HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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houses are needed NOW. Huts are not good enough in a climate like this, where the victims of disasters are nearly always the poorest, the hut-dwellers. In these modern days there are other kinds of temporary housing such as prefabricated houses. This kind of house can be manu- factured on a large scale in a short time, (I saw something about this on T.V. yesterday after I had written my speech) and if the ground were properly prepared, drainage installed, better water and electric supplies provided, the hut dwellers would at least find life more tolerable than at present. These licensed areas are just not good enough for our workers to live in indefinitely, and no one should be forced of necessity to live in such primitive conditions in the midst of an affluent society. I offer this as a quicker and better solution to a very pressing need.
There are other matters in the White Paper that need reconsidera- tion, and which in fact have already been amended in some cases: these include the hated Rent-in-Advance Scheme, and certain priorities.
The need to review the management of estates has already been discussed in Committee, and plans are being made to train housing managers to manage estates in a way similar to that of the Housing Authority. We need to study more carefully what can be done about hawker markets and bazaars in the older as well as the newer estates. We need to rethink the problems of roof-top schools and even ground floor schools and secondary schools. There is much to be done in investigating complaints about drainage, flushing, lighting, water supplies and other facilities in estates. At present changes are only being made piecemeal, and real planning is required. In this we should make more use of the experience of management staff, who should be brought into our consultations.
I trust that my colleagues will support the motion, and agree that we should at the earliest possible moment examine whether it is not time to ask Government to set up a Working Party to give close con- sideration to this very critical matter of housing, upon which the stability of any community so much depends.
Sir, I propose the motion standing in my name.
MR. BERNACCHI:-Mr. Chairman, it gives me great pleasure to second Mrs. ELLIOTT'S Motion, especially since I have been connected with resettlement since 1952 and on the Resettlement Policy Select Committee from its formation. I was also a member of the Working Party whose recommendations gave rise to the White Paper of 1964. If I remember rightly, all of our recommendations were accepted but the Government, it is always the Government without any clear indication who was responsible for it, added one piece of ridiculousness, to our recommendation that persons from demolished buildings should be offered resettlement. In other words the Government added the rent-