Reimagining Singapore’s Progress for Well-being in the New Era
I would like to thank all my colleagues for all the policies and for working so hard to tackle very immediate and near-term challenges that we are facing as a nation. It gives me great trust and also gives me the liberty to set my sights further into the future.
I ask this House for its indulgence to listen with an open heart, an open mind, an open will as well as an open imagination for what I would like to share in my speech today.
I am very thankful and glad for the Budget provisions that Deputy Prime Minister Wong has made for Singaporeans, especially the measures to increase paternity and parental leave as well as the legislation to advance flexible work arrangements as a norm.
All these go a long way to enhance the well-being of our people and it has been long due. I am very inspired by the theme of this year’s Budget – “Moving Forward into a New Era”. It is time, I feel, for us to think boldly in order to meet the new realities we are facing as a nation as well as globally.
On our shores, our workforce is burnt out – 57% of our workforce said burnout was the leading factor affecting their mental health during the pandemic.
Abroad, quiet quitting, a phenomenon that emerged last year, is a silent protest within the workforce across the developed world against a state of work that is demanding too much of people.
The cost of living is going up drastically. Our core inflation was just 1% in 2019. Last year, it was 4%. It is no longer just the bottom 10% or 15% of Singaporeans who feel anxious about their ability to put food on the table. Our middle-class Singaporeans are also feeling anxious. Singaporeans are working harder than ever before and our standard of living has improved.
In my parents’ younger days, for most families, a rare treat was going to the movies and buying a 10-cent kacang putih wrapped in newspaper. Today, having a $4 cup of bubble tea or coconut shake might be an equivalent, and for certain more well-off segments of our population, it might be enjoyed too frequently to be considered an indulgence. Many more of us can afford more things in life, many more non-essential things to adorn our lives, but we do not seem to be happier.
Our sense of insecurity about meeting basic needs appears to be getting worse. Of course, these anxieties are real and pressing, given that there is inflation and various global uncertainties presenting multiple pressures.
At the same time, we are also one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and we have emerged out of COVID-19 triumphant. So, what else might be perpetuating and driving this pervasive sense of insecurity? Is it perhaps time to rethink and review our national narrative and model of progress that we are just a small red dot with no resources, constantly fighting for our survival? With this narrative, we have pushed our people harder and harder, through various iterations of workforce development initiatives and industry transformation maps, relentlessly chasing for ever higher productivity.
Is this survivalist narrative presenting a disconnect with the fact and reality of our progress? Could it be entrenching more anxiety in our people than is really necessary? My honorable colleague Mr Sitoh Yih Pin’s comment in his speech yesterday resonated with me. Is it really true that our glass is always half empty and are our prospects as a nation only getting bleaker? Is the best already behind us, or is our best yet to be?
Other than within the geopolitical context, is it really still true that Singapore is vulnerable with no resources to rely on? I challenge that notion. From our humble beginnings in the 1960s to 2023, we have become a nation that is abundant in many aspects. We have a world class education system, we have built robust financial system and governance structures with a stellar reputation for trade and business, we have greatly admired urban planning blueprints and methodologies that many countries are keen to learn from. We continuously innovate and we have a population of people who are honest, hardworking and seen as a reliable and trustworthy pool of talent internationally.
Since our Independence, our main priority has been economic growth because it had to be thus far. Economic progress was the way to survival for a nation scarce in natural resources. It helped us, Singaporeans make great leaps in our quality of life that many countries today are envious of. Hence, it is only natural that economic growth seems to be the only way we understand quality of life. It has served us so well that it may seem mad to anyone to talk about deliberately slowing down economic growth.
But is it not equally mad, to continue this drive for ever higher economic growth when our only resource – human resource – is coming under great threat? In the Singapore Youth Epidemiology and Resilience Study last year, involving over 3,000 young people aged 11 to 18, it was found that one in three youths in Singapore has reported internalising mental health symptoms. How will this impact our workforce and the quality of our talent pool, and how may our current way of life be contributing to this phenomenon?
If the premise for our nation’s progress is that human resources are our biggest national resource, then protecting it and allowing it to thrive should be the key agenda. Economic growth and the ever-growing demand for increased productivity despite a rapidly ageing workforce and potentially zero growth in our labour force is taking a toll on a whole generation of people.
