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27-04-2014, 11:10 AM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
PM Lee’s couching of the debate in such extreme and simplistic terms runs counter to what the people are actually feeling. We do not believe that the government has managed the immigration problem well. Neither do we think that “managing it” is only in terms of economic and infrastructure issues like providing more jobs, housing and public transport.
It worried many that the government appears to be bending over backwards to accommodate foreigners, with the potential of welcoming more foreigners to our island state. Citizens feel they are no longer citizens in their own home, and this has a destabilising effect. And now, they see their views ignored in favour of the extremes. Naturally, the response would be one of anguish and resentment.
The bitterness over the Population White Paper seems to have been forgotten, the lessons from it left by the wayside.
All this would not have been lost if PM Lee had decided to shine the spotlight on the views in the centre. Doing so would have been messy, laborious, even disruptive to the entire economic engine and the carefully-scripted “moderate path to growth” we are now embarking on.
But doing so would have won the hearts of the people who put this government in power. Doing so would have put the people at ease, instead of riling them further.
- http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2014...ration-debate/ (http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2014/04/a-failed-opportunity-to-take-forward-the-immigration-debate/)
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?180394-A-failed-opportunity-to-take-forward-the-immigration-debate-by-govt&goto=newpost).
PM Lee’s couching of the debate in such extreme and simplistic terms runs counter to what the people are actually feeling. We do not believe that the government has managed the immigration problem well. Neither do we think that “managing it” is only in terms of economic and infrastructure issues like providing more jobs, housing and public transport.
It worried many that the government appears to be bending over backwards to accommodate foreigners, with the potential of welcoming more foreigners to our island state. Citizens feel they are no longer citizens in their own home, and this has a destabilising effect. And now, they see their views ignored in favour of the extremes. Naturally, the response would be one of anguish and resentment.
The bitterness over the Population White Paper seems to have been forgotten, the lessons from it left by the wayside.
All this would not have been lost if PM Lee had decided to shine the spotlight on the views in the centre. Doing so would have been messy, laborious, even disruptive to the entire economic engine and the carefully-scripted “moderate path to growth” we are now embarking on.
But doing so would have won the hearts of the people who put this government in power. Doing so would have put the people at ease, instead of riling them further.
- http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2014...ration-debate/ (http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2014/04/a-failed-opportunity-to-take-forward-the-immigration-debate/)
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?180394-A-failed-opportunity-to-take-forward-the-immigration-debate-by-govt&goto=newpost).