Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Treat immigrants fairly and well

Friday, January 01, 2010

Treat immigrants fairly and well

Many Singaporeans disagree with the recent policy of the Government to allow a big influx of foreigners into Singapore for whatever reasons, i.e. to boost our economic growth or to compensate for our low birth rate. This has created a lot of problems for the locals, which has not been properly recognized, i.e. competition for jobs, over-crowding and other social problems.

Some have suggested measures to differentiate between "old" and "new" citizens, between citizens and permanent residents and so on. I think that it is better to adopt a policy of treating everyone equally, as far as possible, in the daily lives.

We have to remember that many immigrants have made big sacrifices to come to live and work in Singapore. Some have borrowed and paid large sums of money to migrate to Singapore. If we accept them, it is our duty, as decent people, to treat them fairly and well. We should not deny them the right to have proper housing and fair wages. If they become permanent residents and citizens, they should be entitled to the usual benefits that are given to residents.

We should get away from the bad policy of differentiating different groups of people according to their residency status, graduate status, type of housing, income levels and other "rules". This causes disputes and unhappiness, pits one group of people against another group and will result in a fractious society.

We have to recognize a severe disadvantage placed on our male citizens in having to serve two years of full time National Service and the continuing liability of being called up regularly for in-camp training. We need to find ways to reduce or remove this disadvantage.

Tan Kin Lian

10 comments:

Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

i fully agree to the principle suggested in Mr Tan's post. If we agree to absorb someone into the family he becomes one of us, a citizen.

It is poor Governance - to deliberately discriminate against a new citizen. If there never was an intention to welcome him/her, then in the first place we should simply let such person stay here on Work permit basis, DO NOT APPROVE his citizenship application if you intend to discriminate against him.

WE THE CITIZENS OF SINGAPORE .. pledge ourselves as one UNITED PEOPLE. Once you agree to let someone in the house, be fair to him. Otherwise don't open the door an accord him/her citizenship!!

Finally, let me give an analogy. There is a rocky road and a paved road. For overall progress and good journey, let us make two paved roads. Equality doesn't mean you start to put rocks on the paved road and say you have achieved fairness because now both roads are rocky. I think it is very childish if not sadistic, for anyone to think of such kind of solutions.

REX; January 01, 2010 9:31 AM
Anonymous said...: There is growing unhappiness among the people as the govt has failed to ensure that the basic infrastructure such as hospitals, transport system, housing, etc, keeps up with the influx of foreigners now residing in Spore.

What is more disappointing is that the govt continues to claim that the surge in population is not a problem and brush aside our complains as being frivolous. Ministers being accorded privileges do not have to experience what the normal people have to go through everyday; having to wait hours when we visit hospitals, squeezing on the MRT and buses when we go to work everyday, and not being able to afford public housing given the sky rocketing prices, etc.

The term ‘public servant’ is a misnomer as they government is not listening and serving us well, but still getting paid handsomely for it. I don’t think there are many jobs in Spore where the salary for the same position has increased at a compounded annual rate of 6.7% over the past 15 years except for the Spore Govt eg PM salary in 1994 -$1.15 milion vs S$3.04 million in 2009. I am not against foreign immigrants, rather I am unhappy that the government did not ensure the necessary infrastructures are in place before allowing such a large number of immigrants in.; January 01, 2010 10:24 AM
Anonymous said...: It seems that they are too absorb into they very own version of SinCity!
They play with numbers, numbers sure excite the top brain.
It seems they are too engross in the GAME...

"SimCity is a city-building simulation game, first released in 1989 and designed by Will Wright. SimCity was Maxis' first product, which has since been ported into various personal computers and game consoles, and spawned several sequels including SimCity 2000 in 1993, SimCity 3000 in 1999, SimCity 4 in 2003, SimCity DS, and SimCity Societies in 2007. The original SimCity was later renamed SimCity Classic. Until the release of The Sims in 2000, the SimCity series was the best-selling line of computer games made by Maxis.