I urge this House and Singaporeans to seriously consider a different model of progress. After all, what is growth for, if not for our people’s well-being? As hon Member Mr Seah Kian Peng also reminded us during his speech, that our founding father Mr Lee Kuan Yew made it his business to ensure our people’s happiness. How can a people be happy, if we are constantly anxious, or under stress?
In the background of many anxieties lies the real existential threat and crisis of the global fossil fuel and climate change crisis.
The stark reality: according to the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the biosphere at Stanford University, the world will be out of coal by 2090. By the world, it means the human race. It means us. As Ms Poh Li San and Mr Lim Wee Kiak has reminded us, our electricity is 95% reliant on natural gas. What happens when we are out of natural gas by 2060?
In Statistical Review of World Energy through British Petroleum as well as many other sources, it tells us that at our current rate of consumption, we will be out of oil in 47 years’ time. When that happens, I will be hopefully still alive at 87 years old, my nieces and many of my young residents will be in their 50s or 60s. The children born today will be only 47 years old.
I am not alone in feeling anxious about climate change. In a survey of 10,000 youths, including Singaporean youth, close to 60% have felt “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change, with 45% reporting that this anxiety negatively affects their daily lives.
Climate anxiety is a logical reaction to an existential threat. This is the single most important threat we face as Singaporeans. It is a huge obstacle that stands in the way of our progress as a nation.
Economic growth has resulted in increased energy consumption, which then leads to greater greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide – all these emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to global warming, climate change, extreme weather conditions.
Our current economic model does not account for our people, our planet’s well-being as a measure of growth. We need a more sustainable, tenable model of progress that does not leave our planet and our people’s well-being out of the equation, but instead sees progress and wellness as one and the same that respects the Earth’s limits. I want to make sure that what we do today ensures that we pass on a thriving Earth, not a depleting one to our next generation.
Governments around the world are investing in green technology and alternative energy research in a bid to slow down this global energy depletion and mitigate this threat.
While such efforts are absolutely necessary, it is not enough. We urgently need to look beyond. Solar, hydro, nuclear, while they present good options as alternative energy sources, are still highly complex and highly extractive in nature. What do I mean by extractive? It means they still require vast amounts of steel, metal and materials to build the necessary infrastructure and equipment to harness secondary sources of energy.
What happens when we run out of the materials to run these plants that power our lights, our transport, our computers? Our primary source of energy – fossil fuels, which took millions of years to form, is now running out. The only way to avoid the crisis is to consume and produce in ways that are transformatively different from before.
If we do not start regenerating our Earth, we are consuming it to death, and putting humanity on the trajectory to an era of war and destructive competition, which is already beginning to set in.
Once we understand these key truths of the 21st century, as political leaders, we must have the gumption to lead our people to a different future.
One of the world’s most important living economists, Kate Raworth, designed a new economic model to guide countries’ transition from having an extractive relationship with the Earth, to a more harmonious one. It is called Doughnut Economics. It sounds delicious too.
It provides a map for how to establish a better relationship between the economy, the planet and people. It illustrates an outer ring which is the limit that Earth can support and an inner ring which is the base that we need to build to allow humans to thrive. Our actions, our policies, will have to reside between those two rings. Going beyond the outer ring or falling within the inner ring and we will be in trouble. This model values well-being and a solid social foundation that helps people to rely on one another and nature harmoniously to meet our needs.
In order for us and our world to survive, we must slow down the rate of economic growth, or our future generations will suffer its consequences. This requires us to reshape our national narrative and understanding of progress. Ms Nadia Samdin asked a really important and worthy question – can there be a different version of the Singaporean dream?
Progress in the next era of growth for Singapore must be measured less in terms of economic numbers, and account for our human limits and planet limits. I offer a motto that not only gives us hope, but also gives practical steps in guiding us towards a future beyond fossil fuels. The motto is: Share More, Use Less, Waste Not.
I propose two key imperatives we must start doing.
One, cultivate sharing communities by re-designing work and housing to optimise resources and extend the “reduce” pillar to the ways we live and work.
Making work-from-home the norm for professions that allow it can drastically reduce daily transport fuel consumption, reduce vehicles on the roads and reduce the need to keep building more roads or expressways. It would also improve work-life balance. The Government can set an example by making work-from-home the norm across the civil service and associated statutory boards.
On the housing front, creating more community living formats such as the ones we are piloting in Queenstown to aid in eldercare. Community Care Apartments (CCAs) can be built also for single parent families, families with special needs members and co-living precincts for young adults and singles can be designed and built in neighbouring precincts to these CCAs, so that they can conveniently volunteer for these families who need more help.
