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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Resettlement is built by the Public Works Department, the Urban Council is in charge of its policy on general lines laid down by Executive Council on the recommendations from the Housing Board. Also, the day-to-day management is vested in this Urban Council. Low cost housing is built by the Public Works Department and managed by the Housing Authority on lines of policy laid down by Government, and lower-middle income group housing is built, controlled and managed by the Housing Authority, which again is the Urban Council under another cloak. In my opinion all this should be vested in the Housing Department with separate divisions for resettlement, low cost housing and middle income flats and all placed under the Urban, i.e. the proposed City Council. The present arrangement is a hotch-potch arrangement -- too many persons having a finger in the same pie and therefore inevitably not working together.
I am glad to see that these proposals do not contain anything or any paragraphs about the Urban Council electing two of its members to the Legislative Council. Apart from any other objections, the duties of the new Hong Kong City Council will be such that a Member cannot expect to sit on two Councils at the same time, and I hope indeed that when the Governor starts appointing a minority of the new City Councillors, it will not be a case of trying them out on the City Council before appointing them to the Legislative and eventually the Executive Councils. They should be people interested in local Government as opposed to Central Government, and also leaders of minority communities in this cosmopolitan city that would otherwise not perhaps have a representative on this Council.
With these words, and subject to the point that I made at the beginning, namely, that it is the lowest common multiple because the Urban Council is formed of persons having a wide range of interests and many different opinions from the most conservative to the most liberal, I am pleased to support these recommendations. I hope that with this clarification of our original 1966 Report, the Government will no longer dilly-dally over introducing the reforms which we and the Urban Council desire. Our phasing is very tight and starts in the latter part of this very year.
I would like to pay a public tribute to the Secretary, Mr. Jack TINSON, who has done such sterling work both in compiling this final report and in the Select Committee from which it sprang.
MRS. E. ELLIOTT:- Mr. Chairman, I just want to voice one objection to the Report on Urban Council Reforms, and that is the one already mentioned by Mr. BERNACCHI, the slow progress of the franchise. It has already been shown in the past that the franchise scarcely touches the people that the Urban Council serves, and many who are now eligible to register for voting have shown no interest in doing so, because generally speaking they are privileged people and some of them are even opposed to the work that the Members of this Council try to do for the less privileged. It is my firm opinion that no matter what powers may be given to this Council we shall always lay ourselves open to the criticism that has been levelled at us in the past that the public is not interested in reforms, and that we can prove the contrary by extending the franchise to those who have been helped and served by this Council. I do not think that there is any likelihood of a great revolution in Hong Kong if we give the vote to every adult holding an Identity Card. If we really want to make the man in the street feel that he is a member of the community, we must begin by showing him that he has a say in matters that directly concern him. We shall never be able to make him feel that way if we continue to allow the election of our own Council to be in the hands of 1% of the population as it is at present.
MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN:- Mr. Chairman, there is one point which has not been mentioned in the Report. It has to do with preparing the way for District Councils. I think it is pretty clear from the manner in which this Report was drawn up that all aspects of the phasing were thoroughly studied, and even though Mr. BERNACCHI in his comments might have indicated he was not satisfied with certain aspects of it, the Report nevertheless had the unanimous support of the Local Administration Select Committee and, I presume, also the majority or unanimous support of the Standing Committee of the Whole. As indicated in the Report, it might take quite a number of years before consideration can be given to setting up District Councils. It would require first of all the expansion of the scope of this Council to have it transformed into a City Council with wider powers and the power of rating, but it might be good idea, Mr. Chairman, if Government could consider having the City District Officers plan the preparatory work for setting up District Councils eventually. This is also related, I believe, to the question of the wider franchise, a franchise which would be on a wider base and in which people who are living in a district could be given an opportunity to vote and to participate. I would suggest that, to prepare the way eventually for District Councils, City District Officers could plan to set up consultative Councils, that is District Consultative Council, and this, I think, would have a certain formality about it in which groups within the District would have their representatives, and also certain active community leaders in each District could be invited to participate. By so doing, Mr. Chairman, over a period of a few years a certain amount of preparation could be established, and by the time the proposed City Council have arrived at the second stage, it would be quite easy to have a transition over to District Councils, should Government so desire.
DR. A. M. S. BELL:- Mr. Chairman, I feel that the most essential thing about this Report that people, I think, have perhaps not quite...
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