No stain on Lee's great leadership

Thursday, April 05, 2007
Greg Sheridan
Foreign editor
The Australian

NO Asian has had a bigger presence in the Australian mind for longer than Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, who is visiting Australia at the moment, among other things to collect an honorary doctorate from the Australian National University.

This is thoroughly deserved. Naturally, it aroused opposition from the usual suspects. That Lee can still stir the blood pressure in the fading ranks of the parlour pinks is a tribute to his extraordinary success over so many decades.

In an editorial remarkable for its churlish, childish and patronising tone, The Sydney Morning Herald opposed the award under the heading "A university dishonours itself". The SMH even attempted a joke: "Why confer respectability on Singapore's dark side with an honourary law degree? Could it not have been in something more appropriate, like psychology, accounting, aeronautics or perhaps Dr (Allen) Hawke's doctoral specialty, plague locusts?"

Herald editorials are often difficult to interpret (and few readers try) but this presumably compares Lee's rule in Singapore with a plague of locusts, which just goes to show you that no matter how dopey a thought is, it is not too dopey to find its way into print.

The note of the patronising bully is repellent. How often has the Herald ever referred to a leader from, say, mainland China, which really is rough on human rights, in anything like so insulting a tone?

The reference to Allen Hawke comes from his being chancellor of the ANU, and reportedly defending the award by remarking that in Lee, the good outweighs the bad.

Hawke's is a perfectly sensible way to measure the quality of any political leader, but it is worth noting by just how huge a margin the good outweighs the bad in Lee.

Lee was elected prime minister of Singapore in 1959, before it became independent, and he retired from the position in 1990, becoming senior minister in the cabinet and then minister mentor. Lee was succeeded as PM by Goh Chok Tong, who was in turn succeeded by Lee's son, Lee Hsien Loong.

Singapore when Lee took over was about as wealthy, per head of population, as Bangladesh. Today it is about as wealthy, per head of population, as Australia. If you think that's easy, ask yourself how many other countries have done the same.

Of course, Lee has his faults, and his rule of Singapore was not perfect. But surely in 2007 in Australia we can make an appreciation of a giant figure like Lee in the round?

But Lee has always particularly annoyed the bien pensants of Australia. There is no good reason for this, or rather the reason lies with Lee's critics rather than with Lee himself.

As Owen Harries, the distinguished Australian international affairs analyst, once wrote: "In a world that has no shortage of murderous politicians, Lee has never killed anyone. In a world that is full of corrupt politicians who have plundered the coffers of their countries, Lee has been singularly uncorrupt. In a world where contempt for laws and constitutions has been flagrant, Lee has always taken great care not to transgress legal limits. He may have bent and stretched the law, may have been vindictive and intimidating in its application, but he stopped short of breaking it. Again, during a period when most leaders of new countries sacrificed the welfare of their people to vainglorious ambition and ideology (when they were not just busy robbing the till), Lee has been outstandingly successful in raising the living standards of his people to heights that seemed impossible when he first assumed office."

There have been human rights abuses in Singapore, but they have been fewer and more moderate than in any other country in Southeast Asia. In recent years Singapore has changed greatly. It is much more liberal and relaxed and this is possible because of the affluence that Lee created.

Lee started his political life as a left-wing activist in coalition with the communists seeking independence from the British. As succeeding Australian cabinet papers have shown, Canberra made the mistaken assessment in the 1950s that Lee was in effect a communist. They were darkly suspicious of an independent Singapore, thinking it was highly likely to go the communist way.

In all of the 20th century, Lee is one of the very, very few national leaders to have been in coalition with communists and then defeated them in the contest for power.

Communism, with Nazism, was one of the two most evil ideologies of the 20th century but it is really Lee's consistent anti-communism that was important in the 1960s and '70s, which earned him the undying enmity of Australian progressive opinion.

