WP's Model - Confusion?

[Nice-Gook]

Actually, it was the populace who registered unhappiness over it, so LHL had to appeaese his voters. .

My gut feelings are that there is more than what meets the eyes.

PAP can always pussy foot minister's obscene pay packet by another two years.There is no real urgency.I figure PAP is preparing the ground for another CPF cut or lowering the general pay scale.All indications are that our economy is getting from bad to worse.Thus PAP has preempt people point a finger at their ridiculous pay...Time will tell.

 

[Leongsam]

It wasnt the Opp who asked for the pay to be debated. It was LHL himself who asked the review Committee to do its work and then present it to Parliament.

Yes but the issue of ministerial salaries was raised by opposition parties many times well before the election in order to score brownie points with the electorate.

It should not have been politicised as it is not an issue of national importance. Because it was pushed to the forefront of the election campaign, the PAP was forced to waste time addressing the matter instead of working on more important issues involving Singapore's long term survival and prosperity.

 

[Leongsam]

If this is indeed WP's strategem, it is a shrewd one. It may well bring them more votes next GE if people see that they are more moderate. I suppose the follow on will be that WP will use any increased presence in the House to start sniping away at the issue again.

The WP simply used a different and more palatable formula to come up with a similar figure and they've done this so they don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

They'd be kicking themselves if they do eventually gain power only to find they cut their own salaries significantly.

I congratulate the ministerial hopefuls amongst the WP for their foresight. Riches beyond your wildest dreams await you if you play your cards right.

 

[Fook Seng]

I like the way things turned out. The PAP took a large enough paycut to hurt and cause unhappiness in the ranks. It however failed to win significant political support.

If they push very hard now and the Pap goes all the way, this will cease to be an issue. The way this ended leaves plenty of room for the issue to be reopened in 2016.

I, too, am not looking for something more from this review. Many people tried to compare ministerial salaries with their own paltry salaries and got emotive about it.

I am more keen to keep the salary scheme from being abused in the future changes to the basic. Therefore the correct benchmark is important and so are the performance bonuses given to each.

Unfortunately in both these areas WP had failed to nail it down. Linking the salaries to the civil service is good as it is closer to the middle and can be directly compared with that but further linkage of the civil service salary to the median income was not proposed and it would still leave the door open for possible abuse.

As to the bonuses I would hope that a bell curve concept be applied so that the level of bonuses would be kept within the average of say 3 months and if you reward a Minister higher bonuses, another would have to be penalized with lower than average bonuses to maintain the overall budget.

These safeguards are actually more important than the headline salary levels, in my opinion.

Whether the WP should leave something behind for PAP to kill themselves at PE2016 or they should take the cake now by pushing for a good scheme to be adopted is a choice of strategy.

It could be argued that if a salary benchmarked to a median income could bring the Gini index down, WP could claim the credit for proposing the amendment that had allowed this to happen. Even if these were not adopted, they could also claim that if adopted, the situation would have been much better.

 

[Fook Seng]

LHL was right all along. Parliament is now wasting an inordinate amount of time debating issues which are absolutely insignificant compared to the major challenges that Singapore will be facing the future. This is what happens when the opposition diverts attention from things that actually matter.

All this bickering about ministerial salaries is a total waste of time.

What other important matters have been tabled for discussion? In fact in the first six months of the new parliament, no meetings were held, meaning no pressing thing need to be discussed.

But yes, I agree with you that this debate on the ministerial salaries was a total waste of time, not because it was not important, a Char Kuay Teow matter (reminds me of Mee Siam no Hum), but that the results were not satisfactory.

The benchmark adopted was still a elitist benchmark that did not put every body in the same boat to correct the embarrassingly high Gini coefficient. There was also no safeguard from allowing the performance bonuses to go out of hand.

 

[kingrant]

What you have said is pretty much in line with what SPP Lina Chiam has said.

I'm not confused by basis of the WP model.
What I don't like about the WP model is the following:

1. Getting their end product so close to the review committee's and then trying to argue how different it is. Surely they realise that there is a lot of wayang in the whole process and the result, do they really think that LHL and his buddies were taken totally by surprise by the findings?

