It is far easier to write the policy paper than to actually make a policy happen.

I say this not to belittle the role of bold ideas but to argue their limitations. We ought not let ideas be our masters but think more deeply about their weight and impact.

That is, we should worry less about why we do than why we do them.

Today, Mr Speaker Sir, I argued once which is to rethink the way we value ideas. We need to rethink the role of the market and of economic reasoning.

For a long time the economic reasoning that our government have applied to public policies, they have stood us in good stead. Whether in healthcare, in housing, the management of much of our social policy, such reasoning has allowed us to make good use of our resources. The magic words in any policy was whether it was sustainable. That is if it would pay for itself. The long term reliance on government funding is sometimes the kiss of death for good idea. For if the idea was good, surely money can be found from the market.

But economic reasoning is empty without a moral foundation. Such foundations cannot and do not exist without a conversation about values. Not just what is cheap, but what is right. Not just about generating income, but about giving meaning.

For too long we've made decisions that is more on an economic compass, as if the use of one dollar is the moral equivalence of the loss of another. Sir, it is time we recongmise that money is merely a proxy for value. And at times, a very bad one.

We need regulations on responsible use of funds and fiscal prudence, good procurement but equally, we ought to be having a conversation about reciprocity, trust and relationships.

Teachers know this. They know the magic of little gestures, of a sticker with a thumbs up stuck on an untidy worksheet for encouragement. For a little child who handed in his homework despite family difficulties. A treat of a small snack, a lift to a school to a pupil who otherwise will not want to come. Teachers who have all these years paid for all forms of Children's Day treats, and surprises for children, all these things which cost them no small amount of money and yet whose value transcends price.

Teachers who have bought their own red pens to mark the test papers of our children. They do not think that 'MOE doesn't pay for red pens. Let me use instead the white board markers, which they do pay for.'

They don't think, 'I should means test the kids, and only give treats to those who cannot afford it.'

It is laughable and an insult to think that they do this in exchange for free parking. So, of course, the withdrawal of free parking will not make teachers any less likely to do the many incredible, unpriced things they do. Rather, it's a reciprocity, and a give and take, which I feel we have lost by insisting on this strict calculus of benefits.

Using a clean wage argument implies all the years of free parking had tarred teachers with an unclean wage.

Sir, I do not want to belabour parking any further. Teachers I think have accepted this and have moved on.

But some things still sits uncomfortably on this matter for me.

And I want to address this squarely. Not all government policy has a complete recourse to dollars and cents. We need within our current structures to make more room for the lexicon of morality, duty, relationships and trust.

This is not an appeal to populism, rather it is an appeal to the ideas of justice and community that have informed Singapore public policy making at the start of our journey 53 years ago.

The first practical implementation of my idea: This reform must start, at the Ministry of Finance -- responsible for so many of our policy levers -- reform that requires an explicit recognition of the limits of price, cost and expenditure, as a proxy for value, and to allow for greater use of discretion by public officers in recognising moral reasoning as a legitimate form of argumentation.

Sir, I use the decision to charge parking to illustrate the kinds of conversation we ought to be having.

Thinking about the issue using a pure economic lens is as, I argue, a mistake, as is the reduction to clean wage. Surely a moral idea to a mere tableau of taxable benefits.

Without this lexicon, we will not be able to address the greatest problems that have arisen in our time. The current debate has framed it as a problem of inequality, but that risks mere description without a thesis.

We better might frame it as a problem of an overweening dominance of economic magical thinking. A problem which again, can be addressed by the recalibration of the economics and the morality of our public actions.