Singapore is still a bad place to be fundamentally opposed to the Government. But it affords its citizens virtually every other freedom. There is absolute freedom of religion, freedom of commerce, freedom of personal behaviour - though the welfare state is limited and designed to reinforce the intact family - and absolute freedom to leave. Given that Singapore's citizens are the best educated in the region, this is not an empty freedom. If Singaporeans were groaning under an oppressive government they could easily move somewhere else. And Singapore's elections are clean, so that if citizens felt the government were illegitimate, they could throw it out.

But Lee's fame and standing rest on much more than just the success of Singapore, critical though that is. Throughout Asia no one has ever had his reputation for strategic sagacity. In the memoirs of US presidents and secretaries of state it is remarkable how often, when they want to demonstrate that a policy is particularly shrewd and hard-headed, they will rhetorically call Lee to their side.

Years ago, Lee used to read us occasional lectures about our shortcomings, famously saying that we were in danger of becoming "the poor white trash of Asia". This was an unusually blunt and rather impolite way to talk to us, but it can be compared with Paul Keating's statement in 1986 that we were in danger of becoming "a banana republic" if we did not hasten economic reform.

Lee had the same purpose, he wanted us to reform so that we would be more dynamic and be a better partner for Singapore. And he was successful: his astringency was a part of our national debate in the '80s and early '90s. And he recognises how successful that reform has been, and how successful Australia now is.

I opened this column with a big statement. You could certainly say Mahatma Gandhi has a more pervasive place in the Western, including the Australian, mind than Lee. Or perhaps Mao, though his was primarily a negative genius like Hitler's. But no other Asian leader has had such an intimate dialogue with Australia as Lee. No one else knew us as well.

As has the rest of the region, we have benefited immensely from his leadership.

A university dishonours itself

SINGAPORE has been very useful to Australia over the years. It has been a reliable bastion of Western security interests, and one willing to co-operate with Australia in keeping an eye on its neighbours. It has helped us into forums such as the East Asian Summit when our crass politicians had put just about everyone else in the region offside. Awash with money from its decades of compulsory savings, it invests in the struggling number twos of our typical service industry duopolies.

This has happened under the aegis of Lee Kuan Yew, longtime prime minister and now, at 83, its Minister Mentor, with Lee Hsien Loong, his son and the Prime Minister, the one being mentored along with Singapore's other 4.5 million souls. In contrast with the laissez-faire style of Asia's other city-economy, Hong Kong, the island's growth has been largely government-directed, with official funds poured into its airline and air hub, its container terminals, its electronics zones, and now its planned casinos and biotech labs. If you want to honour all this, Lee Kuan Yew is the man.

But what is the Australian National University doing conferring an honorary doctorate in law on Lee Kuan Yew today? Mr Lee studied law in London's Inns of Court but on his record in government, imbibed little of the spirit of British-model justice. Instead, Singapore's law and its courts are tools to cow and punish political challengers, through bankrupting defamation cases which he and his ministers always win. Like his Malaysian neighbours, he has retained an Internal Security Act with powers of indefinite detention without charge, long after the communist threat has vanished. His security service has perfected techniques of soft torture - sleep and sensory deprivation, cold, round-the-clock interrogation - that have Catholic activists confessing on TV to be communist dupes within days. As one of his mentorees told a foreign visitor, "Law No. 1 in Singapore is that we win, and all other laws will be changed to ensure this."

The ANU's chancellor, Allan Hawke, says the "good outweighs the bad" in Mr Lee's case, and hints the university has interests to pursue in Singapore. But why confer respectability on Singapore's dark side with an honorary law degree? Could it not have been in something more appropriate, like psychology, accounting, aeronautics or perhaps Dr Hawke's doctoral specialty, plague locusts?

dot dot dot

SMH
Voters' verdict: can do better, must do better
March 26, 2007

The worst Government in the country has been re-elected. The Liberals have lost the unloseable election. A Government that a majority of voters believe did not deserve to be returned will run NSW until 2011. So what happens now?

