Envoy slams Australian radio show for calling Singapore an ‘autocracy’

2026.03.18 06:50 Singapore’s skyline. The city state’s envoy to Australia has defended the Asian financial hub’s political system and judicial integrity. Photo: Xinhua A recent radio programme by Australia’s national broadcaster made several “baseless claims” about Singapore’s political system, Singapore’s High Commissioner to Australia, Anil Nayar, said on Tuesday. Nayar noted in his response that the programme’s host and several of his commentators called Singapore a “one-party state”, an “autocracy” and “verging now on a flawed democracy”. “They portrayed Singapore’s group representation constituencies (GRCs) – introduced to guarantee minority representation in parliament – as a ‘tactic’, among other ‘roadblocks’, designed to obstruct the opposition,” Nayar said. The ABC Radio National’s Rear Vision episode titled Singapore and the long shadow of Lee Kuan Yew was broadcast on March 7. It was hosted by Rear Vision presenter and journalist Antony Funnell and featured the following guests – assistant professor of politics and public administration at Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Dr Stephan Ortmann; associate professor of international relations at Flinders University, Dr Michael Barr; senior research fellow in the governance and economy department of the National University of Singapore, Dr Gillian Koh; and senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, Joshua Kurlantzick. In its introduction, the episode notes that Singapore has never had a change of government in its 61 years of existence, also drawing attention to what it described as the leader of the opposition being “deposed”. Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh’s tenure in that position was said to have come and gone at the “whim” of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), with the programme stating that critics have referred to Singapore as a “one-party” state. In its explanation on Singapore’s GRC system, Funnell said the system has traditionally benefited the PAP.

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