At the NUS Society Lecture on Friday, Lee Hsien Loong commented that the Opposition Parties were being populist and irresponsible for calling for zero foreign worker inflow.
It looks like he has a problem with the English language or he is deliberately twisting the words of Opposition Party politicians.
The Workers’ Party had not called for zero worker inflow.
In 2012 in a Parliament debate, Low Thia Khiang had said:
“I agree we should not be over-reliant on foreign workers; we should not allow foreign workers to take away Singaporeans’ rice bowls. This is not protectionism, but a responsibility of the Government to the people. However, we also know that we have limited population, (and) we need foreign workers to fill up the gap in our domestic labour market.”
At the Population White Paper debate subsequently, the Workers’ Party had reiterated this position by calling for the overall number of foreign workers to be capped if we can achieve a 1 per cent annual growth rate in the local workforce.
Based on June 2012 data, there were already 1.5 million non-residents in Singapore, of which 1.2 million were foreign workers.
So which part of its statement says that it is calling for zero inflow, Lee Hsien Loong?
For the Workers’ Party’s position, see:
http://wp.sg/2013/02/wps-position-on-foreign-workers-has-been-consistent/
The Alternative View
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