2. Their focus should be on how much value the government officials in question have brought to the lives of ordinary Singaporeans, compared to the salaries they are getting. By all means, pick on a few in particular who do nothing else other than stating the obvious and making motherhood statements, and debate what would be their pay in the private sector. Statements like "We should try to get better jobs for the workers." Who can't make statements like this? Even a pimply secondary school kid could.
There are a few arrogant laggards who would still be overpaid, even if the salaries were cut by 99%.

 

[kingrant]

Not true. Since GCT brought to reality this injustice upon Singaporeans 20 years ago, the populace has been simmering with anger. It's only fair dinkum that before long an adversary will come by and pick it up for their purposes. The Opp didnt invent it. The PAP did, and they fell into their own hole.

PAP would have done it much earlier if they were the Opposition.

Yes but the issue of ministerial salaries was raised by opposition parties many times well before the election in order to score brownie points with the electorate.

It should not have been politicised as it is not an issue of national importance. Because it was pushed to the forefront of the election campaign, the PAP was forced to waste time addressing the matter instead of working on more important issues involving Singapore's long term survival and prosperity.

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Any policy proposal which is too complicated to present, too complex for layman to understand and too fuzzy to convince voters that they are different and better, will fail spectacularly. That is what WP proposal has committed. It started off with the wrong premise, wrong understanding of parameters and unconvincing stand by putting forward something which is politically suicidal whereby no significant difference could be made from the original.... You cannot expect success nor its MPs to defend it in any other ways. There are just too many loopholes in their proposal open for PAP to attack. At best, for a good debater, a stand still will be achieved; WP will not win any political points with such substandard proposal.

In fact, PAP has been rather mild in their attacks; i.e. they didn't go all out but rather, hope to "reconcile" and in effect, shutting WP's mouth forever on this ministerial pay topic in future. This is the biggest loss WP has suffered in the sense that it has closed its own doors on a topic which has been traditionally used to win votes.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[brocoli]

Any policy proposal which is too complicated to present, too complex for layman to understand and too fuzzy to convince voters that they are different and better, will fail spectacularly. That is what WP proposal has committed. It started off with the wrong premise, wrong understanding of parameters and unconvincing stand by putting forward something which is politically suicidal whereby no significant difference could be made from the original.... You cannot expect success nor its MPs to defend it in any other ways. There are just too many loopholes in their proposal open for PAP to attack. At best, for a good debater, a stand still will be achieved; WP will not win any political points with such substandard proposal.

In fact, PAP has been rather mild in their attacks; i.e. they didn't go all out but rather, hope to "reconcile" and in effect, shutting WP's mouth forever on this ministerial pay topic in future. This is the biggest loss WP has suffered in the sense that it has closed its own doors on a topic which has been traditionally used to win votes.

Goh Meng Seng

I dun think PAP has been mild in the attack....
you werent there in Parliament
it is just that full media did not activate to whack WP upside down... I already make this point previously

 

[zhihau]

Seriously, can u think of a single idea, policy, comment, statement, adviCe, etc that Zorro has made which a secondary school kid could not have thought of?

bro,

a Secondary school kid would never thought of feeling rich when he/she looks at his/her CPF account, kids only have Edusave accounts.

 

[kukubird58]

Many people tried to compare ministerial salaries with their own paltry salaries and got emotive about it.

hahaha.......luckily nobody ordered a pay review for my company.
kukubird so kuku gets more than SGD200k per year (but being kukubird still runs a deficit every year)
there are many more pple even more kuku but getting much more than kukubird....and nobody gives a fart.
i emphatise with the ministars.......they are so grossly underpaid and still kena fxxk left, right, centre.
ah sam...lidat consider pro-papee or not???

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

There is a difference between numbers and principles. The SDP may say otherwise, but the fact that they are offering 40,000 for a minister and not 4,000 shows that they believe in that somewhat. In fact I don't think other parties disagree that talent retained only by good pay is not good - even the PAP have given up recruiting some well known people based on the old salaries, much less the new ones.

What I am saying is that the SDP disagrees in principle from PAP's salary scheme more than WP disagrees.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

In fact, PAP has been rather mild in their attacks; i.e. they didn't go all out but rather, hope to "reconcile" and in effect, shutting WP's mouth forever on this ministerial pay topic in future. This is the biggest loss WP has suffered in the sense that it has closed its own doors on a topic which has been traditionally used to win votes.

