It ensures that the Cabinet has a good mix of veteran and newer ministers, with the new ones given time to be 'tried out gradually', he told reporters at a community event yesterday.

This will 'minimise the mistake of appointing someone whom we have assessed to be ready when they're not quite ready', he said.

His remarks came a day after the new Cabinet line-up was announced.

Mr Goh responded to disappointment by women's groups and others to the lack of a woman Cabinet minister, and gave his views on the double portfolios for Senior Counsel K. Shanmugam who, on May 1, will be Law Minister and Second Minister for Home Affairs.

Mr Shanmugam, a senior partner at Allen & Gledhill and a four-term MP for Sembawang GRC, is the first person in 23 years to move from a backbencher to a full minister.

'THE BEST HEALTH MINISTER EVER'

'Boon Wan has a most difficult and politically delicate job. He has to decide in a hard-headed way what works, what makes economic sense, what is sustainable, and convince a cost-conscious population to take its medicine. Watching him, I can say with full confidence that he will deliver a better health-care system for the benefit of all Singaporeans.

He is insightful, practical and compassionate. I consider him the best Health Minister Singapore has ever had.'

MR GOH, at a National Heart Centre event last night, on Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan

SEE HOME, 'First heart transplant and beyond'