There was a symmetry about the election's main contestants: two mediocre politicians chosen by the right-wing faction of their parties. The critical difference is why each was chosen. Labor's right chose Morris Iemma to replace Bob Carr as premier because he was the least unelectable candidate available. The Liberals chose Peter Debnam not because voters might take to him, but because the powerbrokers could not stand the only alternative - Barry O'Farrell. Mr Iemma was oh so lucky that the Liberals' right-wingers have less political nous than Labor's. But to misquote the late Kerry Packer, you only get one Peter Debnam in your life, and Morris Iemma has had his.

Mr Iemma has said with due humility that he has been given a mandate with a message. He is right. Without doubt, voters do want him to get back to work, keep his promises and get services they can rely on moving in the right direction. But there is more to it than that.

Mr Iemma's first task will be to reshape his cabinet, to remove those who have underperformed. Having won an election in his own right - and against the odds - he should have the authority now to get the team he wants. It will be an interesting test of his ticker and political clout to see how far he goes. The first to be stood down from the present ministry, we believe, should be Joe Tripodi, who has shown neither the administrative ability nor the political skill to merit inclusion. Frank Sartor should be moved out of the planning ministry, where his autocratic tendencies have simply got out of hand. Elsewhere, it is essential that the police and transport portfolios be given to different people. The Deputy Premier, John Watkins, who has been holding both until now, is an able man, but it is not humanly possible for one person to do both jobs well at the same time.

Having selected his team, Mr Iemma must set about reordering the state's finances. In large part this will mean rescuing the budget from the consequences of ill-advised public service pay rises handed out during Labor's last term. Whatever the justification for such increases, salaries for teachers, nurses and police have been increasing faster than state revenue - an unsustainable situation. Despite Mr Iemma's election rhetoric, there will almost certainly have to be cuts to the public service. Without them, the budget will be unable to allocate enough money for the new infrastructure that is needed, and on reducing the backlog of maintenance on what exists.

The great temptation for Mr Iemma and his Government, of course, is arrogance. His first statements contained the conventional ever-so-humble pieties of the newly elected leader, but we shall see for how long he and his Government can maintain that attitude after this victory against the odds. Saturday's results in one region above the others might help preserve the Government's perspective: its abysmal showing in the Hunter. In this heartland of the ALP, three seats are now under threat after big swings to independents. A combination of scandalous misconduct alleged against some MPs, and elsewhere, the party's arrogant disregard for local wishes, has turned voters away in droves. If Labor, like a triumphant Roman general, needs a servant whispering in its ear that it is only mortal, the role can be filled by the put-upon voters and party members of the Hunter.

The Liberals - surely - must now realise how much of a disaster factionalism has been for them. Whether John Brogden would have won the poll which Mr Debnam has lost is a question pointless and unanswerable. There is no call for any but the briefest of post-mortems. Despite a modest swing to the party and the return of two seats held by independents, the Liberals have done badly, whatever Mr Debnam and the Prime Minister, John Howard - notably distancing himself from Mr Debnam - may claim. Certainly the party must not revert to factional bickering. It must get on with doing what it has done so well federally and so poorly in each state: preparing itself carefully to capture the centre ground of politics. The Liberals must choose a new leader - one who can do what Mr Debnam could not: cut through to the electorate with a distinct Liberal message. Apart from his water policy, Mr Debnam offered no clear alternative view to Labor's. His policy on most issues was: let's fix it. What precisely he meant by that in education, health or transport was quite obscure. And if the message was unconvincing, the messenger lacked the talent to make up for its deficiencies.

For both parties the lesson of the 2007 election is: must do better. The electorate will not forgive another four years of Labor's bumbling. For the Liberals, further ineptitude will lead some to question whether the state party has a future at all.

Wages of ministers, civil servants to go up as Govt seeks to keep its talent

Lee U-Wen
u-wen@mediacorp.com.sg

TO KEEP pace with the growing salaries of the private sector, the Government is revising the pay of its ministers and civil servants.

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For officers of the Administrative Service — the cream of the civil service — this is the first time that an adjustment has been made since 2000.

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A formal announcement on the changes will be made in Parliament on April 9.

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The worldwide hunt for talent is intense and to remain an attractive employer, the Public Service, too, had to keep pace with the private market, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday.

