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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
As far as the Council is concerned, the Green Paper gave biassed support to a handful of complaints by a few District Board Members, but did not even consult the Urban Council, or offer the option that there should be no change. Biassed and loaded questions usually produce the answer that the questioner seeks in the absence of any counter proposals.
In spite of the bias, the survey shows no great public demand for changes in the Urban Council structure. Only about 7 000 submissions were received on the subject, as compared with nearly 130 000 on the subject of elections to the Legislative Council. The results, as recorded, are so confusing that I cannot see how any conclusions can be drawn from them.
All I would like to say is that as the Urban Council is responsible for the building and management of territory-wide facilities in the urban area, I can see only obstruction and delay resulting from putting district-based councillors on the Council. After all, we elected members are already elected from the districts in which we live or work, and in my own case, BOTH live and work. If the people of our districts are not satisfied with our performance, they will have the chance to vote us out of office. By introducing others from the same areas would make no difference in what we do, but it could create disharmony, and at public expense.
Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further to say on this issue.
THE HON. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN (in English):- Mr. Chairman, on the relationship of the Urban Council with the urban District Boards, I would like to confine my remarks mainly on the results of the two public opinion surveys commissioned by the Survey Office which selected AGB McNair Hong Kong Ltd. for the task.
My reasons for doing so are firstly to keep my remarks short, and secondly but more importantly, because each of these two surveys covered a probability (random) sample of some 3 000 successfully interviewed respondents, with the aim that the results would reliably project the opinions of the adult population of Hong Kong.
In other words, AGB McNair was required to successfully complete 3 000 face-to-face interviews for each survey within the consultation period. In Chapter 5 of Part I of the Report of the Survey Office, it is stated that: "The results of surveys of this sample size can be assumed with 95% confidence to be subject to a sampling error of not more than plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.' The accuracy of poll results the world over can be matters of sharp controversy and I imagine that the findings of AGB McNair are no exception. However, in the light of the systematic, face-to-face and territory-wide sampling frame in which AGB McNair conducted both surveys, I am prepared to accept that the McNair findings are as representative as one can reasonably expect of the views of Hong Kong's adult population.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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First of all, on the question of urban councillors ex-officio membership of urban District Boards, the two surveys showed the following results: Urban Councillors should not withdraw-
48% and 44% for the two surveys respectively
In favour of Urban Councillors withdrawing— 19% and 13% respectively
Those who had no opinion, or did not understand the options or were not clear about the concept came to 33% and 42% respectively.
It is therefore obvious that a strong body of public opinion among the adult population were in favour of Urban Councillors continuing with ex-officio membership or urban District Boards.
Secondly, among the 19% who favoured Urban Councillors withdrawing from urban District Boards, 4% did not know why, or had no opinion to explain why or did not understand the options.
Then there were 2% who wished to replace the present system of direct elections to the Urban Council by a system of indirect election of Urban Councillors from among District Board members. This could be considered by many as a retrograde step.
As for expanding the membership of the Urban Council to include a representative of each urban District Board elected to the Council from among Board members, or to include the chairman of each urban District Board as an ex-officio member, the percentages in favour of such options were just 7% and 4% for the two surveys respectively.
Thirdly, as regards increasing the size of the Urban Council, the McNair public opinion surveys showed that 10% and 8% respectively favoured having District Board representatives onto the Urban Council, while 10% and 9% respectively proposed increasing the number of directly elected members only. That means direct elected Urban Council Members only.
On the other hand, those who did not want any change in the Urban Council's membership were 41% and 35% respectively, as they considered the present size of the membership to be just right.
As for those who had no opinion on the subject, the percentages were 31% and 43% respectively.
All in all, the McNair Surveys would therefore strongly indicate that the Hong Kong public would prefer that there should be no change to the existing structure in the composition and membership of the Urban Council, especially in its relationship with the ten urban District Boards.
In the light of the results of the McNair Surveys, the wisest course for the Hong Kong Government to adopt would be to retain the present composition of the Urban Council until the general framework of the Legislative Council for