Must say that I was quite surprised and, I must say, flabbergasted, to read the reply of Ms Bhavani, the Press Secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, on July 03, 2006 in response to Mr Brown's article on Today on 30 Jun, 2006. The details can be found at Mr Brown's blog site (http://www.mrbrown.com/) or specifically to the blog article (http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/letter_from_mic.html).
I can accept that the results of the General Household Survey (GHS) were only available after the GE. The survey was started in Mar 05, and I think ran til Jun 05. I can Having been involved in mass surveys like this previously, I do know how long it can take to consolidate findings and prepare the report, so I would give SingState the benefit of the doubt. (I mean, the Household Expenditure Survey (HES) was conducted between Oct 02 to Sep 03, and the results was released in Jun 05, so the GHS was actually quite fast!)
However, I have some issues with this line from Ms Bhavani:
But similar data from the Household Expenditure Survey had been published last year before the election.
I decided to take time out to go through the HES (you can, too, at http://www.singstat.gov.sg/press/hes.pdf), especially para 14-19. I quote the following from the report:
- All households, including those in lower income groups, have achieved a higher standard of living during 1993 - 2003.
- For example, after taking into account the rebates and waivers on rent and utilities... , per capita income of households in all the quintile income groups registered positive rates of growth between 1998 to 2003.
- The per capita income of households in the lowest quintile income group which registered a decline of 1.6 per cent per annum during the same period, showed a gain of 0.1 per cent per annum after rebates and ERS were taken into consideration.
Compare this with the GHS report (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/press/ghs2.pdf), especially para 12-17):
- Compared with 2000, the average household income from work declined for households in the 2nd and 3rd decile group in 2005.
I don't know about you but the impression I got from the HES and GHS are quite different. True, both seemed to have presented the same facts, but the connotations between the two seem quite different. The GHS is definitely more stark in terms of how badly the poor are doing in terms of income. Specifically, the 2nd decile group's income dropped by 4.3% while the 3rd decile group's dropped 0.5% between 2000 to 2005. (The 1st decile group's average monthly household income dropped from $90 to $0.) And based on what I can understand from the Annexes, I believe these have not accounted for inflation (although I can't be 100% sure).
My other main concern is with this line:
It confirmed what we had told Singaporeans all along, that globalisation would stretch out incomes.
I find this line may be underplaying the issue - the GHS clearly indicates not just a stretching of income, but that the poor are actually getting poorer in real terms. It is not simply just the rich making money at a faster rate than the poor.
My other issues with her reply are more general, and really just a matter of difference.
- poured sarcasm on many issues - Can't a intellectual article be couched in sarcasm to more effectively highlight the issues?
- He offers no alternatives or solutions - Must a careful analysis of problems also bring up possible solutions or lose credibility? (This reminds me of the now-infamous slap on the wrist Ms Catherine Lim got quite a few years ago.)
- It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues - (Notice the mention of "in Singapore".) Why not? When journalists write pieces to champion greater accessibility for the disabled and elderly, are they wrong? How do you write an opinion piece without championing issues?
- he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics - Does criticising the Government or some of its actions become a political action? When did the Government = party politics?
And of course, my biggest issue against her reply was this:
And he should come out from behind his pseudonym to defend his views openly.
Anyone who takes the trouble to just visit mr brown's blog site would know that he has never hidden behind his pseudonym. I can excuse the average reader of the Today to not bother doing this but for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, the very Ministry in charge of the medium that he works on, it seems quite bizarre. Could the Ministry be totally unaware of that he quite openly posts his name and face pictures (including pictures of his adorable children)?
From what I know about the civil service, replies to this would usually be first crafted by a junior staff, which would then be cleared up succeeding levels, and it would like reach the Permanent Secretary (the highest level civil servant), and perhaps even the Minister. I wouldn't know how far this reply might have reached in the Ministry before clearing for release, but it would definitely would have gone through a number of hands. And none of them know that mr brown is not actually anonymous?
