28 Asia The EconomistAugust 3rd 2019
2 good governance eroding,” Dr Tan declared
on July 26th.
The second potential impediment to
another easy electoral triumph for the pap
is the economy. According to official esti-
mates, Singapore managed year-on-year
growth of just 0.1% in the second quarter. It
is the most meagre expansion for a decade
and follows a disappointing first quarter,
too. (Last year the economy grew by about
3%.) The country’s electronics industry has
been hit badly by the global downturn in
demand for gadgets. As of June, the value of
electronics exports had fallen by more than
30% compared with a year earlier.
The trade war between America and
China is making matters worse. Singapore
is a trading entrepot, with a big and busy
port. But China, Singapore’s biggest trading
partner, is also suffering from a slowdown,
with growth at its lowest level in decades.
No wonder Singapore’s imports and ex-
ports are contracting (see chart).
The timing of the election may turn on
when (or whether) the economy picks up.
The government has plenty of scope to
stimulate it, by spending more on infra-
structure and its ageing population. The
budget is in surplus, albeit only narrowly.
Moreover, the government remains a big
shareholder in many of Singapore’s largest
firms, which gives it a say in their invest-
ments and hiring. The paphas a record of
excellent economic management. Mr
Heng, for example, burnished his reputa-
tion by running the Monetary Authority of
Singapore, the central bank, during the fi-
nancial crisis of 2007-08.
Singapore’s transformation from a re-
source-poor island into a wealthy city-
state is proof of the strength of the pap’s
planning. But the wealthier countries be-
come, the slower they tend to grow. The big
question is whether Singaporeans accept
that the papcannot preside over breakneck
growth forever. Government handouts
may soften the blow. If Mr Lee announces
generous ones at the National Day Rally lat-
er this month, consider it the start of an-
other meticulous election campaign. 7Merlion at baySource: Haver AnalyticsSingapore, merchandise trade
% change on a year earlier2017 18 19-10-50510152025ExportsImportsT
he outbacktown of Dubbo in May un-
veiled one of Australia’s few public stat-
ues of an Aboriginal (pictured). William
Ferguson, a pioneering campaigner for Ab-
original rights, founded an organisation in
the town in 1937 to fight government inter-
ference in Aboriginals’ lives. The following
year, as Australia marked the 150th anni-
versary of British settlement, Mr Ferguson
and other Aboriginals held a “Day of
Mourning” in Sydney. “Surely the time has
come at last for us to do something for our-
selves,” he told that gathering, “and make
ourselves heard.” Aboriginal activists are
still campaigning, this time for a “voice to
parliament”, a body to advise governments
on policies that affect indigenous people.
However the government, a coalition of
two right-wing parties, won’t hear of it.
More than 3% of Australia’s 25m people
are Aboriginals. Their forebears lived in
Australia for perhaps 60,000 years before
the British arrived in 1788. Unlike New Zea-
land’s, Australia’s colonisers never signed
any treaties with the original inhabitants.
Instead, they first openly persecuted them
and then abused them in the name of civi-
lising them. Today, Aboriginals tend to die
younger than other Australians and spend
more time in prison before they do, among
other blights. Successive governments’ ef-
forts to improve their circumstances have
disappointed, in part, Aboriginal leaders
contend, because Aboriginals do not have
enough say in the design of such policies.In July Ken Wyatt, the minister for in-
digenous Australians, announced that the
government would, by the end of its three-
year term in 2022, hold a referendum on
giving “constitutional recognition” to Ab-
originals. (The constitution used to men-
tion Aboriginals as being under the juris-
diction of state governments and not to be
counted in the census, but since a revision
in 1967 does not mention them at all.) Ab-
original leaders want the new amendment
to be more than symbolic. Two years ago
activists held a “National Constitutional
Convention” at Uluru (Ayers Rock) in cen-
tral Australia to discuss what it should en-
tail. They called for “power over our desti-
ny” and for a “First Nations Voice
enshrined in the constitution”.
Labor, the main opposition party, sup-
ports the idea of an advisory body with a
constitutional underpinning, to protect it
from what Linda Burney, its shadow minis-
ter for indigenous affairs, calls the “whim
of any government”. She recalls how a pre-
vious right-wing government simply abol-
ished a commission charged with protect-
ing Aboriginal interests 14 years ago. The
government, however, has dismissed the
“voice”, as a third chamber of parliament.
Conservative commentators say creating
such a body would flout racial equality by
giving special rights to Aboriginals.
Murray Gleeson, a former chief justice,
has assailed such arguments. “What is pro-
posed is a voice to parliament, not a voice
in parliament.” To him, such an idea “hard-
ly seems revolutionary”. On the contrary,
he says, it would be an “appropriate form of
recognition”. What the government con-
siders appropriate is less clear. Mr Wyatt
has promised to work with Ms Burney to
craft a proposal. Both are Aboriginals—a
breakthrough in itself. The debate about
the voice, Ms Burney says, will be “the story
of this term of government”. 7SYDNEY
The government wants to amend the
constitution, but is not sure howAboriginal rights in AustraliaWaiting to be
heard
Surely the time has come