Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) published its manifesto on its website yesterday and has labelled it a manifesto to help create a "Singapore for Singaporeans".
In its manifesto, SDA opposed the government's Population White Paper published in 2013 and the government's decision to continue to allow foreigners to come into Singapore. It warned that "true blue Singaporeans will soon become a minority race" if liberal immigration policies continue unchecked.
SDA says the solution is to "breed and grow our own people, and not to ‘import' as this may translate to conflicting values and beliefs; that instead of integrating into our culture, we lose our Singapore identity."
To achieve this, SDA would take care of expecting mothers, encourage childbirth among locals as well as "work-family balance", which includes incentives and grants to couples with children, equal rights and benefits for single parents, and building more childcare centres.
SDA also slammed companies for giving away PMET jobs to non-locals in cases where local and foreign candidates have the same qualifications and levels of experience.
"The SDA advocates a 'Singaporeans-First' Policy for employment, which will be legislated. This means that an employer must prove that he cannot find a suitable local for the current vacancy and has exhausted all means of employing a local for the job, before approval is granted for the employment of foreigners," it said in its manifesto. This is appears to be similar to the Fair Consideration Framework introduced in 2013, where employers here have to advertise vacancies in a government Jobs Bank for at least two weeks before applying to hire an Employment Pass, for positions which pay under S$12,000 a month.
On the Central Provident Fund (CPF) scheme, SDA says that it will campaign to do away with the Minimum Sum. The CPF Minimum Sum is the sum of savings that Singaporeans cannot withdraw when they reach Retirement Age, to provide for monthly payouts in their retirement years. In February this year, the scheme has undergone some changes which altered the way that Singaporeans could use the money in their CPF account under the Basic, Full and Enhanced Retirement Sum.
SDA added that "the monies in CPF account should not be used for other purposes such as education and property purchase. This is to ensure that our people are well-taken care of and able to self-sustain when they are retired."
SDA also hopes to effect the full liberalisation of the CPF Medisave scheme, allowing Singaporeans to use funds in the account - without caps - to pay for all medical bills and also to pay for comprehensive medical coverage offered by private insurers.
On public housing, SDA says it will fight for more affordable housing by making more rental flats available, without rigid application guidelines, so that young couples could have a "temporary abode" while waiting for their houses to be ready.
For public transport, SDA proposed that the public transport system be nationalized or alternatively, be further liberalized.
"SDA proposes that the public transport system be returned to the care of the State, who shall maintain the system to ensure that it is functional, as its core responsibility. Alternatively, the transport sector shall be liberalised so as to encourage more companies to compete for tenders,” it said. Such competition would bring about "competitive pricing as companies vie for market share", it said.
On education, SDA proposed that Singapore do away with the streaming systems and advocates an equal emphasis on areas such as “arts, music and sports”. The party also wants “unbiased” history lessons to be introduced into the syllabus.
SDA will be contesting the 6-member Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC in the upcoming General Elections.
To view the full manifesto, please visit:
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