At the height of the debate over Section 377A of the Penal Code, Member of Parliament (MP) Baey Yam Keng spoke up against the law banning homosexual sex. If Parliament took a vote on the issue, he would vote to repeal it, Mr Baey said at a forum on the legislation held in the middle of 2007.

While he drew loud applause at the forum for his comments, Mr Baey received negative feedback from members of the public subsequently. A letter was even published in the Straits Times Forum, admonishing him for reflecting his own view instead of the majority.

“Someone wrote in an online forum that as a MP representing the people, I should represent the majority view,” the MP for Tanjong Pagar Group Representative Constituency said.

“I beg to differ. There can only be one view in the majority and we shouldn’t just have that view reflected in parliament, we need some debate and hear different viewpoints.”

Mr Baey is not one who shies away from speaking his mind. In his maiden Parliament speech, he spoke on the widespread anti-establishment sentiments on the Internet and noted that the traditional media did not reflect this.

He then suggested amending media laws to allow greater media freedom, noting that the government should not and cannot be responsible for what people read.

He feels that traditional media and the Internet should converge and not represent such starkly different viewpoints. Although it may seem like opinions in both media balance each other out, Mr Baey pointed out that both mediums attract very different audiences that may then respectively form skewed opinions.

So far, there has been no pressure from within the People’s Action Party (PAP) to stop him from expressing his views, he said.

“I have only received positive comments on my maiden speech. This reinforces my belief that the party is serious in listening to diversified views.”

That is not to say the first-term MP is free from disapproval. Along with the Post-65 MPs (MPs born after Singapore’s independence), Mr Baey was panned for his hip-hop performance at the 2007 Chingay.

Mr Baey also drew the ire of netizens when he was reported in the Straits Times as heading a team of PAP members to rebut anti-establishment views on the Internet.

When this was brought up during the interview, Mr Baey was unfazed and answered the various criticisms. For starters, the Straits Times report was not entirely accurate, Mr Baey said.

“It gave the impression there was an army of party members out there ready to correct views,” Mr Baey said. “It was more of encouraging party members to go online to express their views, and not to rebut everything they see.”

The Post-65 MPs initially tried to harness the power of the Internet by setting up a blog shortly after they were elected, but these days Mr Baey is not so active in blogging anymore. Indeed, the blog has seen better days. When it was first started, all 12 of the MPs posted entries avidly. These days, the blog seems to be updated by only Dr Lam Pin Min, with sporadic entries from Mr Baey and other MPs.

Still, Mr Baey does not view the decrease in enthusiasm from his colleagues as a sign of failure for the blog as it was meant to be an organic experiment.

“When we first started the blog, we just wanted to try it out and let nature take its course,” he said. “Everyone has his comfort level with regard to using it as a platform.”

Mr Baey also discovered how time consuming blogging was. “It takes a lot of energy to respond to all the comments and most of them are very anti-establishment and very fixated in their own views.”

“But if I don’t respond, I feel I don’t do justice to the platform. But these days it really takes up too much time.”

Nowadays, Mr Baey mainly posts up his monthly Chinese column he writes for Lianhe Wanbao, a Chinese tabloid, and provides an English summary of the main points he touches on.

Effectively bilingual, Mr Baey pens his own Chinese speeches. He also writes both the English and Chinese versions of the MP’s address in the Queenstown newsletter. His staff translates the Malay and Tamil versions.

At home, the father of three converses with his family in Mandarin. Though his formal education in the language ended when he was 16, Mr Baey’s close-knit circle of friends keeps his Chinese ability sharp.

These friends go way back to Mr Baey’s days in Hwa Chong Junior College. They were all involved in the Chinese Society, the drama CCA known for putting up “An Evening of Drama”, a yearly drama performance.

His upbringing in the arts is perhaps why he is so willing to speak his mind, or as he put it himself, to touch the boundaries. Prior to becoming a MP, his job at the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts was to help promote the creative industry.

“People in the arts like freedom and don’t like to be caged up,” Mr Baey said.

Until recently, Mr Baey was still actively involved in theatre. He produced two plays after becoming a MP but his work at the ETCeteras, a drama company formed by his friends from Hwa Chong, has since taken a backseat to his job in the private sector and public duties.

Life as a MP can be taxing. Meet the People sessions on Friday start at 7.30pm and typically end after midnight. Tuesdays evenings are spent visiting the homes of constituents in Queenstown. Usually there is only enough time to cover one or two blocks of flats, said Mr Baey’s constituency manager, Mr Ang Tien Chuan.

Add to that a myriad of constituency activities MPs attend as guests-of-honour, and the week’s schedule gets filled up pretty quickly.

Just two and a half years into the job, Mr Baey has clearly made the role of MP for Queenstown his own. He is knowledgeable about the neighbourhood (he immediately pointed out my block was undergoing the lift upgrading project when I first introduced myself as a Queenstown resident and told him where I lived) and has started his own initiatives.

Just a few months after his first parliament session, he began a meeting every two months with residents for informal dialogue. The meetings are held at Queenstown Community Library.

Despite being a rookie in politics, Mr Baey already exudes the mannerisms of a seasoned politician. As a resident raised a question on the government’s move to guarantee bank deposits, Mr Baey looked him directly in the eye, nodded periodically and communicated through his body language: “Yes, you have my full attention.”

Two and a half hours later—the session ran half an hour over time as people weighed in on the transport fare hikes—the session drew to a close and everyone adjourned to the refreshments catered. Over coffee, Mr Baey stayed to chat with lingering residents and members of his staff. Some points brought up during the session were rehashed and residents took the opportunity to bring up specific grievances to him.

Then, it was time for Mr Baey to go. A few handshakes later and he was out the door. The MP had another constituency event to attend to hours later.

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