[(proc text) Order read for consideration in Committee of Supply [7th Allotted Day]. (proc text)]
[Mdm Speaker in the Chair]
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[(proc text) \"That the total sum to be allocated for Head I of the Estimates be reduced by $100.\" – [Mr Seah Kian Peng]. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Question again proposed. (proc text)]
Mr Ang Hin Kee (Ang Mo Kio): Madam, on the support for our taxi driver ferrying people with disabilities, the London Cab Taxi Service is a good scheme for the disabled, especially those on motorised wheelchairs. This year, at the Budget, many also welcome the enhanced subsidies announced. It is important that we ensure such good schemes and subsidies reach its intended recipients. Will the Ministry consider working with the relevant agencies to better match the services of these taxis with their potential clients? Perhaps, there can be more tie-ups with non-government organisations, VWOs and hospitals to ensure that the services and subsidies reach the physically disabled users so that at the end of the day, this Budget that wanted to reach out to these intended recipients will be able to provide them better services as they move around Singapore.
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Miss Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Madam, what do Isaac Newton, Vincent Van Gough and Aristotle have in common? They were epileptic. What about Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Albert Einstein and Richard Branson? Dyslexia. Thomas Edison and Beethovan? They were hearing-impaired. Claude Monet, Stevie Wonder and Yeo Sze Ling? Visually-impaired. Stephen Hawkings, Roosevelt and Dr William Tan – wheelchair-bound, but like the rest, spirit and intellect-unbound! Need I say more?
When Starbucks opened its 100th store down the road from here, it chose to hire autistic people. Not out of charity but because their obsession with doing exactly as the task requires makes for great quality control!
Madam, disabilities can be special abilities, but a lot of time their potentials are only limited by our mindset and our imaginations. We are the ones who need to make a paradigm shift to see the flourishing of these amazing abilities. We need bold big moves to unleash their potentials.
Could the Minister consider the following points:
(a) Look into what special needs could be converted into special abilities and corollary, fund special needs-friendly education and special ability skills training schemes;
(b) Fund technology and business innovations to create integrated workplaces and intermediaries that tap the abilities of these people; and
(c) Singaporeans have been making waves in assistive technology. Why not grow it, along with some special needs apps and special abilities training into a cutting edge industry that will be of high value, scale-able and exportable, to turn the world around for people with special abilities!
The Chairman: Mr Ang Wei Neng, you have two cuts, please take them together.
Mr Ang Wei Neng (Jurong): Mdm Chair, the Enabling Master Plan 2012 to 2016 was introduced by MSF two years ago. It was announced two years ago. We are now at the halfway mark. We would appreciate if the Minister could
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provide an update of the progress made.
Meanwhile, MOE had announced additional measures to help students with disabilities, including the setting up of disability offices at ITE, Polytechnic and University. This is a welcome move. However, MOE officials have also on various occasions made it clear that the responsibilities of finding employment for these students after their graduation lie with MSF and other VWOs.
To this end, we are glad that SG Enable is formed to help find jobs for the Persons With Disabilities (PWDs), amongst its other functions. I had visited the new SG Enable premises last year and noticed that it now occupies the sprawling ground of the previous e2i campus. I understand that SG Enable is trying its best to tie up with companies that are willing to employ PWDs and attract social enterprises to set up shops at its campus, but it is facing an uphill task due to various factors.
We hope that the Government could provide more incentives for private companies, quasi-Government and Government agencies to tie up with SG Enable to provide more employment opportunities for the PWDs. These incentives could include lower rent for social enterprises to set up shop at SG Enable campus or more relaxed foreign worker quota or even better tax incentive for firms that hire a significant number of PWDs.
We hope that the SG Enable campus can be the incubator for social enterprise start-ups that seek to employ PWDs, much like Block 71 at Ayer Rajah is the incubator for IT start-up companies.
Madam, on the cut on transport for persons with disabilities, we are pleased that MSF will soon offer PWDs a continuum of transport options from discount on public transport to subsidies for dedicated transport.
PWDs with lower mobility typically need to take dedicated transport, including wheelchair-friendly vehicles, to gain access to schools, daycare centres as well as clinics or hospitals for medical checkups. With the new subsidy, we can expect the demand for dedicated transport services to increase significantly.
It would make sense to stretch the subsidy dollars so that the sector as a whole could provide an extensive, efficient and effective transport dedicated to
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PWDs. I recommend that the disability sector pool their resources together to reap the economy of scale rather than having each individual VWO buy its own vehicles to ferry the PWDs.
To this end, MSF could help to set up a coordinating committee to develop a plan to minimise duplications, possibly stagger demand so as to maximise the usage of limited resources, namely, the vehicles and the drivers. With the strategy, the coordinating committee can then call a tender to engage a few transport operators to provide the dedicated transport service for PWDs.
Mdm Chair, at the other end of the spectrum, PWDs with higher mobility could enjoy a 25% discount when they take public buses and trains. This is a generous gesture which will be appreciated by PWDs and their caregivers. However, the public also need to understand that PWDs have special needs and may unintentionally upset other commuters. At times, they might be deliberately taken advantage of by some commuters. I would like to urge MSF to consider working with Singapore Kindness Movement to launch a campaign to educate the public so that all could have a better and more pleasant ride on the public transport.
Mr Alex Yam (Chua Chu Kang): Mdm Chair, it is never easy to be last. Perhaps, it is both a pleasure and honour to deliver the last cut for this fruitful Budget. Madam, first let me declare my interest as a member of the National Committee on Youth Guidance and Rehabilitation to which the Central Youth Guidance Office serves as the Secretariat.
CYGO, for short, as an inter-Ministry setup comprising officers seconded from MOE, MHA and MSF, has been looking at early intervention strategies to prevent youth at-risk from committing crime. Over the last few years, CYGO has implemented a number of programmes and pilots, including Youth Go!, YES, YIS, and the YEARS programmes. They have been aimed at re-engaging youths who are at risk.
I would therefore like to enquire how these programmes have progressed and what has been the result of the efforts. What more can the Ministry do to further reach out to vulnerable youths?
A Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega Gasset once said, \"There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two are mutually
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necessary… one to complement the other.\" So, with this last cut for 2014, I thank you for your indulgence.
The Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Chan Chun Sing): Madam, let me first thank all Members of the House for their support, suggestions and encouragement for the work of MSF. In particular, I would like to thank three groups of people today.
First, the many agencies that work with us upstream to prevent the problems from arising in the first place. These include MND, MOE, MOH and many other agencies because it is all this preventive work that allows MSF to have less work downstream to manage. The second group of people that I would like to thank are the partners who walk the last mile with us. These include many of the partners who work with us on the ground – Family Service Centres, VWOs and grassroots leaders, including many Members of this House. Third, we would like to record our thanks to all the professionals in our sector. They are at the centre of everything that we do. They are also at the centre of everything that we do for tomorrow because they set the foundation today.
Let me at this juncture also humbly say that the success of MSF is not due to MSF's efforts alone. Like many Members of this House have mentioned, our success depends on our partnerships in working upstream with many other agencies. Our success depends on your support and, perhaps, this is the reason why for this year's COS, the sequence is organised in this way. We have many different agencies working together but united in our goal to better serve Singaporeans.
MSF also does not judge our success on the amount of handouts that we give people or the number of people we have helped. In fact, many social workers and professionals have told us we judge our success by how able we are to get people out of the difficult circumstances they are in. We want to promote independence, not dependence. We want to promote resilience, not reliance. We want to mobilise the community and everybody else who cares for fellow Singaporeans but not to outsource our responsibility.
MSF has always maintained a three-pronged vision. The first is that we want to have, as some of you have said, the whole-of-society approach where we mobilise all the agencies upstream to work together to prevent the issues from emerging downstream. The strongest aspect of our social safety net is the fact that we can give our people meaningful jobs, good housing, good healthcare, good education so that we minimise the problems downstream.
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Even to the level which HDB designs its own flats and precincts will have an implication on the social issues that we will face in the coming years. This is where we want to put much effort in the coming years, especially as our population ages rapidly.
Beyond upstream work, the second prong of our vision is integrated service delivery. We know that in every society, regardless of how wealthy or how poor, how advanced or how developed, there will always be a segment amongst us who will need a bit more help. It is inevitable that such things happen in society for various reasons. But circumstances do not define us. Our responses to circumstances define us and this is where we want to integrate and harmonise all the efforts at the local level to care for these people amongst us who may need that bit of help.
The third prong of our vision is that we want to establish the conditions for future success. Nothing is more important than investing in our people for tomorrow's success, to meet tomorrow's needs. We want people in the sector to have deep and broad competencies. Deep in their respective areas because the issues are complex; broad because we want them to be able to work as an integrated team across different domains to provide the integrated service we so want for our beneficiaries.
Let me talk about the priorities for 2014 on these three prongs. First, our priority is to maintain the currency and ensure the adequacy of our social support policies. Second, it is to continue our efforts to establish an integrated system for effective execution and last-mile delivery. Third, our priority is to establish conditions to meet our future needs. We want to invest in a wider group of social service professionals and we want to groom the next generation of leaders and professionals.
Let me start with the first priority, which is to maintain the currency and adequacy of our social support policies. Our population and our demographics are evolving rapidly. The public's expectations are also evolving very rapidly. On the other hand, family support is also changing rapidly. What used to be an extended family is now increasingly giving way to a nuclear or post-nuclear family where people tend to stay on their own, with less extensive support from their relatives.
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The first thing we are going to do is that we are going to update and refresh our ComCare scheme. But I want to emphasise once again that the measure of success of our ComCare scheme is not the amount of money that we hand out to people. It is how able we are to use the ComCare scheme to allow people to stand on their feet again. It must come as an integrated package that looks into not just the financial assistance, but also the jobs, the housing, the education and so forth.
For this year, we will revise the ComCare assistance qualifying criteria from a household income of $1,700 to $1,900 or from a per capita income of $550 to $650. This will allow us greater flexibility in helping many people at the margins. We will also have greater flexibility to offer for the period of assistance according to each need. In response to Dr Lily Neo's suggestions, for the elderly who receive CPF payouts and can qualify for the PA scheme, they need not worry. They will still be eligible for the PA payout and we will just top up the difference between their CPF payment and the PA scheme. For elderly with small CPF payout but do not qualify for the PA scheme, but still require assistance, we will find other ways through the ComCare short- to medium-term assistance schemes to help them. Very often, they would have some other family issues which we must try to help resolve as well.
Next, I move on to the early childhood services. We know that the lifestyles and working patterns of our families have changed. It has changed very rapidly. Five years ago, only one in six families would require early childhood services. Today, it is one in three. In a few years' time, it will be one in two, and perhaps even more. We would need to respond to this. We want good quality childcare services and early childhood services so that we can give our parents the peace of mind to go about doing their work, which is why ECDA's and MSF's mantra has been accessibility, affordability and quality.
For accessibility, we are happy to update Mr Ang Hin Kee that we are on track to grow another 20,000 childcare places by 2017. We built 60 last year, providing about 7,000 places. We will have at least another 45 this year, providing about 5,000 more places.
Er Dr Lee Bee Wah and Dr Janil Puthucheary asked about the childcare centres in the heartlands. We have just appointed three new anchor operators. They are now working closely with ECDA to expand the capacity, especially in the high demand areas. We will look for new and innovative places to site the childcare centres, including in Mr Seah Kian Peng's ward, where we were able to find a place at the old bus interchange and converted it into a new childcare centre with about 200 places. We will continue to work closely with the
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grassroots leaders to identify such suitable sites. We also have a scheme to encourage kindergartens which are under subscribed to convert their premises to childcare places. We hope that many more will take up this scheme and put the spare capacity to good use.
In terms of affordability, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman has announced that we will revise the Kindergarten Fee Assistance Scheme (KiFAS). We will raise the maximum subsidy from $108 per month to $160 per month in 2015. This will extend our coverage from households with income of $3,500, to households with income of $6,000. This means that in the past, only one in three will qualify for KiFAS. In the future, one in two will be able to qualify. For the lowest income group, the lowest 10%, they will be able to send their children to kindergarten with no more than $1, $2 or $3 per month. That is what we hope to achieve. And even if they cannot pay $1, $2 or $3, the community leaders will find ways to raise that amount and help them to go through kindergarten so that every child will get a good start.
In terms of quality, we intend to further uplift and harmonise the quality across all the early childhood services. There will be a new legislative framework under a new Act in 2015. All kindergartens and childcare centres will be licensed under the same Act. There will be new and revised provisions to raise the quality and we will work closely with all the operators to ensure a smooth transition.
We will also improve the Singapore Pre-school Accreditation Framework (SPARK). The assessment process will be streamlined with the feedback by the operators. Then we will have a clearer rating system to distinguish centre quality by the end of 2014. Mr Patrick Tay spoke about stay-at-home mums. We cannot agree more with him the important role that the stay-at-home mum performs quietly behind the scenes. It is something that I do not think money can buy. I understand. My wife gave up her career and her job to take care of our three children many years ago. They face many challenging circumstances, and I am sure MOF and the other agencies would have heard Mr Patrick Tay's feedback and take them into account in their future plans.
Mr Baey Yam Keng also mentioned about home-based care and if we should give some subsidies to grandparents and babysitters. As Mr Baey Yam Keng said, it is not easy to execute this. The standards are varied and there will be different practices across different homes, different relationships. It is not easy. There are executional challenges. So, let us mull over this. More importantly, I think, philosophically, we have to think through this very carefully. The issue is, we do not want to inadvertently create unintended consequences
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by trying to monetise a lot of these personal relationships and work done. So, I will mull over his suggestion, but I must say that it is not something that is straightforward to execute. At the same time, it is also something that we have to think deeply about because sometimes we run the danger of monetising many of the things that should not be monetised.
Mr Yee Jenn Jong and Mr Alex Yam asked about student care services. The Minister for Education has already announced some plans to expand the student care services in the schools in the coming years. MSF will work closely with MOE to bring this about.
Many Members of the House have rightly pointed out that the main crux of the issue will be manpower, not just numbers, but quality. The question is: how should we regulate the sector and, going forth, should we add new rules to regulate the sector but yet not make it too onerous to discourage other people from coming in to join the sector? This is something that MOE and MSF will work closely in the coming years to solve. We all understand that the demand for today's childcare will be the demand for tomorrow's student care because our lifestyle has changed. Many families now have both parents working and, hence, it is natural that the demand on today's childcare will be translated into demand for student care tomorrow.
We will also work with WDA to offer training and potential courses to either new entrants or existing teachers in the student care services. Having said that, I think we must also mobilise the community to see how we can come together to provide new and alternative sources of manpower for this very important sector because they care for our children and they would set the foundation for our future.
Let me now take a break and I will ask Parliamentary Secretary, Ms Low Yen Ling, to cover the help that we will be rolling out for the other groups, for persons with disabilities, youths-at-risk and also strengthening the support for our families.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Ms Low Yen Ling): Mdm Chair, I would like to thank all Members who have spoken yesterday and today and highlighted the needs of vulnerable groups in our midst. We are committed to strengthen the nation's social safety net so that no one gets left behind. However, the Government cannot do this alone; we call upon every Singaporean, every resident, every enterprise and, in fact, the community to be part of these efforts to create a
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caring society that we can be proud of.
The Minister has earlier illustrated how MSF will widen ComCare assistance. I will now elaborate on how we will empower and enable persons with disabilities, the youths-at-risk, vulnerable families and the elderly. I will also reaffirm the important role of the family and the Ministry's plans to strengthen this cornerstone of our society.
Ms Denise Phua and Mr Ang Wei Neng had asked for an update on the Enabling Masterplan. This is the second year of the five-year roadmap to enable persons with disabilities to participate fully in society.
Mdm Chair, we have prepared a brochure to summarise the progress we have made on the Enabling Masterplan. May I have your permission to distribute it to hon Members?
The Chairman: Yes, please. [Handouts were distributed to hon Members.]
Ms Low Yen Ling: In 2013, Singapore ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This was made possible by the strong collaboration and support among VWOs, Government agencies, the private sector and persons with disabilities. This milestone ratification boosts our aim of making Singapore a place where persons with disabilities are empowered and enabled and are also given full opportunities to become important and contributing members of our society.
Starting with the young, we all know early intervention is crucial for preschoolers with learning needs. Over 1,000 preschoolers with mild developmental delays received early intervention and help through the Development Support Programme (DSP) that ran in 200 mainstream preschools last year. DSP provided these children with classroom support and therapy intervention. MSF will continue to improve on such programmes.
We have also improved assistance to young children with moderate to severe disabilities, including cerebral palsy – Mr Png Eng Huat spoke about this yesterday. The Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC) provides learning and therapy support services to this group of children. The Minister for Finance had announced the expanded coverage and subsidies for EIPIC that will amount to $32 million each year, which is an increase of 74%.
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Just to recap: taking effect from October this year, first and foremost, MSF will raise the universal subsidy for EIPIC from $300 to $500 and this is universal subsidy. Every Singaporean child attending programmes at EIPIC centres will get this subsidy. In addition, we will broaden the per capita income eligibility level from $1,500 to $3,000. This means that 80% of those in the EIPIC programme will receive subsidies, compared to half today. The quantum of subsidies will also be increased. Families will pay less in out-of-pocket expenses for EIPIC. For example, middle-income families will pay about $100, compared to $300 for a similar level of service.
Just to give Members an example. Vera is one of the children who will benefit from this move. She has a developmental disorder and congenital medical conditions. She attends EIPIC at the AWWA Early Years Centre. Currently, Vera's parents have to pay $200 monthly, after subsidies from the Government and AWWA. With the recent boost in Government subsidies for EIPIC, Vera's parents will pay half of what they used to pay, that is, $100 a month. These subsidies will help the family as they incur high medical costs for her many other conditions. Such subsidies will enable VWOs like AWWA to also serve more children with disabilities.
These changes improve the accessibility and affordability of early intervention services by catching those who fall through the cracks. We will also increase the capacity and quality of EIPIC, as highlighted by Er Dr Lee Bee Wah and Ms Mary Liew. In the last two years, we have brought down the average waiting time from six to four months. The number of EIPIC places will grow 7.5% from today's 2,500 places to 2,700 places by end 2015.
In the area of medical care, the needs of these children are also being addressed. Ms Mary Liew had asked if more subsidies could be given to special needs children who require long-term medical follow-up. MediShield coverage has been extended to cover congenital and neonatal conditions. The special needs children will stand to benefit from MOH's enhancement of subsidies for specialist outpatient care later this year.
We are certainly pressing on to do more for those with disabilities. As Miss Penny Low pointed out, we can harness assistive technology to overcome the challenges posed by disabilities. Currently, the Assistive Technology Fund helps persons with disabilities defray the high costs of mobility and communication devices like wheelchairs and hearing aids, just to quote some
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examples. The number of applications from the fund has grown by over 30% in 2013. MOE also provides assistive learning devices to students with disabilities. At MSF, we are studying how to better leverage this area of technology to make it easier for those with disabilities to study well, gain new skills and become employable.
We also want to motivate our employers to integrate and empower persons with disabilities. In 2012, the Government extended the Special Employment Credit and Workfare Income Supplement to encourage employment of persons with disabilities. As at December 2013, more than 4,500 employers have received the Special Employment Credit for hiring 5,700 persons with disabilities. The Workfare Income Supplement has also benefited more than 4,600 persons with disabilities.
We will continue to empower those with disabilities so that they can gain greater independence and fulfil their potential through their work. Mr Ang Wei Neng, Ms Mary Liew and Miss Penny Low have touched on the training and employment prospects of persons with disabilities, especially for those from our SPED (Special Education) schools. This is one of the reasons why SG Enable was set up last year.
SG Enable not only serves as a focal point for services that enable and empower those with disabilities, it also drives and promotes their employment and employability. SG Enable is also working with MOE to strengthen the transition of Special Education students into employment. It has also started an internship programme to let our special needs students from Institutes of Higher Learning gain valuable work exposure. This will certainly enhance their skills, experience and also build up their work-readiness.
SG Enable sees opportunities to work with partners to encourage social enterprise incubations at its Redhill site, as quoted by Mr Ang Wei Neng earlier. As a start, MSF and SG Enable are organising a community event next month and this event is called \"Enabling Community CoLab\". This aims to develop ideas to empower persons with disabilities. How does it work? For instance, some daily tasks can pose very serious challenges to persons with disabilities, such as moving around a supermarket with narrow aisles and also high racks. So, the CoLab will look into such difficulties and encourage innovative ways to address such needs. We will also bring in private players to support such solutions.
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As SG Enable reaches out to more companies and organisations, we look forward to their active participation in contributing to the vision of a caring Singapore. Each of us has a role to play in helping those with disabilities – whether at work, at school or at play; from the very young to the very old.
For older adults with disabilities, Ms Denise Phua and Mr Png Eng Huat have highlighted their needs for more assistance in finances and care. Ms Denise Phua suggested tiered funding for day activity centres to better cater to the varying types and severities of adult disabilities. I want to assure Ms Denise Phua that MSF is looking into this as we continue to ramp up the care services for adult disabilities. By the end of this year, 2014, there would be 140 new places in day activity centres that provide care and skills training for adults with higher care needs.
We understand the concerns of those who care for persons with disabilities. We want to help lighten their load. The Foreign Domestic Worker Grant and Levy Concession defray the costs of hiring domestic helpers to care for their family members with disabilities. To provide more affordable and flexible care options, we have recently extended funding support to also cover part-time day care services. MSF is also looking into home-based care services which will also provide caregivers with respite. In the area of long-term care, the Ministry is building four new adult disability homes. And the first home to be completed in 2017 will be located at Sembawang Walk. It will serve persons with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Over the next few years, we will also expand the present capacity of current homes. By 2018, the number of places in adult disability homes will double, with 1, 000 new places.
Besides expanding our reach of care, we are taking steps to ensure quality and standards of care in residential facilities. To this end, MSF will introduce a licensing framework for Adult Disability Homes in 2016. Meanwhile, we are working with the Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs) to build up capabilities and prepare them for a smooth transition to this licensing framework.
Mdm Chair, I will now move on to the subject of transport for persons with disabilities. Transport is a key enabler that opens avenues to education, improves chances for jobs and creates new opportunities. For persons with disabilities, access to affordable transport increases their chances of being plugged into society. Therefore, the Government is making significant moves to lower the transport cost for persons with disabilities.
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First, we are providing a special public transport concession for all persons with disabilities. Starting from July this year, they will enjoy 25% off travel on buses and rail. As of now, more than 20,000 eligible persons with disabilities would have received an invitation letter from SG Enable to apply for this concession. They can apply from 6 April onwards.
Second, we will provide subsidies for users of dedicated transport such as buses and vans. These vehicles ferry persons with disabilities to EIPIC, SPED schools, day activity centres and sheltered workshops. Singaporeans with per capita income of $2,600 or below will enjoy subsidies on 30% to 80% of their transport cost, depending on their household income. This move will benefit about two-thirds of families caring for those with disabilities.
Third, MSF will introduce taxi subsidies for persons with disabilities who are working or schooling but are unable to take public or dedicated transport. Starting from October this year, the means-tested taxi transport subsidies will benefit those with a per capita income of $1,800 or less. It will reach 50% of those who rely on taxis as their form of transportation. Applications for these subsidies start next month on 1 April. We will share more details on the application process soon.
Together, these three transport subsidies will benefit more than 50,000 persons with disabilities. It will cost the Government $24 million per year. We want to ensure that transport cost will not be a barrier to those with disabilities. Instead, the ease and affordability of transportation to their place of work, school or care will bring them closer to achieving their hopes and also enjoying quality of care. Caregivers will also benefit from these three transport subsidies because of the accessibility and the ease of bringing them to school or the place of care.
Now, take for example Siti Zulaikha. She has congenital heart disease and suffers from developmental delays. Her younger brother has Down Syndrome. We understand that their grandparents are looking after them as their father is currently in prison and their mother is intellectually disabled. Grandpa is currently the sole breadwinner in the family. Thankfully, Zulaikha's condition has improved by leaps and bounds since she attended EIPIC at the Thye Hua Kwan EIPIC Centre in Chua Chu Kang. However, the family cannot afford her monthly transport fee to school and the transport allowance from VWOs ends this coming June. With the newly announced transport subsidy, Zulaikha can now continue to receive her early intervention and care through EIPIC at Chua Chu Kang. We want to help more children like Zulaikha and their families, so that no child gets deprived of help because of transport costs or transport
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problems.
Having said that, we will not stop at just transport subsidies. I support Mr Ang Hin Kee's suggestion to get more taxi drivers to ferry disabled passengers. We have heartening news from SMRT that the 30 London wheelchair-friendly cabs co-funded by MSF last year are actively meeting the transport needs of those with disabilities. As Mr Ang has mentioned, let us all rally and increase the pool of taxi drivers whose hearts are driven to care. We will tap on technology to maximise this resource and also aim to improve the availability of taxi services for people and persons with disabilities.
As pointed out by Mr Ang Wei Neng earlier, we can raise the efficiency of transport services to better serve those with disabilities. We will explore the possibility of pooling and optimising vehicles and drivers from different VWOs. We can grow customised transport services for the disability sector and also create more efficient fleet management.
Mdm Chair, we have made some headway in realising the Enabling Masterplan. I think, by now, our Members would have received the brochure. This is a progress report of the Enabling Masterplan. Now, if you have read this over the past couple of minutes, you can see that we are taking a life-cycle approach from the time of birth to childhood, to youth, adulthood and then silver years. We have endeavoured to empower and also enable those with disabilities to participate fully in our society. To this end, I urge all Members in this House to continue to support us in realising this vision.
Let us now turn our attention to our youths-at-risk. They are like – as Mr Alex Yam had mentioned – unpolished diamonds that need our attention, care and protection. Mr Alex Yam had asked for an update on the initiatives by the Central Youth Guidance Office (CYGO). The efforts to draw the youths at-risk away from the fringe and toward meaningful activities have shown promising results.
Over the past one-and-a-half years, the Central Youth Guidance Office has reached out to a total of 6,700 youths through the pilot Youth GO! Programme taking place in the North East and North West Districts. This programme has encouraged the youths-at-risk to study, work and stay away from crime. The youths are befriended on the streets and invited to activities such as fishing and barbeques. For youths who need more help, the Youth GO! Workers will also provide casework and counselling intervention. Youth GO! continues till end
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this year and will certainly be evaluated for future expansion.
Besides keeping the youths meaningfully occupied, we will also help those who have stopped school. The Ministry's Youth Employment System targets this group of youths to help them gain work and stay employed. The Youth Employment and Advancement Hub started in July last year provides them with services like career assessment, life skills training and workplace mentorship. At present, there are 44 youths-at-risk receiving assessment and training at this hub.
The Central Youth Guidance Office will certainly look into areas of programme design, capabilities development and also funding for youth agencies to expand its work further. We will certainly spare no effort in seeking out those at risk to turn dark alleys into avenues of hope and a bright future. This leads me now to another vulnerable group of our society that needs our support.
Today, a vast majority of single parents are divorced single parents. Since 2007, there are 7,000 divorces and more than 8,000 children affected by such break-ups every year. Divorce unleashes a significant impact on families and the children. We share Mr Alex Yam and Mr Seah Kian Peng's concerns that families facing divorce need extra support. The breakdown of a marriage can be traumatic, especially for the child. Often times, he or she is, unfortunately, caught in between the divorcing couple and, many times, the child's interests and welfare are adversely affected. We need to do more to mitigate the negative effects of divorce.
To this end, MSF and the MinLaw are working together to ensure that the children's needs are well considered before divorce proceedings. Today, issues concerning the child are often only discussed during or at the end of the divorce process, as Mr Seah Kian Peng had mentioned yesterday. We will introduce a programme for those considering divorce. The programme will have the couple discuss their children's needs, understand the importance of positive co-parenting and be aware of the detrimental effects of a divorce.
For children whose parents are going through or have completed divorce proceedings, we will expand support programmes to help the children cope with their feelings and come to terms with the break-up. In addition, we will launch other programmes to help parents work through their emotions and
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overcome their co-parenting difficulties. MSF will also work with the social service sector to raise the capability and the capacity of our agencies that are handling divorce-related issues. We will share more details of these efforts later this year.
Being a single parent is tough. Mr Seah Kian Peng and Ms Lee Li Lian have asked for more support to be extended to single-parent households. Just to recap, last year, we extended childcare and infant care leave to unwed single mothers to support their caregiving responsibilities. They are also able to access financial assistance through ComCare, as well as other social assistance schemes and services. Like other Singaporean children, their kids also receive the MediSave grant for all newborns and subsidised rates for infant care, childcare and student care.
In terms of housing, single parents who are divorced or widowed can rent a flat under HDB's Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme while waiting for their flats to be ready. HDB has also set aside a number of flats for divorced and widowed parents applying for a flat a second time. Recently, Minister Khaw had reassured us that MND will look closely into their housing needs.
Another vulnerable group is the young and low-income families. We have the Home Ownership Plus Education (HOPE) Scheme to ensure they have a roof over their heads. This is a voluntary scheme that is catering to the low-income young families. More than 3,100 families have benefited from HOPE since 2004, 10 years ago.
We had reviewed and broadened the eligibility criteria for HOPE last year. The household income cap is now $1,700 instead of $1,500, and the individual income cap for those with post-Secondary education is now $1,200 instead of $1,000. Yesterday, Ms Mary Liew suggested that mothers older than 35 years should be considered for the HOPE programme. The qualifying age was set at 35 years old to encourage couples to join the scheme early. I want to assure Ms Mary Liew that there is an appeals committee to review the circumstances of those who missed the criteria narrowly. Just to give some numbers, about one in four successful appeals were women above 35 years old. HOPE has also been enhanced to better support the young, low-income families. The amount of conditional housing grant has been raised and educational bursaries and training incentives added to the scheme.
