Tan Cheng Bock v AG [2017] SGCA 50 Preferring internal to external sources in ascertaining purpose 42 The next question concerns how the relevant purposes may be discerned. There are two types of sources from which a court may draw to discern these purposes. The first and obvious source is the text of the relevant legislative provision itself and its statutory context. The second source is “any material not forming part of the written law” as set out in s 9A(2)–(3) of the IA – this is what has come to be referred to as “extraneous material”. 43 Consideration of extraneous material can be very helpful and such material tends to be referred to extensively in aid of purposive interpretation. However, we emphasise that in seeking to draw out the legislative purpose behind a provision, primacy should be accorded to the text of the provision and its statutory context over any extraneous material. The law enacted by Parliament is the text which Parliament has chosen in order to embody and to give effect to its purposes and objects. In line with this, the meaning and purpose of a provision should, as far as possible, be derived from the statute first, based on the provision(s) in question read in the context of the statute as a whole. This approach also coheres with the language of s 9A(1), which suggests the possibility of the purpose or object of a statute being “expressly stated in the written law”. 44 There are three main textual sources from which one can derive the purpose of a particular legislative provision. First, the long title of a statute might give an indication of its purpose. If there is no contradiction between the general purpose of the statute and specific purpose of the legislative provision in question, the purpose stated in the long title may also shed light on the purpose of the specific legislative provision in question. Second, the words of the legislative provision in question will clearly be of critical importance. We 22