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Speaking at the annual administrative service dinner and promotion ceremony, Mr Lee, who is also the Finance Minister, cited the Administrative Service as one of the many services that had "fallen behind".

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He described two key salary benchmarks that the Administrative Service, which employs some 230 officers, uses in calculating its salaries.

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The first is the "Staff Grade 1" rank for senior Permanent Secretaries, especially those leading the larger ministries. This benchmark is also used to determine the salaries of ministers (see graphic).

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This is done by first tracking the top eight earners in each of six professions. Their salaries are arranged from No 1 to 48. The benchmark is pegged at two-thirds the salary of the median — the 24th earner.

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Using the data from private sector incomes in 2005, Earner No 24 took home $3.29 million, so the 2006 benchmark for minister salaries would be 66.6 per cent of that — or about $2.2 million. Historically, ministers have been paid less than the benchmark.

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Today, senior Permanent Secretaries and ministers in this grade are paid $1.2 million a year, or 55 per cent of the benchmark. Back in 2000, they were earning 71 per cent of the benchmark.

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In a statement by the Public Service Division (PSD), it said these six professions were picked because they are "alternative professions" that the Government's top calibre senior civil servants could have otherwise joined.

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On top of their main jobs, senior civil servants hold concurrent appointments such as chairmen of statutory boards or government-linked companies.

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"We recognise that the nature of work in the public and private sectors are different and there is some personal sacrifice involved in public service," said the statement.

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The job security of ministers was also highlighted by the PSD.

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"Ministers are not in guaranteed long-term jobs — they face the General Elections every five years. Similarly, our top civil servants are put on fixed term appointments once they are appointed to a top position," it said.

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Another main salary benchmark is the "SR9" — the lowest Superscale grade at which officers in their early- to mid-30s enter the senior ranks of the Administrative Service.

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This benchmark dipped between 2001 and 2004 because of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks and Sars in 2003, but has since climbed to $361,000 — just below the $363,000 benchmark set in 2000. Last year, an entry-level Superscale officer was paid a salary amounting to 103 per cent of the benchmark — or $371,830 a year.

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Explaining that these numbers were based on incomes earned two years ago, Mr Lee said the private sector salaries "have most probably risen further" since then.

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Describing the talent squeeze as an urgent problem, he spoke of how the civil service needs to provide challenging assignments for its staff.

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Singaporeans are in demand not just here but the world over. Mr Lee gave the example of a Middle Eastern country that dropped feelers about buying the whole of JTC!

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And hinting that money is not the route to all solutions, he said the civil service leadership must excite and enthuse its staff to see that they are helping to make a difference to Singapore's policy-making.

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In the early 1990s, the Administrative Service lost "entire cohorts of good officers", and having taken many years to recover from the loss, the Prime Minister said it "must not happen again" in future.

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The resignation rate in the public sector rose to 5.7 per cent last year, up from 4.8 per cent in 2005.

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"Besides civil service salaries, we are also reviewing salaries for the political, judicial and statutory appointment holders. It is even more critical to keep these salaries competitive ... to bring in a continuing flow of able and successful people to be ministers and judges," said Mr Lee.

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In this latest review, the new salary structure is expected to tie salaries more closely to performance, in line with private sector practice.

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In his speech, Mr Lee also outlined another pertinent problem — that of encouraging Singaporeans to venture overseas, while at the same time ensuring that there is enough talent in Singapore to grow the economy.

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He said: "How will Singapore businesses recruit talent and grow into first-class companies? How will we create the jobs and opportunities for the less successful Singaporeans, who cannot seek their fortunes in China, India or the US? How will the Public Service maintain a first-class team that can lead Singapore into the future?"

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Looking ahead, Mr Lee challenged the Public Service to benchmark itself to top global companies, such as Google.

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"Google receives 1,300 resumes a day. The Public Service must strive to have that same cachet. The whole tone of the organisation must exude confidence, energy and purpose," he said.

Hot News // Friday, March 23, 2007