Red Dot United, Singapore's youngest political party, released its manifesto for the upcoming general election yesterday (June 28).
Former Progress Singapore Party (PSP) members, Ravi Philemon and Michelle Lee, were founded on May 26, 2020, and founded the party with members of other opposition groups
With the goal of “serving the Singapore people and empowering them to be the captains of their own lives,” Red Dot United presented a 20-page manifesto titled “Explore New Directions Together”.
Here is a brief overview of the Red Dot United manifesto:
1. Jobs
- Ensure that Singaporeans benefit from labor legislation in free trade agreements, such as the India-Singapore Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and the Employment Pass system.
- Revision of the Employment Act to prevent employees from abusing workers in the gig economy.
- Implement a Singapore First hiring policy, re-evaluate the Fair Consideration Framework, assign HR managers who give priority to Singaporeans, and reserve jobs in future growth sectors
- Assign jobs to professionals, managers, executives, and technicians (PMETs) before completing professional training programs, and incentivize companies to hire them through programs like the Professional Conversion Program.
2. Housing
- Implement a mandatory en bloc renovation program to prevent the rental and loss of value of HDB apartments.
- Allow singles to buy larger three-room or smaller BTOs. Lower the minimum age under the Single Singapore Citizen and Joint Singles Scheme to 30 years.
- Provide more transparency about the cost of building HDB apartments to justify their pricing. New homes are valued at multiples of average income and location.
3. Health care
- Offer subsidized consultations and preventive healthcare without running quarterly or yearly tests.
- Improve Medifund coverage for needy Singaporeans and families with high medical bills. Enable the use of Medisave in outpatient consultations.
- Use medical technology (MedTech) to monitor patient health in real time and reduce healthcare costs.
- Check whether reversing the switch from public hospitals to restructured hospitals is more beneficial.
- Creation of a health abuse authority or national health insurance system to incentivize government regulation of health costs.
4. Cost of living
- No increase in goods and services tax (GST) and other fees for the next five years
- Policy realignment to redistribute wages to reduce income inequality.
- Peg ministerial salaries to a multiple of the mean gross monthly income from work instead of the income of top earners.
5. Governance and national reserves
- Check public spending in public places like the $ 880,000 trash can for the National Arts Council.
- Review laws such as the Presidential Election Act to enable more political competition and mutual control in public office.
- Provide more transparency about the key performance indexes of public organizations.
6. CPF
- Option to withdraw all CPF funds at retirement age.
- Incentives for tiered deduction of CPF at 5 to 10 year intervals through better interest rates for savings.
- Option to borrow CPF accounts in an insecure job market.
- See if professional fund manager competition introduces better returns on member CPF savings.
7. Education
- Create a more flexible curriculum for students to pursue interests in specific areas. Concentrate again on topics such as computer and soft skills.
- Provision of the same funding for students in alternative educational programs in secular subjects (language, math, science).
- Extension of the compulsory schooling law to ten years of primary and secondary education before a child turns 18.
- Emphasize sports and other children's life skills training to encourage school-to-school interaction and economic differences.
- Provide better international recognition for andragogical and educational degrees.
- Extend the anchor operator program to include “diversity” in preschool service providers' assessment criteria through “ability to increase capacity” as total fertility rate decreases.
- Check the national educational framework to encourage students to learn about ethnic and religious communities.
- Reduce class size to reduce the burden of teaching and increase teacher intake to levels prior to 2014.
- Allow Singaporean children to study in international schools.
8. Civil liberties
- Review the Online Lies and Manipulation Protection Act (POFMA), the Internal Security Act, and the Public Order Act, which was amended in 2009 to limit the freedom of assembly of five people to one person.
- Freedom of Information lawyer in Singapore.
9. Improved support for local businesses
- Prioritize local companies in public procurement.
- Use the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to acquire companies in selected industries and reserve jobs for Singaporeans.
- Creating opportunities for SMEs to partner with GLCs / MNCs and venture overseas to provide venture capital and technical support.
- Synergy effects with abundant neighboring regions to support the business requirements of the value chain and to offer investors better value propositions.
- Identify and support local growth industries with higher value.
- Support for SMEs and transition to a progressive tax structure.
10. Increase the overall fertility rate
- Create incentives for jobs, develop family-friendly strategies.
- Increase paid parental leave to six months, with each parent taking at least eight weeks. Single parents can enjoy the full six months.
- Lower the age for singles to buy HDBs from 35 to 30 and ensure sufficient sales for Balance Flats (SBF).
- Government contributions to home care worker CPF.
- Extension of childcare allowances to all parents, not just working mothers.
11. Climate change
- Invest in clean energy and collaborate regionally to review the installation of solar panels and wind turbines in public spaces. Make sure that mega projects do not cause environmental problems.
- Reduce deforestation and accelerate reforestation in Singapore.
- Implementation of waste management systems and sustainable neighborhood recycling programs to reduce waste.
- Move towards more energy efficient public transportation like electric vehicles.
- Increase public education in 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle).
Fight a culture of conformity
Red Dot United criticized single-party dominance at the People & # 39; s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore. The party claimed that "five decades of paternalistic governance" and the "carrot and whip" system implemented by PAP had created a culture of conformity.
The manifesto accused the incumbent government of weakening the control systems in Singapore.
Institutional protection measures are "intentionally left vague" and the PAP "tinkered" with people's lives and the constitution. The implementation of POFMA was given as an example.
Red Dot United expressed concern that self-serving leadership would be unstoppable if it appeared without the institutions hindering their authority.
Red Dot United's ethos of self-reliance and independence is based on combating the government party's culture of conformity.
You can read the Red Dot United manifesto in full here.
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Selected image source: Red Dot United
