Speech by Acting Minister for Transport, Mr Jeffrey Siow at the Debate on the President’s Address

1.     Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the motion. It is my honour to stand here for the first time, and I want to  thank the voters of Chua Chu Kang GRC for the opportunity to represent them in the 15th Parliament.

2.     Since politics, my life has changed in different ways. I’ve learnt how to sleep less. My daughter has observed that my eyebags have their own eyebags. I have less time to play football with my friends on Sundays. And even when I do, I am the most polite of players. When I get kicked at the back of my leg, I am the first to say, "Sorry, sorry”.

3.     Life is different now, but my family keeps me going. So, I want to start by thanking all of them: my wife, my brother, my kids and my mother, who even comes to volunteer with me at my Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS). My family makes me feel that I am part of a team.

You never walk alone 

4.     I have always believed in the power of a team.

5.     In my public service career, I have changed roles every three to five years. So, often, I had to learn a new job from scratch. And so, I could never assume I had all the answers and therefore, my approach has always been to lean on the strengths of those in my team – so that together, we are more than the sum of the individual parts.

6.     Now, as a political leader, my role is to make decisions on behalf of our people. My approach is to be inclusive. To create space for voices to be heard, and to build trust. This way, even issues that are divisive can be opportunities to build bridges. 

Transport portfolio 

7.     As Transport Minister, I have the chance to put this philosophy into practice. As you can expect, people give me feedback all the time.

8.     And this is a privilege, because actually they are telling me their stories, and every story is personal - the young couple who wants to buy a car, but finds it out of reach; a single mother who uses her personal mobility scooter to bring her three kids to preschool, even though she knows it is illegal; an office worker who ran in the rain, to catch her bus, but she just missed it; a father splurging on a private hire car ride, so that he can get home in time to see his children before they go to bed.  

9.     Hearing these stories, I understand why some people feel that the system is sometimes not working for them. They feel the hard edge of the policy. They feel like they are on the wrong side of the line.

10.    I would solve every one of these individual problems, if I could, because these are not just matters of efficiency; they are matters of fairness and of dignity. 

11.    But in a compact country like ours, transport needs necessarily collide - pedestrians and cyclists share the same path; cyclists and drivers share the same road.  Everyone wants a bus stop just below their homes; but no one wants a bus that stops every 20 metres. 

Explain, persuade, inspire trust 

12.    In transport, trade-offs are unavoidable. Yet they are felt deeply and personally. And that’s why it doesn’t just matter what we do. It also matters how we do it, and how we bring people along. 

13.    And that is why my approach to policies will be to explain our considerations openly and honestly. What we give up, what we gain, and why. And here, I have found that a personal touch really matters. A face-to-face meeting, a phone call, or a personal email I write myself. Most Singaporeans, when I engage them this way, they are reasonable and they are fair, even when they disagree with the decision. 

14.    Over time, I hope to win more people’s trust. I know trust is won over time, with consistency of action and purpose. I must show that our processes are fair, and my intentions are right. And so, my approach is to be open and transparent, and thus I welcome the Leader of Opposition, Mr Pritam Singh’s earlier comments about how the Workers Party will scrutinize the work of MOT and the Rail Reliability Taskforce. In fact, I welcome questions from all of us here in this chamber, because good questions are not the sole province of the opposition, but is the responsibility of all of us. This openness will help me build trust. With trust, the toughest compromises become more possible.

Unity without uniformity in action: Cross Island Line example 

15.    I learnt this lesson as a young public officer. I was at MOT, working on the Cross Island Line, a very important MRT Line, especially for the North East sector. On one side, engineers and policymakers wanted the most direct route to keep travel times short and costs down. The most direct route was under the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. But nature groups feared that soil investigation drilling would harm the fragile ecosystem of the nature reserve. They amassed in opposition, and they pushed back. Arguments were heated. The project was delayed.  But the important thing was both sides continued to show up. And this gave us time to hear each other out.

16.    In the end, nobody got everything they wanted. But together we found better ways forward - LTA adopted more innovative and less invasive methods. 

17.    Most importantly, we built trust, and as trust grew, stronger solutions for Singapore emerged. When I returned to MOT just a few months ago, my nature group combatants, turned comrades, were the first to welcome me back, as friends.

Moving Together: Land Transport Masterplan

18.    That experience has guided me since then. Trust can be built even when disagreements cut deep. But only if we all commit to staying at the table, with the right heart and the right intent. 

19.    And that is the spirit I want to bring to shape our transport future. In the next few weeks, LTA will launch consultations for the next iterations of the Land Transport Masterplan. We want to engage more Singaporeans than ever before - commuters, drivers, cyclists, seniors, persons with disabilities, mobility device users; bring all of them together to have deeper conversations and weigh trade-offs. My hope is simple: that more Singaporeans feel that the system works for them, and that their story matters.  

Creating, not maintaining 

20.    Building common ground helps us balance today’s needs. But it does not help us  solve tomorrow’s problems. To ease the pressures of zero-sum choices, we must create new ground - new choices, new capacity, new options and possibilities.   

21.    For example, 15 years ago, we did not have private hire cars.  We only had taxis. The older ones amongst us will remember, it was almost impossible to get a taxi on a Friday night or a rainy day. Then, Uber and Grab arrived. With more cars and flexible fares, more Singaporeans could access door-to-door transport, on a pay per use basis, rather than have to drive or to use, or to purchase their own car. Initially, taxi drivers feared that private hire cars would undercut them. But in fact, both sets of drivers benefited from more business and higher earnings.  

22.    If back then, the Government had blocked the entry of Uber and Grab, we would all have been worse off. But we took the long term view, and everyone benefited.   