SimCity spawned a series of Sim games. Since the release of SimCity, similar simulation games have been released focusing on different aspects of reality such as business simulation in Capitalism."; January 01, 2010 10:44 AM
Anonymous said...: I agreed with mr.tan 110% esp on ns part.; January 01, 2010 11:36 AM
A Singaporean said...: I don't think Singaporeans are against immigrants per se. On a personal level, I wish them well. I think what we don't like is that the government has allowed way too many immigrants to enter Singapore. This causes a host of other problems, which have been discussed elsewhere so I see no need of repeating them here.; January 01, 2010 11:54 AM
Anonymous said...: Last time in China, an expert warned that it was wrong for China to have too many people. Chairman Mao did not agreed, and thought that a large population was good for China. So what happened to that expert?
20-30 years later, when China realised it was very difficult to support a large population, the leaders forced every family to have only one child.
Now 6 persons in an extended family (four grandparents & two parents) are revolving around a "little emporer" - be it boy or girl, in every "extended family".

In the 70s, when we have about 2.5 population, we stoped at two becase we were worried that we can't support a large population. Now the number has doubled (5 millions) and nobody seems to worry we may one day be unable to support such a big population.

So it is like what someone said, the more the better. ("More people and it would be easier to get things done").
Is it a right thing to do?
If we realsie it is a mistake 30 years down the raod, would it be too late?
If you allow a large number of FTs to be imported, you could double the population in just a few years. And it is difficult to undo.; January 01, 2010 12:34 PM
Anonymous said...: I have several brushes with China Nationals....

Once I was entering the lift when a China National who rented a flat in my block squeeze pass me to get into the lift before me. Then instead of press on the door open button, she just press her own level and the lift door closed on me. When I stared at her, she smirked.

DON'T teel me that this is one of the black sheep.... as far as I am concern ALL China Nationals are black sheep; you can only find one white one once in a blue moon.

So yes, increase their rent, tax , etc. and lower their subsidy!!! If they want to be here in Singapore then they have to abide with our rules...; January 01, 2010 8:29 PM
Anonymous said...: It is not a zero sum game. Sure we have large numbers of native Singaporeans but many are near (or past) retirement age. Without a working-age segment to augment consumer spending and taxes etc. simply talking about "too many people" is meaningless.

In a way Singapore's policies in the past are haunting us now. Having successfully controlled the birthrate -- and persuading us to have less children -- we find we have too few babies now. And the Government is unable to use campaigns/policies to "make" people marry, have kids etc. Social engineering can only be managed so far!

So what is the only way left at least in the short term? A way to also redress the fact that there are fewer and fewer Chinese babies? Why, allow more mainland China immigrants to settle here!; January 01, 2010 10:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Our forefathers from southern China came well before CCP took over China in 1949.

But now most if not all FTs and PRs from China come from inland China with communist mindset. Those along coastal China will not come to S'pore anymore as they are better off in their own cities. Even they come, they just use S'pore as stepping stone before springboarding to US, Canada, Aust and NZ.

Men in white may end up attracting the wrong "talents" from China, causing more social tensions between the new China FTs/PRs and the old citizens as a result.

Back in 1960s, men in white used ISA to arrest and detain many "leftists" whom were "communists" in the eyes of men in white.

But now men in white open floodgate to let in more "communists" to S'pore to replace the "non-communists" citizens whom failed to replace themselves becos of men in white "stop at two" policy in 1970s!; January 02, 2010 10:20 AM
Singaporean said...: China Nationals are selfish individual. Why? Beacuse of China's 'One Child ' Policy.

During our forefathers times, most people have big family - many brothers and sisters. They learn to share and care. Now with only one child, the child get all they want and become selfish and uncaring.

Just look at the number of 'cheating' cases for the profit in the recent years. Using high lead paint in toys, melamine in milk product, buying dead chicken and duck to serve as food to reduce cost, the list goes on. This clearly shows that people from China just do not care for others other than themselves - as long as they can earn money, 'ill-gotten money'.

China Nationals are bring this 'uncaring, selfish culture' into Singapore. Should we allow this? Just take a ride on the MRT train, who are the one rushing for empty seats? Singaporean? No! Majority are China Nationals!!! Singaporean only follow suit because they do not want to loss out...; January 02, 2010 8:58 PM