Let us now turn our attention to our senior citizens. While the sacrifices and contributions of our pioneer generation are being honoured, it is unfortunate
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that some seniors are neglected, abandoned or even abused by their family members. Dr Lily Neo spoke passionately about this yesterday. Even though the abuse is not widespread, numbers are seemingly small, it is our duty to protect the interests of the elderly, maintain our values of respect for them and take a hard line against perpetuators of elderly abuse.
To safeguard elderly parents, we have the Maintenance of Parents Act that lets parents claim maintenance from children who are able but unwilling to support them. We share Ms Tin Pei Ling's concerns that it is not always possible for an elderly to apply for maintenance for himself or herself. This is why social service professionals, especially those in hospitals, long-term care facilities and Social Service Offices (SSO), can refer cases to the Commissioner's Office. Likewise, any family member, caregivers, or person can apply to the Tribunal on behalf of an infirm elderly.
The Maintenance of Parents Act requires all new cases to be first referred to the Office of the Commissioner for the Maintenance of Parents. This is to foster conciliation as far as possible, before the cases go to the Tribunal, and I am glad to report that the Commissioner's Office has successfully resolved many cases. As a result, the number of applications to the Tribunal has fallen from a peak of 199 in 2009 to 63 last year, 2013. In addition, I am glad to note that two years ago, for 2012, more than 80% of the cases reached settlement through the Commissioner's Office, and this is 10% more than in 2010.
Dr Lily Neo asked about prevention and recourse for abused elderly. I would like to assure Dr Neo and all Members in this House that we take a hard stand against abusers of the elderly. Perpetrators can be charged under the Penal Code and under the Mental Capacity Act, ill treatment of a mentally incapacitated person is an offence. In cases where abuse stems from caregivers' stress and their inability to cope, there is a range of counselling and support services that they can turn to. During yesterday's Committee of Supply, MOH has outlined a variety of community and home-based services for caregivers.
To prevent abuse before it happens, we have the National Family Violence Networking System that has multiple touch points to detect and manage family violence. Professionals who work with the elderly are equipped with the skills to detect possible abuse and respond promptly. MSF and our community partners have stepped up public education efforts on family violence and improved the channels for assistance. The support services for affected seniors and their families include counselling, shelters and help in the application of
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Personal Protection Orders.
As more Singaporeans grow older, we need to keep a close watch to better protect the vulnerable elderly. And we all know, filial piety cannot be legislated. Like what Ms Tin has mentioned, filial piety cannot be forced. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with each of us to pass on the value of filial piety – 尊师重道, 孝顺父母 – to the next generation. Our children will imbibe our values and behave in the way we do towards the elderly – and towards us in the future.
Mdm Chair and hon Members, even as the Government and community weave our net of social support for the vulnerable members of our society, we must have families as the centrepiece of our tapestry. Without the strong foundations of healthy families, our network of support can be undermined by instability and insecurity. Families must remain a key pillar of our society. The institution of the family defends the nation with love, kinship and ties that bind the people together. In the same manner, we must protect the family from the pressures and stress of rapid changes brought about by globalisation and technological advancements mentioned by Mr Alex Yam yesterday. MSF's mission is to nurture strong families and that mandate is even more urgent and pertinent today.
As a mother of two young boys, I can identify with the sleepless nights that parents with young children go through, especially during the earlier years. I went through that when my boys were a lot younger, when they were toddlers. For our first boy, my husband and I took a crash course by reading many parenting books and pretty much learnt through trial and error. We wised up a bit when our second boy came along. Nonetheless, I can certainly understand how parenting sometimes can be viewed with a sense of anxiety by some parents.
We would like to assure all Members, parents and would-be parents that help is at hand. While practical experience is something that we all must gain \"on-the-job\" in this parenting job, we have available a wide range of parenting resources, education workshops and access to qualified family life educators. MSF has devoted $3 million over the next three years to boost family life education and develop family life educators and facilitators. This is part of FamilyMatters! which is a concerted effort from schools, workplaces, businesses and community partners to promote family life and create healthy families.
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Let me quickly share an example of a parent who has benefited from these parenting programmes funded by MSF. Diana started attending parenting programmes organised by Northland Primary School two years ago when her son was in Primary 1. She used to be very impatient and often screamed at her son whenever he misbehaved. After attending the parenting programmes, she felt that she is better equipped to understand and manage her son. She now enjoys a closer relationship with her young boy. Diana's positive experience with the parenting programmes also prompted her to become a school coordinator for the FamilyMatters! programme in Northland Primary School.
Mr Seah Kian Peng asked for an update on FamilyMatters!. MSF is working with MOE and the community to conduct two key parenting programmes, namely, the Positive Parenting Programme (PPP) and Signposts. These programmes provide additional support to address day-to-day parenting challenges. Starting next month, the pilot will take place in 40 Primary and Secondary schools over two years. We will share more details about this soon.
Besides parenting programmes in schools, families at various life stages can access a diversity of family life education programmes at their workplace or in their community. These range from marriage enrichment and parenting to coping with work and family demands – multitasking. As of last month, close to 600 schools, companies and community groups have partnered MSF to hold family life education programmes funded under FamilyMatters!. We would like to invite more to come onboard with us. This year is an opportune time to do so because it is the International Year of the Family. So, we call upon everyone to join in the family events and activities that we have lined up in the celebration of the International Year of the Family. Let us all make 2014 the year that we will remember for spending special moments with our families – people who matter most to us.
Let us take time out to honour and cherish our families with our time and presence and actions. Perhaps, I can encourage all Members in the House – we have to walk the talk – when we are having meals with our family, to put away our electronic devices and give our families the total attention that they so deserve.
Families are the heart of our nation. They are the lifeblood of our growth and future. Families matter to Singaporeans and we will make every effort – every effort – to help families thrive. We want to make Singapore a place where families are cherished. A home that families can call their own and a place where family aspirations, dreams and hopes are shared and celebrated as a vital part of our society. Together, we can become a more resilient, united and
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caring Singapore. Mdm Chair, please allow me to say a few words in Mandarin.
(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Family is the cornerstone of our society. Throughout our lives, the care and support from our family plays an important role. Although not everyone is born into a happy family, but I firmly believe that together, we can create happy families and a caring society.
During the Lunar New Year celebrations last month, in conjunction with the International Year of the Family, the organisers of River Hongbao organised the Family Night@River Hongbao for the first time. One social enterprise set up a stall selling creative Chinese New Year trinkets. The trinkets were made by Weng Chew Hao, a slightly autistic but highly creative 16-year-old. All the proceeds for the night would be used to help vulnerable groups with special needs.
Chew Hao's mother, Ms Chen Li Li, is a single mother who has to look after her child and make ends meet at the same time. Even then, she bravely took on life's challenges, and even came forward to help others. I understand that she even plans to open a new social enterprise – a café to provide job opportunities for single mothers in similar situations and children with special needs. Li Li's courage to overcome adversity is admirable and worth learning from.
I believe there are many warriors in life like Li Li and many compassionate individuals who have devoted themselves to charity. As a Singaporean, we must play our part to build a more compassionate and caring society.
Hence, in the new financial year, MSF will focus on three areas.
First, we will introduce more flexible, targeted and effective programmes to help the vulnerable. Second, we will provide more accessible, more comprehensive one-stop services. Third, we will invest more in human resource development, and increase investment to support the expansion of networks, so as to create a more comprehensive and professional social service sector.
As our nation develops, we will ensure that every Singaporean will have the opportunity to share and grow together with us. However, this cannot be
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achieved by MSF alone.
We must integrate everyone's effort and work together, in order to create a passionate and caring Singapore. Those who are more fortunate should come forward and help the vulnerable groups and families in our society.
We are heartened to see the support from various community partners. I would like to take this opportunity to urge more organisations and individuals to come forward to join us. I believe, as long as we put our hearts together, we can build a more united and caring society!
The Chairman: Minister Chan.
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, let me now continue with the second and third priorities for MSF's work in the year 2014. The second priority I want to talk about is our last-mile delivery. The third priority is establishing the conditions for our future success, in particular, our manpower development.
Let me start with the second priority. As mentioned, our job is to make sure we promote independence and not dependence. Our job is to promote resilience and not reliance. Our job is to promote ownership, not outsourcing of responsibilities.
Before I start, perhaps I could share two short stories with Members of this House to illustrate the kind of work and challenges we have in the sector. As a matter of policy, we do not reveal the names of people whom we help, so I will just call the first person Mdm Lim.
Mdm Lim is 70 years old. She used to stay in a rental flat. She has a disabled child, about 40 years old. She refused to stay in her flat because she believed that her rental flat was haunted. She changed her adult disabled child in public, causing quite a bit of embarrassment to the passers-by, but she did not think anything was wrong with it. The grassroots leaders and the Family Service Centre have, over the years, over many years, tried to get her into a new flat. HDB was willing to help her get a new flat, but she refused.
After many years of trying, the Family Service Centre (FSC), together with the grassroots leaders, finally managed to get the child into a home. But that was not the end of it. Mdm Lim did not believe that this was the best solution for the child. Mdm Lim continued to give a lot of trouble to the home who was trying to help to manage the child's condition. Even until today, we have no
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good resolution for this issue, not for Mdm Lim and her habits, her housing issue, not for the care of her child. Credit goes to the home, to the FSC, to the grassroots leaders – they are still trying.
The second story. Sometime back, about a year ago, I visited a family in an Interim Rental Housing flat. Hard luck story. Father used to be a taxi driver, fell into hard times, exhausted their savings, sold their flat, ended up without a home. Really difficult situation. The father was nursing his medical condition and trying to recover.
The sons – one still in Polytechnic, one still in Secondary school – were trying to complete their studies. The FSC and social workers tried to stabilise the situation. They managed to get the mother a temporary part-time job while continuing to provide financial and other forms of assistance to stabilise this situation. When the elder son entered the military service as part of his NS duties, he was a very sensible man. He decided that perhaps he should sign on as a regular to alleviate the burden of his family.
Over the course of six months to a year, the family managed to get out of the Interim Rental Housing that they were in. I would not claim credit for my social workers nor the FSCs. I think what made the difference was the single-minded determination of the family to get out of the situation that they were in. A very sensible young man; both sons are very sensible – I have spoken to them. The father was very determined to try to recuperate and change his lifestyle. The mother worked very hard. It is perhaps a small success.
These few stories just go to show the kind of challenges that we have to deal with in many of the cases that we come across. Very often, as Ms Denise Phua has said, some people will post something on the Internet or a story may come out in the evening newspaper and so forth. Let me assure all Members of this House that my Ministry chases up on each and every story, even though it is not appropriate for us to reveal their private circumstances or the kind of help that they have been getting.
Occasionally, my social workers may get frustrated and ask me why they cannot talk about their cases in public. Some of them are being helped, but they provide a different story. Some of them have very complicated situations which may not be alleviated in the short term. Our policy has never been to reveal names publicly, but our job is to continue to help these people as much as we can, for them to achieve independence, and not dependence. For them to be resilient, and not to grow their reliance. For the community and the family to
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own the problem and challenges together, and not to outsource to somebody else. This is the reason why we have set up the Social Services Offices (SSOs) across the entire island. We want to provide more integrated services, and we want to provide more localised services.
Mr Seah Kian Peng, Mr Zainal Sapari and Dr Lily Neo asked about the progress of the SSOs. Since the announcement last year, to date, we have 10 SSOs fully functioning across the entire island. We will have four more by the middle of this year in Ang Mo Kio, Sengkang, Bedok and Queenstown, and we will continue to roll out the rest of the network by end 2015.
One of the first thing that all the SSOs do when they go into the community is to walk the community, map out all the services in the community, identify the gaps in the community, identify the partners in the community. For some Members, you may have attended our sessions already where we call upon everybody from the community to come together, to sit down together, to do something very simple – get to know each other. Get to know each other to know the kind of services in the community, and to get to know the challenges in the community, so that we will be able to sit down as one community to resolve these challenges.
Dr Lily Neo would have an example. In Jalan Kukoh and Jalan Minyak, the officers from the SSOs, together with the partners, walked day and night – and I mean day and night – to find out the challenges in the community. My officers told me that they needed youth guidance services. I asked them how did they know. They told me, \"I know, because for the last few nights, from 12 midnight to four to five o'clock, I was there. I saw a number of youths hanging out and I talked to them and I know what is troubling them.\"
This is the kind of thing that we want to see in our SSO officers, to have in them, within them the DNA to look at the local issues and to develop the customised solutions. With that, they are able to mobilise the Police, grassroots leaders and the VWOs to come together to tailor solutions to the local community. We will do that, and we will do more. Because for each community, we will need to get in there, spend time to find out the unique needs to develop those unique solutions. This is the first thing about the localised delivery.
The second thing is about integration in delivery. As many Members have mentioned, it is not just the SSOs, the agencies or VWOs working together. We all need to work together. One of the things that the SSO officers will do regularly and have already started in those communities they are in, is to do the
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integrated case management conference, weekly and, as necessary, to talk about all the complex cases like the one that I have shared earlier. So that different agencies can come together to share how they are helping those respective cases, and where we can do better. As Ms Denise Phua said, \"so that nobody will be over served, underserved or not served\", so that each and every case will get the attention necessary from the SSOs, the community, VWOs and FSCs.
We will continue to do more of this and I thank all the Members for your support, because without your support, we will never be able to bring together all the stakeholders in the community to develop the localised solutions, and to deliver the integrated service for the many, many complex cases that are residing within our respective communities. But we can still do better.
We are working on a database, a common database. We hope to get data with a pilot by next year, and progressively over the many years to come. We will input the data and the case histories for all the families in it. Why are we doing this? We are doing this for a very simple reason. For the people looking for help, they just need to tell their story once. For the people providing the help, they know what help has been given to the families or the individuals across the entire time span. No different from the medical history that we get when we see a doctor. So that in the future, when someone goes and sees a social service professional, they, too, will have their equivalent social history record available to them. This will make it more efficient for us.
I must moderate expectations. We have many years of case files in many of the FSCs and SSOs. For those of you who have visited our FSCs, you know that sometimes they look like Chinese medicine shops with rows and rows of files from the many cases that they are handling. We will progressively computerise this to make the data available to all those who are providing help. There is much work that we need to do.
In the meantime, may I humbly ask Members of the House: do not judge any of these families in trouble when you see a picture in the newspaper or on the Internet. Very often, there are very complicated stories behind each and every story, each and every case. Very often, the social workers and the community have been working quietly behind the scenes, helping these families in need without fanfare. Very often, the social workers might get discouraged when people start pointing fingers, asking if they had done enough. We would
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always like to do more and do better but we will all do this together.
I spoke about the vulnerable families and there are some very hardcore cases that we are handling in our society, cases that are even more complex than the two that I have mentioned to you earlier. For this year, we are going to invest in a Vulnerable Families Pilot Programme. The numbers may not be big but they do take up disproportionate amount of resources in the social service sector.
We are going to focus our attention on the first pilot of 500 families. We are going to bring together the various Government agencies to do integrated case management, as suggested by some Members. Each agency, whether is it the HDB, MOE, MOH or others, they might just miss the qualifying criteria. But we want to come together, so that we know when we need to exercise a bit more flexibility in the judgement.
We want to have dedicated social workers to these families to walk those years with them, because it will take us many, many years to solve – I would not even say solve – manage some of these challenges. Progressively, as we take on the hardest cases, it will free up resources for us to take on yet more cases. We are going to change the way we want to tackle some of these most difficult cases in society. I hope that I will have Members' support for us to do this; I will urge patience because these are not cases that we can overcome in a day or two.
There is a particular gap that we want to work on this year. Whenever I talk about social service, I talk about the SSOs, I talk about the FSCs and I talk about the institutional homes run by MSF. But there is one more, one more important ring in the entire social service chain, and that is the community. We need more organised community partners that can serve as the first line of defence to pick up cases which might be vulnerable and alert the SSOs, FSCs and so forth before the families get into trouble. We also need community organisations that can serve as a vehicle for families to be reintegrated back into the community. We need to grow this community ability systematically.
I am happy to note that some of the communities are already starting to do this. For example, there is this group called \"Friends in Charity\" started informally by about 40 friends, helping the less privileged quietly since 2005, regularly distributing food, giving financial assistance, providing mentorship to children and families in Banda Street. Sometimes, they organised outings and so forth. But we need many more, many more in the communities that can work
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in partnership with the SSOs, FSCs and so forth.
Mr Seah Kian Peng suggested why do we not try having paid volunteers. To many, this sounds like an oxymoron – paid volunteers. Okay, let us not call it that. Let us try a different way. Indeed, we have started a pilot, also at Jalan Minyak. It was the programme called \"Caring Assistance from Neighbour (CAN) Programme\", an initiative between MSF and the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), where we get the elderly who are still mobile to visit other elderly to remind them to take their medicine and to engage them, to befriend them.
We also know that in Northeast Community Development Council (CDC), Mayor Teo Ser Luck has started a programme whereby families in need come not just to get the cash handout but also to do some simple tasks for the community. It is not done in exchange. It is done because they want to give the families being helped a sense of ownership, pride and dignity, that they are not just taking handouts. I think we can push further on these ideas, and MSF will be happy to work with Members and their respective communities to champion such ideas. Madam, if I may have your permission to make some remarks in Malay.
The Chairman: Yes, please.
Mr Chan Chun Sing (In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Madam, let me first thank the Malay/Muslim community who have come forward to reach out to fellow Singaporeans in need.
Since I became the Minister for Social and Family Development three years ago, I have met many Malay/Muslim leaders of Singapore who expressed concerns about the Malay/Muslim families who are vulnerable.
We all understand and agree that we cannot overcome this challenge unless we provide integrated and long-term help. Beyond financial help, they will also need assistance in terms of jobs, housing, education and others.
This is exactly what MSF hopes to do for our vulnerable Malay/Muslim families. We are particularly concerned with providing these families with a stable environment that their children can grow up safely and confidently. This will ensure that the children will receive a good education to improve their family's circumstances in the future.
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We will embark on a pilot effort to provide integrated assistance for these vulnerable families. The SSO Officers will also work with the ground to design local social services that are specifically catered to help these vulnerable families, including Malay/Muslim families. We hope to make a difference.
But we cannot do this alone without your support. Beyond financial, housing and educational assistance, we need mentors who can understand these families, and appreciate the cultural and religious norms of these families, to help them effectively.
Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that non-Malay/Muslim social workers and volunteers cannot become mentors to Malay/Muslim families. They are already doing so now. But we also think that an added knowledge of the community's cultural and religious norms will help us become even more effective. As such, we would like to work closely with the Malay/Muslim organisations to bring help to the next level for our Malay/Muslim families in need.
We already have some positive examples. We want to build on them and do even better. For example, the SSO at Choa Chu Kang is working closely with the Al-Khair Mosque through a Befrienders Programme. They mobilise befrienders to make regular home visits to more than 100 beneficiaries of MUIS financial assistance and ComCare assistance. They regularly visit beneficiaries in Choa Chu Kang, Teck Whye and Yew Tee.
We hope that more Malay/Muslim professionals who are successful will come forward to become mentors to the children from these vulnerable families. We need positive role models who can walk the journey with these children. We acknowledge that they cannot overcome their challenges in a day or two. We understand that this effort will take many years. Occasionally, it may also not produce results. Even so, we must still give it our best shot.
We look forward to working with MENDAKI, MUIS and other Malay/Muslim organisations, so that we can together uplift Malay/Muslim families in need. Madam, I seek your permission to continue in English.
(In English): Let me briefly talk about our work with the social enterprises, a point that Miss Penny Low mentioned. Today, we have 200-300 social enterprises, including cooperatives, in Singapore. The sector has grown and we hope that it will continue to grow further. MSF is indeed looking to working closely with all like-minded partners to expand this sector because of the
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important role they play, not just to provide services to the public but also the opportunities they create for our people and families in need.
Some of the support initiatives that we have now include collaboration with institutes of higher learning to run a youth social entrepreneurship programme. We also have partnership capacity builders, such as Empact, to develop and implement pilot mentorship programmes for corporate mentors to provide support for the social enterprises. The Government will continue to encourage and support our social enterprises in the years to come, and we hope that all our agencies will also give them a chance by buying their products and services to encourage them to go further.
Let me now touch on the third set of priorities for MSF in 2014 and that has to be establishing the conditions for our future needs, particularly in the area of manpower capability development. Many Members in this House have spoken about the need for manpower, not just in terms of quantity but also quality. Indeed, this issue has been uppermost on my mind for the years that I have been with MSF. I have taken a lot of time, together with my staff, to talk to people in the sector, to understand the issues, but more importantly, to hear their ideas about how we can achieve a breakthrough in the way we organise and utilise our finite manpower resources.
A common feedback that we have always heard about our Voluntary Welfare Organisation (VWO) sector is that they are all very small. And because they are small, it is difficult for them to have the best Human Resource practices. It is difficult for them to have a structured career development path for the social service professionals.
Over the last two years, we have taken time to listen to the feedback, and to have many workshops to generate ideas to see how we can organise ourselves differently and do things better. We will adopt a two-pronged approach from the feedback given to us by the sector.
The first is that we will provide greater support for all professionals and leaders in the existing VWOs. We will broaden the focus from social workers to all social service professionals, because they all operate multi-disciplinary teams to help the individuals and families in need. We will open up the development opportunities to all social service professionals, including social workers, therapists, psychologists, early intervention teachers and counsellors. We are all one big family.
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In the short term, we will expand the professional and leadership development programmes. We will offer more postgraduate studies in a wider range of disciplines and will continue to allow our social service professionals to enjoy the Sabbatical Leave Scheme, so that they, too, can take a break from some of the very emotionally challenging work.
In the longer term, we will continue to expand the pathways for the Continuing Professional Development frameworks. More details will be announced in the later part of this year.
The Social Service Training Institute has been re-organised as Social Service Institute to provide more dedicated focus to the way we develop our social service sector professionals and leaders, and they will continue to expand the career pathway for the people and the professionals working in the sector.
Last year, we had also done our surveys and benchmarks for the salary scales. We have widely shared with all the VWOs the benchmarks and the scales and encouraged them to revise their Human Resource framework and their salary framework. MSF, on our part, has also adjusted our funding norms to enable our VWOs to remunerate their social service professionals better. As I have always said, our social service professionals did not join this sector because of money. But neither should we have them leave the sector because of money. We are committed to making sure that we pay them fairly and properly.
Beyond the current effort to manage the people who are already with us in the sector, we have also heard feedback that requires us to think of a new approach to complement the existing approach that we are taking. Some of this feedback from the sector includes the desire for social service professionals to be cross deployed to better understand the bigger picture to build the networks across different VWOs so that they can work closer together.
We also want to open up the pipeline for people to join us even if they are in their mid-career already. For the younger social workers and social service professionals, they asked if they can have a better system to manage their career development and deployment. Some want to specialise, others want to be given opportunities to understand the sector, from governance to execution, so that they can better prepare themselves to be leaders in the sector in the
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years to come.
We have heard them and there is support for a new complementary scheme for us to do this. I have spoken to NCSS, and NCSS told me that, this year, they will start a new scheme, together with the many like-minded VWOs, including the big ones and the small ones. A new scheme that will recruit, develop and deploy the social sector professionals as an integrated body, where they will be centrally recruited, decentralised to the various agencies and have their careers tracked by this shared and pooled service from NCSS and the VWOs.
This is akin to what MOE is doing, where teachers are employed by MOE but they are deployed to the SPED schools and the independent schools. We have thought long and hard about this scheme and I am prepared to support NCSS and the VWOs to give it their best shot, to develop a new career scheme to complement the existing career scheme. So, NCSS will work with the many VWOs to design the scheme to centrally recruit, deploy and expose these officers to wider sectoral challenges. NCSS will be making available more information in the later part of this year.
In order for us to make a breakthrough in this, everyone has to think of the sector first and not the individual VWOs. That we can do this together to pool our resources to make the sector first and foremost more attractive, more inviting for the newcomers to come and join us; that everybody will benefit because the respective officers in the VWOs will be able to benefit from the exposure across different VWOs, across different agencies, from Government agencies to NCSS, to different VWOs. We hope that this will also accelerate the sharing of ideas across different VWOs. But most importantly, we hope that in 10 to 15 years to come, we will groom a new generation of social service leaders – leaders who are not just deep in their respective professional knowledge but leaders with the breadth of expertise and exposure who can lead the entire sector.
Today, my Director of Social Welfare is Ms Ang Bee Lian, a familiar name to many of you. Bee Lian is someone who commands respect in the sector because she has been through NCSS, and she has been through MSF. When she speaks, every one of us, including myself, we pay attention because of her depth of experience, because she understands what goes on across the entire sector. When she makes a recommendation, it is often with deep insights and experience.
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We need many, many more \"Ang Bee Lians\" for our future challenges, and MSF is committed to making sure that the next generation of \"Ang Bee Lians\" will be as good, if not even better, in terms of development opportunities and exposure. We are fortunate to have Bee Lian despite the fact that we did not think about this many years back in the current terms that we talk about today.
On the Early Childhood Service Sector, we will similarly pay much attention to the development of our early childhood professionals this year. When we talk about quantity and quality, they are actually linked together. Good quality professional development will attract good people to come and join us and enlarge our ranks. On the other hand, poor quality, poor professional image, will cost us to lose even more people from the sector, which is why the push for quantity and quality goes hand-in-hand in our plan to develop the early childhood professionals.
We are going to strengthen our manpower pipeline by increasing the number of places in the Polytechnics, increasing the number of training awards and scholarships, and also supporting mid-career entrants better. We will implement the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Masterplan this year. In fact, it has already started in February this year where we have rolled out courses to strengthen the tools of our early childhood professionals. The take-up rate by the teachers and professionals has been encouraging and we will roll out more courses this year to meet the demand.
We will also institute support measures from May this year where up to four days per year will be committed to Continuing Professional Development for all our teachers. But in order to do this, we understand and appreciate the manpower challenges in the existing system, which is why we are building up a pool and database of relief teachers very much like the MOE system so that we can provide time off and opportunities for our teachers to go for training and upgrading.
Having done all these, may I also urge parents to work closely with our teachers? Our teachers are very committed to what they do but they need the support of our parents. We have many positive examples of parents working closely together with the teachers. When I visited the centre in Punggol, they told me how they mobilised the parents to come in and help the teachers to take care of the children, to organise activities and really build the community. Yet, at the same time, I also have my fair share of negative examples from parents who would write long letters of complaints to ECDA and demand investigations because, on a particular day, the child went home with two
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mosquito bites.
It takes up time, energy from ECDA but, more importantly, it damages the relationship of trust between parents and teachers. And I want to emphasise again that every time when I talk to my teachers in the childcare sector, the first thing that they always ask is how I can strengthen their professional image and to build the trust with the parents. Those are the first things that they tell me, because they desire respect, they desire a partnership with our parents.
So I am very happy to see some very good operators, like My First School at Haig Road, who, on their own initiative, came up with a systematic programme to allow their teachers to upgrade themselves. Very happy for individuals like Ms Zaqia, who after many years as an edu-carer, went on to take up her diploma and continue to upgrade herself, not because she wanted higher pay, but because she desires to do better for the children under her charge.
Let me now round up the discussion on MSF's work and recap some of the areas that we will focus on this year. Three things, and only three things, that we will want to do well and do better this year.
The first is to work hand-in-hand with many agencies upstream – MND, MOE, MOM and all other agencies, so that we minimise the number of issues downstream, as many of you have suggested. And indeed, we have started this journey with the many agencies. Today, before a new precinct is built by HDB, all the social needs will be incorporated into the designs upfront, down to the level whereby in 20 years' time, when we have an ageing population, there is a place for our elderly to gather, to socialise, to build networks. This is the attention to detail that we must put in place now for the future. As I have mentioned at the beginning of this debate, our social safety net is not dependent just on MSF's efforts. The strongest social safety net that we can provide for fellow Singaporeans is to make sure that we have a strong system of education providing them with good jobs, meaningful jobs, providing them with good housing, affordable housing, quality housing, affordable healthcare, quality healthcare. These are all the upstream work that we are committed to do. This year, the sequence of the Budget debate is perhaps a small reflection of this desire for us to work closer together to achieve our aim to better take care of all Singaporeans.
The second thing that we will do is to make sure that we have effective last-mile delivery. Mobilising the community resources, integrating the work of the SSOs, FSCs and the other VWOs in the respective communities to deliver
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localised and integrated services so that each and every community will get the special attention that is required for the respective communities to take ownership of the challenges that they have, to take care of the respective families in need that we have within our community. But all these are but policies and organisations. Ultimately, what makes or breaks the system will be people.
Let me just recount three little episodes that just came to me last week. Last week, I received a letter. The letter-writer said he saw a seemingly homeless person in the north-western part of Singapore – a Chinese man, seemingly homeless, with his bag of belongings, looking a bit haggard. And then he said he saw an Indian lady going up to this old man, trying to speak to him in Hokkien to try to understand if he was, indeed, homeless.
The old man ignored her but the lady kept trying. After many rounds, the lady asked the letter-writer to help keep an eye on the old man and to translate. Finally, she moved on, after she was satisfied that he was not a homeless person. After that and many episodes later, I found out this lady happened to be one of my officers on her off-day visiting her relative. I was very proud of her. It was her day off. She was not a social service officer by name. But she had it in her DNA to keep a look out for fellow countrymen in need.
Likewise, I was very proud of one of my VWO officers, and there are many of them, who brought in a young lady who was having self-harm behaviour at 11.00 pm at night, stayed with her all the way until 5.00 am in the hospital and police station to stabilise her case.
