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Government will certainly look at this from two points: firstly, how is it going to develop administratively and secondly, would this administrative development affect the political status of the Urban Council? If we look at administrative development, then theoretically, the administrative power should be expanded from the urban area to cover the N.T. as well. This is just a natural step. Previously, before the development of the N.T., the departments will concentrate the efforts on the urban area, but with the development of the N.T., administrative powers of Government departments will extend to the N.T. as well. If we take the same pattern, then from the administrative point of view, the Urban Council should develop into the N.T. as far as administrative work is concerned, but we are not talking about whether membership should extend to N.T. There is another special characteristic and that is the political status and elected element. This particular development will not only affect the administrative arrangements, but will also affect political arrangements. I would like to point out the areas where Urban Council differs from other policy-making bodies. In all other policy-making bodies, there is no elected element and in district administration, there is some elected element. Under the circumstances, what alternative does the Government have? Normally, there are only two alternatives. The first one is to maintain the status quo, i.e., having only one council to take care of urban services. The second alternative is for a change. As the first alternative, if we want to maintain the status quo and have just one Urban Council to decide on urban services for Kowloon and Hong Kong, then the Urban Council will be faced with three problems: the first problem is that pressure will be applied by the Urban Council annually to request the Government to expand the services of the Urban Council into the N.T. region. This pressure is inevitable. The Government must provide this with an answer sooner or later. The second problem is that the N.T. residents have to decide on services provided to them and with the subsequent development of N.T., this problem cannot be avoided. The third problem is, during this period of rapid change in district administration and local administration, how can the Urban Council be incorporated into the Central Government framework, i.e., between the Central Government and district administration? Where does the Urban Council stand and where should power be vested? If the status quo were to be maintained, then I am sure the Government will not be able to provide answers to these three questions. So maintaining the status quo would mean great difficulty to the Central Government.
If we look at changes, there are three possibilities: the first possibility is to abolish the Urban Council, the second is to expand the Urban Council into the N.T. and the third is to have more than one council. Under these three possibilities, each of them will have their pros and cons and I will try to analyse each of them. The first possibility is to abolish the Urban Council, it would be very rapid that we could perhaps have a two-tier political system in Hong Kong, i.e., we have the Central Government on the one hand and local government on the other hand, such as the district board or District Management Committee. There could be a big problem, however, i.e., we might meet with strong resistance from outside, especially, we must consider
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the fact that the Urban Council has an elected element. Therefore, it is impossible to abolish the Urban Council. The second and the third possibilities, i.e., having one or two councils, there are some common grounds on this and I will try to analyse them together. The first common ground is that, regardless of whether we would have one or two councils, the ultimate aim is to encourage participation by N.T. residents in politics. If we want to invite N.T. residents to take part in the decision-making process, then it makes no difference whether we have one or two councils. Secondly, regardless of whether we have one or two councils, we would be under-cutting political power of the Heung Yee Kuk. If we just have one council, the situation will be even more obvious. If we just have one council, then the Heung Yee Kuk will not be able to stand out as the Urban Council for the N.T. If we have two councils, then perhaps the special characteristic of N.T. residents might also be evident. However, in the long term, I will say that the political importance of the Heung Yee Kuk will fall correspondingly. If this is the case, then I am sure the Heung Yee Kuk will object even more to having the second council. On the third and fourth points, I want to point out the differences between having one council and two councils. The first difference is: if we have one council, then obviously, this particular council will mean that we will have an enhanced status for the Urban Council as representation is influenced, and if the entire Urban Council is made up of people coming from various parts of the territory, and perhaps on the particular matter, a decision arrived at by the council contradicts that of the Central Government, how then will the Central Government resolve the difference? If we have two councils, then this problem can be balanced out. No council could represent the entire territory. It could just represent the urban area or the N.T. area, and if there are conflicts in the decision-making process, then this balancing power would be more evident. Of course, the Central Government would be in a better position to manipulate everything. The difference between one and two councils would be: if we have one council then obviously, the future council, perhaps it would be called the Greater Hong Kong Council, would have a greater political influence to the extent that it could influence the Central Government and correspondingly, the authority of the Central Government will be affected. More people will emphasize the fact that the Central Government is not representative. There are no elected elements in the Central Government. If we have two councils, then the obvious political phenomenon will be lowered. If we have two councils, then we still have one Central Government, and there would be a legitimate body which is legitimate enough to claim that it represents the entire Hong Kong. Under these circumstances, we have to decide whether we should have one or two councils and whether such a decision would be against economic, political, or other backgrounds. I think this would be basically political. Thirdly, when we decide on having one or two councils, have sufficient consultations been carried out? I think the consultation process is entirely chaotic in this respect. From the following five facts, everything shows that there is something wrong with the consultation process. First of all, the suggestion has been made by the Chief Secretary in the
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