notable quotes

"Retrenchment is good for singapore. If there is no retrenchments, then I worry." - SM Goh "I don't think that there should be a cap on the number of directorship that a person can hold." - PAP MP John Chen who holds 8 directorships. "It's not for the money because some of the companies pay me as little as $10,000 a year." - PAP MP Wang Kai Yuen who holds 11 directorships. "If you want to dance on a bar top, some of us will fall off the bar Top. Some people will die as a result of liberalising bar top dancing… a young girl with a short skirt dancing on it may attract some insults from some other men, the boyfriend will start fighting and some people will die." - Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports "I would want to form an alternative policies group in Parliament, comprising 20 PAP MPs. These 20 PAP MPs will be free to vote in accordance with what they think of a particular policy. In other words, the whip for them will be lifted. This is not playing politics, this is something which I think is worthwhile doing." - SM Goh "If you sing Jailhouse Rock with your electric guitar when others are playing Beethoven, you are out of order. The whip must be used on you." - SM Goh again, on a dramatic u-turn, rethink or backtrack, whatever you call it. "Save on one hairdo and use the money for breast screening." - another gem from Lim Hng Kiang "We started off with (the name) and after looking at everything, the name that really tugged at the heartstrings was in front of us. The name itself is not new, but what has been used informally so far has endeared itself to all parties." - Mah Bow Tan on the $400,000 exercise to rename Marina Bay as Marina Bay. "Having enjoyed football as a national sport for decades, we in Singapore have set ourselves the target of reaching the final rounds of World Cup in 2010." - Ho Peng Kee "Only 5% are unemployed. We still have 95% who are employed." - Yeo Cheow Tong "Singaporean workers have become more expensive than those in the USA and Australia." - Tony Tan "People support CPF cuts because there are no protest outside parliament." - PM Lee "No, it was not a U-turn, and neither was it a reversal of government policy. But you can call it a rethink." - Yeo Cheow Tong "…I regret making the decision because, in the end, the baby continued to be in intensive care, and KKH now runs up a total bill of more than $300,000…" - Lim Hng Kiang, regretting the decision to save a baby's life because KKH ran up a $300,000 bill "Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it." - MM Lee Kuan Yew "Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don't understand this" - Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, post-2006 General Elections