We all have our share of volunteers at our Meet-the-People Session (MPS) who are not satisfied with managing cases at our MPS. They go that extra mile to do what we call \"mobile MPS\"; we do not just worry about those people who come to look for us; we worry more about those people who cannot come and may not know how to come. Very often, these MPS helpers, when they go on their rounds, they find out more issues that are required to be resolved than meet the eye.
All these are examples that come to my final point about the success and failure of our social service system in Singapore. It is all about people, people and people. People are at the heart of what we do and people are also the key reason why we are able to do what we do. I thank all Members of the House for
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your support, for the challenging work in MSF. I can only promise you that we will take in all your suggestions and your words of encouragement and your words of admonishment to try and do better in the coming years. Thank you very much.
The Chairman: We have a little bit of time for clarification. Mr Seah Kian Peng.
Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade): I first want to congratulate the Minister – I am very heartened by all the positive developments that have taken place and the approach that is being taken to address all these social needs both upstream and downstream.
A few clarifications for the Minister. First, he shared about some incidents that are posted on various websites or reported in the news. He mentioned that as a policy, MSF does not reveal details. I can understand the sensitivity. But at the same time, I think when we adopt this approach, it is very unfair to all the social workers and the good work that the Ministry and various FSCs are doing. There must be a way to correct some of these wrong perceptions and inaccuracies because the Members in this House may understand the wrong perceptions. But the ill-will that is created through such reporting makes it very tough and creates a wrong impression for the general public. So, I hope the Minister could rethink and review this, selectively.
The second clarification is on single parents: Parliamentary Secretary Low Yen Ling mentioned that some progress has been made. Indeed, there are several, but I would like to just push the envelope further and ask, particularly for the single, unwed parents or parents who are not married. There have been some adjustments made but whether we could push the envelope further, that for those who have a child, can we review some of the housing schemes? Also, could some of the financial tax and reliefs be accorded to them? So, I hope the Minister could address that.
Finally, my third clarification is still on parents who are going through divorce. As I mentioned in my earlier cut, right now, counselling and mediation are compulsory for those who have a child aged 14 and below, I suggested —
The Chairman: Mr Seah, you may want to shorten your clarifications.
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Mr Seah Kian Peng: Yes. I wonder if MSF could review this and take up my suggestion to bring it up to age 18.
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, I thank Mr Seah Kian Peng for his clarifications. On the first issue, I think there is no easy solution to this. And I would like to follow up with what Ms Denise Phua mentioned yesterday. Those who genuinely want to help – never mind if they post the story on the Internet or what not – we will be most happy to work with them. But for those with other reasons why they want to do such things, it is always difficult.
On my part and on my Ministry's part, we are committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the respective cases that we are handling. So, yes, sometimes we do take the flak but we would rather take the flak than sacrifice the confidentiality of the beneficiaries whom we are helping. Maybe this is part and parcel of our job.
But I just want to reassure the House that if you come across any case, whether it is on the Internet or in the newspapers, we will chase up on the case. Very often, these are cases which we have been dealing with for many years. The example that I gave you just now is more than eight years, and we are still trying to help him.
On the second issue, I just want to reassure Mr Seah Kian Peng that MND has very kindly moved on the singles issue. Unwed single mums with children are now eligible to apply for a flat very much as any other singles. For specific cases where the circumstances are exceptional, I am sure the Minister for National Development will look at it with compassion and assess it, as he would do in his usual way.
For financial support, our policy is to never discriminate the child because of the parents' marital status. For all things that we give to the Singaporean child, it will be the same. But there are other packages that incentivise or help promote family formation and those have a separate policy objective. From the child's perspective, we want to be fair to the child. I understand that the child is innocent and there is no reason for us to discriminate against the child.
We will take note of the suggestions on divorce counselling, whether we should push up the age limit. We have just started this; let us take a step at a time and see if it works well and then whether there is a further need for us to raise the age. I would just want to say that adults can often get into trouble, disagree, but let us always remember the child who is always at the centre,
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caught in between, powerless to dictate terms or even to share his or her perspective. So, for all parents, I always urge them to always put the child's interests at heart, no matter what difficulties there may be between the adults.
Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Moulmein-Kallang): I want to congratulate the team in MSF for the wonderful work that is being done. Two clarifications. One, about families of adults, especially adults with moderate to severe disabilities. I was wondering if the Ministry could clarify, often these families are very helpless, frustrated, anxious and worried. How can we help these families in a more structured way to help themselves? Perhaps, help them do mapping with an end in mind; how to help these adults reach financial independence, physical well-being, social well-being and continued education as well. So, I was wondering if there are some more structured ways to do so or if there are plans to do so.
And the second clarification is really about social service delivery. I understand now from what Minister has shared, the SSOs play a very pivotal and central role in the whole social service landscape. Can Minister clarify what the roles of the other players that hitherto have been very active as well, for example, the CDCs, FSCs, People's Association (PA), grassroots volunteers and other individuals and so forth? How do we structure it such that, like the Minister said, we are sharing the same goal and so that people are not over served, underserved or not served at all?
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, on the first issue of adult disability, let me say that I know and I agree that we have a gap, especially for the moderate to severe disability group. In the last two years, through the Member's efforts and the efforts of many of the VWOs – we have taken a step in that direction by tackling the mild to moderate adult disability group first. We are very lacking in our support and expertise to manage this group. This is something that we want to grow so that we can provide better support for the families with adult disability, especially the severe to the moderate ones.
We have taken a step in that direction by going in to the moderate to mild group first because, admittedly, that is easier and we need to build up our capacity and capability. Today, we do not yet have enough specialists in this area but we are committed to expand the group.
On the second issue about the SSOs' role versus FSCs and grassroots leaders (GRLs), maybe the best way that I can illustrate this is what I usually say at some of the sharing sessions with the communities. Imagine a five-ring
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Olympic ring in the social service chain. The first ring is a community ring. The community is the first line of support, the first line of detection. This is where we want to mobilise more community groups to provide that integration. This is where PA, this is where CDCs, and many other kind-hearted individuals come in because they mobilise the community support group. This community support group is important not just for the social service. In time to come, this community support structure will have to extend to taking care of our elderly and even some of the mentally unstable partners in our community. So, this is a community group. The PA, CDCs and GRLs are working hard on this.
The second ring is the SSOs. The SSOs deal with the more straightforward cases and, very often, financial cases. But the SSOs are also the first port of call for many of these families with emerging issues. The SSOs will be able to link up the families in need with the more specialised agencies to do intervention work. The SSOs will be the first one to do the triage in this entire system.
The third ring is the Family Service Centres (FSCs). They are staffed with many professional social workers and counsellors. They do social work intervention for many of the complex cases. Together with the SSOs, they sit down together with the agencies, the Government agencies, to work out each and every respective case management for the families in need; from HDB to MOE to MOM for jobs and so forth because their job is to provide that holistic and integrated support. So, between the SSOs and the FSCs – especially the FSCs – they will provide the specific intervention.
The fourth ring is the specialised FSCs. There are some specialised FSCs that deal with specialties or niche areas, for example, elderly abuse, gambling addiction, or PAVE for family violence. These are the specialised FSCs that work beyond the teamwork of the normal FSCs. Today, we have about 43 FSCs. We have a handful of FSCs that specialise in some of these areas: TRANS Safe Centre, PAVE and Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society for gambling addiction.
The last ring represents the institutions. These are the homes – the destitute homes and the juvenile homes – that are run by the Government as part of our statutory duties. So, there are five rings of intervention – from the first line of support at the community, to the SSOs doing the simple intervention. SSOs are not staffed with all social workers; many of them are social assistance professionals. Then, we have the FSCs to provide social service intervention; next, we have the specialised FSCs looking after family violence, gambling, elderly abuse and so forth. And then there is the fifth ring, which represents the institutional homes that look after cases like the destitute, child abuse and so
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forth.
That is not the end of the social service chain because whoever ends up at the institutions and homes, they need to be re-integrated back into the community, which is why the community receptacle is so important for us to complete this loop.
I hope I have broadly and simply explained the roles played by the different agencies across the entire social service chain.
Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap (Aljunied): Thank you, Madam. I have two clarifications for the Minister. Firstly, I agree with the Minister mentioning that the SSO officers need to have a helping DNA in them. Nevertheless, I believe that besides DNA, expertise is also a vital component. I would like to know from the Minister whether the officers at the SSOs are social work trained. If yes, what is the proportion of social-work trained to non-social-work trained officers at the SSOs?
Secondly, in my cut, I had called on MSF to initiate a joint collaboration effort with HDB, in particular, the Credit Operations Department, in identifying high-risk families from being homeless and work towards drafting preventive measures. Will the MSF look into it?
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, let me say that not all officers in the SSOs are social work trained. SSO officers go through our in-house training to provide the basic level of social assistance and care. Some of my SSO officers are social work trained, for example, the General Manager of the SSO at Chua Chu Kang. She is social work trained. We have different people with different capabilities in the SSOs.
On the Member's second suggestion, indeed, this has already been done. The upstream work with the HDB to make sure that we get alerted to those cases whereby the families are in arrears for a prolonged period, and we can render them the assistance before they run into deeper trouble.
Dr Lily Neo (Tanjong Pagar): Thank you, Mdm Chair. Two clarifications for the Minister, please. May I ask the Minister whether he will take up my suggestion to better assist lower-income families to help themselves by
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adopting the hands-on approach, to micromanage each case in order to find long-term solutions for each family, especially young families?
On my second clarification, the Minister earlier said that there will be assistance for retirees who are on subsistence living due to very low CPF payouts, and that now this group will be eligible for Public Assistance or ComCare. I would like to thank the Minister for that. May I ask the Minister whether he knows the number of such cases that had been rejected by CDCs or MSF for the past few years, as I had quite a few in my ward, and whether such cases now can be recalled to give them the due assistance?
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, the answer to Dr Lily Neo's first question is yes, definitely, which is why we started the vulnerable families pilot, which is why we started the SSOs. As the Member has said, we want each case to be managed according to their needs. What the Member has also mentioned very importantly is this: it is not just the cash payout that is important. What is most important is to solve the underlying issues: Is it one of holding down a job? Is it one of health issue? Housing issue? Education? And so forth.
This is the reason why the SSO has taken upon itself to do the case management for the community. This is the reason why we want to start the vulnerable families pilot with 500 families as the pilot in the first place to allow the different agencies, including MND, MOE, Police and so forth, to come together to look at the specific issues faced by the individual or family; to help them stabilise their situation, and then they move out from there. Our long-term goal is not to have more and more people on the ComCare scheme. Our long-term goal is to have ComCare act as a bridge for them to get to a better future.
On the second issue: that has already been ongoing for a very long while. First and foremost, we see whether the person qualifies for public assistance. If the person qualifies for Public Assistance and if the person has CPF, we will then just top up the difference. If the person does not qualify for Public Assistance, we will then look into why they did not qualify for Public Assistance. Is it because they have family support? Or is it that they have other sources of income?
We will look through the cases, but one of the very difficult challenges that we always face in such issues is that they do have what we call family support in the traditional sense. That is, they have children; they have people who are family members who are able to help them. But very often, there is a breakdown in the family relationship. Very often, before we can even do that handout, we
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have to mediate and try to get the family members to come and join us in this work. Very often, sadly, we are not always successful to get the family to come and play their part.
For some of these cases, we have no choice but to come in to help. Our ultimate aim is not for these family members to outsource their responsibilities to someone else but to help the family to reconcile, so that they can help take care of each other. I am sure many Members will know that this is very challenging work. Sometimes, we run a risk. Because we are helping and these very unfilial family members know that we are helping, they harden their hearts. It is a very difficult thing, but it requires a fine balance of judgement in how best to help these families in need.
Mr Yee Jenn Jong (Non-Constituency Member): Thank you, Madam. I have two areas of clarifications. The first is that I have not gotten any answers for my Budget speech and COS cut on KiFAS. I want to know exactly how many new centres have we added to the schemes. Is it only the five MOE kindergartens added to the 235 already-qualified PCF centres? That is 240 out of 500 existing centres.
Previous KiFAS qualifying criteria required operators to be non-religious, non-racial, non-profit, and with more than $5 million paid-up capital. Has this changed, because the three new anchor operators include one Christian non-profit organisation and two private operators? Can religious, racial non-profit organisations and private operators be included under the new KiFAS consideration? What are MSF's new criteria for selecting eligibility? I did not see that there was any call for new players recently.
The second area of clarification is in student care. The Minister said that the childcare of today will be the student care of tomorrow. I wish we could wait till tomorrow, but the fact is many of the childcare users have already graduated to become the users for student care, and the demand has far outstripped the supply. Many of the large capacity centres in schools are already full —
The Chairman: Mr Yee, please shorten your clarification.
Mr Yee Jenn Jong: What is the timeline that MOE and MSF have for finalising the plans, and whether there will be, within the plans, grants for fees, like in childcare, because it is financially unattractive to run student care?
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Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, on the first question by Mr Yee on KiFAS, all new anchor operators are eligible for this. They are in the process of setting up their centres and we will have to see how many centres they are able to set up and will qualify.
Let me go back to a more fundamental point about how we give out subsidies and for what reasons. That is even more important. All subsidies are public money. We can only give out subsidies and use public money if we can assure ourselves of a few things, and we need to put in place these before we give out the subsidies.
One, the subsidies should be targeted at those most in need of help. Two, the subsidies should not lead to a situation of price escalation without a corresponding change in quality. Three, there must be some assurance of the quality standards of the institutions that enjoy the subsidies. These form our basic philosophy.
Will we expand the scheme? Let us do it carefully. Let us make sure that whoever we give the subsidies to – both in terms of operators and in terms of the parents – meet those criteria that I have just suggested.
One, it is targeted at those who are most in need of help, not just to get the next better, or perceived to be better, course for our children. Two, it must not lead to an issue of price escalation without a corresponding quality increase. Three, there must be some quality assurance. All anchor operators who pass our quality assurance will be entitled to join the scheme. I have gotten feedback from some anchor operators that they will be expanding the number of centres that provide such services. I welcome that. But I will need to put in place that quality framework and ensure that the subsidies are well used and well targeted.
The second thing about student care, the Minister for Education has already announced the plan. We all want to do it faster, but we must not compromise the quality of care for our students. As we expand the number of student care places, we must correspondingly look at the number of teachers and volunteers that we can mobilise to do this.
It is a big change that we have undergone in the last five to 10 years. As I have mentioned, five years ago, it was one in six families that did not have extensive family support. Five years later, one in three. Five more years later, one in two. Yes, we will do our best to meet this demand. But I must caution that it is not a one-for-one translation from childcare to student care. It is not a
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one-for-one demand because some people when they finish childcare and go to Primary school, there may be other alternative arrangements. Yet, there will be other people who may need new arrangements. So, it is not a one-for-one demand.
I can assure Mr Yee Jenn Jong that the Minister for Education and I are both looking very closely at this. Moving forward, we want to put in place a structured and quality framework for student care services, so that we can give our parents peace of mind when they put their children in the centre.
Mr Ang Hin Kee: Thank you, Minister. Earlier, you mentioned that there will be more support on stress management. I think many in the pre-school industry operate in a so-called “良心事业”, a career of conscience. I am calling for more support, especially for teachers who face stress at the workplace. I hope the Minister can elaborate a little more.
The Minister mentioned earlier about simplifying and refining SPARKS and the accreditation process. That particular process also adds certain stress to already over-worked teachers and administrators. I look forward to MSF giving more support in the process of ensuring quality, but also understand that a lot of these professionals are already over-worked at the workplace.
Mr Chan Chun Sing: On the first clarification, some of these modules will be incorporated into the continuing professional development courses that many of the childcare professionals go to. I have consulted many of the operators and professionals in the sector. In the past, we focused our professional development on how to teach better and how to relate to the child better. But the Member is right. Many of them have given feedback that these are necessary, but we need to go even one step further. That one step further is to provide the emotional support and the counselling skills for the childcare service professionals, to get the centre's support for them to manage some of these stresses.
One of the biggest challenges that they have highlighted to me is not the stress dealing with the children. It is the stress managing a small group of parents that takes up a disproportionate amount of their time. Even parent management skills, parent-teacher relationship building, are subjects that we will incorporate into the new curriculum for our teachers.
On the second point about SPARK, yes, indeed, that is the reason why we wanted to simplify the entire framework. Over time, as we increase the capacity
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in the sector, we will be able to more clearly delineate the teaching track from the professional management track. Not very different from what MOE has done over all these years with more resources. Teachers are able to focus on the teaching and, yet, we have other people to complement their work in terms of administration, quality control and so forth. Those will be the things that we will be working on in the coming years.
The Chairman: Miss Penny Low.
Miss Penny Low: Thank you, Mdm Chair. First, I would like to thank Minister and all his staff for all the really good work that MSF has done. I have seen marked progress, especially the whole-of-Government way of social service delivery. I want to also thank him for the work in the childcare sector. That has really helped my residents, but we need to do more. Just a few quick questions.
First, the Minister talked about the upgrade in professionalisation of people in the social services. I think that is really something that is necessary and should be urgently conducted. But he mentioned that this will apply to all the social workers in the VWOs. I am wondering whether this should also be extended to organisations that are registered as not-for-profit, but not necessarily VWOs, or under ROS, or registered as charity. So, would this upgrade and professionalisation of services extend to not-for-profit organisations not registered as charity?
Second, I think a couple of years ago, he also announced that the $100 million IT upgrade —
The Chairman: Miss Low, please shorten your clarification.
Miss Penny Low: I will do that, Madam. The Minister said that the IT upgrade would be extended also to VWOs and the social sector. I had sought various clarifications on that, but there was no clear answer as to whether it would also extend to the NPOs that are not registered as charity. So, could the Minister also clarify on that?
Last but not least, on my cut on disabled employment and assistive technology, would the Minister consider developing studies into how we can
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convert special needs to special abilities and train them in that light? So, it is not a one-size-fits-all kind of skills training but really specialised according to the kind of special needs and abilities.
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Madam, three quick answers. On the first question about extension to the professionals – anyone who is involved in the social service profession will qualify. We look at the social service professionals, not the organisation that they come from. So, it is the social service professionals. Two, on the IT upgrade. Our first phase of focus is on building the database for the people involved in social work per se. I am not sure about the non-profit organisations that are not involved in social work. So, I think they probably will not have that in the first phase, because the first phase is really to build up something akin to MOH's medical records, for us to provide more integrated help to the people who require social services. Third, yes, we agree that for all special needs people, we have to deal with them as individuals, and we have to look at each and every of their abilities to see how best we can help them. And I always remember this word that one late special needs person told me: \"Don't look at people with disability – spelt 'disability'. Look at them with ‘this ability'.\" Because of that, we are able to appreciate what they can do and not what they cannot do.
The Chairman: Mr Seah Kian Peng, would you like to withdraw your amendment?
Mr Seah Kian Peng: Madam, on behalf of my GPC Members and, for that matter, all Members in the Chamber, I want to thank Minister Chan Chun Sing and Parliamentary Secretary Low Yen Ling for their comprehensive, thoughtful and heartfelt replies to addressing the social needs of the people. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Permanent Secretary Chan Heng Kee, Deputy Secretary Ong Toon Hui, all the fine and kind men and women, staff, volunteers in the Ministry and in the social service sector. You are the face, the heart and at the forefront in our quest to make Singapore a fairer and more equitable society. On that note, Madam, it is my pleasure and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
[(proc text) Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. (proc text)]
[(proc text) The sum of $1,795,824,000 for Head I ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates. (proc text)]
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[(proc text) The sum of $69,024,500 for Head I ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates. (proc text)]
The Chairman: I shall now deal with the remaining Heads of Expenditure in respect of which no amendment stands on the Order Paper Supplement. In respect of the Main Estimates, they are Heads B, C, D, E, F, G and Z. I propose to take those Heads of Expenditure en bloc.
[(proc text) Question, \"That the sums stated for Heads B, C, D, E, F, G and Z which appear in the last column of the Schedule of estimated expenditure under the Main Estimates on page 6 of Paper Cmd 1 of 2014 stand part of the Main Estimates,\" put and agreed to. (proc text)]
The Chairman: In respect of the Development Estimates, they are Heads B, C, D, E and F.
[(proc text) Question, \"That the sums stated for Heads B, C, D, E and F which appear in the last column of the Schedule of estimated expenditure under the Development Estimates on page 7 of Paper Cmd 1 of 2014 stand part of the Development Estimates,\" put and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Question, \"That the sum of $64,374,642,700 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the Public Services shown in the Main Estimates for the Financial Year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, contained in Paper Cmd 1 of 2014,\" put and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Question, \"That the sum of $24,780,828,700 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the Public Services shown in the Development Estimates for the Financial Year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, contained in Paper Cmd 1 of 2014,\" put and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Resolutions to be reported. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Thereupon Mdm Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House. (proc text)]
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam): Mdm Speaker, I beg to report that the Committee of Supply have come to certain resolutions.
[(proc text) First Resolution reported – (proc text)]
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[(proc text) \"That the sum of $64,374,642,700 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the Public Services shown in the Main Estimates for the Financial Year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, contained in Paper Cmd 1 of 2014.\" (proc text)]
[(proc text) Second Resolution reported – (proc text)]
[(proc text) \"That the sum of $24,780,828,700 shall be supplied to the Government under the Heads of Expenditure for the Public Services shown in the Development Estimates for the Financial Year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, contained in Paper Cmd 1 of 2014.\" (proc text)]
Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That Parliament doth agree with the Committee on the said resolutions.\"
[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Resolutions accordingly agreed to. (proc text)]
","clarificationText":null,"clarificationTitle":null,"clarificationSubTitle":null,"reportType":null,"questionCount":null,"footNotes":null,"footNoteQuestions":null,"questionNo":null},{"startPgNo":0,"endPgNo":0,"title":"Supply Bill","subTitle":null,"sectionType":"BP","content":"[(proc text)Order for Second and Third Readings read. (proc text)]
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam): Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That the Bill be now read a Second time.\"
In accordance with Article 148(1) of the Constitution, Heads of Expenditure to be met from the Consolidated Fund and Development Fund, other than statutory expenditure, have to be included in the Bill to be known as the Supply Bill. The purpose of the Supply Bill before Members is therefore to give legislative approval for the appropriations from the Consolidated Fund and Development Fund to meet the expenditure in the Financial Year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015. The Heads of Expenditure and the sums that may be incurred in respect of each Head are shown in the Schedule to the Bill. These have been approved by the House in the Main and Development Estimates of Expenditure for the Financial Year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, as contained in Command
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Paper No 1 of 2014.
The Supply Bill, when approved, will empower me to issue warrants authorising expenditure up to the amount for each Head as shown in the Bill to be paid out from the Consolidated Fund and Development Fund. Madam, I beg to move.
[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time. (proc text)]
Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That the Bill be now read a Third time.\"
[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]
","clarificationText":null,"clarificationTitle":null,"clarificationSubTitle":null,"reportType":null,"questionCount":null,"footNotes":null,"footNoteQuestions":null,"questionNo":null},{"startPgNo":0,"endPgNo":0,"title":"Supplementary Supply (FY 2013) Bill","subTitle":null,"sectionType":"BP","content":"[(proc text) Order for Second and Third Readings read. (proc text)]
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam): Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That the Bill be now read a Second time.\"
The purpose of this Bill is to make provision in accordance with Articles 148(2) and 148C(2) of the Constitution for additional expenditure in excess of the provisions authorised by the Supply Act 2013. The additional sums have been presented as Supplementary Estimates, which have been considered and approved by the House as Command Paper No 2 of 2014. Madam, I beg to move.
[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time. (proc text)]
Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That the Bill be now read a Third time.\"
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[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]
","clarificationText":null,"clarificationTitle":null,"clarificationSubTitle":null,"reportType":null,"questionCount":null,"footNotes":null,"footNoteQuestions":null,"questionNo":null},{"startPgNo":0,"endPgNo":0,"title":"Acknowledgement to the Chair","subTitle":null,"sectionType":"OS","content":"The Leader of the House (Dr Ng Eng Hen): Mdm Speaker, if I can make some comments on the roundup of this year's Budget and Committee of Supply (COS) before we hear some words from you.
This year's Budget and COS sit midway in the Government's electoral term – assuming a five-year term. In sporting parlance, we are at half-time. And at half-time, it is an appropriate juncture for the Government and this House to take stock of how we have performed and what else needs to be done to finish the job and deliver on our promises to Singaporeans.
If we compare hon Members' speeches when the Twelfth Parliament first opened in 2011 and during the past two Budgets with their speeches this year, some conclusions can be gleaned. Then, Members asked if we were doing enough for the poor, for older Singaporeans, for the disabled, for PMETs and lower-skilled workers. Then, Members pushed the Government to find ways to narrow the wealth gap. Then, Members echoed residents' dissatisfaction with housing, the transport system and healthcare affordability. Members were also not pleased with our over-reliance on foreign labour and called on the Government to slow down immigration and improve productivity.
From this year's speeches, it would be fair to say that there have been significant improvements in some areas as the Government rolled out measures to deal with the issues that Members raised in previous years. This Budget's $8 billion Pioneer Generation Package (PGP) won universal support from all Members in this House and the general public – both old and young alike. PGP could easily have been called \"Peace-of-Mind and Gratitude Package\" for Singapore's Pioneers. Many Members in this House have also noted that what was extraordinary was not only the Package but that it could be funded entirely. By doing so, this Government has set a virtuous precedent of not making grand promises for subsequent Governments to bear the cost. This is something that few, if any, governments around the world have done or can do.
Members were also pleased that the housing problem has been decisively tackled. The results speak for themselves. Shorter waiting times, lower costs
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and greater affordability of housing pushed MND off the hot seat, to the relief of Minister Khaw's eyebags.
The honour of hot seats instead went to MOH, MOT and MOM. They received the most cuts and, together, took up nearly a third of our Committee of Supply time. In all, Members filed 452 amendments, 6% less than last year. For MOH, the attention was expected, given our concerns with a rapidly ageing population and many Members wanting to give inputs for MediShield Life. For Transport and Manpower, the added attention reflected work-in-progress on areas that the Government will need to improve on over the next few years. Members were happy that bus travel had improved, but train rides had not yet turned the corner to win approval. For wages, Members noted that median wages have risen but wanted an economy that provided even better jobs and higher wages, especially for low-wage and older workers. Members here have rightly recognised that the key to both aspirations was more innovation and higher productivity, and urged economic agencies to redouble efforts to help, especially our small and medium-sized enterprises, in the face of Singapore's economic restructuring.
There were also perennial passions of our Members – an education system, including pre-school, to better prepare our children in today's world, less stress and emphasis on examinations, more programmes to foster creativity, imbue skills to learn, inculcate values and resilience through arts, sports and a love for our history, culture and environment. And, as necessary, calls for more to be done to bring the disabled, special, different, marginalised and vulnerable into the mainstream life of our society.
All in all, this year's Budget and COS reflect a House holding true to the course which the President set when Parliament began in 2011: \"To build on our strong foundation together, to give all Singaporeans a better life and brighter tomorrow\". In this task, many Members have cautioned that we must not become insular, not to become the proverbial frog in the well, staring only at our piece of the sky, thinking that it is the entire universe. It was opportune that the crisis in Ukraine served to affirm Members' caution and served as a salutary, if grim, reminder of how small countries can be treated if they cannot protect their own sovereignty.
Mdm Speaker, we have come to the end of the debates on the Budget for FY 2014/2015. It has been an intensive nine days, with sittings lasting about eight, sometimes nine, hours each day to give sufficient time for full discussions on the Estimates. I want to thank Members for maintaining high standards in this Parliament during the Budget and COS, in their debates as well as in civility
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and decorum.
Mdm Speaker, if we have completed the first half of the match, the more crucial second half begins when Parliament re-opens after prorogation. We still have much to do. This House, therefore, urges all of us together – Government, Members of Parliament and our people – to commit ourselves to the task of improving the lives of all Singaporeans in the remainder of the term.
Mdm Speaker, on behalf of the House, our thanks go to the staff of the Secretariat for their support, assistance and cooperation rendered to the House over the two weeks of Budget sittings.
We express our deep and special thanks to you and your Deputies for ably and patiently presiding over the debates and ensuring that the Budget proceedings went smoothly and completed within the allotted time. We are thankful that your guillotine was sparingly used and that we have survived this Budget and COS under your firm hands with head and limbs intact. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Mdm Speaker: Hon Members, first, I wish to thank the Leader of the House and the Whip, as well as their deputies, for their support and cooperation which have enabled us to conclude this COS debate successfully. I also wish to thank all hon Members for your active participation and support throughout the COS. I did not have to use my guillotine because you all have been most cooperative, except for a few instances, of course.
Members, this has been a very significant Budget and a good debate. What I like about this Budget is that it places people at the centre of development, which is as it should be, as economic growth cannot be an end in itself but is a means to provide a better life for our people.
There was, as the Leader had also observed, unanimous support from all Members, regardless of their political affiliations, for this year's Budget. The focus of the debate was on the Pioneer Generation Package, which everyone agreed was a most deserving recognition for our pioneers who have contributed much but expected little in return.
As expected, the Ministry of Health attracted the most number of cuts, and Members were not disappointed, judging from the many enhancements that were announced that would significantly address the concerns voiced by Singaporeans over healthcare costs. The Ministry of National Development,
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which used to dominate in previous years' COS, must be quite relieved that they were not the star this year, largely because of the tangible progress that has been made in addressing Singaporeans' housing concerns. By the way, Minister Khaw, if you have found a way to remedy your eye bags, please share with us. Many of us need it also.
But many Members also agreed that we still have much work to do. We need to ensure that the policies made in this House actually reach the people that they are meant to benefit. During the COS period, I continued with my house visits at night and many residents were still unaware about the Pioneer Generation Package and elderly residents continued to raise concerns about healthcare. Many were also not aware that Parliament was in session and that important debates over the Budget were taking place having an impact on their lives and their future.
