Progress Singapore Party's (PSP) first e-rally was held on Zoom and on Facebook live last night (July 3), with the party's media liaison and actor Craig Teo as its host.

The session featured candidates from Tanjong Pagar GRC – Michael Chua, Wendy Low, Harish Pillay, Terence Soon and Abas Kasmani, as well as Kebun Baru SMC candidate Kumaran Pillai.

In the two-hour session, all candidates shared the issues that they would like to tackle if elected into Parliament, such as climate change, CPF retirement and living wage for the elderly.

Too busy to watch? We've got you covered. Here are three highlights from PSP's first e-rally:

"We need to start thinking of assessment based on skill set and not paper qualifications."

Low, "the only rose among the sunflowers", shared her belief that Singapore's civil service needs to be reformed. 

We need to start thinking of assessment based on skill set and not paper qualifications. Paper qualifications are important and they can be the starting point, but they cannot be the ending point.

She added that when Singapore has the "true innovation of our civil service", it will bring about real productivity from even other civil servants, who can then be motivated to be "outwardly innovative".

"We must ensure that citizens have a proper living wage, such that they can live and retire with dignity"

PSP's second-youngest candidate Soon expressed worry that he would not be able to answer his daughter in the future if she asked "why the ah gong is cleaning the table" or "why the ah ma is pushing a trolley full of cardboard". 

He noted that in the past, many Singaporeans have grown up hearing that the road sweepers and cleaners do what they do because they did not study hard, and "if we do not study hard, we become like them".

I want to be able to tell my child that daddy is going to make this society a better place. That we can, we will and we must ensure that citizens have a proper living wage, such that they can live and retire with dignity, with enough savings to tide them through when they get old.

"Singapore is not a corporation, it is a country"

Towards the end of the session, Pillai said, "PSP is here to make a change" and that they believe in cultural change. 

Singapore is not a corporation, it is a country. Not everything should be measured in terms of profit and loss. Not everything and help rendered to people should be means-tested. 

He continued that there are stories out there where people do need help and "when we start measuring everything in terms of ones, in terms of digits, we lose".

"We want to have a better country. We want to be innovative," he said.

trining@asiaone.com

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