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know about this proposal, and thought that 2 or more signatures would be appropriate on such an important contract. She was entitled to this opinion and I was looking forward to a friendly argument with her when it came to open debate. Suddenly the motion did not appear on the order paper but the Chairman referred to the fact that I had proposed that he could sign the contract at one of the meetings of the Select Committees. Mrs. ELLIOTT was forced to have her say in camera in Standing Committee and then we passed the motion. I request the Chairman to correct me if I have the facts wrong when I say that apparently he had taken legal advice on this matter and ascertained that the effect of the motion of August last year was to give the Standing Committee every power not specified in the 5 categories of Section 36(4) of the Urban Council Ordinance and including the power to vote on any motion in Standing Committee. Indeed Section 36(4) does not refer to standing orders so, although we have in fact always altered standing orders at a public meeting, presumably we could now alter them at a Standing Committee, without the public ever being told. A recent example of a motion that could be passed in Standing Committee has to do with Switch Financing, and another actual motion passed, has to do with a vote in Standing Committee about the expenditure of $70,000 on minor public works, all of which in my submission should be formally done in Open Meeting.
Whilst fellow members have graciously allowed my 2 motions to be placed on the order paper today, they have requested a paper from the Secretary in explanation of it. I can only say that I hope my explanation just given presents a clearer picture of the object of my motions than the Secretary who, to give him his due, was as much in the dark as other members. Surely this is a typical example of how the original use of the original motion has been abused in Standing Committee. With all due respect to members, what right had they to ask the Secretary to produce a paper on a motion before I have even moved the motion? If members desire it, this motion and the subsequent motion can be adjourned for consideration until the next meeting, after it has been properly proposed and seconded. But again with all respects to the Secretary, who had an impossible task, and who was very helpful to me in suggesting that my original motion could be better divided into 2 motions, which advice I have accepted, but because he is, nevertheless, genuinely against these 2 motions apparently, he has therefore written a covering paper which is almost a considered speech against the same.
Referring to the Secretary's paper for a moment, I see that he has himself pointed out that the effect of the August resolution means that
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Standing Orders can be amended in Standing Committee. What an atrocious decision!
As regards fixing the Common Seal of the Council that has already been dealt with in one of the other resolutions at that August meeting, but it is amazing to me that the Standing Committee can even alter the resolution in camera.
The third example the Secretary gives is the appointment of Select Committees and the delegation of powers. Apparently the legal opinion, of which I do not entirely agree, is that the Standing Committee having been delegated with the powers of the Urban Council, can re-delegate certain of these powers to particular Select Committees. Does that mean in future that we will not have an approval once a year in open meeting of the various Select Committees, their compositions and their delegated powers? Does this mean that, since having an unofficial appointed Chairman, the Urban Council now transacts its business almost entirely in camera and the open meetings are merely play-acting limited to the extent that the Standing Committee wants the public to be informed of its functions? This was the position before 1952 when the Urban Council first had elected members sitting upon it after the War. The Reform Club successfully strove to alter this position. Now in 1974, apparently the Urban Council is going back to the same position and why? Because the elected members are divided and therefore the appointed members had everything their own way.
I do not need to remind members that the recent motion on food-caterers suggested that, in principle, a separate set of by-laws be devised for them, i.e. nothing outside the jurisdiction of the Urban Council, but it was simply not allowed on the order paper by the Chairman, who had most constitutionally and apparently on the present legal advice as to the effect of the August resolution, referred the whole matter to the Standing Committee. This was not the only motion even on food caterers, if members remember there was another motion by Mr. CHAN. I think the Standing Committee felt both motions should be allowed to go ahead or both motions refused. But why should the Standing Committee decide this sort of problem, why should the Urban Council decide it in Standing Committee? It concerns a lot of people in Hong Kong. Why should it be decided in camera, especially when the elected members even of opposing parties wanted it to be discussed in public?
Please do not think that I am concentrating at all on this food-caterers motion. I cite it as merely another example of the way that the August resolution is being applied in practice. The effect of this resolution is to return our proceedings to last year's practice. I have no objection to nearly anything being discussed in Standing Committee, (I said nearly anything because I do accept a formal notice of motion
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