I must commend Members for the many thoughtful views, suggestions and insights that you have brought into this debate. You have put in a great deal of effort to research and prepare your speeches, and raised both broad policy issues as well as the practical ground issues that directly affect your residents. Hence, I feel that there is no danger of this House being out of touch with the ground, a point raised by hon Member Sitoh Yih Pin, which is nevertheless a useful reminder for all of us.
Many Members also made good use of the time for clarifications, although some still cannot resist the lure of using the opportunity to make more speeches. The Front Bench, too, must be commended for being responsive, engaging and open to Members' suggestions, judging by the many policy shifts that have been made in this debate in many of the Ministries.
This year, Members had heeded the advice which I gave last year to pace your speech and there were few bullet trains whizzing through Parliament during the debate this year. Last year, I also touched on the need for more judicious use of slides and videos. Unfortunately, the usage of such visuals had intensified this year. I accept that visuals have their uses, like the ones showing useful charts or figures or where such aids help in the better understanding of an idea that would otherwise be difficult to comprehend. However, a more sparing use of them would create greater impact as this is after all a debate. Sometimes, I feel like I am going through a PowerPoint presentation in a meeting. I also urge Ministries, especially those with multiple office-bearers replying to cuts, to divide your time well as I could see that some were under
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time pressures this year.
Let me conclude by once again thanking hon Members for your cooperation and support which have enabled us to complete this debate in good time and successfully. I also wish to thank my two helpful and reliable Deputy Speakers, Mr Charles Chong and Mr Seah Kian Peng, for their assistance. And my thanks also go to our Parliament staff who have been working very quietly but tirelessly behind the scene to ensure that Parliament runs smoothly throughout the COS debate. And I know some of our interpreters have a hard time keeping up with Members. They have, indeed, been working very hard every minute that the session is on.
Members, we are here only for one purpose and, that is, to serve the people of Singapore. I am gratified that through Members' active participation, serious debates and robust engagement, Members have shown your strong commitment to serve this purpose. Thank you. [Applause.]
","clarificationText":null,"clarificationTitle":null,"clarificationSubTitle":null,"reportType":null,"questionCount":null,"footNotes":null,"footNoteQuestions":null,"questionNo":null},{"startPgNo":0,"endPgNo":0,"title":"Plant Varieties Protection (Amendment) Bill","subTitle":null,"sectionType":"BP","content":"[(proc text) Order for Second Reading read. (proc text)]
The Senior Minister of State for Law (Ms Indranee Rajah): Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That the Bill be now read a Second time.\"
Madam, Plant Varieties Protection is a type of Intellectual Property protection. A person who breeds, discovers and develops a new plant variety, defined under the current Act as a Breeder, may apply to protect his new plant variety under the Plant Varieties Protection Act by filing an application for a grant of protection. If given, the grant of protection gives the Breeder exclusive rights in relation to the new plant variety. The Breeder may prevent others from doing a range of acts without the Breeder's permission, such as: (a) producing or reproducing; (b) selling; (c) importing; and (d) exporting the protected plant variety.
Currently, the Act is limited to protection of certain specific varieties of plants listed in the Schedule. Examination is carried out by AVA. This Bill seeks to enhance the plant varieties protection system in Singapore under the Act. It expands the scope of Plant Varieties Protection under the Act to include all plant
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genera and species; and it enables IPOS to engage the services of other technical examining authorities, aside from the AVA, in the examination of these plant genera and species.
I will now take the House through the main features of the Bill.
The Act was enacted arising from Singapore's accession to the International Union on the Protection of New Varieties of Plant Convention, the \"UPOV Convention\", on 30 July 2004. This was part of our United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement obligations. When the Act was first enacted, varieties from 15 plant genera and species were eligible for protection under the Act. This was in line with our UPOV Convention obligations.
Mdm Speaker, I take to heart your injunction regarding slides. I just ask respectfully your permission to show a few photographs for the Members' better understanding of what this Act is about.
Mdm Speaker: Yes, please. [Slides were shown to hon Members.]
Ms Indranee Rajah: Thank you. The current list of plant genera and species covers specific plants from: firstly, the Orchid family, for example, the Dendrobium and Phalaenopsis; secondly, Aquatic plants and Ornamentals group, for example, Heliconias; and, thirdly, the Vegetable group, for example, Baicai and Caixin.
I should clarify that the plants seen in these photographs are just examples of the various plant groups listed under the Schedule, and these plant varieties shown are not specifically protected plant varieties.
The UPOV Convention obliges us to allow protection for all plant genera and species by the tenth year of our accession, that is, by July 2014. As such, clause 3 of the Bill expands the plant variety protection system under the Act to all plant genera and species.
Aside from the need to comply with our international obligations, the expansion of our plant varieties protection system is also intended to encourage investments in the research and development of new plant varieties with economic potential. One example of a plant with such economic potential is the \"'Jatropha curcas\" species, which was added to the list under the Ornamentals
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group in December last year.
And if I may display the slide just to show what this plant looks like, the first shows the oil-bearing fruits, and the second picture will show the plant in flowering stage. This species can produce fruits of high oil yield. It holds potential commercial use as a bio-fuel. Locally, there is already some interest to breed this species.
When a Breeder applies for protection of a new plant variety, plant materials have to be submitted for technical examination. This examination is currently conducted by the prescribed examination authority, that is, the AVA. With the expansion of our Plant Varieties Protection regime, we will need examiners with the necessary technical expertise to examine a much wider range of plant genera and species.
Clauses 2, 5, 6, 8 and 11 of the Bill, therefore, amend the Plant Varieties Protection Act to enable the Registrar of Plant Varieties to engage the services of other examining authorities, including those from other UPOV Convention member countries, to perform the relevant technical examination.
This outsourcing model is in line with current practices in other jurisdictions, such as Switzerland, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. This is a resource-efficient way of providing for technical examination.
In cases where AVA does not have the expertise to do a technical examination of any particular plant genera or species, the proposed amendments will enable IPOS to engage the services of other examining authorities with the relevant expertise to do so. This removes the need for IPOS or AVA to recruit and train in-house technical experts for the examination of new plant varieties, which will be time-consuming and expensive. Instead, they can tap on available expertise.
Clause 4(a) also enables the Registrar of Plant Varieties to delegate his powers or functions under the Act to any person with the relevant qualification or experience, for operational efficiency. In conclusion, Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.
Mdm Speaker: There are no speakers for this Bill.
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[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House. (proc text)]
[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Ms Indranee Rajah]. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]
","clarificationText":null,"clarificationTitle":null,"clarificationSubTitle":null,"reportType":null,"questionCount":null,"footNotes":null,"footNoteQuestions":null,"questionNo":null},{"startPgNo":0,"endPgNo":0,"title":"Protection from Harassment Bill","subTitle":null,"sectionType":"BP","content":"[(proc text) Order for Second Reading read. (proc text)]
The Minister for Law (Mr K Shanmugam): Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, \"That the Bill be now read a Second time.\"
Let me first set out the context. Harassment can take place anywhere, anytime and in any form. Sexual harassment has been an issue. It can take place within and outside the workplace.
Stalking conduct can be following a person, loitering near a person's office or residence, repeatedly trying to contact a person by calling him or her, sending SMSes, emails and so on – it is basically trying to impose unwanted communication on another person, to try and get that person's attention.
Harassment can take place in the physical space and in the online space. Cyberspace makes harassment easier and, in some ways, more egregious, because it can be anonymous, borderless, viral and permanent.
Late last year, REACH commissioned a study involving more than 1,000 Singapore residents above the age of 15. More than 80% of those surveyed felt online harassment to be a serious issue. The survey had a margin of error of 3%. These findings correspond with the very grave instances of harassment being reported. The instances are far too numerous. I have summarised a few cases as illustrations and, after my speech, I will have them handed out to
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Members, but if I may speak about some of them here.
In one case, an online netizen impersonated a doctor and posted provocative and offensive comments in her name on Facebook. No one waited to see if what was posted was true. The doctor did not get to defend herself. Allegations were swiftly followed by attacks. Many netizens harshly criticised the doctor for the comments. Some online netizens even uncovered her personal information and posted photos of her online. Really, Members have to ask if that is fair and acceptable.
In another case, cyber bullies targeted the baby of a blogger. The blogger gave birth prematurely because there had been a life-threatening condition during her pregnancy. Cyber bullies called her baby an \"alien\". They said the baby should be euthanised. This was really quite sickening behaviour. It comes from the basic bullying instincts of some, unchecked by any notion of civil conduct and aided by anonymity. Comments like these go beyond what any decent human being would consider to be the proper exercise of free speech.
I have also been receiving emails from members of the public after news of this Bill came out. The majority of them are women, recounting their personal experiences and welcoming the Bill. One writer described her harrowing experience with a fellow colleague. After she had rejected his advances, this colleague began spreading rumours about her at the workplace. It was said that she was a lesbian, and was a loose woman. This caused the writer to feel very harassed for several years and, of course, her colleagues reacted negatively towards her. Despite all that, the writer did not leave her job as she needed to support her family. Another writer feared for her safety as her employer, who was the harasser, had a violent temper. A third writer told us that she was a victim of harassment and stalking from about five years ago and that her life has never been the same since. She continues to be traumatised until today. The writers went through serious trauma and that left indelible marks in their lives.
Bullying amongst our youth is also a serious issue and, by the way, those writers have given me permission to have redacted copies of their emails circulated and I will do so at the end of my speech. The emails have been redacted to remove personal particulars and also some other information they have set out. Coming back to bullying amongst our youth, a recent Microsoft Study surveyed 25 countries on the issue of bullying amongst youth aged eight to 17. According to the study, 86% of those surveyed worldwide had
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experienced bullying online, offline or both.
The situation in Singapore is, unfortunately, reflective of the global trend. Eighty-three percent of youths in Singapore aged eight to 17 have been bullied either online, offline or both. Unfortunately, Singapore was also found to have the second highest rate of online bullying of youth at 58%, behind only China at 70%.
The Straits Times ran a report last month highlighting that our children are particularly vulnerable to cyber risks. According to the report, more than eight out of 10 households are connected to the Internet. Activities, such as web-surfing, chatting online and posting on social media networks, have become commonplace, especially for our young. With these come the increased risks of cyber bullying, whether as a bully or as a victim.
In schools, we are familiar with the kinds of bullying that take place – name-calling, inappropriate jokes, intimidating behaviour and the like. Bullying of children by other children can scar – both the bully and the bullied – for life. Worse, bullying of children can also lead to devastating consequences. Again, this is a worldwide trend with increasing frequency. I will use three examples to illustrate what is happening.
In the United Kingdom, 14-year-old Hannah Smith hanged herself last year after weeks of taunting by anonymous cyberbullies. She received messages telling her to kill herself.
In the United States, just last month, 11-year-old Michael Morones fell into a coma following a failed suicide attempt, after being bullied by his classmates. Why? Because he liked the cartoon titled \"My Little Pony\", with a predominantly young, female audience.
In Canada last year, 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons committed suicide. This was after photographs of an alleged sexual assault against her went viral on the Internet.
What can be done to better protect our society? We looked at what other jurisdictions have done or are doing. Our concerns with harassment in Singapore are reflective of those in other countries, across cultures, both east and west, both developed and developing. Many of these countries have responded with strict legislation to combat harassment. The United Kingdom,
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New Zealand, South Africa have standalone harassment legislation.
In 2012, the United Kingdom introduced a specific offence of stalking to strengthen its laws. Last year, Nova Scotia enacted the Cyber-Safety Act in response to Rehtaeh Parson's tragic death, which I referred to earlier. Last month, Italian lawmakers called for laws against cyberbullying after a 14-year-old girl jumped to her death because of abuse on a social networking site.
In Singapore, we have been getting consistent feedback that our laws are inadequate. The Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (MOA) makes harassment a criminal offence. However, the way the law has been interpreted by the Courts, it is not clear if it would apply to harassment online. We also have other legislation, for example, the Women's Charter and the Moneylenders Act. But these are specific – covering harassment in the context of family violence or unlicensed moneylending – rather than covering general harassing conduct. For example, the harassment of an ex-girlfriend will not be caught by the Women's Charter.
The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a Conference in November last year. It was attended by legal professionals, educators, social workers and civic groups including NGOs like AWARE. It gave us a good sense of what professionals actively dealing with the issues thought. This was in addition to the survey which showed that 85% of the broad public wanted tougher legislation to deal with harassment. The many people we consulted over several rounds of consultations, both before the Conference as well as after the Conference, including victims of harassment and those who worked to help these victims, all took the same view: we need clear, strong legislation.
My own initial thinking and my Ministry's thinking was to adopt an incremental approach to reforming our law on harassment by tweaking existing legislation, for example, making amendments to the MOA.
At the Conference, however, we witnessed a clear and overwhelming consensus for a standalone omnibus Protection from Harassment Act. Participants, including AWARE, told us that this would send a clear signal that harassment is a social scourge that our society will not and should not tolerate. And the fact is that our existing civil remedies and self-help avenues are also limited. The High Court's recent decisions in AXA Insurance (AXA Insurance Singapore Pte Ltd v Chandran s/o Natesan [2013] 4 SLR 545) and its earlier decision in Malcomson (Malcomson Nicholas Hugh Betram and another v Mehta Naresh Kumar [2001] 3 SLR 379) cast doubt as to whether one can even
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bring a civil action for harassment in Singapore. Other forms of private action, for example, in nuisance, assault, battery and so on also have obvious limitations.
Since we discussed the possibility of legislation on harassment, there has been a very significant public interest and support for such legislation. I had asked my officers to list the commentaries and articles which have discussed the issue of harassment and cyber bullying since October last year. They have prepared a non-exhaustive list which I will have circulated. These are not the actual articles, but just the list referencing the articles.
There is clearly a real need to better protect victims of harassment and, indeed, I went through that list of articles which have been appearing in the media. Just in the last four and a half months or so, we have had nearly 200 articles in the media on harassment. This shows the extent of public interest, awareness and the extent to which this is a matter of public concern.
The titles of these articles: October 2013, \"California Outlaws Revenge Porn\"; November 13, \"Man Harasses Ex Lover by Releasing Sex Clip\", \"Schools Keeping an Eye on Students Online\", \"Stalked, Terrified by Confidant\", \"Boss Made Sexual Advances\", \"Bullies on the Internet and in the Office\", \"Online bullies\", \"Cyber-bullied and Suffering in Silence\", \"Taunting by Primary School Pupils\", \"Circulating Altered Pictures is Cyber Bullies' Main Tactic\", \"Harassment A Rising Worry, Laws to be Tabled\", \"Stop Online Harassment and Cyber Bullying\", \"More Help for Those Facing Domestic Violence\", \"Holistic Measures Necessary in Fight against Cyber Bullying\", \"Unemployed man is Internet Stalker of American Singer who Made Death Threats\", \"Netizens must Unite against Trolling\", \"He told her ‘I'll Cut Your Face'\", \"What Women are Up against Online\", \"Mother: my son is an ordinary person – why do this to him\"; \"Road Bully Apologised for Behaviour after Death Threats\", \"10-year-old Girl Subject to Harassment\", \"New Programme on Cyber Bullying for Primary Schools\", \"Rise in Cyber Bullying a Cause for Concern\", \"Opposition Party Leader Kenneth Jeyaretnam Receives Email Threats against Family\", \"Hong Kong survey: one in three Air Stewardesses Sexually Harassed Last Year\", \"Charlotte Dawson's Celebrity Suicide: how Cyber Bullying also Drove South Korean stars to Suicide\", \"Youth Forum: scourge of Cyber Bullying\", \"One Phone Call, Nightmare for 14 years\", \"Retired Man: Harassment Act brings Hope\", \"Law Creeping Up on Stalkers, Spells Relief\", \"New Bill Could Change Ways of Behaviour\", \"Protection against Harassment Overdue\", \"Stalking Victims robbed of Her Peace of Mind\", \"Labour Movement welcomes Anti-Harassment Bill\", \"MOE, NGOs to Include New Laws against Cyber Bullying in Cyber Wellness Curriculum\", \"Cyber Menaces a law Unto Themselves\", \"Suitor who Would Not Take No for An
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Answer\".
Nearly 200 articles; and that is a non-exhaustive list. It shows the extent of public concern, shows the types of concerns, shows the range of people impacted and shows that, as I said earlier – not today but outside Parliament – that we are probably already behind the curve in dealing with this.
The proposed criminal and civil measures in the Bill do precisely what we hope to do. Standards of acceptable behaviour should be the same in the physical world and in the online sphere. I will now take the House through the main features of the Bill.
There are three main parts to the Bill: (a) Part II of the Bill deals with the criminal offences; (b) Part III deals with self-help and civil remedies; and (c) the remaining provisions address a range of matters governing actions and proceedings under the Bill, including the extraterritorial application of the Bill.
I will first deal with the criminal sanctions.
Clauses 3 to 6 re-enact and update sections 13A to 13D of the MOA respectively and, therefore, sections 13A to 13D of the MOA will be repealed once this Bill goes through. Thus, clauses 3, 4, 5 and 6, which deal with harassment, in fact, are taken from the MOA, with some minor changes. The penalties are increased quite substantively.
There are five aspects to highlight. First, the Bill makes clear that harassment and related anti-social behaviour are offences, whether committed in the physical world or online; and that must be so. It must be the consequence of the conduct, not where and how that conduct was carried out, that is important. Clauses 3 to 6 are medium-neutral. They extend to words, behaviour or communication used or made by \"any means\", which will, obviously, include electronic means.
The second of my five points is that illustrations have been introduced in clauses 3 and 4. These illustrations reiterate and signal that the Bill will cover a wide range of anti-social behaviour, such as cyberbullying, bullying of children and sexual harassment. This will be an offence, wherever it takes place, including, of course, in the workplace.
Women who are sexually harassed at the workplace or outside will have a clear remedy. The difference from existing legislation under the MOA is that,
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now, it will be quite clear that online sexual harassment is also criminal conduct. Illustrations in the Bill give an idea of some of the types of behaviour which are covered. The illustrations are not intended to limit the situations which may amount to an offence under the Bill.
The third of my five points is that the Bill provides the Court with a wider range of sentencing options to ensure that the sentence meted out in each case better takes into account the culpability of the offender and the harm caused to the victim.
Clauses 3 to 6 update the existing penalties under sections 13A to 13D of the MOA to better reflect the gravity of the offences.
Some offences will now attract an imprisonment term, where appropriate, instead of merely a fine, as under the MOA. Clause 8 further provides enhanced penalties for repeat offenders. This is not available under the present MOA. Clause 9 empowers the Court to make Community Orders where appropriate, and that is new as well.
For example, take Mandatory Treatment Orders (MTOs), which is a type of community order. Offenders, who harass due to an underlying mental condition, need help to resolve the root causes of their behaviour. MTOs allow such offenders to undergo psychiatric treatment in lieu of other criminal penalties. This approach recognises that there are some people who are ill and it may be better to try and treat them rather than simply send them to jail.
Fourth, the Bill introduces a new offence which is not found in the current legislation and, that is, unlawful stalking. Stalking can be highly disruptive to the lives of many people, often in devastating ways. I will refer to two illustrations.
First example is of American singer Ms Leandra Ramm. She was terrorised by a Singaporean cyber stalker for six years. The man professed his love. He showed his love by making numerous death threats to her. The Court sentenced him to three years' imprisonment. The Court said his actions were a perverse form of \"mental assault\" and \"emotional terrorism\". The matter was an \"abhorrent case of cross-border cyber stalking\".
The second example is of Ms Joanne Lee, a former local journalist, who received countless voicemails and numerous unwanted gifts and letters from her harasser. She eventually quit her job because of the trauma and anxiety. In
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Ms Lee's case, her harasser was eventually fined $4,000.
I think we will agree that a fine is not an adequate response to the harrowing experience that Ms Lee and other victims of such persistent, unwanted attention go through. What they need is for the stalking to stop immediately and permanently.
Clause 7 seeks to address the problem of stalking head on. Instead of trying to look for existing legislation which may or may not cover all forms of stalking and which, even when you find it, does not give you adequate remedies, we seek to comprehensively deal with the issue of stalking in the new proposed legislation.
Clause 7 criminalises a course of conduct relating to stalking and which has the effect of causing harassment, alarm or distress. It revolves around this concept of a \"course of conduct\". The \"course of conduct\" referred to in clause 7 will cover acts which may in themselves be innocuous, but which when done repeatedly or in a protracted manner, may cause victims harassment, alarm and distress.
Clause 7 is drawn from the UK's Protection from Harassment Act 1997, as amended by its Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. It also takes inspiration from the Singapore Academy of Law's Law Reform Committee's 2001 \"Report on Proposed Legislation to Curb Stalking\".
The Bill does not limit the type of acts or omissions associated with stalking. Clause 7(3) provides some examples of such acts or omissions; for example, following the victim, repeatedly sending unwanted gifts and letters and so on.
Clause 7(5) further provides a list of factors to guide the Court in deciding whether a course of conduct is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, for example, the frequency and duration of the conduct. The lists in clauses 7(3) and 7(5) are not meant to be exhaustive or to limit the Court's discretion.
It is for the Court to determine whether conduct in each case amounts to an offence under clause 7. Clause 7, as drafted, is not intended to apply to inconsiderate behaviour in the context of neighbours' disputes, for example. That will have to be dealt with through separate legislation, as announced by the Minister for MCCY.
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It also excludes legitimate courses of conduct, for example, sending of a letter of demand for money owed under a contract or actions by the Police in pursuance of their duties. Such conduct will continue to be lawful.
Fifth, clause 6 extends the existing protection for public servants to workers who deliver services that are essential for the well-being of the general public, but who are not regarded as \"public servants\" under existing laws. Examples will include public healthcare workers and public transport workers. This is to better protect workers who provide essential public services against abuse.
The phrase \"in relation to\" the execution of the public servant's or public service worker's duty is a slight departure from the original section 13D. It is intended to indicate that the offending conduct need not be committed during the performance of that duty, as long as it is committed in relation to the performance of that duty. Those are the five points I make as regards the criminal sanction and penalties.
Conduct falling under the Bill may also amount to offences under other legislation, for example: (a) criminal intimidation under, for example, section 506 of the Penal Code; (b) racially or religiously charged offences under, for example, sections 298 and 298A of the Penal Code; and (c) sexual grooming under, for example, section 376E of the Penal Code.
Offences under the Bill will apply to acts committed outside Singapore, under certain conditions. This is to address the ease with which acts of harassment may be pursued using electronic means, transcending territorial borders, for example, by mobile phone and over the Internet.
Take stalking as an example. The offender could be overseas, the offender could commit acts of stalking against a victim and the victim is in Singapore
Under clause 17, if the offender knew or had reason to believe that the victim would be in Singapore at the time the acts were committed, the Court will have jurisdiction over the matter.
There was consensus at the IPS Conference that our harassment laws should apply, even when the offender is overseas, so long as the harm is felt by the victim in Singapore.
Under the Bill, offenders outside Singapore, too, cannot escape liability simply because the acts of harassment were committed overseas, as long as
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the harm is caused to the victim in Singapore. In a similar vein, offenders in Singapore who commit acts of harassment against victims who are outside of Singapore will also not be able to escape liability.
Let me now turn to Part III of the Bill which deals with the self-help and civil remedies. Again, there are five aspects that I would highlight.
First, clause 14 abolishes the common law tort of harassment. All actions for harassment will be covered under this new legislation. This clarifies the uncertainty arising from the two High Court decisions, AXA Insurance and Malcomson, as to whether there is, indeed, a cause of action in the common law tort of harassment in Singapore
Second, clause 11 will create a statutory right to bring an action for damages against a person who has contravened any of clauses 3, 4, 5 or 7. So, quite apart from criminal sanctions, the victim can sue and claim damages against the perpetrator. Damages are, however, not recoverable where clause 6 is contravened as the harm results to the victim in his capacity as a public servant or public service worker. However, damages will still be recoverable if the same acts also contravene clauses 3, 4, 5 or 7. Such damages will be quantified by the courts in accordance with existing common law principles. We do not really need to go into that and try to codify what is long-established law.
Third, victims of harassment and related anti-social behaviour under clauses 3 to 7 may apply to the Court for a Protection Order (PO) under clause 12. So, to explain to Members, this is the kind of architecture that the new law envisages. Earlier, I have said that clauses 3 to 6 exist under current law; and that clause 7 on stalking is new, but the remedies that the victim can get were very limited. Now, we are looking at Protection Orders and Expedited Protection Orders. The purpose of the Protection Order is to protect victims from further harassment. In this context, we also took reference from the 2001 Singapore Academy of Law Reform Committee's Report on Stalking.
What is the effect of the Protection Order? Such an order may require harassers to, first, desist from doing that which is stated in the order: for example, stop sending the unwanted gifts or loitering outside the victim's house; second, remove harassing publications and other forms of communication, if these were the cause of the harassment: for example, to remove a nude photograph of the victim which the harasser had uploaded on an online forum without the victim's consent; third, require the harasser or the
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victim or both to attend counselling or mediation.
Where the harassment arose from published communication, the Protection Order may also require third parties, for example, a publisher or website administrator, in addition to harassers, to remove the offending communication. This seeks to address the nature of online communication, especially over the Internet.
These measures are in line with public sentiment. As I have stated earlier, 83% of those polled by REACH support tougher measures to deal with harassment, both online and offline. They are in favour of giving the Courts powers to order that online comments be taken down if they amount to harassing conduct. The overwhelming public view is that if the harasser does not take those comments down, the Courts should be given the power to do so. The Protection Order achieves this result. Obviously, the underlying point is that the conduct must amount to harassment. And harassment is not a new concept; it already exists in our law. What this legislation does is to make it clear that harassment is harassment, regardless of the means by which it is committed, whether online or offline.
And if you can prove harassment – that is, illegal conduct – then you will get a set of remedies to try and deal with the illegal conduct. If you are sending flowers repeatedly, you can be asked to stop. If you are persistently outside the girl's house, following her about, you can be told to stop. If you have uploaded a nude photograph, you can be told to take it down, and website administrators can be told to remove it and not put it up again. That is what we seek to do.
The Protection Orders will be granted where clauses 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 have been contravened, or any one of them has been contravened, and contravention is likely to continue, or the respondent is likely to commit a contravention, and it is \"just and equitable\" in the circumstances to do so. So, whether the orders will be made really depends on the court and the facts and circumstances of each case.
In cases of urgency, the court may grant an Expedited Protection Order (EPO) under clause 13 against harassers and third parties, as the case may be. The effect of the Expedited Protection Order is similar to that of the Protection Orders, which I have explained earlier. EPOs can be granted where the offending conduct is likely to have a \"substantial adverse effect on the victim or the victim's day-to-day activities\". Examples of such effect could be changing routes to work, work patterns or daily routines; if the victim is forced to change
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how he/she goes to work; or the victim is forced to put in place additional security measures in his/her home; or the victim has to move out of his or her home; or the victim is forced or withdraws from social interaction. But, of course, the Court also has to look to see whether the victim is behaving unreasonably or whether, indeed, the conduct amounts to harassment vis-a-vis a reasonable person. And this list is not exhaustive.
The absence of any of the types of conduct or changes of patterns of conduct that I have outlined does not necessarily mean that an Expedited Protection Order may not be granted. It really depends on the facts in each case and the approach we have taken in the Bill is to give the discretion to the courts. That is how our laws have always worked.
To help laypersons navigate the Court process without involving lawyers, it is our intention that the Protection Orders and the Expedited Protection Orders will be governed by a set of simplified Court procedures and Court forms. One of the comments that repeatedly came out from the conference and following the conference, is that going to lawyers and going to the Courts both take time and money, and often the victims will not be in a position to do so. We are very mindful of this, and this is really focusing on the man or woman in the street who is harassed and victimised. Therefore, we will try and make sure that a set of processes are put in place which will simplify applications to the Court as far as possible, even without the need for lawyers, and to have expedited processes in Courts which can give orders immediately within a matter of a day, or two days, sometimes. Victims really should not be frustrated by the process in their bid to seek redress.
A severe approach will be taken towards breaches of Protection Orders and Expedited Protection Orders. The Bill criminalises such breaches, save for breaches of an order to attend counselling or mediation. Breaches of such orders will amount to offences under clause 10 and may attract a fine or imprisonment or both.
Fourth, in striking the balance between legislation, criminalising the conduct and self-help, getting recourse through criminal law or claim for damages through a civil claim, we should not make those the only avenues; that is, it should not be the case that every time a person is harassed or experiences a wide range of conduct that amounts to harassment, the victim is forced to always either go and file a criminal complaint or bring a civil claim. There are many victims who will feel that as long as there is some redress, without having to claim damages, they would be satisfied because their feelings
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of alarm or distress would be settled or as long as the truth is set out.
We should really give the people the ability to help themselves and try and sort out matters themselves wherever possible. Take attacks against someone involving lies, untruths, inaccuracies – 75% of those polled by REACH were of the view that such conduct should, ipso facto, be treated as harassment. Our view really is that we should not criminalise all such conduct, and that we really should keep to the definition of harassment, which already exists in the law, and simply give greater remedies. So, to be criminal, the conduct must fall under the categories listed in clauses 3 to 7. We have not changed the law, only updated it, as I have explained.
Instead, if there are falsehoods, and let us say it is harassment, or it is borderline harassment; or maybe nearly harassment; or not harassment but it is a clear falsehood, then the victim has the right to ask the relevant parties that the falsehoods be corrected, maybe through publication of replies, which may set out the correct facts. Some victims of harassment may well choose that route instead of having to make a criminal complaint, as I said earlier, or launch a civil claim and claim damages. They just want the truth to be out and they do not want to escalate the matter further, and we should allow that. So, it is a lower tier of remedy rather than having to go to the criminal and civil law all the time and make claims.
