SINGAPORE — Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam has described the Prime Minister’s National Day Rally speech this year as “history-making” and a “game-changer”.

Speaking to reporters, he said that the recently concluded Our Singapore Conversation process, which highlighted Singaporeans’ aspirations, helped to crystallise the ideas.

Mr Shanmugam said: “It’s a history-making speech, it’s an epochal speech. It’s a game-changer because the path that we have travelled up to now is one path and the path that we are going to travel on is going to be a very different path.

“If you look at it, we have had 50,000 Singaporeans taking part in the Our Singapore Conversation, and we’ve received — in a very direct way — people’s aspirations, their viewpoints, senior citizens, younger people, people who are middle-aged, people who earn less, people who earn more, professionals, non-professionals, different groups. And having got all of that, we synthesised and crystallised it.

“The cabinet has been discussing this for a considerable period, the many different ways, there are risks involved. Then you see the PM personally believing in it and making these major announcements.” CHANNEL NEWSASIA