Talk:Government of Singapore/Archive 1

Adding of content

I think the amount of information here is so small, its apalling. I personally think some information from Politics of Singapore needs to be moved here, rather than there, because it is an important article and are actually two different distinctions, especially since we need to link them into the main Singapore article. -- Natalinasmpf 10:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think when Vsion revamped Template:Politics of Singapore, it was modelled on the somewhat similar Template:PoliticsUK. The current content in government of Singapore is actually quite similar to cabinet of Singapore - which should be the case, since the cabinet is the government. However, I think the original intention for government of Singapore was something similar to departments of the United Kingdom Government. You might want to take this into consideration when shifting info around. =Travisyoung= 13:58, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redirect by Travisyoung

I am quite shocked when Travisyoung turned this page into a redirect. Similar content dosent mean one should be removed. It just means this page is obviously lacking in detail, and effort should be made to build it up instead of simply removing it.--Huaiwei 14:43, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There might be a misunderstanding here. As I have explained above, the cabinet is the government. If you see Government#Forms_of_Government - "the elected legislative assembly has the power to dismiss the government, though the head of state generally has great latitude in appointing a new one". Similarly when discussed in media, "the government of Tony Blair" refers to the current cabinet formed by the Labour Party in the UK, "the government of John Howard" refers to the current cabinet formed by the coalition of ALP and National Party in Australia. Here, government of Singapore would refer to the current cabinet headed by the head of government Lee Hsien Loong. There is a distinction between government and legislature, which may not be obvious in Singapore since parliament has been dominated by PAP. Hope this clears things up. =Travisyoung= 15:07, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This explaination is still not satisfactory. Of coz we know the government is basically formed by the cabinet, but this does not mean the government is all about the cabinet. The government of Singapore page can be expanded and should be the mother page to which related articles are linked from. Meanwhile, in everyday usage, do you replace the word "government" with "cabinet" when refering to the Singapore government?--Huaiwei 15:31, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay I get what you mean. Perhaps you could give me an example of what the word "government" encompasses? Given that, we could try to work out content for government of Singapore. Like I mentioned previously, I based my definition of government on this: "In British English, the word "Government" can also be used to refer only to the executive branch, in this context being a synonym for the word "administration" in American English (e.g. the Blair Government, the Bush Administration). In countries using the Westminster system the Government (or party in Government) will also useually control the legislature" (obtained from government). It would then appear to me that it is more appropriate to have the list of government ministries shifted to departments of the Singapore Government. In any case, there are non-ministerial departments listed as government ministries. Like I mentioned above, I thought the original intention for government of Singapore was something similar to departments of the United Kingdom Government. =Travisyoung= 15:39, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How you could assume that "Government of Foo" could be the same as "Departments of Foo" is beyond me. I do not oppose the creation of a list of Sg gov agencies, provided the "Gov of Sg" page itself is long and needs to be broken up. As it stands, this is hardly the case. I do not know why you assume that "Government" has to mean only the "executive branch", when legislation is very much part of governance as well. Finally, you have not answered me. I suppose when Singaporeans whine that "the damn government is raising taxes again", you go "the damn cabinet is raising taxes again"?--Huaiwei 18:34, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I did not assume that ""Government of Foo" could be the same as "Departments of Foo"". You have placed my quote out of context. My reply to you, "[l]ike I mentioned above, I thought the original intention for government of Singapore was something similar to departments of the United Kingdom Government", was based on my reply to Natalinasmpf under "Adding content". Let me reiterate: I believe that all these arose due to a misunderstanding.

I based my edits on the definition of government in the article government, which I quote here: "In British English, the word "Government" can also be used to refer only to the executive branch, in this context being a synonym for the word "administration" in American English (e.g. the Blair Government, the Bush Administration). In countries using the Westminster system the Government (or party in Government) will also useually [sic] control the legislature". Given this, I thought that government of Singapore would be synonymous with cabinet of Singapore.

As a result, when I was editing Template:Politics of Singapore, I noticed that "Government departments" is linked to the article "Government of Singapore". Based on what I had thought "government" meant given above, I created a new article Departments of the Singapore Government and re-directed government of Singapore to cabinet of Singapore.

