In terms of the future values of Malaysian society, the administration of Dr Mahathir has made little secret of its dislike for the welfare state. In 1991 in a speech to the Malaysian Business Council launching the Wawasan 2020 (Vision
2020) policy, which identifies the challenges of creating a fully developed and technologically advanced nation by the year 2020, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad identified the need to establish ‘‘a fully caring society and a caring culture, a social system in which society will come before self, in which the welfare of the people will not revolve around the state or the individual but around a strong and resilient family system’’ [14].