Straits Times 25 May 13;
THE backlash against the White Paper on Population was "unfortunate", said head of the civil service Peter Ong, and there are lessons to be learnt.
But he stands by his officers who worked hard on the plan and insists that it was never meant to predict the future. Rather, it was intended to look at all the factors that could affect Singapore in the future, and to engage the public in deep discussions about the trade-offs, he said.
But the public outcry against having a 6.9 million population figure in 2030 highlights two lessons for the Government.
One, it could have better anticipated that one parameter, the 6.9 million figure, could draw attention away from everything else.
Two, the timing was off.
The paper should not have been launched at a time when many issues on transport and housing had yet to be settled.
"We really intended it to launch many serious and deep conversations on the structure of the future economy that we need to have... very serious existential issues. However, they were all swamped by the attention on that one figure," he said. He added: "There were pressing current issues that were not fully addressed yet, so it was very difficult to have a conversation about the future."
The White Paper led to a heated debate in Parliament, and two protest rallies at Hong Lim Park in February and on Labour Day this month.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong later said his Government was not planning on ever reaching the 6.9 million figure, and would leave it to the next government and people to decide for 2030.
Mr Ong noted that his officers had engaged the public for more than a year before the release of the paper. To criticisms that the paper was not well researched as it lacked citations, he said it was a "matter of presentation".
He said: "Just because something has no citation doesn't mean references and research were not done. If we came up with a whole list of citations, then who would read those? The average Singaporean?" He added: "We were trying, at the end of the day, to think about what might happen in 2030. It was not meant to be a deterministic or predictive exercise. I don't think any of us are smart enough to predict (the future)."
ROBIN CHAN