This created another misunderstanding with you, since I took the general meaning of the word "department" when creating the article Departments of the Singapore Government. I based my edits on the definition of "department" in the general sense, as a noun to mean a division of a government dealing with a specific area of activity. This was based on a similar usage in Article 30 of the Constitution of Singapore [1]. Like I have mentioned before in Talk:Departments of the Singapore Government, it is stated in very clear terms in the article the status of ministries vis-à-vis statutory boards and non-ministerial departments.

With regards to your analogy where the "people whine when the government raises tax". It is is not wrong to say the "cabinet is raising tax" again. A minister in the cabinet raises tax through the annual Budget Statement and Supply Bill, which are then debated in parliament. In the case of Singapore, because the majority of the elected members in parliament is from the ruling party (82 out of 84), there is often a blurred distinction between government and lesgislature. But I guess you would be right if "government" was used in layman's terms. After all, members of parliament from the ruling party would be part of "government" and they would most likely pass bills introduced by the cabinet through to the third reading.

I do hope this clears up the misunderstanding. I would like to request that you assume good faith. It appears to me, through words such as "[t]his explaination is still not satisfactory", "is beyond me" etc, that you have a very hostile stance here. I am not trying to pick a fight. As I have very strenuously explained in all of my edits here and at Talk:Departments of the Singapore Government, I strongly believe that this is a misunderstanding. In any case, the both of us have a communication barrier, evident from the discussion in User_talk:Huaiwei#Republic_of_Singapore_Navy_naval_bases. I strongly urge you to take your time and read my reply. Hope this clears the misunderstanding. =Travisyoung= 02:23, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit off-topic from your current discussion, but has anyone checked the sources here? The transparency.org link just brings us to an index page that doesn't say anything about Singapore. If one further investigates, information quite to the contrary to what is said here in the Wikipedia article is presented -- With Singapore ranking 4th on the corruption perceptions index (out of 180) and 12th of 30 (the 30 nations being the world's lead exporters) on the bribe taker's index. I'm going to go ahead and change it.

Clarification

I have mentioned the reasons for re-directing the article Government of Singapore to Cabinet of Singapore, and the subsequent creation of the new article Departments of the Singapore Government countless of times. However, it seems to me that some recalcitrant contributors have refused to look at how each event has led to another, resulting in this misunderstanding. I would like to re-iterate my point: I strongly believe this is a result of a small misunderstanding. I hope the following "timeline" in bullet form will help those who have difficulty understanding this whole mess.

1. From my edits in Politics of Singapore, I assumed that the definition of "government" was: "In British English, the word "Government" can also be used to refer only to the executive branch, in this context being a synonym for the word "administration" in American English (e.g. the Blair Government, the Bush Administration). In countries using the Westminster system the Government (or party in Government) will also usually control the legislature" (obtained from Wikipedia article Government).
2. Natalinasmpf mentioned in Talk:Government of Singapore that the amount of information in Government of Singapore was small. I explained that there might be some misunderstanding.
3. Vsion did an excellent revamp of Template:Politics of Singapore, which I believed, at that point in time, was modelled on Template:PoliticsUK (this was later clarified to be true by you).
4. In the template, "Government departments" was linked to Government of Singapore. From point 1 above, because I took the definition of "government" to be "cabinet" and "Government departments" was a sub-list under the item "Cabinet" in the template, I assumed that Vsion might have overlooked this link and meant for "Government departments" to link to an article somewhat similar to Departments of the United Kingdom Government.
5. Hence, I created a new article Departments of the Singapore Government, and changed the link of "Government departments" in Template:Politics of Singapore to Departments of the Singapore Government.
6. Consequently, because of point 1 above, I also re-directed Government of Singapore to Cabinet of Singapore.

I hope that this is clear enough that it was an honest mistake. I do not appreciate Huaiwei's accusing and condescending tones in all of his replies. One of the behaviour guidelines in Wikipedia is to assume good faith, which was not apparent in all of his replies to me on both Talk:Government of Singapore and Talk:Departments of the Singapore Government. Huaiwei still does not seem to understand that this was an honest mistake and his last reply in Talk:Departments of the Singapore Government is accusatory and condescending in tone. Huaiwei and I had a somewhat similar miscommunication before, shown in User talk:Huaiwei#Republic of Singapore Navy naval bases. I don't know if it is because I am too difficult to understand, or if he is just being recalcitrant, but I hope that this matter is settled amicably. =Travisyoung= 08:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)