Of course, if the offending party or websites refuse to carry the clarification or the response, or the correction, or a notification that the true facts can be found somewhere else, or the victim's reply is not able to get the same level of visibility as the falsehood, the law should provide some recourse.
Going back to public opinion, 82% of those polled by REACH felt that people should have a legal right to require that factual inaccuracies about themselves be corrected. This is the thinking behind clause 15. But there will be no claim for damages and there will be no criminal sanctions. If you choose not to file a criminal complaint, if you choose not to make a civil claim, if you choose to, say, look, I just want to clarify or correct it in some form, and the manner of correction is left to the court, then that is all that you will get. You do not get money, you do not get to send the other person to jail. And it is a very simple —
Mdm Speaker: Deputy Leader of the House, Mr Heng Chee How, you have to ask for an extension of time.
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Mdm Speaker: I give my consent. Does the Deputy Leader of the House have the general assent of the hon Members present to so move?
[(proc text) Hon Members indicated assent. (proc text)]
[(proc text) With the consent of Mdm Speaker and the general assent of Members present, question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Resolved, that the proceedings on the item under discussion be exempted from the provisions of Standing Order 48(8) in respect of the Minister's speech. – [Mr Heng Chee How] (proc text)].
Mdm Speaker: Minister, you can proceed.
","clarificationText":null,"clarificationTitle":null,"clarificationSubTitle":null,"reportType":null,"questionCount":null,"footNotes":null,"footNoteQuestions":null,"questionNo":null},{"startPgNo":0,"endPgNo":0,"title":"Protection from Harassment Bill","subTitle":null,"sectionType":"BP","content":"[(proc text) Debate resumed. (proc text)]
Mr K Shanmugam: Thank you, Deputy Leader and Mdm Speaker. As I was saying, there are no damages, no filing of criminal complaint – a simple process, self-help, which can be applied to a range of situations, but you must prove or show that there was a false statement of fact. Clause 15, therefore, allows the subject of the falsehood to apply for a Court order that will give the court the discretion to make an order for the publication of a notification that draws attention to the falsehood and the publication of the correct facts. This will allow readers to assess the truth. It is really for the Court to decide when it will be just and equitable for the court order to be made and in what form that order should
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be made.
Clause 15 is not intended to apply to mere conduits, such as Network Service Providers or search engines. However, content providers who have some degree of control over the content published on their website could be subject to a clause 15 order.
Finally, I will highlight two arrangements which have been introduced to address specific challenges associated with cyberspace, which make harassment and perpetuating falsehoods easier and, in some ways, more egregious: anonymity as well as the borderless and viral nature of online publications.
These apply to harassment or falsehoods arising from published communications, for example, over the Internet, under clause 12 (Protection Orders), clause 13 (Expedited Protection Orders) and clause 15 (Notification Orders).
I will refer in this context to the party putting out the offending communication in clauses 12, 13 and 15 as the \"publisher\".
First, anonymity in cyber space often emboldens one to pepper online discussions with abuse, insults, rumours, lies and untruths. Many say things which they would otherwise not utter in the physical world, for example, telling the mother that her baby should be euthanised.
Clause 19, therefore, provides that if the identity of the publisher cannot be ascertained, rules may be made for such persons to be identified by a unique identifier, for example, an Internet location address, website, username or account, or electronic mail address. Thus, it is not necessary for victims to discover the real name of a publisher before applications for Protection Orders or Notification Orders can be made. The aim is to prevent publishers from hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. Clause 19 is drawn from the Nova Scotia's Cyber-safety Act of 2013.
Second, to address the borderless and viral nature of online publications, the Court may grant Protection Orders, Expedited Protection Orders and clause 15 orders which are good against all publishers.
Take the example of the harasser who uploads a nude photograph of the victim on an online forum. Let us say the victim has gone to Court and obtained
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a Protection Order requiring the harasser to remove the photograph. After the Protection Order was granted, the victim discovers that other persons, say, \"Jane\" and \"Peter\", have also re-posted her nude photograph on other online platforms. The same Protection Order will also be enough to require \"Jane\" and \"Peter\" to remove the nude photographs which they had re-posted on those other platforms as well. The victim does not have to go back to the Court to obtain another Protection Order. These orders will bind publishers, such as \"Jane\" and \"Peter\", if they are aware of the terms of the orders.
Mdm Speaker, to sum up, what we are really doing today is to: look at the consequences to the victims and ask whether those consequences – that threat, abuse, alarm, distress – need to be protected against; and then decide for ourselves the extent to which the law should intervene and give remedies, or whether we should just leave the situation alone.
Anti-social and disruptive behaviour, if left unchecked, will strike at the heart and foundations of our society and the concept of the rule of law. Public opinion is strong and clear: harassment is not acceptable. We must do something about it. And the law must deal firmly with those who harass others.
We have responded with a Bill that provides a calibrated and graduated response to harassing conduct, so as to better protect our people from harassment and related anti-social behaviour.
Our thinking underlying the Bill is as follows: as far as possible, we keep the strong arm of the law to the background. But where it is serious, civil and criminal remedies must be applicable.
More fundamentally, harassment cannot be dealt with by legislation alone. Ultimately, it also has to be addressed by cultivating community norms and public education on what is socially acceptable behaviour. If everyone frowns upon a particular type of behaviour, that will cast a powerful norm without even having to resort to the law. The Bill provides a legislative framework which sets standards and can be the basis on which such norms are cultivated.
Conferences, such as the Cyber Wellness Student Ambassador Programme of 2014, where students learn how to have a positive online presence by creating meaningful and responsible relationships online, and the Media Literacy Council's Safer Internet Day Campaign 2014, a campaign to encourage Singaporeans to pledge what we can do to make a better Internet, are a good
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start.
We should try and ensure that our children grow up in a stable and safe environment, free from bullying by peers and discrimination. Our people, women and men alike, should be free from intimidating, hostile or abusive environments, be it at home or in the workplace. The Bill is about these and trying to create norms and put in place a framework for penalising conduct which is unacceptable. What we have tried to do is to take it from existing legislation and draw reference from legislation elsewhere in the world. And I have referred Members to other countries which have legislation on harassment.
Mdm Speaker, with your permission, if the Annexes to my speech may now be distributed? Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.
Mdm Speaker: Yes, please. [Handouts were distributed to hon Members.]
[(proc text) Question proposed. (proc text)]
Mr Vikram Nair (Sembawang): Mdm Speaker, I speak in support of this Bill. This Bill provides a clear legislative framework for dealing with harassment, stalking and making of false statements and, in each case, gives clear remedies to victims who may otherwise have been left without recourse.
I was involved in some of the engagement sessions and was impressed by the wide range of groups involved in supporting legislation against harassment. This includes VWOs and groups interested in protecting vulnerable groups, such as women and children, members of the online community, including bloggers and a number of academics. By and large, there was very wide-ranging support for legislation to deal with harassment. The fact is that this Bill, which provides a relatively simple framework for dealing with such a wide range of different issues, is commendable.
Let me share a few situations in which a Bill like this might help. And the first story I am sharing involves an Indian lady who came to my Meet-the-People Session (MPS) who was dealing with her ex-husband. I should add that this is the case where she might have gotten protection under the Women's Charter by getting a Protection Order. She was reluctant to see lawyers about this
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though. So, let me share her story and, if I may, I will do this in Tamil.
(In Tamil): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] A few months ago, an Indian lady who resides in the Admiralty ward of Sembawang GRC came to see me at my MPS. She told me about her problems.
Her daughter lives with her. She said that she had an acrimonious divorce with her husband. According to her, her husband continued to send her insulting SMS messages. These messages generally accused her of being a bad mother and wife.
The lady had reported this to the Police. However, the Police told her that as it did not constitute an offence, they were unable to do anything about it. As a result, she told me that her former husband continues to harass her without any fear at all.
Mdm Speaker, with the passing of this new law, the actions of her husband would become unlawful. So, the Police should be able to help her now.
(In English): That was just one situation, where a remedy is available now, in which I believe that this framework will provide an even easier remedy. But that is not all. Another broad area in which I think such legislation would be helpful would be in relation to cyber harassment. Surprisingly, very strong proponents of this included a whole range of people who are active online, bloggers who themselves are strong proponents of free speech. Even they believe that legislation is needed to prevent harassment.
VWOs taking care of children, who are speaking up against bullying, pointed out that cyber bullying is one of the biggest issues facing young children. This legislation will at least give a framework for us to step in. There will be some limits on criminal liability for children below the age of 12, but at least this framework does give clear measures in the law to step in where necessary.
Workplace harassment is also an important issue that many groups have brought up, and sexual harassment, as the Minister has outlined in quite some detail, will also be addressed to a great measure in this Bill.
While I broadly applaud this Bill, any Bill that deals with such a wide range of issues will necessarily have some areas where it may potentially lead to matters being criminalised where there may be no intention to criminalise. I
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should also highlight a few areas where I think there might be some concerns where an overly broad reading of the Bill might lead to some potentially unintentional results.
One is, for example, the definition of \"harassment\" currently criminalises \"insulting behaviour\" or \"communication\", if it is likely to cause \"distress\" to a person. Now, if the threshold for insult and distress is set too low, a very wide range of behaviour may be inadvertently criminalised. For example, in the course of a football game, it is quite normal for colourful language to be used against opposing team members, referees and, sometimes, even your own team mates. Such language is often \"insulting\" and may cause \"distress\" to the victim. But my own view is that such behaviour is not intended to be criminalised because they are just one-off insults that people do not think about later.
At the same time, I acknowledge that it is a defence under the Act saying that if the conduct is reasonable under section 33 or 43B, then it will not be treated as harassment. It may be difficult to say that such behaviour is reasonable, but I do not think that any of this behaviour is really intended to be criminalised by the Act, unless there is a course of conduct around it.
The same thing: insults by drill Sergeants in the Army or anyone else who has been to National Service. All these things seem pretty much par for the course; it may cause distress to the person suffering at the moment, but I do not think there is any long-term consequence from that. I do not think that is intended to be criminalised.
One area that may be more difficult is potentially the issue of people getting negative feedback at work. For example, if a person feels that he has been having a rough ride at work and has been getting a series of bad performance reviews and things like that, that is potentially insulting, and you can insult a person with the truth. It will cause distress. I suspect in that case, the only defence might be that that conduct was reasonable. The reality is that there is a potential for a lot more workplace situations to end up being litigated with this Harassment Bill. The Courts should probably be slower to criminalise what is normal workplace activity.
In relation to stalking, I note that section 7 specifies unlawful stalking. I am not sure if there is a distinction between unlawful stalking and normal stalking. For example, would this section potentially criminalise the work of private investigators? They generally follow the victims and, if the victims were aware
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they were being followed, they would probably be distressed. Private investigators are often involved in contentious matters. So, they might find themselves subject to allegations of stalking if and when the victims realise that they are being followed and a report is submitted. It might be good to clarify whether such behaviour would be considered reasonable conduct as well.
Some actions taken by private investigators may well be unreasonable and may well qualify for criminalisation. I do not wish to constrain the courts too much. I think there is a potential, with broad wording, for unintentional conduct to be included as well.
I do not have straight answers to whether or not these situations should be dealt with in the Bill or whether they can be dealt with in subsequent legislation. By and large, that does not change the fact that I strongly endorse this Bill and think this is timely and necessary.
Mr Zaqy Mohamad (Chua Chu Kang): Mdm Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on the Protection from Harassment Bill. As the Minister had highlighted earlier, this is a topic that has generated huge public interest over the last few weeks.
This Bill is a welcome move for victims of harassment, stalking, abuse and insult, who, prior to this Bill, would have had little or almost no means of help from the law. I have spoken in Parliament on the need for laws to protect the ordinary citizen from harassment and bullying online on three occasions and I hope that this fourth occasion does not qualify my doing so as harassment to the Speaker or the Minister.
In the past year, I have come across two such cases at my MPS. In the more severe case, a female resident had been stalked by a former boyfriend at home and at work, harassed online, even receiving veiled threats to her safety and that of her family through instant messaging. Despite making Police reports and compiling the incidences and messages for the Police, there was nothing the Police or the law could do to protect her further.
One day, as she was on her way home, she was nearly hit by a falling object. Not too long after, she received an SMS from her ex-boyfriend who somehow knew she had a close shave. In that message, it said that, next time, she may not be so lucky. But because the thresholds of the existing laws are vague, the
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Police were also unable to help.
I can fully understand that feeling of being at a loss even when the Police are not able to assist because the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order & Nuisance) Act is not effective in handling online harassment and stalking.
Having handled such cases, I therefore support the Protection from Harassment Bill as it provides a consolidated law that will offer greater protection and remedies for victims, such as the resident I mentioned. The Bill provides greater clarity on the thresholds, offences and remedies for harassment in the real world or the online world - where threatening, abusing, insulting the victim, loitering near a victim's home or messaging daily will be criminalised.
I am also supportive that the Bill creates a statutory tort that will make it possible for victims to take out civil proceedings against perpetrators for harassing or stalking them and to claim monetary compensation if their suits are successful. This provides a stronger avenue for civil recourse by victims, giving them greater empowerment to take action against perpetrators on their own.
The introduction of the Act is, therefore, timely, given the context of today's use of the Internet and social media. Penalties for harassment offences have been enhanced to reflect today's context. The penalties take into consideration the amplification power that social media offers, which sees higher monetary penalties and jail terms, with repeat offenders also facing heavier penalties.
Yet, the Bill also strikes a good balance – and this is what I support – to empower the Court with flexibility to make community orders, including treatment order at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). This reflects an element of realism that, at times, the cause of these offences vary, ranging from stress and mental health issues, to juveniles who may need a more time-nurturing treatment and understanding.
On cyberbullying, often cited in the media – and raised earlier by the Minister as well – is the worldwide study by Microsoft in 2012 that showed Singapore to be one of six countries where bullying among youth aged eight to 17 was particularly pervasive. This Bill is also timely, as Singapore was ranked second behind China in terms of cyberbullying among that age group. Given that the social media landscape is still maturing, I am in support of the Bill which provides greater bite to counter cyberbullying before this culture goes out of
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control. But the approach we take has to be one of raising awareness among youths and the public and, at the same time, create a \"zero-tolerance for bullying\" in our schools – whether in the physical or online realm.
The impact of bullying in school – whether on the Internet or in the physical realm – has a significant impact on a child. Just two weeks ago, I handled a bullying case at my MPS involving a young girl who was allegedly bullied in Primary school. I say \"alleged\" as the case is still ongoing. Since the incident, she has refused to attend school. Speaking to her, I also noticed discomfort when you speak of school and of going back to class. I have kids of my own and, as a parent, I have also noticed how conscious my children are of social media and try to avoid situations that could result in being shamed and being the \"talk of the town\". Through our own experience, we all know that the emotional development of a child can be impacted negatively as a result of peer pressure. Unfortunately, in this age of social media, this environment has been made even harsher.
My hope is that in this new law, we can create a sense of awareness and promote greater education on cyberbullying and harassment. At the same time, we should promote a zero-tolerance environment for bullying in school. I hope that MinLaw and MOE can do more to set the tone and guidelines to put everyone – our children, families, teachers, school administrators and counsellors – on the same page on acceptable behaviours, what to expect with this new legislation and what we should do about bullying behaviour in school and outside school. We need to handle such cases with the right touch and reason.
As children, they may not understand that some of their actions or the way they communicate online may constitute as harassment. Thus, I am also heartened that the law provides a range of measures to provide this balance and take a nurturing approach in community orders like counselling, psychiatric treatment or probation.
I stand with many parents for being concerned – whether one is the parent of the victim or the parent of the accused. As a parent of a victim, the child today, will be accorded greater protection from harassment and bullying. For parents of those who may have been the harassers or the bullies, the child is also protected by law to be treated fairly and with a slew of softer measures that could help nurture the child to obtain the necessary support and education.
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On misinformation: Madam, I welcome the introduction of laws on false statement of facts. This now entitles ordinary people to seek the judgment of the Court for publishers of statements allegedly containing falsehoods to remove the statements, or display a suitable clarification or rebuttal. Public figures and celebrities, on the other hand, are better equipped than the common person to manage the replies and rebut. Thus, I am sure that they are also aware of the negative implications of invoking this law too often, or if at all.
I am in support only for the ordinary citizen who is or has been victims of cyber bullying, harassment or misinformation by legitimate or anonymous publishers and is unable to fend for themselves as the balance of reach and coverage in the online world is not in their favour. I support this as long as it is not a tool to be used in any manner to censor information and responsible views – alternative as they may be – on the Internet.
With the new Bill, the Court can issue take-down notices to websites which publish offending material deemed as harassment. I agree with the overall approach that if a victim wishes to claim in Court, the burden of proof of establishing the facts lies with the complainant. I think this is a fair process and the Courts are also empowered to direct sites to issue alerts to their readers over falsehoods made against victims.
I have a concern for the Minister to address in terms of the form of notification for the Courts. We know how fast information or misinformation travels on the Internet, so I would like to ask how cumbersome the process is and how many cases can our Courts handle at the same time and how long and what kind of time schedule will this process take. Does the law cover only content publishers, content site owners or aggregators as well? There is a difference each may claim in terms of culpability. If a publisher is anonymous or refuses to comply, is the site owner or aggregator then responsible?
The next concern I have is when an application is made. At which point does the Court issue a take-down? Will the Court issue an immediate take-down or Protection Order at the point when the application is made to the District Court? And will it be in force until a resolution is made as to whether the information is fact or fiction? Or will the take-down order be made after the Court has decided that the complainant has established the facts and that there was an error?
Madam, in the era of social media, even three days, three weeks, even three months is a long time, by which time misinformation can be viralled and shared
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across different Internet platforms. Thus, even with this measure, if taken too long, damage would be done. Even if the main site has taken down the wrong information, or is required to publish a rebuttal, the take-down or rebuttal does not follow through the channels where the information may have been viralled or shared by other users or sites.
May I also seek the Minister's clarification if the Court's powers extend to sites that republish or users that have shared or viralled false contents or content involved in cyber-harassment or cyberbullying? Is this a loophole to the law being enacted?
However, conversely, enforcing a take-down immediately every time a complaint is made may also be seen as promoting censorship. However, the advantage that content and service providers have are that, if proven that they were correct, the posts can still be posted and potentially viralled anyway. Thus, I think publishers and content providers still have the advantage. So, I stand on the side of the ordinary person who is disadvantaged with limited reach and influence online.
Madam, next, on the extent of the law from sites or anonymous users from overseas. Under this Bill, the law also applies to acts committed from outside Singapore as long as certain conditions are fulfilled, for example, when an offender who is overseas can harass or bully a victim in Singapore and knows that the victim would be in Singapore at the point in time. We are certainly aware of many overseas platforms whose owners are anonymous and anyone, including from Singapore, can post on these sites or platforms anonymously, too. What kind of measures is available to the Court to enforce non-compliance of Court or take-down orders? Will the Court have the authority to block the site for local consumption – as it is not made clear in the Bill on what measures can be undertaken by the Court in such a scenario?
Madam, on the issue of Public Workers: I am heartened that harassment involving indecent, threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour against a Public Servant is also extended to Public Service workers. Many speculate – as the list has not been confirmed – that public healthcare workers, public transport workers and frontline service staff, like bus drivers and MRT train personnel, are likely to be covered.
I propose that in this list, we should also include workers that perform any public service function which involves enforcement responsibilities or fee collection functions under any Act or law in Singapore. As a Town Council
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Chairman, I hope that Town Council officers and contractors be also covered as they have constant contact with residents and have to perform enforcement functions, summons and fee collections – not too dissimilar from any public servant. From a citizen's point of view, they also belong \"to a prescribed class of employees or workers that provides any service which is essential to the well-being of the public or the proper functioning of Singapore\".
I am also keen to see social service workers provided the same protection in this category, especially those who are working under the ambit of the FSCs or organisations who also handle cases where their assessment could determine whether one receives social assistance, employment assistance or any other Government assistance, such rental flats and so forth.
On harassment at the workplace: Madam, I am heartened and I noted AWARE's campaign in relation to this Bill in championing for a safer work environment for women against sexual or other forms of harassment at the workplace. I certainly fully agree and support, as I had mentioned in my MOM COS speech as well, that we need to strengthen our agencies, such as TAFEP, to have more bite in the workplace to ensure fair employment practices.
This new Bill can address and, I hope, be a new thrust, in providing workers greater protection against harassment and abuse in the workplace. I am aware of AWARE's position of greater accountability by employers. However, this is where my view differs in that I support this Bill but believe that the law must be aimed at individuals, rather than employers. I am sure all employers have human resource (HR) core values and codes of conduct that do not condone harassment of any kind in the workplace. What I hope is that this law will prove its effectiveness and send a clear signal to all employers that our workplaces should be free from any form of harassment or abuse – for both men and women.
Similar to my proposal to MOE, I hope that MinLaw and also MOM will take the opportunity to strengthen our awareness of the laws and the measures and recourse available to workers.
Madam, in conclusion, I support the Protection from Harassment Bill for the objective of protecting our people against various forms of harassment, whether online, in our social environment or at the workplace. The Bill reflects and sets the tone of today's context of how pervasive online content and communications are in our lives today and how the online mechanism can amplify the act of bullying and harassment. The Internet has provided us with
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a lot of good in developing society, being communities together, and enhancing our work environments. Unfortunately, it also offers sanctuary to the anonymity of perpetrators. I hope this Bill provides a beacon of light to brighten this space and offer hope to victims, past and present, that the law today has caught up with technological advancements to counter harassment and bullying behaviour.
For the detractors, who may feel that this is a form of censorship to curb against critical speech against private figures, I hope that the Minister can also continue to assure them that as long as one does not commit defamation, abuse, insult or threaten anyone, the law is meant to protect the ordinary person seeking the protection of the law.
The Government has committed to keeping a \"light touch\" policy online. And I hope that this Bill and the Government continue to respect the sanctity of a \"light touch\" on Internet regulations and responsible freedom of expression.
Er Dr Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon): Mdm Speaker, in Mandarin, please.
(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In an era where our lives are closely linked to the Internet, the introduction of the Protection from Harassment Bill is timely. In recent years, there is a rising trend of online harassment, and victims are mostly children and teenagers. The harm caused by cyber bullying can be more serious than physical bullying. The bullies hide behind the veil of anonymity and vent their anger on innocent victims, without being caught and punished. To them, this may just be a cruel game, but unfortunately, some victims find cyberbullying so unbearable that they choose to commit suicide.
In 2013, Assoc Prof Tom Hawk from Michigan State University published his study on cyber bullying on CNN. Information gathered by him and his Singapore research partners showed that about 27% of students have encountered cyber bullying, and 28% were victims of SMS harassment. As a result, these victims played truant or had intentions to play truant. In comparison, only 22% of victims of physical bullying did so or had similar intentions. Among the victims of cyber bullying, 28% contemplated suicide. Hence, one should not underestimate the intangible harm caused by words.
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This leads to my next point, which is to identify the symptoms and the culprit behind cyber bullying. Physical bullying is usually easier to identify, but victims of cyber bullying often suffer in silence. Sometimes, they are even misunderstood by their parents and teachers. If laws are enacted without being effectively enforced, it will not be able to achieve its objectives.
Hence, I hope teachers and parents will be given more resources to help them identify symptoms of cyber bullying, so that they can help solve the children's problems appropriately.
On the other hand, if the perpetrators of cyber bullying cannot be identified, can we take action to find out his identity and punish him? These considerations should be factored into the Bill, so that it is more effective and comprehensive.
We all know that this kind of bullying can also happen to women. Cyber bullies may stalk their victims, some even engage in despicable behaviour, such as blackmailing. I hope the Government will study the various kinds of bullying, so that we can better understand these bullies and take precautionary measures. There are also many cases of women being sexually harassed by their colleagues and bosses at the workplace. They either suffer in silence, or simply quit their job, because they do not have the money or the time to seek legal recourse. Some residents tell me that they are being harassed by their ex-boyfriends but dare not tell their parents, so they feel very stressed out.
It is heartening to see that we are moving towards a common direction of protecting the weaker members of our society from unnecessary bullying. I strongly support the Protection from Harassment Bill. I hope that our children, sisters and colleagues will be better protected.
Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Mdm Speaker, in the middle of 2013, the Government introduced a new licensing regime that sought to align online media platforms with the regime that governed mainstream media licensing. In the second half of 2013, there was a concern that the Government was going to draw up laws to address online accountability, a prospect which was met with alarm by many Singaporeans. There was a very real concern that legitimate criticism and fair comment, even if made anonymously, and the websites which hosted such content, were the real target of new laws that were being considered by the Government.
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I am wary of any attempts, either legislative or non-legislative, to tinker with online commentary for the principal reason that it remains one of the most important nation-building platforms for a free-ranging debate by members of the public without censorship, be it anonymously or otherwise. This is especially in view of the significant power of the mainstream media in determining the contours and the content of public discourse, and the out-of-bound markers it has to operate within.
In the main, the Bill deals with harassment per se and seeks to harmonise our laws pertaining to harassment into an omnibus regime by re-enacting sections 13A(2) to 13B of the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (MOA), and introducing a new law against unlawful stalking, amongst others.
After this Bill was tabled on 3 March 2014 and scrutinised, I am considerably less disturbed by the prospect of the Bill serving as an impediment to legitimate criticism and as a backdoor mechanism to curtail freedom of expression online for three reasons.
Firstly, section 15 of the Bill on false statement of facts which is of immediate interest to netizens, serves to remind Singaporeans that, whether anonymously or otherwise, a basic level of responsibility must be exercised when comments about any person, either online or offline, are made. This is a legitimate expectation of the law.
Secondly, the courts are granted with the powers to assess whether it is just and equitable for any party to make offending harassing statements of fact on a balance of probabilities. In tandem, the powers of the court are drafted to order the cessation or correct the publication of such false statements of fact.
Finally, the Bill does not operate to prohibit anonymous postings, even if the individuals behind the posts are subject to the Act, and rightfully so.
One of the more common questions about the Bill is how harassment is defined. While the new illustrations in the Bill from the re-enacted sections under the MOA are helpful in giving examples of what constitutes harassment, the Bill has taken a broad approach and continues in the direction of the MOA, with the precise contours of harassment left to the courts to determine.
In view of rapidly changing technologies and the possible subjectivity of what constitutes harassment, this is a reasonable position, as it allows a court
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to assess not just what could be defined as harassment but the effect of such conduct as well. This is important, as exemplified in the case of Chee Siok Chin and others vs Minister for Home Affairs, where Justice Rajah, as he was then, held:
\"Caution, of course, has to be exercised in the employment of subsection 13A and 13B of the Miscellaneous Offences Act. They will often involve issues of acute factual inquiry coupled with the delicate calibration of conduct. Imprecise lines will have to be drawn between boisterous and abusive conduct; between freedom of expression and insulting or abusive conduct; between freedom of assembly and harassment. It cannot be gainsaid that there can be a point where legitimate conduct may cross the Rubicon and become harassment. This will always be a matter of degree and the actual concatenation of circumstances.\"
It is evident that the application of sections 3 and 4 of the Bill that cover intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress; and harassment, alarm and distress respectively, may not be so straightforward to apply in practice, notwithstanding egregious conduct. For this reason, I hope prudence is the guiding principle of the authorities in the exercise of its powers under this Bill and I welcome the Minister's remarks that the strong arm of the law will be employed in egregious cases.
On definitions, I seek some clarification whether \"persons\", as used in the Bill, is to be broadly read to include corporate entities as under section 2 of the Interpretation Act, or whether our Courts will be left to determine this point. I ask this as there is case law from the UK, which in applying the UK Protection from Harassment Act, rules that on a proper construction of the term \"person\", the Act does not embrace a corporate entity.
I wanted to ask the Minister what were the thought processes of the Ministry that led to a change in the maximum sentences under the MOA covering the new sections 3, 4, 5 and 6, but I note from the Minister that this was partly in response to the feedback from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Conference on Harassment and public opinion on this point.
But I do note that with regard to the relevant provisions under the MOA and the sentences of the sections under this Bill, section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code already provides additional legislative muscle to address violators of sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Bill through the execution of a bond proportionate to an accused person's means, with or without sureties, for a
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period not exceeding two years.
Mdm Speaker, the illustrations to a number of sections in the Bill cover the acts of school children, with sections 4 and 7 featuring prominently. It is evident that the Bill was drafted to also address the issue of bullying in schools. Research by the Singapore Children's Society in 2006 and 2007 on school students revealed that bullying is not infrequent, with about one in four Secondary school students and one in five Primary school pupils having been bullied by their peers.
In a previous parliamentary reply to the hon Member Mr Laurence Lien, the Senior Minister of State for Education replied that schools educate students on bullying through the formal curriculum as well as school-based programmes and students are also taught skills to handle challenging situations. The new Character and Citizenship Education curriculum also teaches students to report cases, seek help and to care for others. Anti-bullying awareness programmes, organised in many schools, empower students to help themselves and support their peers who are bullied.
While I applaud these efforts, I would like to ask the Minister if these initiatives are applied with equal vigour across all schools. I ask this question not to knock these initiatives but to state my opinion that bullying, in both the real and online worlds, is best addressed through sustained and aggressive educational efforts both at home and in schools. It is my view that hard law will not succeed in altering norms and behaviour among school-children, as compared to sustained education efforts in schools where each student knows how to respond to cases of bullying and harassment instead of being overcome with feelings of guilt and suffering in silence. In the converse, education should also allow students to instinctively identify when his/her conduct is unbecoming and causing distress to someone else.
While I acknowledge the work done by MOE and other groups in this regard, in the main, I do hope we can address the issue of bullying in schools outside the legal domain, with this Bill employed as a last resort on students who are at a stage in their life where mistakes are made and poor judgement is exercised, a reflection of youthful folly.
