[20250501] WP Rally Speech #2 Anderson-Serangoon Junior College (ASRJC) in Hougang

My fellow Singaporeans,

Good evening. My name is Kenneth Tiong. I am running to be your MP in Aljunied GRC.

There's a feeling in the air. A feeling of unease. When I meet and talk with so many of you over the last few years, I feel your unease.

It’s the unease when the cost of food grows faster than our salaries. The unease when, with car-ownership out of reach, the cost of public transport climbs as its reliability falls. The unease when we miss out again on a BTO exercise, and see skyrocketing rents and HDB resale prices.

It's unease about the job market: if we get retrenched, how easily can we find another job? Unease when we send out hundreds of resumes on LinkedIn or Jobstreet without any response. Fearing the next restructuring, wondering if our skills will still be valued next year. Seeing our capable fresh grads struggling to find a job.

This unease cuts across race, language, religion, or age. We further worry for the future of Singapore, which faces two clear challenges:

First, the technology revolution. Is Singapore going to be a driver, or a passenger? The risk is we become content as “fast adopters” – consuming technology developed elsewhere, rather than driving, developing, producing it ourselves. This pushes our own talent overseas to where the action and revolution feels more real.

Second, a changing world order: protectionism, trade wars, real wars. Navigating this requires foresight, agility, thoughtfulness, and a focus on strengthening our own capabilities.

We often hear criticisms of Singaporeans - “taking the safe way out”, “not innovative enough”. When I hear that, I think - about how unfair it is to us.

Let me ask you - how inclined are you to take risks, if there is not much of a safety net if you fail? When you have to juggle high costs of living, mortgage payments, and childcare expenses? When the sandwiched generation must do caregiving both for aging parents and growing children without family care leave or flexible childcare leave?

All my life I have believed in Singaporeans’ ability to lead. It is the ethos of our society - hardworking, resourceful, ethical. Since Independence, the PAP has said Singapore has no resources except its people. We Singaporeans are exceptional. But we need people who believe in us and are prepared to support us to the hilt, to help pick us up to walk again when we fall. Singapore needs such politicians.

If elected, I will be such a politician.

The first shift we need is a real safety net, a stronger foundation. The Workers' Party has consistently pushed for this foundation:

- Unemployment support.

- Mandatory retrenchment benefits.

- A National Minimum Wage enforced by the state.

- Independent Unions, to speak up fearlessly for your workplace rights.

- Strong Workplace Fairness Laws, to protect all against discrimination, not just some.

It's about dignity, security, and giving our people the breathing room to look beyond mere survival. It’s about giving Singaporeans the bandwidth and stomach to take risks, to pursue ideas and dreams that drive us in our youth. To enable us to be who we can be rather than to settle.

Once that foundation is built, it will support the re-ignition of our Singaporean economic engine, remaking Singapore into a true technology and innovation leader. We need an economy that works for us, where we nurture our own dreams.

I have spent all my working life in the private sector, in finance, consulting and technology. I know the problems of our private sectors, and I deeply want to see us succeed. We must put the foundations in place for an innovation-driven economy.

On innovation, I don’t want to give you all motherhood statements. So let me be really specific about the sort of questions I intend to pursue.

Question one. Since 1990, we have invested tens of billions of dollars in R&D. Yet after more than 30 years and immense spending, where are the deep-tech success stories built directly on this R&D? Not one R&D company has gone for a billion-dollar IPO. Not one R&D company has achieved major global-scale commercial success.

This kind of 30-year track record in R&D is just not good enough for the people of Singapore. What has gone wrong in translating our R&D policies into world-beating enterprise? I will pursue this question relentlessly.

Question two. Where are our domestic growth engines of today? I struggle to see them. It’s not just about being a small country. Denmark has 5.9 million people, similar to Singapore. It has Lego, which many of us buy for our kids (as I do), and “kidults”. It has Novo Nordisk, makers of the obesity wonder drug Ozempic. What comparable giants built on foundational capabilities do we have?

This lack of comparable giants isn't accidental. It reflects an ideology. An establishment ideology that is willing, at the first signs of stormy-waters, to sell out strategic national assets built over decades to foreign players.

Chartered Semiconductor in 2009. Neptune Orient Lines in 2016. And last year, they tried to sell out again, with NTUC Income to Allianz. But fortunately, many people in Singapore stood up, and made their voices heard. Otherwise, I am sure this bad deal would have gone through.

What are the right policies? Growing Singaporean champions, or finding the highest foreign bidder for them?

For me, what was so troubling about the attempt to sell NTUC Income was the message: that nothing is sacred, that valuable domestic entities could be sold for short-term financial reasons, leaving less for future generations to build upon. That we have leaders who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

That’s why I have little hope for Singapore's ability to create our own growth engines with the PAP calling all the shots.

I have a different view. We must grow our own domestic champions. We must champion the primacy of local enterprise. If Singaporeans are to lead globally, we need these instruments significantly rooted in our control.

So I ask you to reject an ideology that seems too ready to sell out, and instead embrace a philosophy focused on growing our own.

So if elected, I will champion three things:

First, making Singapore a leader in innovation, creating great jobs right here.

Second, strengthening economic security and fairness for every Singaporean family.

Third, fighting for strong family foundations: affordable public housing, the highest education standards for every child, and giving our Singaporean families, including lower-income citizens with foreign spouses, the support they need for family formation.

Allow me to say a few words in Mandarin.

"大家好，我是 张文杰。"

"我是一名科技领域的工作者，也是两个小小孩的父亲。”

我理解许多新加坡人，特别是年轻人，对未来有许多担忧。我希望新加坡不仅能够让人安居乐业，更是个大家可以实现梦想、开创事业的家园。

"当选后，我将推动三大核心工作："

"第一，提升新加坡的创新力，为国人创造更多高价值的本地工作。"

"第二，确保所有国人的经济稳定与社会公平，让人民生活更有保障。这是国家进步的基础。"

"第三，打造稳固的家庭后盾：包括负担得起的组屋，让孩子享有最好的教育，支持国人成家立业，包括给予跨国婚姻家庭应当的援助。"

This year, 2025, marks the quarter-mark of the 21st century. I humbly ask you, the people of Singapore, to lead. Lead us with your vote into a better age, with a more balanced political system. Vote the party building strong foundations for our shared future, the party always working for Singapore. Vote the Workers’ Party.