Singapore Government Press Release

Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts

36th Storey, PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, Singapore 119963.

Tel: 3757794/5

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BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: Mr Speaker, Sir, it is our brand of democracy that has enabled the NCMP to be here in this House to speak on this Bill. He opposed the NCMP provision, in case we forget. He lost in the election at Cheng San.

Mr Jeyaretnam: How did I lose?

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: He came in here because of a provision we made to ensure that there will always be a lively debate in this House, and for which I think we are all happy that he has spoken his piece, somewhat tediously perhaps, but still by the extreme way he has presented his views, he has helped to clarify the landscape. Now our main positions have emerged and everything else in between are details.

Sir, I am very grateful to many Members of the House for spending time looking into the details of the Bill. I have no doubt that all those who spoke spent a lot of time checking the Bill, the original Act, looking for inconsistencies, checking definitions in the Bill with definitions in other Acts. It shows how important this Act is to us.

Before I touch on the rather controversial amendment on party political films, let me first clarify some of the other issues which were raised. By and large, Members supported the other amendments, but there were some questions raised which I feel I ought to respond to.

Mr Chew Heng Ching asked whether the threat to forfeit all or part of the deposit might somehow inhibit the growth of the film industry. Not at all. The purpose is a practical one. It is in response to a practical problem. Ever since we introduced R(A) rating in our cinemas, we have required cinema operators to check the Ics of young people who buy tickets to ensure that they are above 21 before they can watch R(A) rated movies. Sometimes they have been lax and young people have gotten in. So this is to ensure that they can be fined, that a penalty can be imposed upon them when they have not kept to the conditions of their licence. It is an administrative thing, a provision which we have not had in the past. The only recourse we had in the past was between giving them a warning and withdrawing their licence, and we felt we needed something in between.

A number of MPs asked whether the proposed changes would somehow stifle the arts or stifle the growth of the film industry. Not at all. In fact, what we have tried to do is to clarify a particular area about which I will talk in greater detail later. But our objective remains the same, which is to promote the arts and to promote the film industry. In fact, it is the plan of the Ministry of Information and the Arts to form a Films Commission under the National Arts Council specifically to help promote the growth and prosperity of the film industry. Films like Twelve Storeys will not be affected.

The same process of consultation between BFC and the trade will continue. If you are not sure whether a film will infringe censorship guidelines, you can consult the censors. They will give you advice. They will say, "These are the benchmarks. These are the things we have allowed in the past. These are the things we have disallowed. So please adjust accordingly." And we also have a system for classification.

Whether films to educate members of the public produced by Ministries will be affected, no. It is clear in the Bill that Government films are exempted from the provisions of the Act.

Dr Toh See Kiat asked some questions about definitions. "Election" is separately defined in the beginning of the Bill to make it clear that it does not refer to elections for private clubs or whatever.

The definition of "broadcasting" is the dictionary definition, which is if you broadcast programmes, television or radio, by wireless or by cable. It is a simple definition. It suits our purpose. There is no need to define it at this point in time more clearly. Internet broadcast will be covered under the Singapore Broadcasting Act. These are some of the clarifications which I owe Members.

I would now like to talk about the special amendment to ban party political films. In 1996, around March, Dr Chee Soon Juan of the SDP wrote to BFC to ask whether he required a licence to distribute political videos. BFC said yes. Then he submitted an application. This is the first time anything of this sort had happened in Singapore. For those Members who talked about this restriction somehow affecting fair and free elections in Singapore, we have had free and fair elections all these years in the pre-video age. I do not think with or without this provision, it will affect substantially the way elections are conducted in Singapore.

The Chairman of the Board of Film Censors, sensing that this is a new area, referred the matter to the Ministry and asked for policy guidance. There were two approaches we could have taken. We could have allowed political films. If we had allowed party political films for the SDP, then naturally the Workers’ Party and the PAP would all have jumped in. Right through the nine-day campaign period, we would all be busy putting on make-up, combing our hair, dressing up, appearing in political videos and distributing them to Singaporeans in order to win votes. Or we could say, do we want everybody to jump into this new medium? The question we have to ask ourselves is: will this new medium improve democracy in Singapore or degrade it?

The advantage of having a debate in this House is that there is an immediate encounter. A point is raised, a point is rebutted. Views are immediately clarified. The media is up there to report on everything that is happening.

You do a political video, we worry about sound bites. We watch the tone of our voice. We smarten ourselves up. We distribute. You distribute. To whom? I do not know. We distribute. To whom? You do not know. After a while, members of the public, receiving all these versions, will develop a very cynical view of who we are. We are not film stars. We are not TCS stars. We are here elected by the people of Singapore to discuss serious matters. And when we have a debate, let us have an encounter, a meeting.

If you object about something written about you in the newspapers, you write in to rebut. You write something scurrilous or libelous in a political newspaper, the offended party can require you to clarify, if a case can be put up to the judges.