Section 7 of the Bill covering unlawful stalking is probably the most challenging area as it breaks new legislative ground and is potentially open to much interpretation when applied. Section 7(3), which lists examples of acts or omissions associated with stalking, is generally identical to section 111 of the
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UK Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 which explicitly added new sections on stalking to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
The potentially problematic nature of a stalking law has been seen in the application of the UK Protection from Harassment Act, which created an offence of pursuing a \"course of conduct\" which amounts to harassment of another. For example, a UK newspaper reported that in 2001, the UK Protection from Harassment Act was employed to prosecute protestors outside a US base who were deemed to have distressed American servicemen by holding up a placard that said \"George W Bush? Oh dear!\" In 2004, police in Kent arrested a woman under the Act for sending two emails to an executive at a drugs company begging him not to test his products on animals. In 2007, the residents of a village in Oxfordshire were injuncted from protesting against a power company's plan to fill their lake with ash, in case they caused alarm or distress to the company's big-sized security guards. In fact, anti-stalking laws may conceivably be used against political activists, market researchers and religious organisations, especially if individuals or organisations are not fully apprised of the meaning of \"course of conduct\", as established by section 7(10) of the Bill.
Mdm Speaker, while these examples are extreme and perhaps fleeting, it is not too far-fetched to imagine section 7 of the Bill being used for purposes that stretch Parliament's intent far beyond the illustrations provided in section 7 of the Bill, which have to do with an individual repeatedly sending emails, flowers and circulating revealing photographs, notwithstanding the Minister's point that the illustrations are only some examples of the wide application of the Bill.
While this issue does not offer straightforward solutions, the point remains that the law against unlawful stalking may also find itself to be a victim of unintended consequences. I would like to seek the Minister's assurance that this Bill will not be used for such purposes.
In fact, it is not too difficult to envisage a wide range of situations in the local context. I remember visiting a wake at my ward in late 2011 over a period of time when there was a spike in the number of deaths at the Bedok Reservoir, with the media wondering why this was so. In my case, the family of the deceased was rather distressed that some journalists were keeping a watching brief of the number of people who came and left the wake before approaching them for a sound bite. By \"watching brief\", I also mean hiding behind pillars and taking active steps to avoid detection. This information inevitably made its way back to the distressed family, and as the law is drafted, would the Minister comment on the possible employment of section 7 against journalists and
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investigative reporters?
Section 7 of the Bill makes the offence of unlawful stalking subject to reasonableness. However, this is likely to be a challenging moral and ethical exercise, made even more challenging by a lower standard of proof in civil matters. I am concerned that the Bill may be subject to abuse, especially by individuals who seek to use the law as a weapon, as seen by the UK examples and, on the other extreme, for illegitimate reasons, like avoiding or strategically delaying public scrutiny which some journalists or bloggers may seek to pursue.
Finally, while I do believe the law is a positive step forward in terms of putting a symbolic focus on harassment and society's abhorrence of such behaviour, I do query what the effect of the law is on alternative dispute resolution means, such as community mediation, especially in the case of neighbour disputes, and separately, the number of prosecutions and civil cases with the passage of this Bill.
I do understand from the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth during the Committee of Supply this week and comments published in the mainstream media on 9 March that a new tribunal may be set up in the second half of the year with powers to issue orders to disputing neighbours, an added recourse for aggrieved individuals from the current community dispute resolution system which is wholly voluntary.
Nonetheless, I hope this Bill will encourage businesses and schools to draw up dedicated anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies and procedures so that employers, employees and students are clear on the general boundaries of personal conduct, both online and offline, rather than resort to the law at the get-go.
Schools, in particular, can take some reference from Oxford University's Policy and Procedure on Harassment and Bullying, while the Tripartite Alliance on Fair Employment Practices could look at advising employers on the importance of such policies. Employers, in particular, should be minded to draw up these policies in view of the diversity of Singapore's population and our privileged position as a meeting point between East and West and the different cultural values that intersect at the workplace, where a hug or a pat on the shoulder may be misinterpreted by some employees, intentionally or otherwise, as sexual harassment.
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Finally, I welcome the clarification of this Bill on the law covering harassment in Singapore, in view of the case in AXA Insurance. Mdm Speaker, my concerns about the potentially wide-ranging application of section 7 notwithstanding, I support the Bill.
Ms Mary Liew (Nominated Member): Mdm Speaker, I applaud the Minister for seeing the urgency to introduce the Protection from Harassment Bill. Unlike the past, when bullies were confined to a handful from school or playground, today, the prevalence of bullies is limitless in cyberspace. For too long, many hide behind the anonymity of the keyboard, getting away with it, while the victims suffer distress and embarrassment.
As the Minister has passionately shared earlier, it is both shocking and disturbing that Singapore has the second highest rate of online bullying, among youth aged eight to 17, out of 25 countries, second only to China, in a survey done by Microsoft. A straw poll conducted by Cyber Wellness also found that cyberbullying has risen in the past four years. What is even more alarming is that these are the kids who are only in Primary and Secondary schools. This group of students, who are our future generation, are partaking in cyber bullying or being bullied or harassed. What will become of them when they reach adulthood? Will this behaviour or trauma be carried forward to their future workplaces?
It leads me to ask next, is this law applicable to all school-going children? And what more can the Government do to stop or punish cyber bullying in schools? It is puzzling that even with talks and education on cyber wellness, Singapore still has the second highest online bullying rates. What more can be done? I would like to ask the Minister if it is compulsory for every school to hold safety talks to educate the students, teachers, as well as parents, so that they know the gravity of cyberbullying.
In October last year, a 12-year-old American girl jumped to her death after being a victim of cyberbullying. One of her alleged tormentors apparently even boasted about her role online. Closer to home, Singapore experienced its first cyberbullying death when a 16-year-old took her life by jumping down from the block. She was accused of being a \"loose woman\" by her ex-boyfriend on Facebook after his attempt to salvage the relationship failed. Deeply affected by the flaming online and the judgements by her schoolmates, she committed
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suicide.
These precious young lives are forever gone and more must be done to ensure that something like this never happens again in Singapore. Therefore, there is an urgency to teach the right values and cyber etiquettes to the younger generation since they will eventually be the future pillars of our society.
This Bill is a step in the right direction to protect the victims. However, turning specifically to the workplace, are both employers and employees aware of what constitutes workplace harassment?
There must be proper channels for affected employees to file a complaint should there be an occurrence of workplace harassment. Companies should include this information in their employees' handbook so that information is readily available. Employers must also be obligated to take sexual harassment more seriously, and work towards either preventing workplace sexual harassment or processing and dealing with harassment complaints better.
This is not something new as other countries, such as Malaysia as well, already have in place a Code of Practice against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace since 1999. The Code outlines the statement of purpose, legal definition of harassment, description of behaviours that constitute harassment, how employees should handle harassment, how companies should handle complaints, what kind of disciplinary actions must be taken and the names and phone numbers to lodge a complaint.
Madam, companies must recognise that bullying and harassment are not acceptable. If such behaviour is tolerated and allowed to take place, it will reflect poorly on the organisation. It will affect morale. It may also lead to poor performance and lost productivity and will even damage the company's reputation. Therefore, it is in the best interest of employers to promote a safe, fair and healthy workplace environment for their employees.
Madam, I am also heartened that this Bill enhances the provision to protect public sector employees, including public service workers. I would like to ask the Minister if this protection also includes our public transport workers, including our bus captains and taxi drivers.
Madam, at the end of the day, enforcement is the key to this new Bill and I hope that the Minister will share with us how the enforcement can be tightened up and implemented smoothly. With that, Mdm Speaker, I strongly support the
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Bill.
Mdm Speaker: Order. I propose to take the break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 4.15 pm.
Sitting accordingly suspended
at 3.53 pm until 4.15 pm.
Sitting resumed at 4.15 pm
[Mdm Speaker in the Chair]
[(proc text) Debate resumed. (proc text)]
Mr Christopher de Souza (Holland-Bukit Timah): Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of the Protection from Harassment Bill before Parliament today. This Bill is certainly a step in the right direction, as it deals with the prevalence of harassment, cyber bullying and unlawful stalking in our community head-on. With the enactment of this Bill, genuine victims of these offences will be given the necessary reprieve from, and compensation for, the distress that they have experienced as a result of the unwarranted actions of their harassers and stalkers.
At the same time, with this Bill, offenders that choose to commit these insidious offences can be dealt with judiciously and firmly, reflecting the tough stance that we are taking for such offences.
The enactment of this Bill is also a timely and necessary response to the increasing utilisation of the Internet to manipulate and victimise the vulnerable. This issue was first noted by Parliament when the amendments to the Penal Code were debated in 2007, and the enactment of this Bill is an extension of that realisation.
With new advancements in technology and the rapid expansion of Internet access in recent years, harassers are now increasingly capable of utilising the Internet as a potent and expedient means of causing alarm or distress to others. As a result, existing measures are no longer sufficient to deal with the threat of
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online harassment and cyberbullying effectively.
I support this Bill for two main reasons: first, as this Bill extends the scope of harassment to include words, behaviour or communication used or made by \"any means\", including through electronics means. Secondly, because this Bill adopts a potent two-pronged approach to dealing with the objectionable and insidious offences of harassment and unlawful stalking.
In the past, in order for a victim to obtain protection from harassment or cyber bullying, they would need to initiate a civil action against the alleged harasser under the common law tort of harassment, which is often times hard, expensive and could take an extended period of time to be resolved.
This is similar to the case of victims of Internet or online defamation – victims currently need to initiate a civil suit in order to obtain some form of compensation – this process is public and can be costly.
Some form of Police enforcement or investigation would seem more effective and expedient. However, the only avenue currently available to victims is to obtain the help of authorities to prosecute the alleged harasser under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (MOA). However, the provisions under that Act are arguably vague and unclear with respect to online harassment and cyberbullying.
Additionally, for an offence to be made out, it seems the offender would have had to personally make the alarming or distressing remarks to the victim face-to-face or to have spread rumours or allegations using word of mouth.
These days, offenders may perpetuate false rumours and allegations online using websites like Facebook, Twitter or online blogs. Alternatively, they may also resort to modern electronic means of communication like e-mails or smartphone-based instant messaging applications, like WhatsApp, to inundate and annoy their victims, as the Minister had previously explained.
The means utilised and the audience that might be exposed to these unwarranted acts are dramatically different from the past. By extending their actions into the realm of the Internet and the virtual world, the magnitude of these actions are amplified. With this evolution of methods utilised by offenders, current safeguards need to be bolstered to deal with the types and forms of harassment that Singaporeans are facing in these times.
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Therefore, with the expansion of offences relating to harassment to include words, behaviour or communication used or made by \"any means\", including electronic means, it ensures that offenders who resort to modern means of harassment or cyberbullying can be swiftly and judiciously dealt with.
Further, by widening the forms of harassment recognised under the law, the Police and other law enforcement agencies will be empowered to step in and conduct investigations to determine if an offence of online harassment or cyberbullying can be made out. With the manpower and resources to conduct a thorough investigation, Police investigation and enforcement would be an expedient and effective means of dealing with harassment and cyberbullying.
On this, I would like to ask the Minister if dedicated Police units will be created to specialise in the investigation and prosecution of this sort of crime. Further, what avenues will be made available to alleged victims to raise possible cases of harassment or cyberbullying to the authorities in an expedient manner? I would also like to seek a clarification on what criteria will be employed by the Police to distinguish genuine cases from unmeritorious cases.
I believe that these are important issues to consider as it would allow the authorities to focus their efforts towards investigating and dealing with legitimate cases of online harassment or cyberbullying.
Mdm Speaker, the enactment of this Bill will help to ensure that our laws are kept up-to-date with modern technological developments, and would allow for the protection of Singaporeans from all forms of unwarranted harassment or bullying. Furthermore, this Bill proposes to adopt a potent two-prong approach to deal, head-on, with the menace of harassment and cyberbullying.
First, by imposing tougher penalties on offenders who are found to have committed harassment or cyberbullying, a strong deterrent effect will be created. Offenders will think twice about doing anything that could have the potential of causing harassment, alarm or distress to others. Furthermore, this Bill will allow the Court to impose imprisonment of up to six months, on top of the enhanced $5,000 fine, where the offender has intentionally caused harassment, alarm or distress. Building upon that, enhanced penalties for repeat offenders reflect the seriousness of these offences.
The Court would also be empowered to grant a community order, as defined in the Criminal Procedure Code, where it finds it necessary to deal with offenders under special circumstances. An example of orders that could be
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granted include a mandatory treatment order or a community service order. This shows the Bill to be nuanced and compassionate when the facts merit it.
Secondly, this Bill will also provide avenues for victims of harassment or cyber bullying to obtain civil remedies that are required to protect them from further harassment, alarm or distress. Apart from being able to grant compensation in the form of damages to the victims, the Court will also be empowered to grant a Protection Order, or an Expedited Protection Order in cases of urgency. This shows the versatility and efficient nature of the Bill should circumstances merit such orders.
These orders could, for example, require an offender to remove any offending communication or post that is causing alarm or distress to the victim. This ensures that harassers will be stopped from taking any further actions that may cause alarm or distress and will help to contain the effect of their harassment.
Interestingly, the Bill also empowers the Court to make an order for the publication of a notice that would highlight the facts that the harasser had falsely alleged and to publish the true facts of the relevant situation. This would be particularly important in cases of online harassment or cyberbullying where the offender makes false allegations against or about the victim. This remedy will allow the Court to compel the offender to publish a clarification of any false allegations that have been made.
Essentially, this Bill gives the Court the flexibility to grant civil remedies that will be appropriate and necessary in each unique circumstance. These measures will ensure that victims of harassment and cyberbullying will be helpfully relieved of the harassment, alarm and distress that they have been subjected to.
Therefore, it can be seen that this two-pronged approach will allow the authorities to deal with offenders effectively while, at the same time, providing the requisite protection to victims of harassment and cyberbullying.
Additionally, the creation of a new offence of unlawful stalking would also be effective in ensuring that individuals do not overstep the boundaries of acceptable social behaviour.
This Bill provides clarity as to what constitutes stalking by providing examples of acts and omissions which are typically associated with stalking, as
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well as useful illustrations of behaviour that could constitute unlawful stalking. Under our current laws, there is arguably a lack of clarity as to what constitutes unlawful stalking, and thus, this is a welcome clarification on the state of the law.
Apart from being an effective form of deterrence against potential offenders, by clearly setting out the general characteristics of undesirable social behaviour, this Bill could form a basis for parents and teachers to educate their children and students about acceptable social behaviour in our society.
Often times, these individuals might not be aware that their actions could amount to stalking or cyberbullying. Therefore, this could be an opportunity for us to increase awareness and education on the issue of harassment, cyberbullying and unlawful stalking in our community.
Lastly, the abolition of the common law tort of harassment will ensure that harassment, cyberbullying and unlawful stalking are dealt with under the proposed Protection from Harassment Bill. This will make certain that a coherent and consistent legal regime is established to deal with these offences firmly and expediently. It will also send a clear message to society about the seriousness of these offences and it provides timely clarification about what constitutes acceptable social behaviour, whether in the real or cyber world. Madam, I support this Bill.
Mr Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of the Bill. The old adage \"sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me\" could not be more wrong. Words can wound deeply, and, in some cases, irreparably. Just as we are entitled to live our lives free of crime against our person and property, we should also have the right to live our lives free of harassment and bullying.
Does harassment and bullying occur? Of course, they do. And as the Minister and a number of Members have pointed out, in a 2012 Microsoft Study, Singapore is found to have the second highest rate of cyberbullying in the world. Should we help and protect the victims? Of course, we should. Harassment can take place in the physical and online space, and take many forms, such as sexual harassment, stalking and bullying in schools. But no matter what form it takes, harassment has severe repercussions on the victim's physical and emotional well-being. Technology – and the immediate, direct, multiple and extensive
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communications it enables – has exacerbated the problem.
Do our existing laws provide an adequate response? Currently, we have in place piecemeal laws, such as the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act, to deal with limited instances of harassment. It is not nearly enough.
Our Courts have tried their best to fill in the gaps left by legislation. In 2001, the High Court dealt with a case where an ex-employee was accused of harassing his former boss by telephoning and going to his home.
The harassment took many forms. For example, his former boss' baby son had died. And close to the anniversary of the death, the ex-employee sent his former boss a greeting card used to congratulate people on the birth of a newborn, as well as a baby rattle.
The learned High Court judge hearing the case said, \"In Singapore we live in one of the most densely populated countries in the world… It will make for an intensely uncomfortable living environment if there is no recourse against a person who intentionally makes use of modern communication devices in a manner that causes offence, fear, distress and annoyance to another.\" And this is the case of Malcomson Nicholas Hugh Bertram v Mehta Naresh Kumar [2001] 3 SLR(R) 379.
The learned judge held that, in common law, a person is said to have committed the tort of harassment if he: (a) intentionally embarks on a course of conduct; (b) that was sufficiently repetitive in nature; (c) as would cause worry, emotional distress or annoyance to the victim; and (d) the harasser ought reasonably to have known that his conduct would have that effect.
Last year – and that is 12 years later – another High Court judge considered the case where an accident victim had claimed on his accident policy. When he did not receive payment, he began to persistently send emails and make phone calls to his insurance company's employees and external lawyers. Some of these emails were abusive. And this was a case of AXA Insurance mentioned by the Minister and other speakers, as in AXA Insurance Singapore Pte Ltd v Chandran s/o Natesan [2013] 4 SLR 545 (H.C.).
Now, the learned Judge in AXA said that Parliament was better positioned to define the law on harassment than the Courts. He was also of the opinion that to award a civil remedy for morally and socially indefensible conduct
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should go through the legislative process of deliberation and debate.
There is a need for proper laws and remedies, and the Courts have declared that this House is the proper forum to discuss and debate these issues.
Before I deal with some points about the specific provision of the Bill, I would like to respond to some criticisms that have been made about it.
First, some have alleged that this law is targeted at curtailing speech, especially online of the anonymous variety, and is, therefore, politically motivated. That would be a misrepresentation of the law. The law makes no distinction between conduct online or in the physical world, nor should there be any distinction. Indeed, other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, have enacted legislation against harassment, including online harassment. Why should accountability and the rules of human decency be different online? If we agree that a person should be made accountable for causing harm to another by making hurtful statements and uttering falsehoods in the physical world, why should he obtain a free pass simply because he does it online and anonymously? There are no provisions in this Bill which stifle legitimate criticisms and free speech.
Second, if not this law, then what is the alternative? Status quo? That is clearly not a desirable remedy and many in this House have said so. And I have not heard any sensible alternatives.
I do, however, accept that this law may give rise to some difficulties and uncertainties because harassment is not easy to define. However, that is not a reason for us not to find ways to protect victims and provide meaningful remedies. This Bill does as good a job as any I have seen doing that. But it is not a silver bullet and we have to be prepared that there may be practical difficulties in its enforcement.
I now wish to make the following specific points about the Bill, which I hope the Minister will respond to.
First, the Bill creates both criminal offences and provides civil remedies for the same conduct. That is useful. But I am concerned that victims who turn to the Police may be asked to take civil proceedings instead. That may not be a viable avenue for many Singaporeans who do not have the resources or stamina to conduct litigation or even may be intimidated by the process. Even with the simplified approach which the Minister spoke about, many people may
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not wish to take that step. In that event, the assurance intended by the Bill may prove illusory. Will the Minister clarify or provide some guidance as to when the Police will take action and when they will advise complainants to turn to civil remedies?
Second, there are two practical difficulties when the provisions are applied to cases of cyber harassment. The Bill does not address the difficulties associated with identifying the perpetrators of cyber abuse. Even though the provisions have been worded to take into account harassment made via online communications, and also to account for offenders in foreign jurisdictions, the cloak of anonymity that cyber-bullies hide behind may prevent the Bill from being effectively enforced. Therefore, we must beef up the resources of the Technology Crime Division of CID so that they can conduct investigations into technology-related offences beyond the Computer Misuse Act. Will we be putting more resources in these departments or other departments?
Similar difficulties arise when victims of cyber-harassment pursue civil claims. If the perpetrator is anonymous, civil remedies may prove ineffective. Again, the victim may have to expend much time and resources to discover who is behind the attacks, and that may be beyond the means of many. Is there a way the Government can assist in such technical matters at no or low cost if the applicant is able to demonstrate a good case?
My third point has to do with the remedies set out in the Bill for false statements. Currently, we have defamation laws to address false statements but, then, only in cases where a person's reputation and standing have been damaged. Those laws also require legal proceedings to be brought, and the only remedies the Court may grant are damages and an injunction against further publication. Contrary to popular belief, the Court cannot compel the defendant to apologise or to publish a correction. But, sometimes, all that may be required is a simple clarification, correction or response. This Bill, therefore, provides a wider range of solutions, such as publishing corrections. It is, however, doubtful how effective these will be in the online space. In the time it will take for the Court to determine if the statement of facts complained of is false and for the remedy to be effected, the false statement would have travelled around the world many times over.
Mdm Speaker, in conclusion, let us be clear about what this Bill is about. It is to protect vulnerable people from those who seek to harm them mentally and emotionally. There is no good reason to deny such victims protection of the law; neither should we ignore what is already going on in the real world and online world as well. This is not a problem for parents or educators to solve, at least
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not on their own. It requires intervention by this House and we would be derelict in our duty if we stood by and did nothing. I support the Bill.
Ms Tin Pei Ling (Marine Parade): Madam, I stand to support this Bill because I stand to support the need to protect the innocent and I believe that this House will also stand to support the need to protect the innocent and also to preserve justice in our society.
There are many cases that have been highlighted in this House. There are many examples that we have shared to illustrate the importance of this Bill and how it will help innocent Singaporeans protect their dignity, protect themselves against, I would say, some very malicious-intent people out there.
Cases that involve physical and verbal harassment are probably relatively straightforward because these are in the real world, these are tangible. But cyber bullying and cyber-harassment are more complex. Firstly, any content that is posted online spreads instantaneously, exponentially and has far-reaching effects. They are harder to contain or control. Some sites operate outside our jurisdiction and these can be loopholes that scheming perpetrators can use to their advantage. For example, it is relatively difficult for the victim, or even sometimes the authorities, to try to identify the perpetrator. And it is also, many a time, hard, difficult, challenging to request for site owners to remove content, some even at a fee.
There is also an asymmetry of power because it is easy for anyone to post anything online but to get the offensive content to be removed, the burden of proof is on the victim, especially in cases where the content has gone online and viral, the ability to claw back such content, to limit the damage, is, indeed, very limiting. Some sites – and I will give an example later – even demand a removal fee and this is a hefty amount. And even the original poster – the person who originally posted the comment – may find it difficult to try to retract that content later.
Cyber predators hide behind anonymity and they are emboldened when they know that they can get away with it relatively easily. Many cyberbullying and harassment cases are also sexually explicit, even towards minors. There are a few of such forums and platforms that we can find online and there is no lack of new examples even on a daily basis.
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Let me just share an example. In March earlier this year, there was a photo of a young girl on the MRT and her photo was being posted on this forum. She did not realise that her photo was being taken. Ensuing that were comments in the tens in the same minute – tens of comments just started to flood the forums – commenting from her legs, rear, to her front and face. I am sure this is not something that we would proudly declare in public nor is it something that would bring any comfort to the lady involved in the picture.
The Internet has also become the platform for revenge and malicious mischief. One example is the fiance of my resident. Her ex-boyfriend uploaded very compromising photos of her. These photos were taken while they were still in the relationship. These photos were then uploaded onto websites, such as \"revenge porn\", which the Minister had mentioned earlier, and, luckily, it has been outlawed by California. These sites are hosted overseas. There were many unsavoury comments by people she knew and did not know, and, after a while, even her friends started to notice it and came to her to ask about it. Imagine the shame, imagine the embarrassment, imagine the kind of distress that she had to go through. Perhaps, let me quote what my resident wrote to me in an email, and I quote: \"To complicate matters, the website is hosted in the United States. The company is registered in Amsterdam and even the individual, who happens to my fiance's ex-boyfriend, who uploaded the photo is unable to remove them without the website host's approval who, ultimately, would only do so if the removal fee is paid. Since then, my fiancé has lost sleep, could not eat or work in peace, especially not while witnessing the links to her compromising photos appear on search results while looking up her name.\"
All of these instances are distressing and alarming to the victims. These victims often times are harassed by people who they know or do not know on sites of origin or, worse, in some instances, being reproduced on other sites. In vengeful instances, the perpetrator is simply using the Internet and its netizens to exact his revenge, and in Chinese, I would say this is “借刀杀人“.
The American Psychological Association has a journal, Psychology of Violence, where there is an article on youth online harassment published in 2013. The results showed that about 69% of such online harassment victims are girls, and this was in 2010. And this statistic of 69% went up from 48% in year 2000. It also revealed that distressing harassments, as well as repeated harassments, have also been on the rise over the years. These are very worrying trends and we must do more to protect females, to protect young girls especially, out there who may fall prey to cyber predators who have less than friendly intent.
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Madam, I am in support of this Bill and I would also like to raise six questions which I hope the Minister can help to address or clarify.
First, to what extent will this Bill have powers in tracking down and identifying perpetrators online, especially if the sites are hosted overseas?
Second, to what extent can this Bill influence or demand sites to remove offensive content, especially if sites are hosted overseas? \"Revenge porn\", even though it has been outlawed in California, is an example of sites whereby the recalcitrant site owner had refused to remove the content despite it being offensive because the owner wanted to extract a removal fee from persons who may or may not have been affected, but the fact is that they can become very recalcitrant.
Third, does this Bill punish only the first culpable person who posted the offensive content or every one of the cyber lynch mob?
Fourth, what kind of self-help is available for cyber victims, for instance, and, very specifically, cyber sexual or related harassments? How will these self-help avenues help these victims seek redress under this Bill? Victims, especially if they are minors, may not have adequate financial resources to hire lawyers to help them seek justice.
Fifth, on Expedited Protection Orders. I understand that the Minister earlier had mentioned that it can be within one to two days, but for cases online – cyber cases – speed is crucial because, within one minute, it can viral out many, many times. And, so, how long will it take for this Expedited Protection Order to be granted in such cases? Can it be even faster than just one day?
The sixth question I have is this: Is it provided for, under this Bill, to allow the MDA to step in immediately to block sites first while investigations continue and allow the due process, as set out in the Bill, to proceed?
Madam, freedom is for everyone. The right to be protected from malicious behaviour is as important as, if not more than, the right to free expression by those who have malicious intent. For some of those who may worry about being deprived of the freedom of expression, I would say that if the post – if the content of the message – is constructive, has no malicious intent, then there really is no cause to worry at all. Otherwise, responding to this, having doubts on this Bill really is, in my opinion, somewhat “此地无银三百两” – basically,
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pointing to a spot saying that I never bury 300 taels of silver in this spot.
So, again, I would stress that freedom is for everyone. The right to be protected from malicious behaviours is as important as, if not more important than, the right to freedom of expressions by people who have malicious intent, and, I stress, malicious intent. Personally, in my opinion, I believe that, in Singapore, where we uphold and still value justice in our society, if we believe in this, then we must have the ability to protect the innocent from unjust behaviours.
Assoc Prof Tan Kheng Boon Eugene (Nominated Member): Mdm Speaker, I support the Bill. This Bill is not the silver bullet with regard to the scourge of harassment and stalking. So, it is important to manage expectations. Although this Bill will not decisively end harassment, stalking and other anti-social behaviour, it will function as a deterrent.
In today's wired world, technology is a double-edged sword. Therefore, I welcome this Bill's coverage of online harassment, including cyberbullying, which can be very damaging, given the speed and reach with which falsehoods can spread. The malicious content can also remain online for an extended period of time.
I also welcome the Bill seeking to define \"harassment\" as conduct causing or likely to cause alarm or distress although the use of \"harassment\" itself in defining harassment is somewhat puzzling. But that is a minor point. More importantly, this criminalisation of harassment and unlawful stalking is important because it draws the line where previously there was none. It should help prevent egregious conduct, which might otherwise go unpunished without this new law. The Bill also makes clear that speech can be harassment in the appropriate circumstances.
The Bill will strengthen existing laws through clarifying that the same standards of what constitute harassment are applicable to online conduct. This has to be so. There should not be an unnecessary distinction between the virtual and the real, especially when online conduct has real-world consequences.
I also welcome the extra-territorial reach of the proposed new law. Since the Bill is applicable to online conduct, then the proposed law has to be borderless in reach, subject to the requirements of international comity and not
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compromising the sovereignty of other countries.
Clause 7(10) generally defines a course of conduct as being actions that take place on at least two occasions. Although the Bill does not specify what period of time should elapse between the two occasions, my sense is that we should not adopt a pedantic or dogmatic reading. In my view, a pragmatic approach is necessary. Thus, if the behaviour complained of has ceased, even for a short period of time, and then resumed either in the same or a different form, this can certainly constitute a course of conduct. By the same token, acts that are some distance apart in time can also constitute a course of conduct. It goes without saying that each case will fall to be determined on its own facts.
What this means is that, often, it may not be immediately apparent that separate incidents are connected as a course of conduct. It is, therefore, important that the Police are alert to the possibility that incidents could form part of a course of conduct, and to take this into account during the investigation of each incident, making whatever inquiries seem appropriate, to determine whether the incident is, in fact, part of a course of conduct.
Madam, what about a campaign of collective harassment by two or more people in which one person commits one act personally and arranges for another person to commit another act of harassment or unlawful stalking? Can this aiding, abetment and procuring of conduct amount to a \"course of conduct\"?
