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6 measures announced during National Day Rally 2015

Members of Parliament and PM Lee Hsien Loong at National Day 2015. Photo: Yahoo Singapore

By Kyle Malinda-White

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced a slew of measures in his National Day Rally speech Sunday (23 August) geared towards addressing concerns in housing, education, babies and employment.

He delivered his speech at the Institute of Technical Education’s College Central campus. Besides increasing grant quotas and income ceilings, PM Lee also announced initiatives to empower secular and religious schools.

Here are six measures PM Lee announced:

Paternity leave increased, Baby Bonus enhanced

Policies geared towards families got a boost.

Government-paid paternity leave is set to be increased from one week to two weeks, while the Baby Bonus amount will be increased and extended to all children. This removes the requirement for the bonus to be issued only to the first four children in a household.

A new Proximity Housing Grant will incentivise families to stay closer to their elderly parents and will be applicable to the purchase of a resale flat. It will be made available to all flat buyers, not just first-timers.

The Medisave Grant for newborns is also set to be increased, enough to cover Medishield Life premiums until 21 years of age. It will be extended to cover other healthcare expenses such as vaccinations.

The paternity leave, bonus and Medisave Grant will be made available immediately, backdated to 1 January, 2015, though companies would have to agree to employees taking the extra week off. The second week of paternity leave will be paid for by the government and PM Lee said the civil service would be the first to adopt it.

Increased income ceilings for flat buyers

Income ceilings for buyers of new Build-to-Order flats will be raised from S$10,000 to S$12,000. Executive Condominium buyers will have their income ceilings raised by S$12,000 to S$14,000.

The Special CPF Housing Grant will also be raised from S$6,500 to S$8,500. According to PM Lee, the increase will mean two-thirds of all Singaporean households will qualify for the grant. The maximum grant amount will be doubled from S$20,000 to S$40,000.

PM Lee assured Singaporeans that even if a household earns below S$1,000, if members work a stable job and contribute to CPF regularly, that household would still be able to afford a two-room flat.

Fresh Start Housing Scheme to help second-time households own rental flats

The new scheme will come with shorter leases and stricter resale conditions but will hopefully ease concerns over second-time households owning flats, after they have already received subsidies on their first flat.

In his Malay speech, PM Lee said that a significant proportion of Malays were living in rental flats, especially those that previously owned flats before being beset with marital or financial woes.

As part of the scheme, counselling will be given as support to help such families solve their financial woes.

Details of the scheme will be announced in future.

Re-employment age to be raised to 67

By 2017, the government will raise the re-employment age from 65 to 67 in a bid to ensure the employability of the elderly, based on feedback PM Lee has obtained from workers.

However, PM Lee stressed employers needed time to adjust so that re-employed workers would not be a “burden” to the company.

Minister Gan Kim Yong, who leads the Ministerial Committee on Ageing, is set to announce an action plan in due course.

Singapore Institute of Technology to get new centralised campus

SIT will get a new centralised campus in Punggol and it will be integrated with a new creative industry cluster set up by JTC.

The campus will also be integrated into Punggol Downtown and the upcoming Northshore District. The community will be able to share the campus’ facilities, such as its multi-purpose hall.

The university currently has a main campus in Dover Road and branches at all five polytechnics in Singapore.

Financial support for secular studies in madrasahs

In his Malay speech, PM Lee announced that the government will fund awards for madrasah students who perform well in secular subjects. The government will also assist in upgrading teachers who teach such subjects in the madrasahs to gear students to live in a “modern, technological society”.

The measure was announced on a backdrop of growth in the Malay community, with two Malay airforce pilots cited as successful Malays.