Advertisement

National Day Rally 2013: Are we ‘all’ in this together?

Our blogger takes issue with PM Lee Hsien Loong's statement about the people covered by new policies.
Our blogger takes issue with PM Lee Hsien Loong's statement about the people covered by new policies.

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker, currently a Masters student at Cardiff University. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed below are her own.

Assuring his audience that this was "not the usual National Day Rally", Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke at length on the challenges ahead of Singapore, and measures the government hopes to adopt to deal with crucial issues such as healthcare and education.

Announcing a "strategic shift", he made many encouraging promises: social safety nets will be strengthened, measures will be introduced to ensure the possibility of upward social mobility, the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) grading system will be revamped and MediShield Life will make sure that people can afford healthcare in their old age. Small steps, perhaps, but small steps in the right direction.

"We're all in this together," he said.

So far, so good. But when PM Lee began to address the issue of affordable public housing, it became more and more apparent that no, we're not all in this together.

As our prime minister/housing agent went through the different ways Singaporeans would be able to afford public housing, it was clear that he was addressing Singaporean families – heterosexual, married families, preferably with children. And the husband should preferably be an NSman too.

PM I'm exempted from NS cos I'm confined to wheelchair, but wanted to do NS. If I ROM, can I still get the NSMen grant for housing? #ndrsg

— aeszr (@aeszr) August 18, 2013

"Go ahead, get married and get your flat!" PM Lee exhorted Singaporeans with a grin as the audience broke into applause. It's true that this is very good news indeed for many Singaporeans, and perhaps we'll see many more young couples able to afford homes, which is never a bad thing.

But the exclusionary effects of the housing policies did not go unnoticed on Twitter:

It's always been a well-known fact that the government's housing policies – especially when it comes to subsidies – are intertwined with other goals, such as raising the birth rate by encouraging marriage and reproduction. By finding ways to make it easier for married couples to get a home, the governments hopes that Singaporeans will be encouraged to pair up, get hitched and get down to business. The kind that results in babies.

Yet this focus has forgotten everyone outside the hetero-married-with-children box. It's led to a system where the affordability of public housing is seen as a right for married couples and a concession for everyone else. Where an unmarried, successful Singaporean struggling to afford a home on the private market will have to either find someone to marry (and maybe have kids with) or to find a job that pays him/her less (so as not to be over the S$5000-a-month threshold).

It makes no sense. Policies that make it more difficult for people who don't fit into the government's narrow formulation of "family" do not encourage more Singaporeans to fit into that box. Because they can't. A gay person will never get married to a person of the opposite sex and have children. And if a single person marries simply for the right to get a Build-To-Order flat, then he/she is getting married for the wrong reasons and we shouldn't be encouraging that.

Pegging the affordability of homes to the reproductivity of heterosexual marriage is not something that figures into the Singapore I want to leave for future generations. If we want an inclusive Singapore, if we want to really be all in it together, then it is high time for us to have a "strategic shift" in the way we think about homes and families too.