I welcome the Bill's providing for both criminal offences and civil remedies. Conduct caught by the proposed new law can be subjected to a claim in civil proceedings under clause 11. This can be useful if the evidence was insufficient to succeed under a criminal prosecution but may be enough to support an action for statutory tort.
In civil proceedings against the perpetrator, clause 11 empowers the court to award damages to the victim. One can envisage, for example, financial loss from the harassment. For example, victims have been known to alter their lifestyle choices and daily routines, move homes or change jobs, and even restricting their social activities.
However, it is pertinent to ask whether such a claim would include damages for emotional injury. Can the Minister clarify if this is so? I would argue that clause 11 should not be read narrowly and that, in the appropriate cases, emotional injury can be covered. Otherwise, the civil remedy would be rather
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inadequate.
When one considers the offence of harassment or unlawful stalking, it is very often the fact that such acts cause, in the words of the Bill, \"alarm,\" \"distress\" or the actions are \"threatening\" or \"abusive\". Could the Bill then be explicit in providing that damages may be awarded for anxiety, alarm, distress and other associated feelings caused by the harassment or unlawful stalking?
The protection and expedited Protection Orders found in clauses 12 and 13 respectively are to be welcomed. Such non-harassment orders are essential to stop harassment and unlawful stalking. As such, I appreciate the Minister's assurance with regard to clause 19 on the civil proceedings framework envisaged as enabling the victims to obtain the Protection Orders without having to incur high expenses or the need to engage lawyers. This injunctive relief would be next to useless if the Protection Orders are hard to obtain and the process expensive and emotionally draining.
In addition, it must be said that the Protection Orders will be difficult to obtain where the identity of the perpetrator is unknown to the victim. Nonetheless, the power of the court to grant take-down orders and correction notification orders for false and malicious online content is crucial. In this regard, it is important to be circumspect as to what the proposed law can do and cannot do.
Enforcement becomes critical in ensuring that the proposed law has the requisite deterrent effect.
Clause 10 provides for the penalty in respect of non-compliance with the Protection Orders. Could the Minister also clarify how enforcement action will be taken where there is non-compliance? Who has to initiate action when a Protection Order is breached? Is it the victim or will the police do so? Should not a breach to the Protection Order be a seizable offence? This will provide the Protection Order with sufficient bite, otherwise the Protection Order will be a mere paper judgement.
Madam, I would like now to touch briefly on a matter not strictly within the ambit of the Bill but certainly relevant to its effectiveness since the Bill's long title states that the legislative intent is \"to protect persons against harassment and unlawful stalking\". This relates to the evidential requirements in prosecuting cases under this Bill.
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Cases involving unlawful stalking and harassment can be difficult to prosecute. Sensitive handling, especially with regard to victim care, is important. I hope the Police will be equipped with the necessary skillsets and empathy to handle complaints of the alleged victims. Another major area is evidential in nature. Here, again, the Police must be adequately trained to ensure that the relevant evidence is gathered properly so that the victim's case can stand up to legal scrutiny when it is presented to the Court.
This requires, in turn, the proactive building, management and execution of a case. Where appropriate, and because of the distress and alarm caused to the victim by the offender, victims should also have access to relevant care and support. I trust that there will be the necessary capacity and competency in the Police to this end.
Madam, I now turn to what I call the \"oddities\" in the Bill. Clauses 7(7) and 7(8) seek to immunise what would otherwise be unlawful stalking but for the purposes of national security, national defence or the conduct of international relations. This provision prevents surveillance targets from taking out private prosecutions against those keeping surveillance and so expose their identities to a larger audience. However, it is probably hard to envisage circumstances where there will be a need for such a certificate to be issued by the relevant Minister.
Nonetheless, it would be helpful if the Minister can assure the House that such certificates, when issued, relate only to high-level operations concerning terrorism, major crime syndicates or very serious crimes. Will such certificates be issued in relation to the activities of the police or specialist enforcement units?
The Bill provides in clause 12(3)(c) that the District Court, in making a Protection Order, can refer the respondent or the victim or both to attend counselling or mediation. If the District Court is satisfied that a respondent has committed harassment or unlawful stalking, as defined in the Bill, what is there then to mediate? Why should the victim be expected to compromise? What is there to compromise in the first place? What is there to mediate? Is there the expectation for both parties to make up? Much as I appreciate the virtues of alternative dispute resolution, I am somewhat perplexed that mediation is envisaged. Could the Minister clarify what is the intent and what outcomes are sought in mediation in cases where there is unilateral harassment and unlawful stalking?
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In future reviews of this Bill, I hope the Ministry will consider enhancing the penalties where the victim is physically harassed or stalked in or near his or her home or at their workplaces.
A further improvement is to make it a legal requirement for companies to put in a framework for handling harassment at the workplace. While the Bill covers harassment at the workplace, the power asymmetries that exist between a superior and a subordinate and the fear of losing one's job, as well as the negative and unnecessary publicity that would accompany the victim even in a criminal prosecution, make it onerous for the victim to seek redress, whether via the criminal or civil route.
Had the Bill provided for companies to do more, then a major source of harassment, especially of a sexual nature, can be better tackled. Some companies do have workplace harassment policies but the Bill could have made it mandatory for all companies to institute workplace harassment policies. We can also then reduce the likelihood of workplaces becoming hostile environments.
I hope business enterprises and organisations, such as education institutions, will be spurred by this Bill to take workplace harassment seriously and to put in place relevant policies, as well as a code of conduct and formal processes, for dealing with complaints of harassment at the workplace.
At common law, an employer has a duty to take reasonable steps to protect the employee from harm to their physical and mental health. However, this duty is limited to harm that is foreseeable. I hope this Bill raises the bar where an employer's duty at the workplace is concerned. Employers would be well-advised not to wait until misconduct is so serious that the sanctions of criminal law are justified.
Let me now conclude, Madam. It may well be that this Bill will help shape appropriate online behaviour. If it, indeed, turns out that way, that will be a bonus. But this Bill reminds us again of the need for education and the imbibing of proper norms of conduct in the real and virtual worlds.
This proposed law can certainly shape the development of appropriate conduct but it will not be the prime driver as such since these behavioural norms have to be internalised rather than dictated to. Where online conduct is concerned, this Bill marks a significant step forward. We need a civil online society. Otherwise, the full potential of social media and the Internet will not be
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realised. Madam, on that note, I reiterate my support for the Bill.
Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo (East Coast): Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of the Bill. This Bill is, indeed, welcome as it seeks to create safer environments both in the physical and online worlds. It includes aspects of harassment faced by society today at the workplace, in our community and online. Acts which are threatening, abusive, insulting, causing alarm, distress and fear to victims are harassment. Stalking is also included as an offence in this Bill.
While turning to the law should not be the first response to addressing acts of harassment, laws do set the tone of what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour in society. Recognising the seriousness of the problem, it is important that those that are harassed have protection. The sad reality is that harassment is real. I have come across several cases where residents in my constituency have been harassed. These situations caused much anxiety and distress to the victims and/or their families.
In one incident, a resident who was stalked could not get any help to prevent the perpetrator from harassing her despite her reporting the matter. The perpetrator was loitering for weeks outside her gate and verbally abusing her. But as he did not commit any criminal act, there were no grounds for the Police to take any action against him.
Madam, through laws that are thoughtfully written to balance safety, freedom of speech and expression, governments play an important role in helping to fight harassment and threats both in the physical and the online worlds. The Bill does try to strike a balance on the extent to which a law should intervene and the extent to which we should leave the situation to self-help remedies. The Bill expands protection to include workers who deliver public healthcare and transport services. This is certainly welcomed as it allows these workers safer work environments as they provide essential services.
The Bill provides a range of self-help measures, civil remedies and criminal sanctions from harassment. With this Bill, the existing penalties for harassment offences will be increased to include a fine and/or imprisonment to reflect the seriousness. Offenders can also be ordered to seek treatment at the Institute of Mental Health. There will also be enhanced penalties provided for repeat offenders. The Court will also be empowered to make community orders in
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appropriate cases.
The offences will also apply to acts committed outside Singapore as long as the victim is in Singapore and the perpetrator knew or should have known that when he committed the act. This extraterritorial reach recognises the online and global nature of communication today. The Internet has changed the way we work, interact, learn, play and even how our children grow. It has also created online communities and altered the extent and reach of communication.
Given the speed, expanse and scale of the impact and use of online communication, just as in the physical world, we must ensure that we protect vulnerable members of society online. These include children, the elderly and those with special needs. Online harassment can involve a range from general \"meanness\", for example, teasing/name calling, to bullying and negative behaviour with clear intentions to hurt. Those who experience online bullying can suffer damaging mental and physical health consequences. Research from the Cyberbullying Research Centre revealed a link between cyberbullying and low self-esteem, family and academic problems, school violence and delinquent behaviour.
Online harassment and bullying is becoming an extensive problem in countries all over the world. Here, Madam, I must declare my interest. I am an employee of Microsoft and I am citing a study that was commissioned by Microsoft. In 2012 Microsoft commissioned a study to understand the pervasiveness of online bullying. Young people from age eight to 17 in 25 countries were polled. The study showed Singapore to be one of the six countries where online bullying was particularly pervasive. For Singapore, 46% of youth admitted to having bullied someone online, at least at one time or another.
As this Bill is meant to include cyber bullying of children, can the Minister help clarify how we will deal with a scenario where the bully is a child? Based on the findings from the study that I just cited, this scenario is very likely to happen as we see \"playground bullying\" migrate online.
I do, however, wonder how effective the remedies will be for a victim whose harasser is out of the country and potentially will not submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of Singapore. Moreover, such a victim would face further difficulty of not being able to identify or locate the online harasser hiding behind a screen
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or a keyboard. Having coordinated activities amongst agencies in different jurisdictions will play an essential element that must be considered in the implementation of this law.
To combat online harassment, while legislation is needed, I firmly believe that education and preventive measures play an important role as this makes the most efficient contribution to the end-goal of changing user behaviours. This is the long-term protection against harassment for users online.
For the Bill to be effective, victims must be aware of their rights and know what procedures to take to report stalkers, workplace and physical harassment and online abusers. I am glad to hear the Minister's assurance that there would be efforts made to simplify the procedures for victims to seek redress.
While we recognise that we will not be able to fully legislate for every scenario, this Bill on Protection from Harassment does provide a framework for social norms and what constitutes as acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, both online and offline. It will send a strong signal to deter harassment and bullying. Legislation should deal with the most serious cases. This Bill is comprehensive but, ultimately, we must recognise that self-help is a quicker and more effective redress for the vast majority of cases. Madam, I support the Bill.
Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai (Moulmein-Kallang): Harassment can take many different forms. It can take the form of physical bullying of our children in school, or as cyber bullying in the online space. It can take the form of stalking, again, both the online and the offline versions. Stalking is often characterised by a series of acts, all of which, on their own, can be perfectly legal and infringe no laws, but which can lead to no less distressing outcomes.
It can be carried out by and affect many different people from across different walks of life – the young, the old; harassment is often gender-neutral as well. It can also take place in many different places: in the real spaces, such as schools, offices or the home. Or, online, where the space and time continuum merge and remain in posterity, often to devastating adverse outcomes.
All of these different forms of harassment are characterised by the intense, often prolonged, hurt and distress suffered by the victim, sometimes with serious, and perhaps, even unintended consequences. Often, it is not only the
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victim, but also the people and loved ones around the victim, who suffer. More than anything, what is needed in such situations is for the victim to find relief; for quick access to justice and for any offending material, if online, to be taken down quickly.
Madam, let me relate a recent incident. About six months ago, a resident came to see me at my MPS. When she saw me, she held out her mobile device and showed me a message. The message read, and I quote, \"Saw your lovely daughter in school today. She looks just like you, in her pretty blue dress and matching shoes.\"
To any other mother, this would have been a very nice message to receive. But this resident – let us call her \"Sally\" – she looked fearful and gave me a very despairing, hunted look.
It transpired that there was a male acquaintance who had been harassing her for the past few months. It started with several emails and text messages. It grew to more than 50 messages a day, often late into the night. And then persistent phone calls. It then progressed to him loitering around her workplace and then her home. He would sometimes drive his car just to be alongside her as she walked home from the MRT.
The message that she showed me demonstrated that her stalker knew which childcare centre her daughter was in and had, in fact, seen her that very same day. The stalker's intention was clearly calculated to cause mental and emotional anguish and to cause fear and apprehension that her young daughter could be hurt. And we all know what this can do to a parent of a young child.
Madam, this scenario is, unfortunately, not all too uncommon. They often arise from a failed relationship, or an employee who had been let go, or sometimes, having heard the Minister's many different examples, for really no good reason at all. But make no mistake; it is a serious problem. This Bill is, therefore, both a timely and necessary recognition that harassment, bullying and stalking are serious problems which have absolutely no place in the kind of society we want to build.
If left unchecked, we can almost certainly expect the pernicious and insidious effects of harassment to get worse.
Let me explain that with reference to the growing platform of the Internet. Singapore has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in Asia. We have a
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penetration rate of 73% and a Facebook penetration of 59%. That means, of the nearly 5.5 million people in Singapore, there are approximately four million Internet users and 3.2 million active Facebook users.
And of all of these users, a large majority of them are teenagers. The Microsoft survey has been quoted several times and we have seen the ages of the people surveyed. Those are the people who are actively on the Internet four to five hours a day.
This rapidly rising trend, coupled with a proliferation of a multitude of different social online platforms, can only mean that cyberbullying, stalking and other types of online harassment will remain a serious concern.
Further, the Internet, being what it is, often makes it difficult for posters of online comments or pictures to be traced effectively. The Internet also allows postings to be made anonymously, which we have heard several times from other Members of this House, and studies have shown that this veil of anonymity serves only to embolden perpetrators and bring out the worst in them. Online commentators have called this the \"Online Disinhibition Effect\". These people who are anonymous are likely to do and say things which they would otherwise not do, if only they had to disclose their real names.
In real terms, just in the last decade, Singapore has witnessed a growing trend of cyber bullying amongst youths.
Again, we go back to the Microsoft survey which Minister referred to, which, certainly to me, threw up very alarming results about the bullying rates of youths between the ages of eight and 17, and which found Singapore to be second, only behind China in the world, in relation to the rate of cyberbullying amongst youths.
Cyberbullying can take place in so many different forms. They can include creating a fake social media profile on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or hacking into others' social media accounts to impersonate them and posting scandalous and/or embarrassing content, or simply facilitating \"hate-talk\" on online forums, all of which can be done not only in minutes but also from the comfort of one's home.
We have heard the Minister and several Members detailing anecdotal examples of very devastating tragedies arising from children or youths being unable to handle the distress of the harassment. These examples are very sad
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but they are also very real.
Our children are being exposed to the Internet earlier and earlier. They have grown adept at mastering the computer which has also become easier and easier to manoeuvre. So, in a few clicks, they are well on their way in cyberspace. However, the people they meet there are less forgiving, and our children are not always sufficiently mature to handle this type of distress.
I, therefore, see this Bill as a step forward in further protecting our young and vulnerable from cyberbullying and stalking.
Which brings me to my next point as to why this Bill is necessary? Currently, the statutory framework is somewhat disparate and piecemeal – with most of the provisions appearing in the Miscellaneous Offences Act and a series of other specialised ones found in other pieces of legislation, such as the Women's Charter, the Moneylenders Act, Computer Misuse and Cyber Security Act, as well as the Penal Code.
Such protection is limited not only in their application but, more importantly, in the range of available remedies:-
Indeed, the High Court, in the 2001 Malcomson case, which the hon Member Mr Hri Kumar raised earlier, threw doubt over whether harassment committed over the mobile phone could even amount to an offence under the Miscellaneous Offences Act. Of course, the mobile phone in 2001 – 13 years ago – is quite different from that today, but still.
The most recent judicial pronouncement in AXA Insurance, we have heard from other Members, threw doubt as to whether such a law could be found in the annals of the common law and, instead, the High Court Judge invited Parliament to deliberate on it and to decide whether or not, indeed, it would be part of our legislation.
If we in this House accept that harassment is anti-social and wrong, then we have an obligation to fill the lacuna in the current state of law and provide for clear parameters on how we view and remedy harassment.
Madam, in that context, this Bill is not only timely, it is very necessary. The omnibus legislation on harassment does not just dispel doubts in the law in light of the recent judicial pronouncements for this Bill – the legislation that we now have – and put all the provisions into one convenient place, it actually does
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much more in at least two further areas.
First, it offers a range of remedies which strike at the heart of what distresses the victims most. We have heard other Members deal with the different aspects of the Protection Orders and I would not go into that.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the enactment of this Bill as law will signify where we in Singapore choose to stand as a civil society against harassment. It sends a strong message to would-be offenders that we do not tolerate such conduct, which is often perpetrated anonymously and is, indeed, very cowardly. It also provides an assurance to victims of such harassment that they do not necessarily have to go through a long protracted trial, often reliving the same offending material which caused them so much distress in the first place. It is often not a \"win\" in Court that these victims seek, or even damages which may be awarded later. All they want is for there to be a ready platform which can render access to justice and for the appropriate reliefs to be dispensed quickly. And this I see in the architecture of the current Bill which I strongly support.
Madam, before I end, let me just read out from an email that I received from the same resident who saw me six months ago whom I called \"Sally\". She sent me this email just two days ago, and she said: \"Hi Mr Tong, during your house visit on 8 March, you mentioned that this case will be heard in Parliament shortly. We are deeply appreciative and would now like the Government to quickly pass this Bill. The harassment and stalking have caused much anxiety and distress not only for myself but also to my family members, particularly my elderly mother and two young children. Owing to this, our lifestyle and daily routine have changed dramatically. We do not dare to even step out of our house, for fear that we would bump into him. We do not feel safe even at our own doorstep or at our home. Do you know that when we met you at the opening of the garden last weekend, it was also the first time six months after this incident that we dared to even bring our kids downstairs for a stroll and for them to play.\"
Madam, the sentiment expressed in this email tells us that the need for this Bill is unarguable. It is absolutely necessary, it is for the protection of people in Singapore, and it is to ensure that we can go about our lives as it is supposed to. With that, Madam, I thank the Minister and his team for introducing this Bill, which I support strongly.
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Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan (Nee Soon): Mdm Speaker, I would like to support and applaud the enactment of this Bill that will further protect our people, be it in the community or our workers in all workplaces. It will also add a layer of much needed protection to those working in the public sector, including a new category called \"public service workers\", from threats, insults or abuse.
This Bill serves to enhance the protection of persons against harassment and anti-social behaviour, such as cyber bullying and unlawful stalking. It is wide-ranging in its definition, the scope of acts covered is broad and the illustrations in the Bill are enlightening. With this Bill come self-help and civil remedies, as well as criminal liabilities against perpetrators.
During a Legal Primer for Women on their Workplace Rights organised by our National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) PME Unit on 12 July last year, more than 100 ladies attended and a number of them shared that they had encountered some form of sexual harassment in their workplaces. Other than physical touch and brushes which may well amount to Penal Code offences, they echoed that their male superiors or co-workers make suggestive, obscene or lewd remarks and, at times, language peppered with sexual innuendoes. Whilst sexual harassment involves female victims, there are also instances where males are victims as well.
I am glad that with this Bill, this issue of sexual harassment in the workplace will be addressed. Besides sexual harassment at the workplace, there are other forms of distressing behaviour in the workplace, such as online and offline stalking, and I am glad this Bill will also sharpen our definition of harassment and stalking, and criminalise them specifically.
In more ways than one, this piece of legislation will also address workplace bullying in Singapore. This issue of workplace bullying came to public attention when an intern who was slapped went viral online last year. The case may have been closed and the perpetrator prosecuted but, in that case, there may not have been an employer-employee relationship and, hence, certain recourse may not have been available. However, with the introduction of this new piece of legislation with targeted and specific provisions, it will cover all workplaces and whatever the working relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. I believe this Bill will provide a deterrent effect to would-be perpetrators and
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provide victims with recourse and closure to their fears, grief and distress.
While there are several useful illustrations in the Bill about what constitutes harassment and stalking, I would like to propose for the MinLaw and relevant Ministries to provide a comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and information booklet with a compendium of illustrations of the scenarios and situations where an offence under this Bill has been committed, as well as examples where no offence is disclosed. The FAQs and illustrations will complement NTUC's and the Law Society's booklet we are preparing on workplace bullying, for the benefit of our workers and union members.
In the workplace, cases of harassment could be easier identified as the offender and victim will usually know each other through a formal work relationship, such as superior-subordinate or co-workers. The challenge is when harassment happens in a power relationship, such that a superior has power over the career of the victim. These cases tend to go unreported. There is nothing in this Bill to dictate what companies and employers are required to do in establishing anti-harassment policies in workplaces and procedures for handling complaints or whistle-blowers.
As such, I strongly urge our tripartite partners to issue a set of guidelines setting out an Employer's Code of Practice which should encompass comprehensively what procedures and practices companies should have in place to prevent and resolve harassment and stalking, employee reporting, complaints mechanism, whistle-blowing management, as well as whistle-blower protection and possible internal staff remedies.
This is not something new and I am aware companies operating in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom where similar anti-harassment and bullying legislation are in place would have good processes and precedents for us to take a leaf from.
Interestingly, this Bill also has hints of extra-territorial jurisdiction. For example, if two co-workers are overseas together for a work assignment and one sexually harasses the other while overseas in that foreign land, the effects are felt by the victim, and that victim has sufficient nexus and should, by virtue of section 17 of the Bill, make the perpetrator liable. By the same token, even when the perpetrator is overseas and the victim is in Singapore and vice-versa, section 17 may well give jurisdiction for the perpetrator to be prosecuted for a breach of the provisions of this Bill.
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Notwithstanding an offence is disclosed, the two challenges to expeditious investigation and successful prosecution lie in the areas of evidence gathering and ensuring complaints are substantiated and not started by trigger-happy complainants. On the flip side, I urge victims of harassment or stalking that they not keep mum and suffer in silence but step forward.
I am glad that the offence of using indecent, threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour will be extended to \"public service workers\", who are defined as individuals who belong \"to a prescribed class of employees or workers that provides any service which is essential to the well-being of the public or the proper functioning of Singapore\". I am keen to find out which types or categories of workers will be prescribed by the Minister and hopes he sheds light on this.
In my capacity as the Executive Secretary of the Health Services Employees Union (HSEU), I am aware of the manpower crunch and the increase of patients at our hospitals and polyclinics. In fact, I have raised a Parliamentary Question (PQ) in this House last year in May about the incidence of abuse on healthcare workers in Singapore. The increase in workload and stresses that our healthcare workers, whether doctors, nurses, frontline admin, allied or ancillary staff, face daily is already challenging as it is. They certainly do not need the unwanted abuse from patients and family members. In extreme scenarios, there could even be physical violence.
Besides healthcare workers, whether in public or private hospitals, polyclinics or step-down care, I know of many other types of workers who are also subjected to similar verbal abuses, insults, threats and harassing behaviour in the course of their work. Their plight and stories have appeared in our local newspapers, including one just last night. These workers include frontline service staff like public and private bus drivers, taxi drivers, SMRT frontline staff and private security officers. On behalf of the unions and associations representing these workers, I suggest and submit that all of these that I have mentioned be classified as \"public service workers\" and given the needful protection under this Bill.
What I have shared above is also happening to the frontline officers at our statutory boards and public services like Town Councils, NEA, HDB, LTA and so on. While I can understand that there are high expectations of our public sector, this should not necessarily translate into unruly behaviour and a \"me-first at all costs\" mentality. No amount of law can govern a lack of social grace,
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consideration and kindness. Madam, in Mandarin, please.
(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The Labour Movement welcomes the introduction of this Bill. In the past, when workers were sexually harassed or bullied in the workplace, there was no legislation to protect them. Now, finally, they have legal recourse. I hope that, when encountering suggestive, lewd and insulting remarks in the workplace, workers should not be afraid of coming forward to expose their boss or colleague's ugly behaviour for fear of their job being impacted. I hope they can speak up courageously.
Frontline workers, such as healthcare workers, bus drivers, MRT staff, taxi drivers and private security officers, also face harassment or threat sometimes. I hope the public service workers who come under the protection of this Bill can also include them.
Lastly, I also hope that the tripartite partners can issue a set of guidelines for employers to implement in the workplace.
(In English): Mdm Speaker, in conclusion, I strongly support this Bill and hope it would be administered robustly so as to eradicate harassment and stalking in the workplace and community, and also raise the bar in terms of protection of many categories of frontline workers who provide service to our people and our country. I hope this Bill would give all of us peace of mind by giving perpetrators a piece of our mind.
Mr Zainal Sapari (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Mdm Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on this Bill. If you may allow, I would like to read an email that was sent to me by my resident, to help us understand the need for this Bill.
\"Mr Sapari, I need your help. I am begging you to help me resolve the harassment I have been receiving from my neighbour for the past one year.
He has been coming to my flat at all hours of the day, drunk, attempting to open my door. He comes and bangs on my door and windows, shouting. He even urinates outside my flat.
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Sir, I am a single father staying with my 15-year-old daughter. Both of us are scared for our safety, especially my daughter, who does not even dare to be left alone when I go out to throw my rubbish.
I have attempted to speak with the man's family but they have brushed me off saying it is not their problem. I have called the police many times but by the time they arrive, this person has already moved off and the police tell me they cannot do anything.
As you can see from the letter my doctor has written to you, this harassment has caused me much mental and emotional distress. Now, whenever I hear noises outside my flat, I start to have very bad panic and anxiety attacks.
Sir, please, I am begging you to help me and my daughter. I cannot take much more of this stress and fear.\"
Madam, harassment and unlawful stalking will cause distress and alarm to the victim, and if done over a prolonged period of time, the damage could be irreversible. It is quite common when a harassment or stalking case is reported, it may seem trivial because of the lack of immediate threat but, when a series of incidents are put together, they become far more sinister.
There is a gap in the current law and, many times, victims are not getting the help and protection they need. The key to protecting victims and lessening their fear and harm is for everyone to take the issue seriously. There must be widespread awareness-raising and effective response to harassment by law enforcement agencies.
Mdm Speaker, I am also concerned that this Bill falls short in defining what constitutes unlawful stalking. The Bill stated that in considering whether a course of conduct is unlawful stalking, it would take into account the number of occasions on which the acts or omissions associated with stalking were carried out; and the frequency and the duration of the acts, amongst others.
Unlike other crimes which can be more definitive, stalking is in the eye of the beholder. What may seem acceptable to one may not be acceptable to others, regardless of the number of occasions, frequency and duration of the acts. Nobody knows when stalking begins – there is no cut-off point. Experience in the United Kingdom, where there is such legislation, showed that many victims are too often reluctant to act; unsure of whether they are being stalked
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or just avidly pursued. Perhaps, we would also like to consider setting up a national helpline for stalking to give victims the confidence to act and to create greater public awareness. With stalking being a non-sizeable offence, what can be done to effectively prevent further cases of stalking by the individual? Under what circumstances will the police take enforcement action?
Mdm Speaker, with regard to harassment in the online sphere, how can we justifiably differentiate a posting that reflects a viewpoint of a person, compared to a posting that is conducted with malicious intent targeted at a particular person? This is potentially a grey area when it comes to defining online harassment. How does the law intend to assist victims in identifying their perpetrators? Moreover, a large amount of resources may have to be devoted to track the culprits. Will this itself be a hindrance for effective enforcement?
Studies have shown that early identification is critical in helping a victim of harassment or stalking. What measures will be put in place to equip our Police or social service officers with the skills to identify the danger signs to put the legislation to effective use and be able to conduct a thorough investigation?
The Government has also brought up the possibility of fines and imprisonment being meted out to those who are guilty of these offences, but I would like to ask how the imprisonment terms and fines are decided upon.
Mdm Speaker, as a unionist, I am also heartened that this protection will also be extended to workers who deliver public service, which may include workers in public healthcare, public transport and other essential services to the well-being of the public and functioning of Singapore. I hope we can extend this to include the cleaners, security officers and carpark attendants as well.
Let me share a horror story to illustrate why this group of workers must be protected. This story was surfaced to me when I engaged cleaning companies to understand the challenges faced by the industry. Last year, a 51-year-old cleaner was cleaning the alley of Lorong 25A, Geylang. She was startled when she heard someone shouting loudly at her. She eventually realised that it was a lorry driver who was angry that her company vehicle was blocking his vehicle from going into the back lane. After unloading his vegetables, the driver approached her aggressively and continued shouting at the old lady. Unprovoked, he punched the defenceless lady cleaner on the face! A Police report was made and she was advised to file a Magistrate's Complaint against the person. Obviously, she did not pursue the matter further.
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Even our parking attendants have their fair share of horror stories. A female parking attendant issued a notice of offence on a vehicle for unauthorised parking at a particular housing estate. While checking on other vehicles with her partner, she was approached aggressively by the driver of the earlier vehicle issued with a notice of offence. The man, later joined by his son and his wife, shouted and screamed at her to cancel the ticket. They followed her to obstruct her from carrying out her duties, causing her great distress and only stopped after the Police came. In another case, a parking officer was even molested while performing her duties! For both cases, Police reports have been filed but, again, they were told to either file a Magistrate's Complaint or await investigation.
Mdm Speaker, the Bill must be enhanced to ensure justice can be meted out swiftly from the victim's point of view. Will claims for damages for emotional injury be allowed? The dangers of harassment are the stress and anxiety it brings upon a person. I believe that the Bill should be expanded to allow victims to get compensation based on the emotional trauma that they have suffered.
