Obituaries — Hon Lee Kuan Yew GCMG, CH

I seek leave to move a motion without notice in relation to the death of Hon Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

I move, That this House express its sadness at the passing on 23 March 2015 of former Prime Minister of Singapore, Hon Lee Kuan Yew GCMG, CH, aged 91. As one of Singapore’s founding fathers, Mr Lee led Singapore to independence in 1965 and remained its Prime Minister until 1990. Due to his unwavering determination and vision, Mr Lee guided Singapore’s growth and development, making it the world leader among small countries that it is today.

Mr Lee was a long-time friend of New Zealand and a supporter of New Zealand’s role in South-east Asia. He was also instrumental in establishing the Association of South-east Asian Nations, ASEAN. New Zealand and ASEAN celebrate our 40th anniversary this year. On behalf of all New Zealanders, we would like to express our condolences to Mr Lee’s family and the people of Singapore, who have lost a father with his passing.

Can I join with the Acting Prime Minister on behalf of Labour in expressing our condolences to the people of Singapore and, in particular, to his family and his son, the current Prime Minister of Singapore, on his passing. Lee Kuan Yew was an extraordinary figure. I remember when he gave a speech on television in 1965—and I think I was a 12-year-old; a child at that time—he spoke with such power and emotion about why he was taking Singapore out of Malaysia, and decades later I still remember that as the first political speech that ever impacted on me in that way.

I remember the Prime Minister for another reason, and that was when I had dinner with Lee Kuan Yew at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2008. I explained to the then mentor Minister that my mother was a great admirer of his. He looked at me somewhat quizzically and said: “Why would that be the case?”, and I explained that in 1977, as a student who had gone 6 years without a haircut, passing through Singapore I was given my first haircut by the customs officials at the airport as the price of entry. My mother congratulated him on achieving something that nobody else had been able to do for years before that time.

There are aspects of Lee Kuan Yew that all of us would immensely admire. He turned a Third World country into a First World country with a higher per capita standard of living than we enjoy in this country. He dealt effectively with corruption, he built a first-class education system, and he transformed the living standards and grew the GDP of that country 15 times between 1960 and 1980. There was, however, another side to Lee Kuan Yew, which he himself admitted when he was being interviewed in 2010, and that was that he was a very authoritarian figure, he locked up his opponents, and he cracked down on the media. He admitted that he had done some bad things in his time, and that was the other side, which, if we were to be fair in our memory of Lee Kuan Yew, we would also acknowledge. But today, in particular, we remember him as a man who was a strong leader, who gave Singapore an influence totally disproportionate to its size, and created a better country for his fellow countrymen and women.

The Green Party pays tribute to the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore. Our condolences go out to his family, on a personal basis, and also to his son, the current Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, on behalf of the nation.

Lee Kuan Yew was recognised as the founding father of his nation. He was a formidable figure in world politics. When Singapore gained independence in 1965 he began work on what has been called the economic miracle. He transformed the small island nation into a modern and prosperous place of the 21st century. He did so with a raft of regulation, a strong emphasis on government, and a mix of private and State capitalism.

As with every country, the rise of modern Singapore did not come without some cost. Lee was quoted as saying that he had sacrificed his life for Singapore. He maintained a close rein on the country and its people in the interests of growing the country in the way he envisioned it. His tenure, of course, was not without its controversy. In the resulting debate over Asian values not so long ago was a substantive and interesting exchange with the West. We in the Green Party, naturally, have our views, yet we acknowledge the change that was wrought in Singapore, and we appreciate his leadership, his determination, and his vision for a better life for his countrymen and women. Today we join the citizens of Singapore in remembrance of their leader, whom history will regard as a giant on the political landscape of our times.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. When I first came into this House 3 years ago, one of the first things that was sent to my office were these books on the life and times of Lee Kuan Yew, and part of the reason for that—and I thank the sender—was that the Rt Hon Winston Peters highly, highly, highly respects Lee Kuan Yew and what he did for his country. So I know that the Rt Hon Winston Peters, if he were not otherwise working hard in another area of New Zealand, would wish to be here to take this call.

The sympathies of New Zealand First, but especially of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, go out to Lee Kuan Yew’s children and to the people of Singapore. He was truly one of the greats when it came to belief in his people and in what they could achieve in a nation with very few resources. He gained the respect of his people and he gained the respect of the majority of the informed world for his visionary plans for a small island nation.

I know that the Rt Hon Winston Peters had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with him. Only yesterday the Rt Hon Winston Peters wrote that it was one of the most valuable meetings he could ever have had. In closing, as we acknowledge his passing, Lee Kuan Yew’s given name in Mandarin means “light and brightness”. We would respectfully suggest that the world is a little bit less light and a little bit less bright for his passing. Kia ora.

High on the walls of St Paul’s Cathedral is the inscription “If you seek his monument, look around you”. It applies to Sir Christopher Wren, but it could equally apply to Lee Kuan Yew, because he was a man whose monument is modern Singapore—simple and straightforward.

I recall meeting him at a dinner in Wellington some years ago, where he described the Singapore story very simply, very bluntly, and very basically. He said: “At the end of the war we were a set of stinking, rotten pieces of territory, with no natural resources. We had been plundered by the enemy during the war. We had no future. We either gave up or we got stuck in and tried to do something. And we looked around our region and we saw two big fat countries, Australia and New Zealand, and we decided to emulate them. And that is what we have done over the last 50 years.”

And then he finished the discussion by saying: “And you know what—there are still two big fat countries in our region”, which was a challenge that I think he was making to Australia and to New Zealand about where we are in terms of social and economic progress. “We have come from nowhere to be an icon for many throughout the world. What have you done in your country?”. And I think that really summed up—when I read the biographies and saw the documentaries about Lee Kuan Yew—what was, at his essence, a fundamentally very simple and humble man who knew that you have to use your talents and your abilities to the best advantage in your country. And he did that in Singapore, and he did that in a way that has made his country truly one, for him—in his lifetime, obviously—to be proud of, for his successor to be proud of, and one, I think, about which there are lessons that we can learn as well.

So we mourn not just his passing, we mourn his inspiration, we mourn his leadership, and we wish him, obviously, every respect, and we wish his country well as it seeks to get used to life without its mentor-Minister, its founding Prime Minister, and its great leader.

Abe Lincoln once said that “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you would like to test a man’s character, give him power.” Lee Kuan Yew was an extraordinary man who ruled in a constitutional arrangement that I suspect very few, if any, in this House would have a lot of patience or support for. And, undoubtedly, at times he did misuse and abuse his power, at the cost of what we would regard as normal civil liberties.

But all of that is only a preamble to paying tribute to what he did for Singapore, a country that in the 1960s was a recipient of foreign aid from New Zealand and today has twice the GDP per capita that we do. It is a tribute not only to the great man, Lee Kuan Yew, but also to the approach he took to open markets, free trade, a flexible labour market, and tolerable taxes that have allowed the people of Singapore, who had no natural resources to speak of, to become so prosperous. So on behalf of the ACT Party I would like to join with other leaders in paying tribute to a great man and in wishing all the best for the people of Singapore in this time of sorrow. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.