-
14
-
Thursday, November 29, 1973
TOWARDS A MORE OPEN GOVERNMENT
+
The Secretary for Home Affairs, the Hon. D.C. Bray, today
outlined three main initiatives for establishing a "more open government"
to keep pace with a community which is developing a new sense of purpose.
Speaking in the Legislative Council, he said the three initiatives
required the government to "let the people know what we are thinking; to
make it easier for people to formulate and present their views; and to
make sure that these expressions of opinion are taken into account."
These were necessary in response to social change in Hong Kong
which seemed to be emerging as "one of the most dramatic developments of
the early seventies".
"Our older society, prized loose from its stable clan structure,
was made up of individuals more concerned with material well-being than
social awareness,
גון
he said.
It had only recently become clear that the most important change
in society was not its increasing wealth, nor its increasing expectations
of government performance, but "its new sense of purpose".
"The new society no longer expects everything
be done for it
It is a society on the move, prepared to
by a paternalistic government.
act on social issues with the same vigour that the old refugee society
displayed in the pursuit of private prosperity."
Turning to the first initiative, Mr. Bray said that green papers,
reports of advisory bodies and findings of consultants were frequently
/published