23.    And that is why we are now looking to bring in autonomous vehicles. AVs will add a new option to move Singaporeans around - imagine a safe ride home, after a late night out; imagine a doorstep pick-up, to the polyclinic for a medical checkup; imagine doing emails or listening to a podcast in a car, without having to drive; imagine new and exciting jobs for our people, especially our young.

24.    New possibilities open up when we focus on creation, rather than division.

25.    In sea and air transport, we have done the same. We dreamt up possibilities that didn’t exist before - like the world’s largest automated port; like our now-iconic Jewel; with Tuas Port and Changi Terminal 5, we are once again building boldly, creating the capacity for decades to come.

Economic Strategy Review 

26.    We are summoning the same spirit of creation for our economy. DPM Gan spoke about the Economic Strategy Review. 

27.    I co-chair the Committee on Global Competitiveness with SMS Low Yen Ling. Our Committee comprises a new generation of Singaporean business leaders, who know what it takes to survive and thrive in today’s world. All of us share a deep sense of urgency. We see how the world may be moving against us.

28.    For decades, Singapore benefited from globalisation and free trade. But as President explained in his Address, and as DPM explained in his speech, the rules have shifted. Larger economies are raising tariffs and subsidising their core industrial champions. As a small country, we cannot match them dollar for dollar, land for land. This is a big risk, but it is also an opportunity - to retool and to move into spaces where others hesitate; to attract new industries for Singapore and create new jobs for Singaporeans. 

29.    And we have done this before. We joined up seven islands to create Jurong Island, to build a petrochemical hub. We invested in semiconductors when others felt others bleed that we could succeed. We grew our biomedical industry from washing test tubes to producing vaccines. And we even built a world-class integrated resort, on land reclaimed from the sea.

30.    These were not just about maintaining the status quo, these were acts of creation. And now it is time to do it again. Our ambition is to be an enterprise hub, where companies are born, grow and scale to the world.  

31.    To become champions, we will place bigger bets on the industries of the future - advanced materials, robotics, precision medicine, space. These bets may feel uncomfortable. Not everything will succeed. But if just one, two or three of these bets come good, they will transform our economy and carry Singapore to the next level.

Reinvention, not just reskilling  

32.    Industries are only part of the story. What matters most is whether Singaporeans can step into the opportunities that we create.

33.    With a faster pace of economic change, people will have more career transitions. Fewer people will climb a single career ladder, like I almost did. Most will have multiple jobs, move across many jobs and industries across their lifetimes.  

34.    Career transitions can be unsettling if faced alone. But in Singapore, no one should feel alone. We only have 3.6 million Singaporeans, so we can help every person reskill and reinvent themselves. To unlock each person’s potential, again and again, to bring out the best in every one of us, as the world changes. 

35.    Of course, a career change can feel daunting, it can feel emotional, it can feel vulnerable. In these moments – a word of encouragement, a gesture of care makes all the difference. 

36.    I experienced this myself. When I decided to join politics, I felt unsettled too. I was a civil servant, and I did not know how I would fare under public scrutiny. Politics was a whole new ball game.

37.    In April, I had to make my first political speech. I remember rehearsing in a corner, slightly nervous; then-SM Teo Chee Hean walked by. We didn’t know each other very well before, but he came over, placed his hands on my shoulders. He said, “as long as you are doing the right thing, don’t worry about what other people say”.

38.     His words made all the difference on that day. It gave me the strength to step forward and speak like a lion. 

39.    To unlock the full potential of Singaporeans, we must support one another. We are one team, encourage others, instead of criticising them. When friends and family try new things, celebrate them. When they make mistakes, help them. Treat others’ success as if they were our own. Because when one of us rises, all of us rise together. 

Conclusion

40.    Mr Speaker, this is who I am. Someone who believes in unity without uniformity. Someone who wants to create what has yet to be imagined. Someone who believes that we achieve more when we work together.

41.    At the heart of my team today is our transport workers - rail maintenance workers working in the dead of the night; our bus captains working split shifts; frontline customer service officers who maintain their composure even under public pressure; private hire car drivers trying to make ends meet. All of them are part of my team. I am responsible for them. They keep our system going. They will always have my support. I hope they have yours too. 

42.    Not long ago, I read a letter published in the Lianhe Zaobao, titled 《请把父亲还给我》— “Please return my father to me”. It was written by a young woman, whose father had been a bus captain for twenty years. She wrote about the long hours that her father worked, often on the hardest shifts. When she asked him if work was more important than family, he replied: “The company needs me; I have to do it”. At the end of her letter, she wrote:  “家庭，才是人生最不该错过的末班车。”  “Family is the last bus in life that we must never miss.”

43.    That story moved me. It reminded me of my own relationship with my father. He too worked long hours in a coffeeshop. Growing up, I wished for his presence, even though I understood his absence.

44.    Now I find myself dealing the same tension. Some evenings, my children would see me heading out. They would ask, “where are you going, daddy?” And I wonder in those moments, if I am giving them enough. They are teenagers now; they don’t need me to tuck them into bed anymore. But they still need me to listen, to be present, and to show up. 

44.    I feel a tinge in my heart. But I know that my work matters. I am helping to build the country we all share, where people can get home on time for dinner with their families, where a daughter can see her bus captain dad, because we support the people who keep our country running. Our country will never be perfect. But it can be one we are all proud of.

45.    And that is why I will keep going for every Singaporean; for a Singapore where no one walks alone. The way forward, is together. With our families, our friends, and as one nation, because the meaningful things in life cannot be done alone.

46.    Thank you, Mr Speaker.