MP Denise Phua's speech on ministers' pay

Here is the full transcript of MP Denise Phua's speech on the ministerial pay review delivered at the Parliamentary debate on political salaries on January 16, 2012.

A. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Ask 10 different people how much they think their political leaders should be paid and you are likely to get 10 different responses. Sir, that was my experience when I studied the views of Singaporeans in the public, private and people sectors through desktop research, face-to-face discussions and polls.

To the passionate who are fighting for causes they deeply believe in, sacrificing part or all of their salary is not an issue.

To the low-wage worker who earns $5 an hour, a million-dollar pay is unimaginable.

To a PMET (Professional, Manager, Executive or Technician) earning the median Singapore income of less than $3,000 per month, the million-dollar pay is an unattainable dream.

There are others who are concerned with the Golden Parachute effect of entrants to politics who enjoy big windfalls in pay although they had no prior appropriate leadership experience.

Yet to some in the private sector, the Ministers' pay is a bargain compared to the typical $3m to $7m annual CEO packages of local banks, telcos and others. On the ground, someone quipped that the annual pay of a specific local CEO which in a good year can skyrocket to $20 million, could pay for more than half the Cabinet. The Straits Times reported recently that the annual incomes of second-tier senior executives in some big local firms amounted to between $1m and $2m. The Chief Operating Officer of SMRT is reported to earn close to $1 million and the Executive VP of SingTel makes $1.4 million.

Sir, the mixed reactions reminded me very much of the parable of 'The Elephant and the 6 Blind Men'. Each man described the animal according to the part of the elephant they are touching. And according to John Godfrey Saxe's poem of the same parable, all men 'disputed loud and long'.

The truth of the matter is, all of them are right except that each view is but a partial view. The same can be said of Singaporeans' descriptions of the ministerial pay issue. The disputes are similarly 'loud and long' and ministerial pay is one of the most divisive subjects in our country. To heal our land, it is critical that each of us take the time and be open enough to find out and accept that there are other perspectives.