TR EMERITUS

Dear Temasek Review, I have been reading (with great interest) your reports on the Jack Neo scandal and I have some feedback for you. In some of your articles, Jack Neo was referred to as PBM Jack Neo. Actually there are many people in Singapore who do not understand that PBM meant that Jack Neo received a Public Service Medal (or something like that). Perhaps it would be better to simply address Jack Neo as 'PAP member Jack Neo or PAP member and grassroot leader Jack Neo'. Not too long ago, there was this local scandal involving the China-born wife of a local opposition figure. The Singapore media lost no time in using that opportunity to associate Opposition politics with the unsavoury tale of murder and greed. They did this by constantly addressing Mr Tan Lead Shake as 'Opposition member Tan Lead Shake', even though he was a relatively low-profile politician. His role as a businessman and husband far outstrips his role as a politician in my opinion. But that did not stop the local media from using the words 'Opposition member' whenever they report on the murder. Thus, I feel it is only right that TR show the same level of 'journalistic integrity' by addressing Jack Neo as 'PAP member Jack Neo' or 'PAP member and Grassroot leader Jack Neo'. Addressing him as 'PBM' does less to show up the hypocrisy and double standards of the PAP in my opinion. Also, as you continue your reports, please bear in mind that we are not dealing with just an ordinary PAP member. As a propagandist, Jack Neo is far more effective than any senior editor in the Straits Times. For while Ms. Chua is so blatant that readers may simply turn away in disgust, Jack Neo is subtle. His films, while discussing social ills in Singapore, also subtly nudge Singaporeans away from focusing on the PAP. His characters suffer due to their own personal flaws, and not governmental policies. And didn't the PAP announce that new citizens have to attend 'sharing sessions' with grassroot leaders? With Jack Neo's popularity as a film director and charisma, I have no doubt that it would be easy for him to convert those new citizens to the PAP way of thinking. Already there has been rumours that the PAP might be fielding Jack Neo as a candidate. So please keep up the good work. We need those reports of Jack Neo's scandals out, not to satisfy some voyeuristic impulse for celebrity gossips, but for more noble purposes. We need to reduce Jack Neo's effectiveness as a propagandist for the PAP. We need to prevent him from running in the next general election, which I am sure you will agree is rather crucial to Singapore's future.   Singa Crew  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Over the last few weeks, you have seen various job advertisements put up by Singapore companies seeking foreigners only on this site. Foreigners usually need to obtain work permits, E or S passes in order to find work in Singapore. Now it seems that even those on social visit passes are highly sought after too. A registered recruitment agency based in Singapore has put up a job ad seeking foreigners on social visit pass ONLY for graphic designers: According to the ad, the job type is "permanent" and is open to foreigners. This may be another ploy to recruit foreigners in Singapore on social visit pass first after which the company will apply for work permits on their behalfs. In other countries like Australia and New Zealand, foreigners need to get a work visa first before they are allowed to work there and even then, they are subjected to rigorous screening and examination including a compulsory English test - IELTS before they are granted one. Due to the PAP's lax immigration policies, it is not unusual to have foreigners seeking for jobs in Singapore on social visit passes. For example, many of the freelance prostitutes plying their trade along the narrow alleys of Geylang are on social visit passes. Despite the police conducting regular anti-AV raids in the vicinity, the "whore brigade" often reappear again out of the blue after a period of quiescence. The Manpower Ministry should clamp down on such discriminatory job ads which is making Singapore a laughing stock in the eyes of the developed world. A government should always protect the livelihoods of local workers first instead of asking them to compete with cheap foreign workers on an equal footing and issuing veiled threats that if "the spurs are not stuck in their hides", it is their problem.  Read More →

From The Age March 19, 2010 Age photographer Glen McCurtayne took this picture of a sleeping Peter Slipper. Photo: Glen McCurtayne EDITORS used to warn journalists that they could find themselves in contempt of parliament for reporting that an MP had slept through a parliamentary session. Thus, let's just say Queensland Liberal Peter Slipper was resting his eyes during Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's speech to Federal Parliament last week. That such a moment of glad repose could become the subject of an inquiry by no less than the privileges committee - the same body that could slap a reporter with a charge of contempt - seems a wonder to behold. But that is what the eyes-at-rest affair has come to. The camera-phone image of a sleeping Peter Slipper. Mr Slipper's period of serenity was captured on the mobile phone camera of a fellow Liberal MP, who thought it would be a lark to send it to the Sunshine Coast Daily, which circulates in Slipper's electorate of Fisher. And there ended any semblance of relaxation. The aggrieved Mr Slipper, snapping to attention at a reporter's call, protested that he had been as conscious as a Hansard reporter during the Indonesian President's speech and recited the main points to prove it. The phone camera picture, splashed across the Daily, begged to differ. But who could have taken the sneak snap? By yesterday, Mr Slipper was so roused he was all but prepared to name the camera cad. He said the picture was taken by someone on his right. And the fellow sitting adjacent to him on his right was Alex Somlyay. Mr Somlyay inhabits the electorate of Fairfax, which is right next door to Mr Slipper's electorate. A neighbourhood spat? Mr Somlyay is also the chief opposition whip, who is supposed to enforce discipline. Mr Slipper wasn't about to take this sort of dastardly discipline lying down, even if he had been lying down. In Parliament yesterday he declared straight-faced that the affair had ''seriously interfered'' with his work. Quite. Can't a chap spend an afternoon slumped on a bench without interruptions these days? It wasn't as if he was simply complaining about his own troubles. Why, he told Parliament, ''any of us could be caught in an unflattering position …'' He wanted a ''forensic examination of the photograph by a qualified person to ascertain formally from which seat [it] was taken and thus to confirm the identity of the culprit''. Yes, and he wanted the privileges committee to look into it. The Speaker, Harry Jenkins, agonised before deciding it didn't quite deserve the full gaze of such an august body. Not good enough for Labor's Anthony Albanese. Sympathising wonderfully with poor Mr Slipper, he moved that the privileges committee should study whether rules should be adopted to ensure the use of mobile devices did not interfere with Parliament ''or with the free performance by a member of his or her duties''. Which, of course, guarantees the eyes-at-rest matter won't be put to bed for some time yet. Source: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/snooze-scandal-stirs-slipper-to-demand-snap-judgment-20100318-qicy.html  Read More →