On television, do we really want political parties to have the right to buy commercials? You know how expensive TV airtime is. In America, before you think about running for elections, you first ask yourself, "Can I raise the money?" And the financial hurdle is enormous.

We are a small city state. Even if there were a massive power failure and there is no television and the telephone lines are dead, within a few hours, from one end of the island to the other, from Changi to Tuas, the grapevine will operate. Singaporeans are not ignorant. How could we be where we are now as a major financial trading centre in the world if we are an ignorant people, if we are as suppressed the way Mr J B Jeyaretnam would have us believe?

But if we allow this medium, what happens? We will all become entrepreneurial. There will be any number of PR men in Singapore or foreign consultants offering their services to us. You know, in America, it is an industry and they are very good at it. It is an art form. They will teach us all kinds of new tricks, how we should sit down, how we should look when the TV camera pans at us, how many seconds of sound bites we should plan for, what kind of particular spin to give to every political ball that we kick.

It is not good for the political process in Singapore. We will reduce it to the selling of detergent. Every evening, when we watch the television, toothpaste, detergents, soaps, hamburgers, any number of reasons attractively put across. With ditties which our children are able to reproduce with accuracy.

If the quality of our democracy in Singapore is reduced to that, our democracy would be debased. That was the question we had to ask ourselves: should we or should we not encourage this medium in Singapore for political debate? If we do, then all of us are in.

Mr Simon Tay talked about unequal impact. If we are in, I think the PAP would not necessarily be disadvantaged, because you will need money, and because of our wide base of support in Singapore, we are likely to be able to raise more money than the opposition can. But to its credit since 1959, the PAP has never used the financial hurdle to keep out the opposition from this House. Till today, does it cost a lot for Mr Chiam and Mr Low Thia Khiang? Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam has a different problem because he skirts on the margin of libel and so gets caught out from time to time. But did it cost Mr Low Thia Khiang and Mr Chiam See Tong a lot of money to get voted in? Did they have to be businessmen? Did they have to be independently wealthy? You can get in today on a shoe-string if you can win the hearts and the minds of the people of Singapore. And that is what it should continue to be. Do not make it show business. Keep it to an encounter of ideas so that Singaporeans will decide whom to vote for, whom to represent them in this House on the basis of ideas.

Because it was a very serious matter, I put it up to the Cabinet. We had a discussion in the Cabinet. Then my Ministry issued a policy instruction to BFC to say, "Look, we should not allow the making and distribution of political films." So the SDP’s application was turned down. That was in July 1996. At that time, we had three SDP Members in this House. We had a Member from the Workers’ Party. Did anyone of them raise a single question and cause the matter to be debated? Not a word. If it was such an important matter, so crucial to the outcome of the election, all of them would have jumped up and down. Did they? The records speak for themselves.

We could have gotten by, I could have gotten by, without tabling this Amendment Bill because, under the existing Films Act, we are able to ban political videos, and that’s that. But why then did we decide to enact this amendment? In order that we have this debate in the House today. Because it is such an important matter, and is a matter which will recur, it is very important for the public mind that we know what the issues are, and if Singaporeans are excluded from using film as a medium for political debate, they know why. I was under no pressure from the opposition, or from anybody for that matter, to enact this amendment.

Mr Simon Tay asked, "If politics, why not race or religion?" In fact, the Films Act does not explicitly state the grounds on which films can be censored. We inherited this Act from the British. It is left open so that internal guidelines would build up over a period of time. For obscenity and violence, detailed guidelines have been drawn up and this is also my answer to the NMP, Claire Chiang. If a film is made, which inflames public emotions, let us say, the Indian Army’s storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, we will have to look at it very carefully. If it is inflammatory or incendiary, we would have stopped it. That’s that. This is because the public interest requires it. But in this particular case, because it affects the evolution of political debate and discussion in Singapore, we thought it better to have a full airing so that we all know why we are doing this. It is not because we have to, not because we are under pressure to, but because it is good for the development of our democracy in Singapore.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Singapore’s own democracy.

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: Yes, which allow Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam to now make this interruption.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Singapore’s own brand of democracy.

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: Every society treats film as a special category, because it has a mass impact which books and other forms of broadcast do not have. For television, we are watching different channels. We watch desultorily. I may be in the toilet, I may come back with popcorn. There is no focused attention. For books, we read different books. For Internet, there are millions of web pages. But when you gather a group of people together in a theatrette or an amphitheatre and watch the same drama,by words, pictures, music, sound, you can bring everyone to laughter and tears into their eyes or you can arouse in them deep hatred and a desire for revenge.

The communists and the fascists work this into an art. In China today, the whole of China, in a year they show 200 films. They treat the cinema hall as they do the television station. Every year, we show over a thousand films in Singapore. We consider them mostly entertainment. But in the wrong hands, films can have a powerful impact. It is for this reason that over a period of time, in all societies special laws have been enacted to govern the making, distribution and production of films. This is why this Act is different from, say, the Publications Act or the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act or the Singapore Broadcasting Act.