For all we know, co-living communities for singles could help us to improve our marriage and birth rates! I will elaborate more on these in my Commitee of Supply cuts.
In our daily lives, we currently have an increasing norm of online shopping where we can buy something for as cheap as $1, $3 and have it shipped to your door in layers of boxing and packaging. Such rates of consumption as a norm for a society creates tremendous waste of energy and resources.
Instead, we can make swapping and sharing the default way of life to reduce wasteful consumption. Creating a sharing culture has already begun in Nee Soon South, where we piloted a “Shwap” initiative, for people to “shop” for pre-loved clothing that others would like to give away. I intend to extend this effort beyond clothing to other daily use items, so that within our neighbourhoods, people can swap items they no longer need for items that others want to give away.
I hope that every neighbourhood can have a sharing movement to make this the new norm for Singaporeans.
Two, invest in permaculture and other regenerative nature-based solutions and research.
Localised permaculture reduces the carbon footprint of growing and transporting food. It helps to capture carbon from the environment. It will also help us reduce our dependence on foreign industrial agricultural techniques that have worsened the climate crisis. I will elaborate more on this during the Committee of Supply cuts, on how permaculture holds multiple benefits, including increasing our food security.
In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, Americian President Roosevelt implemented a “New Deal”, which greatly invested in environmental conservation. It was a huge risk at the time and went against conventional wisdom. But it paid off.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who said towards the end of World War II, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. In fact, many of our own Ministers have said similar things in Parliament, especially in the last two years of the pandemic – that we can turn crisis into opportunity.
Getting a miracle out of a crisis is not new to Singapore. We created a miracle when we became independent in 1965 and became a first-world nation by the 1990s. Similarly, I believe we have what it takes to turn the global energy crisis into another miracle with our unique Singapore way. Investing in and rebuilding our relationship with the planet has the potential to open up new industries for Singapore to be leaders in, and improve the economic opportunities for our people.
I am very glad that the Green Economy initiative under the SG Green Plan has already started to invest in nature-based technologies and research. This needs to start as early in life as possible, so that our current children can be “Nature Natives” and not just “Digital Natives” in the new global reality. I urge that we make it a top priority and extend nature-based pedagogy to our early childhood and primary education. Again, I will elaborate more in my MOE Committee of Supply cut.
Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong mentioned during his Budget speech that we need to increase Singapore’s resilience in response to climate realities. He mentioned efforts in coastal protection and so on, to prepare us for rising sea levels. These measures are critical. But we need to go beyond and take an even more proactive approach to pioneer a new way of life that the world can look to.
We have the opportunity to be a global change-maker by engineering and actualising a new model of progress. If we put our hearts and minds together, we can achieve this, referencing the Doughnut Economic Model, applied to our specific Singaporean context.
Given how small we are as a country, we may not significantly impact the actual amount of energy saved globally. But we still can make a really substantial impact by showing and leading the way to a different progress model. In doing so, we can inspire other urban cities and countries to chart their own path to a more regenerative economy that meets the needs of all.
Our strong social fabric, highly collaborative, cooperative population and high trust between Singaporeans and our Government are the assets that we have to rely on to do this well.
Forward Singapore should be an exercise ambitious and daring enough to rally our citizenry towards the big picture – a future where Social and Ecological well-being is valued equally with economic well-being.
What I look forward to, as do many Singaporeans of my generation and younger, is a regenerative city state and a system that ensures the well-being of our People and Planet. We must start to intentionally REdesign our way of life, work and play.
To do this, Ministries including National Development —
Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Tan, you have a minute to round up.
Ms Carrie Tan: To do this, Ministries including National Development, Sustainability and Environment, Health, Manpower, Trade and Industry must work together and adopt a lens of ensuring the wellness of our people and planet is adopted across all efforts. I urge the Government to set up a Coordinating Ministry for Wellness help implement this, to land a sustainability land across all Ministries.
A truly progressive nation is one in which its people are well. Imagine a society that consumes less, are people who work less, but connects more and are happier and healthier for it.
I was very moved by Senior Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua’s speech earlier. Perhaps it is time for us to collectively take a pause, a slowdown, to smell the roses and perhaps that is what it truly takes for our nation to be able to be truly wealthy in our minds, bodies and spirit.
I am thankful for this year’s Budget. I would like to say, we have what it takes, let us go further and beyond!
Watch the speech here.