continues doing the great job that he is doing is that he shows up the performance of Yaacob and Isawran, the ministers responsible for two minority races. Their underwhelming performance surely will alienate those minorities who don’t have pets?