How will the pandemic change us?
I am confident that we will prevail and emerge
stronger from this crucible and my hope is for singapore to emerge as a fairer
greener and more equal country with a much
stronger spirit of solidarity and shared
purpose.
First we must reset our social compact to emerge as a fairer and more equal
society the pandemic may be indiscriminate about
who it infects but its impact is anything but equal
it has in fact widened the gulf between the halves and the half notes
second new habits from the pandemic show us that we can
and we must push for a greener singapore when human activity came to a standstill
this year carbon emissions around the world
dropped significantly so as economic activities begin to pick
up we have to figure out a way forward we
cannot go back to the status quo entei finally one silver lining in Covid-19
is that it can present an opportunity for us to strengthen our sense of
social solidarity when you think about reset
what is it you have really in your mind and what do you think that we
as a society most need my view is that the
Covid-19 doesn't so much introduce new disruptions
as it does accelerate existing trends geopolitical tensions that you see
everywhere that we see between the major powers it's not a new
issue but again it's been sharpened and accelerated
through this pandemic inequality it's not something that we are only
dealing with today so it's with this in mind that we
prepare our sequel if you will right it's a sequel where
we already know what the big forces around us
are but we must recognize that the forces are coming now
with double triple the force that we had anticipated before
and therefore it behooves us to fundamentally re-examine all our
operating assumptions our paradigms and think about how we can
better prepare our society for this new world how can
we encourage employers to raise salaries to add value
and raise the status of more jobs and how can we in turn encourage society
to see the value in tradition traditionally low paying low status jobs
if you think about the spectrum of work there's head work
there is hands work – technical hands-on work – there is heart work
that involves the human touch or caring and
i think that balance in many societies have shifted towards
a lot of emphasis on heart but not enough on hands
and heart and we do need to strike a better balance it
means not just incomes it also means recognizing the contributions of every
worker across the entire spectrum and according
dignity and respect to the contributions of each worker
well that happens so easily i i think it's
not so straightforward it will take time so it's not just a matter of
employers you know increasing pay without seeing the additional
productivity of the worker but through job redesign through skills
training the employers can see these workers
contributing more and with that added contribution they
would justify higher pay as well your co-chair has
described you as a decisive leader and you yourself described how you had
to manage um having to take difficult decisions um
uh you know in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty
what did you take away um about the exercise of political leadership i
it's certainly not about deciding by gut right I don't trust my
own gut so I have obviously got reactions
to anything that comes up but in decision making but you know in a
situation like this it is not just based on instincts you've
got to look at data you've got to look at evidence
the policies first and foremost have to be
determined by what's right from a public health point of view
but to some extent the implementation of the policies do depend
on the public acceptance of these measures
and that's a judgment if the sense is
the public is not prepared to accept the measures we can talk about having new
measures but if the compliance rate is very low
then it's not going to be effective so we have to think through a whole
gamut of different issues before we develop
any new measures in the recent inauguration speech by
by president joe biden there was a lot of emphasis also on solidarity and
unity and what struck me was he said you know in a democracy
it's not about uniformity there is diversity of views and I think
in the course of our discussions over the past week we've heard about that
diversity and increasing complexity in singapore and
society how do you manage that diversity and
yet have greater unity it's a big question everywhere
particularly in a more plural society in a more diverse society
where people may have different goals aspirations your definition of a good
life may not be the same as mine and that's
completely understandable these it's fine to have differences but as i
said the more we can build consensus around what that common
good is regardless of our differences political
differences aside individual differences aside the more we
can build consensus around what that common good is for singapore
i think that gives us purpose it gives us that sense of a common destiny
for the future and it will enable singapore to continue
thriving and doing well in the future
you