Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. If I may just build off the question by Member Joan Pereira about stakeholder consultations and in light of press reports that indicate that many stakeholders expressed surprise and dismay at the decision, I am wondering if the Ministers are willing to share if a formal stakeholder consultation process will now be undertaken with residents in the neighbourhood, with regard to future plans for this Turf Club site; and more generally, if the notion of a stakeholder consultation process for any major Government decisions with public policy implications will be weaved into more standard practice?
Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank Assoc Prof Lim for his Parliamentary Questions. I think the answer to the first one is, yes. Immediately after the announcement, STC actually embarked on engagement with the trainers and the horse owners. It is an ongoing conversation because as you can imagine, when the announcement was first made, many were, shall we say, it came out of the blue? So, it is taking some time to adjust to the announcement and obviously with the employees as well.
With respect to the surrounding area, there is not a lot of residential in the immediate vicinity, but it is part of the Housing & Development Board (HDB)’s normal consultations when they ask people, what would you like for your town or for your area? So, that will take place.
And on the second part, I think Assoc Prof Jamus Lim asked when would we consult. I think that we have actually been doing a lot of that. For example, Acts, Bills, some of them, in fact, majority of them are put out for public consultation; when we have the Remaking our Heartlands exercise, for example, that is put out for public engagement, consultation ideas and suggestions; when we do placemaking, the long-term plan review was one such.
So, I think that there is a category where it is sensitive, meaning, market-sensitive and you would not normally go out and say, “can I have public consultation on whether I want to do land acquisition?” That is a category that you would not do public consultation on. But your decision in deciding whether or not to do the land acquisition maybe a result of previous consultations, on feedback, on congestion, on what people want and so on. So, the short answer is we will do as much public consultation as we can.
Ministry of National Development
3 July 2023
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=oral-answer-3258
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 