Goh Meng Seng

Are you from planet Earth?

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

I do not mind every citizen to pay me not one plate of char kuay teow but just one egg. I don't know how many plates of char kuay teow have been thrown down the drain with the billions that were lost in investment.

That one, you need more than char kuay teow. You need $10 carrot cake.

 

[scroobal]

Excellent summary. It has indeed confused everyone including their MPs.

An important learning point from this session is that there is a need to keep the message simple. WP came up with a fairly comprehensive proposal. They split it up among the different MP's who then took turns to present different aspects of it. Unless you were following all the speeches and saw the big underlying picture, this gave the wrong impression that the different WP MPs were proposing different things. A very necessary thing which needs to be done is to simplfy the message. They should assume that 80% of the audience have not heard what their other colleagues have said. They should therefore chose the most powerful and compelling arguement (e.g. benchmark to a broad median as opposed to top 1000) and have everyone repeat it so that the point sticks.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

I dun think PAP has been mild in the attack....
you werent there in Parliament
it is just that full media did not activate to whack WP upside down... I already make this point previously

What Village Idiot/Insect means is that PAP has been mild in their attack compared to him.

 

[GoldenDragon]

This is the biggest loss WP has suffered in the sense that it has closed its own doors on a topic which has been traditionally used to win votes.

Doors that are closed can always re-open. If really kena stuck coz lost the key, please call a locksmith. Try this handphone number - 90099339. If no money to hire locksmith, there is another method - bring down the door machiam police raid. Nothing as suicidal as you put forth.

If pay issue was the only topic used traditionally to win votes, better for you to retire from politics and stop giving your comments.

 

[scroobal]

The formula is not dissimilar enough to be a different model. Its bonus is more multiples rather than a different formula. The bigger issue is the messaging and the communication. These things should be done by different people and with different focus. A small company will differentiate between marketing and production.

I also sense that the WP model has not acceptable by all their MPs and thus the lack of conviction.

WP model is different from PAP's model in terms of the benchmark criteria (more broad based, directed at civil service), and also the bonus formula which is less extravagant.Where WP agrees with PAP is the need to pay a good salary that does not overstep the ethos of public service.In esssence this is how I would summarize WP's proposals.

 

[scroobal]

Like your approach and the fundmentals behind it.

I, too, am not looking for something more from this review. Many people tried to compare ministerial salaries with their own paltry salaries and got emotive about it.I am more keen to keep the salary scheme from being abused in the future changes to the basic. Therefore the correct benchmark is important and so are the performance bonuses given to each.Unfortunately in both these areas WP had failed to nail it down. Linking the salaries to the civil service is good as it is closer to the middle and can be directly compared with that but further linkage of the civil service salary to the median income was not proposed and it would still leave the door open for possible abuse. As to the bonuses I would hope that a bell curve concept be applied so that the level of bonuses would be kept within the average of say 3 months and if you reward a Minister higher bonuses, another would have to be penalized with lower than average bonuses to maintain the overall budget. These safeguards are actually more important than the headline salary levels, in my opinion. Whether the WP should leave something behind for PAP to kill themselves at PE2016 or they should take the cake now by pushing for a good scheme to be adopted is a choice of strategy. It could be argued that if a salary benchmarked to a median income could bring the Gini index down, WP could claim the credit for proposing the amendment that had allowed this to happen. Even if these were not adopted, they could also claim that if adopted, the situation would have been much better.

 

[scroobal]

Another good post.

I'm not confused by basis of the WP model.What I don't like about the WP model is the following:1. Getting their end product so close to the review committee's and then trying to argue how different it is. Surely they realise that there is a lot of wayang in the whole process and the result, do they really think that LHL and his buddies were taken totally by surprise by the findings?2. Their focus should be on how much value the government officials in question have brought to the lives of ordinary Singaporeans, compared to the salaries they are getting. By all means, pick on a few in particular who do nothing else other than stating the obvious and making motherhood statements, and debate what would be their pay in the private sector. Statements like "We should try to get better jobs for the workers." Who can't make statements like this? Even a pimply secondary school kid could. There are a few arrogant laggards who would still be overpaid, even if the salaries were cut by 99%.