Let's do more to engage Singaporeans in the House

By Ignatius Low, The Straits Times, 7 Mar 2012

THEY are there at many parliamentary sessions these days, but yesterday was the first time I properly noticed them.

I'm talking about the students who troop into Parliament House on school excursions. They sit down and quietly listen to proceedings for maybe an hour. Then their teachers make them stand up and bow to the Speaker before they take their leave.

As a student, I never had the privilege of attending a live session. So I found myself wondering yesterday what these teens would have made of their hour in the land's highest decision-making body.

Truth be told, it depended on what time they stepped into the Chamber. Take yesterday's Committee of Supply proceedings as an example.

The debates over the budgets of the Law and Foreign Affairs ministries must have seemed particularly bewildering to these young minds. Members of the House discussed the geopolitics of the region, including the rise of China. The domestic talk centred on difficult-to-follow issues like intellectual property and police procedures.

The debate wore on but there was little change in the Government's positions or policies on many matters. It was Parliament at its most intimidating, not just for the students but perhaps some of the adults who had ventured into the House as well.

But the students who came in after the mid-session break saw a very different side of Parliament.

The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) debate was chock-full of everyday issues like the building of hawker centres.

The body language of these students was obviously different as they listened, rapt with attention, to a whole slew of interesting suggestions by MPs.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) had a problem with the Government's plan to build 10 new hawker centres in 10 years. It's too slow, he declared. Build 20 in five years, and they needn't be big - 'bite-sized' was his clever pun.

Ms Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon GRC) suggested that residents living near a hawker centre should have priority in leasing stalls, and Mr Gan Thiam Poh (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) suggested fixing food prices to keep things affordable. Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied GRC) echoed the views of many when she said dirty tables are a big problem and suggested that the Government take over the contract to clean tables.

Mr Cedric Foo (Pioneer) was among many MPs anxious to know if their constituencies would be getting new hawker centres, in contrast to the not-in-my-backyard syndrome we saw with eldercare facilities - no one wants those in their neighbourhoods. He drew giggles with his own unique pitch to the ministry: 'Build one at Pioneer SMC, after all, we are known as 'pioneer'!'

That quip was bettered only by Mr Liang, who urged the Government to 'declare war' on smoking and catch inconsiderate smokers who throw cigarette butts out of high-rise windows. 'Send the cigarette butts for DNA testing!' he roared as his fellow MPs struggled to keep from guffawing.

When Senior Minister of State Grace Fu eventually rose to speak, she dealt with their concerns one by one, and announced what seemed to be instant changes in policy in response to feedback.

A Department of Public Cleanliness would be set up to look into everything from littering to cleaning hawker centres. The Government would also outlaw subletting new hawker stalls, permit joint tenancy and remove the reserve price for rentals.

It would have been hard, even as a teen, not to get more than a little excited during that hour. After all, this was perhaps as good as it gets in Singapore's parliamentary democracy - MPs speaking out on everyday issues that affect the people and the Government tweaking its policies in response.

As the students filed out of the public gallery, I wondered if any of them might have been inspired enough to want to come back to the Chamber in the future - and this time not as a spectator.

The potential of this happening made me think of how important the accessibility of parliamentary debate is to the future of this country.

There are two senses of the word. The first is the accessibility of the content of the debate.

The debates before the break might have sounded a little boring, but touched on vital and interesting issues like fairness in our legal system and the threat of conflict in our backyard. But should members of the House pay heed to explaining these harder, technical issues in a more engaging manner - so the public can better understand their import?

The second accessibility I am referring to is the lack of access the public now has to the full parliamentary debate. It was a shame, really, that only 50 or so students and a handful of walk-ins from the public got to witness something like the MEWR debate or any other important debate for that matter.

In this day and age, the trade-offs of policymaking should be made more accessible to an electorate that grows more interested in politics by the day. I guess it is for this reason that debates are broadcast live in many developed nations, though the audience is tiny and it does not make commercial sense.

Singapore adopts the other model of broadcasting such debates - excerpt it into a short prime-time bulletin that commands higher audience numbers.

Could it be time that we change our model?

With more people watching and no fallback on video-editing, MPs may feel the need to raise their game and this could improve the quality of debate.

The conventional wisdom is that a new generation was 'awakened' politically by the recent general election. The next logical step would be to do much more to engage these Singaporeans as they take front-row seats in national policymaking.