I would also like to share my take with regard to harassment within the workplace. Madam, I believe employers must bear greater responsibility to protect their employees against harassment at the workplace. Of all cases of harassment at the workplace, sexual harassment is perhaps the most complex, the most ambiguous, subtle and highly subjective. Hence, could we make it mandatory for companies to clearly define and educate their employees on what would constitute harassment in the workplace? Are there appropriate avenues that the employee is able to take if he or she would like to disclose cases of harassment in full confidence, even those involving top management? Would companies be guided to set up disciplinary structures that promote internal action before bringing it up to become a court case? I believe more responsibility should be expected from employers to protect their employees from workplace harassment. Madam, in Malay, please.
(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mdm Speaker, I welcome the introduction of the Protection from Harassment Bill so that victims obtain justice and continue with their lives. Although this Bill will make the act of stalking an offence, I feel that it is imperative that police officers and social workers be given training to identify victims of stalking. This is because stalking cases are difficult to detect and, when victims make their first report, usually it appears trivial and does not constitute an immediate threat and, therefore, does not require prompt action.
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In terms of online harassment, I would like to know how we will differentiate comments that are made as an opinion in Facebook or social media, against comments made with the intent to harass or distress the victim. Furthermore, many of the perpetrators of online harassment do so anonymously. Hence, how can we provide protection to victims of online harassment because there are so many of them who are involved and it will be costly to track these cases?
This Bill will also provide protection at the workplace in cases of harassment where a worker feels distressed, for instance, from sexual harassment. I think employers should also have programmes to educate their workers on the kinds of conduct that could be considered workplace harassment. I think it is important for the Government to encourage employers to set up a process where complaints of harassment at the workplace can be managed by the employer and need not necessarily be taken to court.
The extension of the protection in this Bill to public servants is also a good move. Public service staff sometimes have to face members of the public who are angry at certain actions that have been taken. At times, insults and abusive words are used to put pressure on the staff.
Before there was this Bill, most victims were advised to file a complaint to the magistrate before further action can be taken, or they are suggested to file a civil suit which will incur a huge expenditure.
(In English): Madam, I am supportive on the push to set up the Harassment Act. I believe that as our society marches into an era of cohesion and inter-connectedness, there is a need to protect our citizens from those who bear ill-intent or misbehave at the spur of the moment. Madam, I strongly support the Bill.
Mr David Ong (Jurong): Mdm Speaker, thank you for the opportunity for me to debate on this timely Bill that seeks to address an existing gap in our current law. Although we may not be forerunners in this area of the law globally, credit must go to the Minister for Law and the Attorney-General's Chambers for putting up this Bill. This is, indeed, a comprehensive Bill, which would go a long way of according new levels of protection to victims of harassment and stalking, both in the real and cyber world. Indeed, it is a long time coming that our current laws
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need to catch up with social media and new crimes in the cyber world.
In a 2012 Microsoft study, Singapore had the second highest rate of online bullying after China among young people. Where traditional bullying was confined to verbal or physical intimidation, the social media has given the bullies a longer arm to torment, harass and humiliate their victims, even right into their own bedrooms.
This Bill comes most appropriately at a time when there is rising concern that cyber bullying is on the rise. This is sufficiently serious to warrant the authorities to take notice and provide victims access to protection and justice.
As shared by the Minister earlier, there were many news reports, from other countries and Singapore, where teenagers and even adults have been driven to harmful actions, even suicide, from cyberbullying and harassment. This is not something which Singapore should have the ignominy of experiencing.
A Bill like this needs to balance the rights of free speech and the need to protect victims from harassment. Although I am confident MinLaw works hard at striking that balance, may I add my observations which I believe more can be done for victims? In particular, I will be touching on the difficulties of identifying the perpetrator of harassment or stalking, especially when the acts are done through social media, which is pervasive in our society.
Legislating against the wrongful acts is one thing, but enforcement is another. While there can be clear legislation as to what acts are prohibited under the new Act, there is still a need, under the provisions of the Act, for the perpetrator of the harassment or stalking to be identified before action can be taken. On a related note, while the authorities have the power to compel the taking down of material which contravenes the Act, we need to keep in mind that the vast majority of social media is located overseas, and the foreign service providers are often slow and careful in taking down material, unless the person who posted the material gives instruction or takes it down himself. This also requires the identification, if not the presence of the perpetrator. And this is where some difficulty lies.
A lot of harassment and stalking can be done through the anonymity of the Internet, through social media websites like Facebook, which have massive penetration in Singapore. The short messaging system Whatsapp is said to be adding one million new users daily. It is easy for harassers to create new accounts and use these accounts to commit acts of harassment, without
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betraying their true identity to the victim.
I fear that pulling the perpetrators out of the shadows may be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. A lot of emotional, psychological and physical harm inflicted through the harassing acts committed online can also propagate very quickly through social networks. A single innocuous post in a social website can be re-posted in multiple websites within minutes, if not hours, and removing the material from one website is scant comfort for a victim, if the same material had been reproduced ad nauseam. It may thus be necessary for the eventual Act to be effective in combating harassment, especially online harassment, to give the authorities the ability to respond quickly to allegations of harassment.
While the Bill's original intent is noble enough, the execution may exacerbate the pains victims felt. Victims may face extreme difficulty in identifying who the perpetrator is, especially when it is done through the Internet.
Victims do not have the powers or means to conduct investigations on their own and find out who the perpetrators are, before reporting the matter to the Police.
For all intents and purposes, the perpetrator may not have broken any law yet for the Police to make an arrest. All they can usually do is to report to the Police that someone is harassing or stalking them, and provide only online identities. We cannot expect victims of harassment or stalking to be able to identify their tormentors, or even be able to give much information about the identity of the perpetrators.
Police should not simply turn away or file away such cases on the basis that there is no suspect identified, but should consider devoting some resources to investigating such cases, especially where the incidents of harassment are serious. This is especially so since the Police have far more thorough investigative powers as compared to individuals. For individuals to hire private investigators is usually prohibitively expensive.
It is also a safety issue, since harassment and stalking can subsequently lead to violent acts, both on the part of the victims who may self-harm themselves in despair, or taking their own violent action against the perpetrator; or, on the part of the perpetrators with unfulfilled longing leading to violence.
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All such outcomes should be avoided as far as possible.
It is heartening to see that some of these concerns, especially about public safety, have been addressed in the Bill, with the introduction of Protection Orders for victims of harassment and stalking. This is a logical and effective extension of the Women's Charter protection regime, and useful experience can be gleaned from that well established framework. The Women's Charter also provides for a quick and relatively inexpensive way for women under threat to obtain Personal Protection Orders, without the need for lawyers, unless the allegations are fiercely contested. This ensures that those people who are in need of such Protection Orders can obtain them expeditiously and without taking a hit on the pocket. It would be good if such a framework is also put in place for victims of harassment or stalking, which would go towards allowing them quick access to protection without having to expend much resources of their own.
On a related area, I note that the Bill does provide for civil remedies, like damages, for acts of harassment or stalking. Under the law of torts, in the common law, a claim can be made by the victim for \"nervous shock\" or \"pain and suffering\" which the victim suffers arising from the perpetrator's acts. The Bill appears to be silent on this aspect, on whether claims for such psychological harm can be made by victims of harassment or stalking. Such harm commonly occurs to victims, and it would provide clarity for the public for the Government to state whether such claims are allowed under the eventual Act.
Under the existing Criminal Procedure Code, the Courts have the power to order persons convicted of any offences to pay compensation to victims injured by their crimes. It would be useful, for public knowledge, for the Government to clarify that this power extends to persons who are sentenced by the criminal courts for harassment or stalking offences.
Madam, notwithstanding what Home Affairs Minister had assured this House of the adequacy of the Home Team, we are all aware of the tight labour shortage all sectors of the Singapore economy is facing. I fear that there may be little additional manpower that may be allocated to the policing of harassment, especially cyber harassment.
Moreover, we need to guard against an environment of paranoia, of being over-protective, or having people who think they are victims of harassment and make reports at the drop of a pin. Not everything which is irritating or bothersome is harassment. Hurtful or insulting statements may not always be
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harassment. Checking up another person's profile on a social media website may not, by itself, constitute stalking.
The general public need to be educated as to what constitutes harassment or stalking. We need to ensure that criticism is not stifled. For example, if an artist's work is heavily criticised online and in a non-gentle manner, this, while possibly impolite, is not harassment. Similarly, given the open nature of comments posted on social media websites, for example, Facebook, comments which may put a person in a bad light, but not specifically directed at a person's webpage, that is public gossip, also may not be harassment, even though the person being commented upon may not feel too good, and may be considering using the law.
It is all about a matter of degree. The Protection of Harassment Bill needs to have the deftness of water finding its own level, regardless of the form of its container. It is about striking a fine balance of protecting the public while not stifling free speech. It is legal taichi. With that, I support the Bill.
Ms Ellen Lee (Sembawang): Madam, in Mandarin, please.
(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] As a lawyer, I have been providing pro-bono legal advice to the community for the past 30 years. At times, I had helped female victims who suffered sexual harassment at the workplace, as well as women who were harassed or sexually harassed by strangers or even people familiar to them; some victims were young girls. Hence, the debate on the Protection from Harassment Bill is one that I have been looking forward to; it is also one that I fully support and is long overdue.
At present, the victims of harassment can seek legal recourse or protection under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act or the Women's Charter. If the act of harassment includes serious threats or even sexual offences, then offenders would have contravened provisions pertaining to criminal intimidation under the Penal Code.
However, to the unfortunate victims whom I know, these provisions are completely useless. The problem is that the victims and their families cannot afford the expensive legal costs involved in applying for a protection order, injunction or expedited protection order to get the offenders to stop harassing them immediately. To the victims, the law puts the onus on them to provide
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sufficient evidence. This is very challenging, especially when the offenders are their supervisors at the workplace, whose words are unquestionable to others. Colleagues will not dare offend them either. Even if colleagues witness the entire incident, they will generally choose to remain silent to protect their livelihood. As for engaging a private investigator to gather evidence, victims often abandon that option as they cannot afford the high costs. As for children, it is even more difficult because they are often doubted and most cases are left unresolved.
Some victims are even suspected of dressing provocatively to attract the attention of the opposite sex, so they \"deserve it\". Victims deserve sympathy for their suffering. Yet, accusations by family members and those around them only serve to add salt to their wounds. Victims often become depressed under such circumstances and are unable to continue to seek legal recourse, they feel very helpless and find it very unfair.
During my tenure as the Vice President of the Singapore Association of Women Lawyers, a single lady who was not young, average-looking and did not dress provocatively, came to me at the insistence of friends. She had a very unusual request, because she was charged in Court for harassing her boss. The truth is, she was the victim. Her boss was a foreigner who started off harassing her in the office, then sexually assaulted her, forcing her to become his mistress and eventually made up an excuse to dismiss her. In the end, she had to reveal her boss' true colours, but nobody believed her. After understanding her situation, I felt that the best option for her was to defend herself in Court. However, as she had no money to engage a lawyer, I decided to help her prepare the Court papers and also take care of all the complicated procedures, as well as the pre-trial preparations.
A year later, she managed to win the case and justice was served. But, by then, she was very drained and depressed because the Court case took a toll on her. From the victim's point of view, to resort to legal recourse is a painful process. Her experience in this case clearly illustrates that the Protection from Harassment Act can provide better protection for the victims, as the victims can apply for protection orders on their own and do not need to be represented by a lawyer. This targeted Bill means that the victims can save legal costs and put an end to the harassment earlier.
However, the Bill does not list protection from harassment as the legal responsibility of employers so as to better protect women at the workplace. Personally, I feel that what the Government has done is not comprehensive enough. The Government should ask companies or employers to conduct legal
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workshops regularly, so that employees understand their rights, employers know their responsibilities and the definition of harassment.
Without harassment, employees' productivity will also improve. We also need to help Singaporeans understand that the new Bill targets only offenders. Victims can sue the perpetrators, but the company or organisation they are working in will not be considered as having violated the law.
We also need to educate our students so that they have a better understanding of harassment, help them understand that bullying both in school and on the Internet is not only illegal but also immoral. To build a more civic-minded, gracious and compassionate society, our young generation has to learn to respect others from young and to always be considerate of the feelings of others. They also need to understand that harassing others may cause life-long suffering to the victims. Education is, therefore, very important.
Mdm Speaker: Minister Shanmugam.
Mr K Shanmugam: Mdm Speaker, I thank all the Members who spoke. There is overwhelming support for the Bill outside this House and unanimous support for the Bill in this House for all of its provisions. The questions raised by Members can be grouped into several common themes, which I will now address.
Mr Zainal Sapari asked how we can differentiate between the expression of one's viewpoint online and the publication of anti-social comments online with malicious intent. Mr Vikram Nair has also raised similar questions.
Whether or not a particular conduct amounts to harassment under the Bill depends on the factual matrix of each case. Reasonableness of conduct is a defence to all of the offences under the Bill and the Court will have to consider, inter alia: the nature of the allegedly offending act in question; the context in which those acts occurred; and the effect of those actions on the victim. These have to be considered in their totality before deciding whether an offence is made out, or whether other civil remedies should be ordered. Let us remind ourselves of the way in which the provisions are structured – these provisions are not new – they are already part of the Miscellaneous Offences Act. Our courts have, in the past, interpreted the meaning of these words. And so have
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the UK courts. So, we can rely on the body of case law.
The key point is this: it is not the medium; it is whether the actions amount to harassment. We all accept that harassment should be treated as criminal conduct. And indeed, it is a crime under the Miscellaneous Offences Act. We are now making it clear that harassment is a crime – regardless of the medium – whether it is physical or online. The law was not so clear on this point previously. It must also be \"just and equitable\" before remedies, such as Protection Orders, can be made.
Mr Patrick Tay proposed that an FAQ with a compendium of illustrations showing when offences are made out and when they are not made out. Mr Tay is concerned with clarifying more precisely the ambit of harassment, but there are just far too many situations to be exhaustively covered in an FAQ. Further, really, whether something is or is not an offence, will have to depend on the specific circumstances surrounding the conduct or the communication at hand. And it is not desirable for us today to fetter the discretion of the Courts in these matters.
Mr Pritam Singh queried if the term \"person\" in the Bill extends to corporate entities. The term \"person\" is defined in the Interpretation Act, and where this Bill references to \"persons\", the Interpretation Act will apply.
Mr Patrick Tay raised a technical issue about extraterritorial effect. He said that if a person harasses another while both were out of Singapore, whether this would be caught by clause 17 of the Bill. Depending on the offence, extraterritorial jurisdiction can be founded on the offending acts being committed in Singapore, or the harassing effect being felt in Singapore, or some other similar criteria. So, acts of harassment which occur entirely outside of Singapore, without any nexus whatsoever to Singapore, should not be caught. And this is consistent with international law principles on extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction.
Mr Zainal Sapari and Mr Patrick Tay spoke on the definition of public servants and public service workers. The Bill does not seek to alter the meaning of \"public servant\". It follows the current and established definition of \"public servant\" in the Penal Code. This definition has worked well for us.
The term \"public service workers\" is defined under clause 6 of the Bill to mean persons who provide any service which is essential to the well-being of the public or the proper functioning of Singapore. It is our intention to have
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subsidiary legislation which will prescribe the classes of public service workers who will be covered. This list will include public healthcare workers and – as queried by Mr Tay – also public transport workers, amongst others.
The precise classes of workers covered will have to be updated as the operating landscape of public service workers evolves over time. We will certainly consult the relevant stakeholders as the initial list is drawn up. That must include union representatives. However, there must be a framework for them being public service workers. Others will rely on various other clauses – clauses 3, 4 and so on – which also provide for people to be protected from harassment.
Next, let me turn to stalking. Members called for greater clarity as to what constitutes unlawful stalking. I think Mr Singh referred to it with examples from the United Kingdom.
In drafting clause 7, we have tried to strike a balance between: (1) certainty, so that people will know clearly what is criminal conduct and what is not criminal conduct; and (2) flexibility, so that the various forms of stalking will be caught. Section 7 really draws inspiration from the United Kingdom legislation. If I may refer Members to Annex E which was handed out, it shows the other countries which have passed legislation relating to stalking and you will see that it has been quite extensively dealt with.
The types of acts that can be associated with stalking have to be wide ranging. It is really not practicable to try and prescribe beforehand the situations which should be caught by the law. We have to trust the Courts to assess based on the facts before the Courts, whether particular forms of conduct amount to unlawful stalking under the Bill.
We have also built in defences to the offence of unlawful stalking in clause 7. The Court would have to review in each particular case whether the alleged stalking conduct was reasonable in the circumstances, whether the claim of stalking is made out or whether the alleged victim is being unreasonable.
Assoc Prof Eugene Tan queried about the scope of certificates issued by the Minister under clause 7(7). This relates to the defence concerning course of conduct done on behalf of the Government and necessary for the purposes of national security, national defence or the conduct of international relations. The
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certificates will relate to operations concerning, for example, terrorism, serious crimes. The key consideration is really what is the certificate for, rather than who it is for.
Mr Zainal Sapari and Mr Pritam Singh also asked how the revised fine and imprisonment terms were determined. With the exception of section 13D, which relates to harassment of public servants, the current penalties under sections 13A to D of the MOA only carry a fine. These penalties have not been reviewed since their introduction in 1996. The Bill, therefore, increases the maximum fines for offences under clauses 3, 4 and 5. It includes imprisonment as an option for offences under clause 3, which is intentional harassment; and, clause 5, which is harassment involving threat or provocation of violence.
The new maximum penalties are, for example, in line with those under the United Kingdom's Protection from Harassment Act. These amendments are intended to better reflect the seriousness of the offences under the Bill and their growing prevalence. The higher maximum penalties will also give the Courts greater sentencing discretion. Egregious cases which significantly impact a victim can now be more appropriately punished.
Bullying among children and youth was a concern of many Members who spoke. Ms Mary Liew and Ms Jessica Tan queried how the Bill would apply if the bully is a child.
The Bill applies equally to adults and children alike, although its application is subject to existing laws governing conduct by juveniles and minors under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) and Rules of Court. For instance, if a juvenile, say, a child between seven and 16, is convicted of an offence which is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both, the CPC provides that the Court may deal with the juvenile in accordance with the Children and Young Persons Act. This allows the Court to make an order, for example, for counselling or probation, where appropriate. And our Courts have developed a fairly systematic approach to dealing with juveniles.
There were suggestions that we can and should do more to protect our children against bullying and from becoming bullies themselves, especially in cyberspace. For instance, to educate students on the importance of respecting others and the seriousness of acts of harassment; to make it compulsory for schools to hold online safety talks; to train teachers to recognise and take actions against cyber bullying; having a code of conduct or anti-bullying code to create greater awareness. Parents, of course, also have an important role to
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play in educating their children. This cannot be the responsibility of schools alone. We certainly take the safety of our children as a paramount consideration.
MOE has an existing Code of Conduct for Educators which prohibits behaviour which may be construed or perceived as unprofessional, discriminatory or harassing, intimidating, threatening or abusive.
On the clarification that Mr Pritam Singh required, MOE has guidelines to help schools develop disciplinary rules to deal with bullying amongst children. I cannot speak on behalf of MOE, but my understanding is that they will consider further refinements to existing guidelines to ensure greater synergy with the Bill and implementation by schools through disciplinary rules.
MOE has also developed a \"School Bullying Management Kit\" for all Primary and Secondary schools. This kit contains information on what bullying is; how schools can reach out and respond to instances of bullying; and how schools can assist students who have been bullied. This kit will enable teachers and school counsellors to provide better support for victims of bullying.
In the end, of course, the rules are effective only when they are effectively applied, and that is what we have to try and do.
Several Members spoke about workplace harassment, including educational efforts and workplace guidelines to deal with such conduct. The Bill prohibits harassment committed at the workplace. It is broader than that, but workplace harassment is covered.
MOM has been working with NTUC, the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), as well as the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP), to address issues of workplace harassment. There are also workshops to better educate employers on these aspects. And these reinforce certain key principles, including the importance of treating complaints seriously; and taking corrective action where necessary.
Protection from harassment has to be an ongoing conversation between many different stakeholders – the victims as well as the employers – and it cannot end with this Bill. Issues like codes for employers, other measures, such as legislatively requiring employers to institute policies against workplace sexual harassment, would have to be part of this conversation. And, really, the feasibility of these will have to be considered; some may be feasible, some may
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not be feasible. So, we will have to take this one step at a time.
Ms Tin Pei Ling and Mr Zaqy Mohamad both touched on the removal of offensive content online and whether the Bill provides for such removal and, if so, when this would take place. I think this can be addressed at two levels. If the offensive content contravenes one or more of clauses 3 to 7, and if the requirements set out in clause 12 of the Bill are satisfied, a Protection Order may be made. As part of a Protection Order, the court can order that no person can publish or continue to publish an offending communication. This would, of course, include requiring the removal of the offending content and for there to be no further publication of that content.
The Protection Order can be obtained on an expedited basis, and Expedited Protection Orders can even be obtained within the same day if the court agrees that it is urgent. Thereafter, the publication of the communication would be proscribed. That is at the first level.
If, supposing the offensive content does not cross the threshold set out in clauses 3 to 7, or if for some reason the victim does not wish to avail himself or herself of clauses 3 to 7 and wishes to proceed with the lesser remedy, in either of those situations, the victim can obtain a court order under clause 15 to make sure that the falsehood is set right and the true facts are brought out clearly. The idea behind clause 15, as I have earlier explained, is to let readers judge the facts for themselves, and the court is given substantial discretion under clause 15 to decide how that should be done. That is at the second level. So, it is a tiered response – clauses 3 to 7 carry a higher level of penalties; clause 15 no penalties, just correction, clarification, whatever the Court thinks is necessary to bring the truth across. So, we try to strike a balance between the competing considerations.
Ms Tin Pei Ling raised a query as to whether the Bill would apply to cyber-lynching by groups of people and whether site blocking would be possible – really, site blocking is under MDA and we will pass on Ms Tin's questions and suggestions to MCI. I think the different parts, whether it is MCI or others, will have to work in sync with what we are trying to do here, so that there is a clear central message on harassment, protecting victims from harassment and, where there are falsehoods, making clear those falsehoods and bringing them to light.
Assoc Prof Eugene Tan queried whether a campaign of collective harassment by two or more people can fall within clause 7. In such cases, the
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general principles of accessory liability under the criminal law would apply. In addition, multiple Protection Orders can also, of course, be sought against the various perpetrators in question and, in any event, if there is a Protection Order against one person, and if others have knowledge of it, and if they go ahead and contravene, then they are also contravening the Court order – that is quite serious.
As I say all these, I do want to put in a caveat. This Bill is not a panacea for all the ills that people face. It is not going to change behaviour overnight. It will set in place some serious standards, some pretty stiff penalties, it will make people more aware. But there will be a wide variety of cases, and the Bill will cover a large number of them, but it does not immediately mean that in some of the instances that have been highlighted – everyone is overseas, somebody is doing something – whether there can be a complete and effective remedy; it depends. It is not possible to say today that we will be able to cover everything, and people should not go away thinking that everything can be covered. But it is an important first step. Let us look at it, let us see how it applies, how it works out and whether further amendments are necessary.
Assoc Prof Eugene Tan sought clarification on the outcomes sought in mediation in cases of harassment and stalking. His point really is when it has come to that, why bother with mediation? I think the point is it can be ordered, may be ordered, either in itself a part of a Protection Order, or together with other directions that the Court sees necessary, such as orders prohibiting certain conduct. Mediation and counselling can also help the harasser understand the impact of his actions on the victim. We are not putting it in substitution of other orders. The latter consideration is particularly important if the harasser and victim know each other and, perhaps, have to continue to have future interactions. Then, in such situations, maybe mediation is an option. If it does not work, it does not work.
If you look at the remedies, we have tried to create tiered responses: mediation, criminal penalties, civil penalties, and also self-help without damages to try and deal with different situations so that we do not have to run to the criminal law in all cases. That would really rupture the relationship completely. Nor do we have to run to the civil law and claim damages all the time. We see what is possible, and mediation where it makes sense for the parties to try and move on without any of this.
Several Members raised the issue of cost of obtaining relief, as well as the ease with which that can be done. We have tried to craft this Bill to make sure that the remedies are quick, easy, inexpensive and accessible to victims. For
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example, the procedural rules for obtaining Protection Orders and expedited Protection Orders are intended to be simple – a concern which Ms Ellen Lee had raised.
Let me put it this way. I am not sure that you can completely remove the sight of lawyers from these things, as much as many would like that. Whatever you do, lawyers pop up everywhere – whether they are likeable or not likeable. But we will try to keep it simple and the Bill envisages subsidiary legislation. One of the things that we have in mind is to have a set of procedures which are simple, easy, effective, such that you can go and do it yourself without having to use lawyers. But the other side might get lawyers.
The intention in the way that we will draft the rules is that expedited Protection Orders can be obtained. \"Can be\" obtained does not mean it will \"always be\" obtained because if the other side turns up and they oppose and they have valid arguments, then the Courts may well feel obliged to hear them. Sometimes, the Courts will say, \"I do not need to hear. I will give the Protection Order first and then I will hear the arguments later.\" That can be a sensible approach. Sometimes, the Courts may say, \"Let me hear both quickly.\"
We are dealing with a situation where something can go viral in seconds and minutes and the Court processes alone may not be adequate to deal with all those situations. That is why I have said that it is not a full panacea for everything that Members have highlighted. It is because of the nature of the medium that we are dealing with. Let us put this through and see what happens. Meanwhile, the other legislation that can be looked at will be looked at to see whether we need to better buttress the approach here through other amendments.
Ms Mary Liew asked how enforcement will be tightened against harassment-related offences. Mr Hri Kumar, Assoc Prof Eugene Tan, Mr Zainal Sapari, Mr Christopher de Souza and Mr David Ong asked about the circumstances when the Police will take action.
Police officers – MHA has told me – will be trained on the application of this new legislation, including the assessment and investigation of cases and breaches of Protection Orders. They will not turn away a victim simply for the reason that the harasser is not identifiable prima facie.
I accept Mr Hri Kumar's basic point that we need to make sure that our Police should be able to investigate into technology-related offences. Demand
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for investigations into such offences will undoubtedly grow. Police are looking into strengthening their capabilities in cyber and technology-related crimes. But we also need to be aware of the severe limitations that the Police are under, in that, like the rest of Singapore, the Police are also struggling to find people of the appropriate quality to join the Police Force. There is a general shortage all around, and they will work within very, very severe constraints and, so, people have to understand that.
Ms Jessica Tan suggested having coordinated activity amongst agencies in different jurisdictions. This is certainly something that needs to be considered. Police will have to work closely with overseas law enforcement agencies, as well as other partners, such as Internet Service Providers. We will continue to see how we can do better, but not all of these things are within our own control. It depends on others cooperating with us as well.
Members like Er Dr Lee Bee Wah and Ms Jessica Tan raised the issue of anonymity in cyberspace, in particular, identifying perpetrators online. This is not unique to offences of harassment under the Bill. Law enforcement agencies face similar challenges in tackling cyber crimes and transnational crimes. The Bill does take several modest and cautious steps in addressing these challenges. It provides for rules to be made to allow victims to take out Protection Orders even though the harasser's real name is not known. That is significant. Not only does it go towards ensuring that victims' efforts at self-help would not be stymied by anonymous harassers, anonymous harassers can be identified in appropriate cases by the Police and by the Courts.
Let us give the Bill some time to see how it plays out. Our focus is clear: harassment or stalking is not acceptable. We will continue to monitor, tweak and see how we may build better on what we have.
Mr Zaqy Mohamad queried if the Court's powers will extend to third parties who republish offending communications. The answer is yes. Protection Orders, expedited Protection Orders and clause 15 orders may be granted against all publishers. The Court can direct, generally, that \"no person\" can repeat the offending publication. The prohibition goes beyond publication of the original statement to cover republication by third parties. Victims need not go back to Court to obtain additional Court orders. That could save much time and effort. At its heart are the nature of the impugned conduct and its impact on the victims in question. In line with this, the processes, like I have said earlier, will be kept as streamlined as possible.
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Mr Zainal Sapari and Assoc Prof Eugene Tan also queried whether damages for emotional distress will be available under civil remedies provision in the Bill. The Bill does not expressly deal with this, and the intention is that we should leave it to the Courts to decide on the categories of damages which should be ordered in each case. There is no prohibition in the Bill against ordering such damages for emotional distress. So, let me make that clear. Whatever the common law allows, the Courts can order. There is no prohibition. But whether such damages ought to be awarded really depends on the facts of the case and existing principles. If the Court regards damages for emotional distress as appropriate, it can make an order.
Mr David Ong asked whether compensation orders would be available for offences under the Bill. The CPC will apply to these offences as it does to any other offence.
Assoc Prof Eugene Tan also asked why the breach of a Protection Order is not an arrestable offence. What we have done is in line with the First Schedule of the CPC for which non-Penal Code offences are generally non-arrestable if they carry a maximum penalty of less than three years' imprisonment. Whilst the offences are non-arrestable, this does not mean that the Police will not take action in such cases. It really depends on the nature of the cases and also, given that Protection Orders are orders of Court, if there is non-compliance, the Courts can also take action.
Finally, Members stressed the importance of public education to shape behaviour, and to raise the public's awareness of the rights and remedies under the Bill. Some suggestions were also offered, for example, setting up a national helpline for victims. We thank Members for the suggestions. They will be considered. This is certainly an important area, as I mentioned in my earlier speech. The Government has been working, and will continue to work with the media and stakeholders, including the Voluntary Welfare Organisations, for example, AWARE, to raise general public awareness.
In respect of clause 6, many public service organisations have put up service charters and posters. This is to underscore their commitment to quality service. These posters will remind customers that mutual courtesy and respect are important and the agencies will take action to protect public servants and public service workers against abuse. Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.
Mdm Speaker: Are there any clarifications? If not, we will proceed.
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[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House. (proc text)]
[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr K Shanmugam]. (proc text)]
[(proc text) Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]
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