Speech by Minister of State for Defence Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee at the Committee of Supply Debate 2011

RECORD V

Mr Chairman Sir, Ms Indranee Rajah has asked about the implementation of the RECORD V recommendations and how our NSmen have benefitted. I am pleased to report that we have fully implemented 14 out of the 18 recommendations accepted by the Government. Another three are in the process of implementation. As for the remaining recommendation, we have started planning for its implementation.

One proposal that we have fully implemented in the past year is the NSF of the Year award - NSF stands for Full-Time National Servicemen - which aims to recognise NSFs who have made significant contributions during their NS. A total of 70 NSF of the Year awards were given out. One of the award recipients, Third Sergeant Muhammad Khairul Rusydi Bin Mohamad, said the award served as an affirmation of the strong support he received from his commanders and peers.

RECORD V had also recommended that the Government give National Servicemen additional allotments in Growth Dividends schemes. Members of this House will be aware that the Minister for Finance announced during his recent Budget Speech that all NSFs, National Servicemen and ex-NSmen will receive extra Growth Dividends of $100 to recognise their contributions to Total Defence. This is on top of their Growth Dividends entitlements.

Three RECORD V recommendations that are still in the process of being fully implemented are the enhancement of fitness corners around Singapore and business centres within our military camps, as well as the building of the fourth Fitness Conditioning Centre.

30 fitness corners have been enhanced so far. NSmen who live near fitness corners in areas like Bishan-Toa Payoh, Sembawang, Tampines, Tanjong Pagar and West Coast, can now train for their IPPT literally at their doorsteps. For the coming year, another 30 fitness corners will be enhanced by SAFRA.

Three of our camps have also been equipped with enhanced business centres, where NSmen can now use their laptops and PDAs during non-training hours to do their business or connect with their families at home. Feedback from our NSmen indicate that 9 in 10 believe that this initiative had helped them to better balance their NS and work commitments. In view of the positive response, we are expanding this initiative to another 20 camps from next month onwards.

Construction of the fourth Fitness Conditioning Centre in Kranji is also ongoing, and will be completed by the end of this year to facilitate the conduct of IPPT. The remaining RECORD V recommendation that is yet to be implemented is the building of the new SAFRA and HomeTeam NS clubhouses in the north-eastern and eastern parts of Singapore, and we have started planning for this.

National Service Recognition Award

Ms Rajah also asked about the implementation of the National Service Recognition Award, or NSRA for short. The purpose of NSRA is to provide sustained recognition for Singapore citizens who serve National Service. By the time he completes his ORNS training cycle, each NSman can expect to receive $9,000, as rightly pointed out by Ms Indranee, or $10,500 if he is a commander.

I am pleased to inform this House that the first disbursement of the award was paid just a few days ago, on 28 February. This gesture of recognition has been well-recognised and well-received by NSmen. For example, Lieutenant Louis Chia, who recently completed his full-time NS as a commander, received $3,500 in his Post-Secondary Education Account for the first milestone of the award. That means he has completed his full-time National Service. He told us that this is a useful way to recognise servicemen like himself, and the award would go towards paying for his NUS tuition fees.

Total Defence

Sir, Dr Teo Ho Pin and Mr Sin Boon Ann asked about the operational readiness of Singaporeans for Total Defence and the effectiveness of our National Education (NE) efforts. Dr Teo also asked whether a Total Defence Council for stakeholders to play a role can be set up. Sir, allow me to take these questions together.

Total Defence has worked well for us. It has been effective in bringing government agencies, private sector organisations, and individual Singaporeans together to effectively deal with national crises such as the fallout from the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the outbreak of SARS in 2003. More recently, Total Defence saw us through the worst economic crisis since independence. We were able to bounce back quickly, because we had put in place sound economic fundamentals, and built up trust between government, employers and workers.

Sir, MINDEF reaches out to Singaporeans through the annual Total Defence campaign, to encourage everyone to contribute and play a personal part in building a strong nation together. This, as Dr Teo points out, is the key mission of Total Defence. It is presented in 5 components to help Singaporeans understand the different roles they can play in the different sectors of society. For example, as Dr Teo himself would be aware, the SCDF conducts the Emergency Preparedness Day at various grassroots events, as well as CPR and fire-fighting drills for the public and schools. Just recently, the Holland-Bukit Timah GRC/Bukit Panjang SMC held an Emergency Preparedness Community Day on 20 February 2011. All this adds up to Total Defence, with each constituency doing its part with support from various agencies. The public would also know that the SCDF sounds the Public Warning System sirens at 12.05pm every Total Defence Day to remind Singaporeans of the significance of Total Defence. This is accompanied by radio broadcasts to explain the different types of siren sounds. There is also the counter terrorism exercise, Ex Northstar which the SAF participates in, and also involves various government agencies in a Total Defence effort to fight terrorism. 2000 personnel from 15 government agencies took part in Northstar VII in 2009. As part of social defence to build national resilience, MHA, with support from MCYS, MOE, MICA, MOM and PA coordinates the Community Engagement Programme, which drives efforts to promote racial and religious harmony within the local community, as well as encourage Singaporeans to be trained to cope with crises and emergencies.