Many Members have talked about whether somehow we would stop having discussions on television, whether party political broadcast would cease, whether we would stop foreign views coming in through SCV. None of it. Because the Act makes it very plain that it does not cover broadcasting. We are talking about films and its variants - videos and new mutants on the Internet. But we are talking principally about films, about people coming together for a group exhibition being moved together one way or another.

Why the heavy fine of $100,000 and up to two years of jail sentence? Because the impact during an election campaign can be dramatic. Let us say, $2,000, as proposed by Mr Chiam. Election day minus two, you suddenly mass-distribute throughout Singapore in key constituencies and you swing the public vote, whether PAP or opposition. And we transform the nature of this House. After that, you can pay the fine. But the damage has been done. The damage can be dramatic and catastrophic. So there must be no doubts in people’s minds as to the seriousness of this offence. Of course, if this is done years before an election and under less serious circumstances, I am sure the judge would take it into account. But the purpose of having a high maximum is because in an election campaign, the consequences of such a wrongdoing can affect gravely our country.

A number of Members have asked, "Why can’t we just restrict the definition to films made by political parties? Then it is a simple definition. It is clear. I am not a political party. I do not make the film. That’s that." But imagine if we had confined it in this restrictive way, and you are a political party desperate to win votes and wanting to use film as a way to win votes, what would you do? You get your friends outside the party to produce and to distribute the films. You do it in the Workers’ Party, the SDP will do it, the PAP will do it. This is why the second limb has to be constructed because if you do not construct the second limb, that wider definition, you cannot maintain the position in the first limb. But the intent is clear. It is not, in non-party political fields, to do anything more than what we are doing now.

Mr Chiam and Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam suggested that we are denying high-tech to the opposition. You will remember that some years ago, I caused the Young PAP to start an Internet web site, knowing full well that we would have to eventually regulate political web sites on the Internet.Letters which Mr Jeyaretnam complains are not being printed in the Straits Times, he is quite free to post them on his web site. Singaporeans are free to click in on his web site and be moved by the force of his arguments. I would suggest to members of the public from time to time to scan political web sites to see what is on them. If our political parties are really so deprived, so excluded from all channels of communications, so denied of free speech, you would have thought that their web sites would be flourishing centres of debate and discussion and enlightenment. Are they?

Some Members have also asked, "We already have the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act and the Internal Security Act. Are they not enough?" In an election campaign, you cannot lightly use the Internal Security Act because it would be immediately misunderstood. If you use it after the elections are over, the damage is already done. It is a blunt instrument. We need something finer.

Dr Toh See Kiat asked whether the definition of political films would somehow prevent discussion on animal rights or about the moral issues concerning cloning or whatever. It depends on the actual facts of the situation. If animal rights become a gripping political issue in Singapore, and all political parties take positions, then, yes. But if it is just a fringe activity, firstly, I do not think we will take notice, and secondly, if it is unbiased and takes in all views, I think that may well qualify as a reporting rather than anything else. The key is: is it partisan? Is it biased? Is it intended to influence an election, or legislation?

An MP asked, "Why not have more civic participation? Why not have a Select Committee?" There are so many consultation boards in Singapore that I have quite lost count. In my Ministry alone, we have proliferated. So have the other Ministries. Many Singaporeans complain that they are being asked to sit on so many boards and so many panels. Far from it being that we do not consult, if there is a criticism now, it is perhaps that we consult a little too lightly and too frequently.

Is this somehow a restriction of free speech, free debate, in Singapore? Recently, the two major financial television channels merged, ABN, which is owned by Dow Jones and TCI, and CNBC, which has a joint arrangement with Microsoft. They merged and they decided to keep as their common entity, CNBC. CNBC was based in Hong Kong, and ABN in Singapore. The merged entity would be called CNBC. They decided that it should be based in Singapore and not Hong Kong. If we blithely enact laws to prevent debate and free speech and the education of our people, would big international media corporations like Dow Jones and TCI and NBC have taken such a position? But this does not mean that we should not be masters of our own destiny and shape the evolution of our own democracy.

Once again, I thank Mr J..B. Jeyaretnam for providing contrast to our argument. He asked why we should separate religion from politics, by which I infer that he would encourage monks and priests and Ulamas to talk about politics.

Mr Jeyaretnam: What issues?

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: On political issues, in places of worship. Mr Jeyaretnam’s position on this is clear. Our position on this is clear. I think the majority of Singapore’s position on this is also very clear. So too our proposal here to exclude film as a very poor medium, and a degrading medium, for political debate in Singapore.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Sir, may I ask the Minister by way of clarification? I understood him to say that if this were allowed in the elections, and he mentioned one, two, three constituencies, it would transform the nature of this House. I take it that the Minister says we would then have more opposition Members in Parliament. And he says that the damage would have been done. May I know what would be the damage if you had more opposition Members in Parliament?

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: Sir, I was not saying that at all. If we had political videos, Mr Low Thia Khiang and Mr Chiam may not be in this House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [BG George Yong-Boon Yeo].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.