More Green

What I forgot to put in the last post was what I thought the outcomes would be.

I feel that if Labour gets (sorry 'Labor') enough indies then they will deliver a short term government. Firstly with the two 'green' indies they only need two of the three country indies, therefore there is a high possibility of one of them going Conservative. And then it will only take one by-election to change government, because you can guarantee that if any borderline left or indie seat goes up for by-election it will go to the right strongly.

However, if the Conservatives get the three country indies, then they will only pick up any by-elections as well, and, the next full election they will get one or two of the three country indie seats and at least one of the green seats. So they will only get stronger and thus they will deliver a longer term government.


Still on politics, but SG not AU.
Senior Minister Goh has flagged the idea of approaching 50,000 of the 500,000 permanent residents in Singapore and strong-arming them into taking citizenship.

I think that this is a no-win situation, specifically a lose-lose-lose.

Firstly, half a million PRs is a lot, just as a general observation, for a country of four and a bit million citizens. I know that there are going on a million foreign workers and a few hundred thousand tourists at any one time, but these PRs are the business expertise that built Singapore's thriving economy. If he is planning on approaching some of them, then I am betting that it will be the better, or the longer term, one tenth. These people may have good reasons for not taking citizenship and by cajoling them Singapore will probably drive them away. And it makes a mockery of the term 'Permanent' Resident, you know, the kind that isn't permanent. So these PRs will probably leave, they lose, and Singapore loses them, and the SG government loses face over a failed policy.

Mind you, I would like to see the demographics. And I would also like to see the results of any interview based survey on why they didn't take citizenship.

Mind you, I could be reading this wrong, maybe they are the Malaysian Chinese PRs? I know two of those that took citizenship a few months ago (well, one's husband did, she kept her MY citizenship and SG PR-ship). In this case maybe a squabble between Chinese? But what I see in my Malaysian Chinese friends living PR in Singapore is that they don't like MY, but they have so much family there that they feel compelled to return. And also they like that they can work for good money in SG and buy a good house in MY to retire to. Dual citizenship would resolve that, but create its own problems. So in this case I see them all leaving SG, moving to Jahore Bahru, and commuting to SG to work. This will free up a lot of HBDs, forcing their price way down, and it will move a lot of grocery shopping over the bridge, forcing prices way down. Maybe both are good things, but will it achieve much else?