While each component of Total Defence is driven by a separate Ministry, MINDEF also organises the annual Total Defence campaign. Over the past few years, our Total Defence campaigns have involved our partner agencies like MOE, MCYS, PA, NHB, and MHA and focused increasingly on the "Heart" and "Hands" of Singaporeans to engage them at a more affective and experiential level. For this year's campaign, "Home - Keeping It Together", we have also involved the People and Private Sectors as part of the 3P partnership that Dr Teo mentioned, in a joint effort to encourage Singaporeans to help raise funds for needy families and the elderly - part of Social Defence. Through the "click for charity" tie-up with ComChest, more than 130,000 Singaporeans have done their part for Total Defence by downloading the music video "Home". Each download will be matched by a $1 donation from the following organisations - Aurigin Technology, the Lee Foundation, NTUC Fairprice Foundation, SembCorp, Singapore Pools, Singapore Turf Club and the Tote Board. So let us please do our part for Total Defence. Please click.

This year's Total Defence campaign completes the trilogy of themes that encourage Singaporeans to take ownership of our nation's defence, and is a fitting sequel to the theme of "What Will You Defend?" in 2009 and "I Will" in 2010, where the natural flow is for Singaporeans to respond by saying "I will defend our home". The remake of the song "Home" aims to instill a sense of pride and loyalty among Singaporeans, and serves to remind us that underlying the concept of Total Defence is the fundamental conviction that Singapore is worth defending simply because it is our Home. The participatory and interactive nature of the Total Defence campaigns in recent years demonstrate the shift from a messaging paradigm to one of dialogue, to one of sense-making and to one that self-discovers, one which encourages more voices, more stakeholders or champions for Total Defence, particularly from outside government. This year, 39 Singaporean artistes with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra have come together to express their own feelings about Total Defence through the song "Home". The singers are a microcosm of Singapore - from various backgrounds and age groups - and they have successfully reached out to all Singaporeans young and old alike about the importance of Total Defence.

MINDEF's open, inclusive and bottom-up approach of involving various stakeholders in the public, private and people sectors, as seen in the Total Defence campaigns in recent years, is working well. The aim is to get Singaporeans to express themselves, as the best messages are bottom-up, coming from Singaporeans to their fellow Singaporeans, as well as take action that contributes and strengthens Total Defence. Post campaign surveys in the last 3 years have shown that the level of awareness and support for Total Defence remains high, with an average of 91% of respondents saying they have heard of Total Defence. MINDEF and other government agencies involved in Total Defence now play more of a facilitative role to allow both the people and private sectors to also play their part in Total Defence. MINDEF will study the idea of a Total Defence Council proposed by Dr Teo to see whether it fits into our on-going Total Defence efforts.

Commitment to Defence

Sir, Associate Professor Fatimah Lateef asked how MINDEF engages Singaporeans on the importance of the SAF and National Service to strengthen their commitment to defence. MINDEF actively engages different segments of Singapore society on defence issues through various ways. Besides bringing students to SAF camps, and holding Open Houses where all Singaporeans can experience the SAF first hand, SAF units have been co-organising activities with schools to enrich the students' National Education experience. For example, as part of the SAF's Total Defence Day engagement efforts this year, soldiers from 41st Battalion, Singapore Armoured Regiment (41 SAR) set up a display of armoured vehicles, weapons and combat rations at National Junior College. The students got a close-up and hands on feel of the SAF's equipment, and were joined by 41 SAR soldiers in a road run, which the school organised as part of its Total Defence Day programme. This was well-received by the school and the community around it.

In addition, we engage the public through new media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. PIONEER, MINDEF's monthly magazine, has also gone on iPad. Last year, I spoke about how viewers can learn more about the SAF by watching short cyberpioneerTV YouTube clips on life in the SAF. We continue to see a positive viewership momentum, with the more than 230 cyberpioneerTV clips garnering more than 2.9 million views - a six-fold increase from a year on. The cyberpioneer Facebook page has also attracted close to 10,000 fans since it was set up last March.

Sir, I am sure most, if not all of you here, have heard of the Every Singaporean Son series that aired on cyberpioneerTV on YouTube last year. Patterned after reality-TV shows, the series followed a group of 15 recruits as they went through BMT, and attracted over 1 million cumulative views over 18 episodes. The series, which was produced by MINDEF to allow pre-enlistees and their parents to have a better understanding of what goes on in BMT, has even been picked up by the National Geographic Channel, and will premiere on the channel on 8 March.

This May, MINDEF will be putting out a new series, I am a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, which shows the wide spectrum of vocations in the SAF. I hope the public will find this series equally interesting.

Sir, we are heartened to note that there is strong public commitment to defence and support for National Service. On our part, MINDEF will continue to ensure that our National Servicemen are recognised for their efforts. We will also continue to reach out to all segments of Singapore society, including the public, private and people sectors, through a multi-channel and multi-platform approach to further strengthen their commitment to defence as well as Total Defence. Together, we can work towards making Singapore a stronger and more resilient Home for all of us!

More Resources

Speech by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean at the Committee of Supply Debate 2011

Speech by Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at the Committee of Supply Debate 2011