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SEM's closing speech on retirement protection
Following is the closing speech by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Michael Leung, in the motion debate on retirement protection in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Mr President,
With your indulgence, I would like really to respond in full to the proposed amendment and the speeches made by Members this afternoon and to put my response at this point in time with your indulgence because it is important that the motion I propose must proceed unamended if the intention is to set up the MPF within the time frame which I describe in my speech. With the amendments as proposed will be unacceptable to Government and the reasons mentioned by myself and the Secretary for Health and Welfare, so I would try to answer all the points raised this afternoon by Members on why in fact it is important that the Government motion should proceed unamended and to answer the points raised by various Members arising from this debate.
First of all, I would like to correct some misconceptions raised by some Members in distorting facts and trying to misquote a numbers of points on previous occasions. First of all, on the debate in November last year, I think as a matter of record in the hansards as Members admit for themselves that of the Members who spoke on the motion, only one Member, Mr McGregor, spoke in unqualified support to the OPS as presented by the Government. I stress these words as presented by the Government. All those who spoke, somehow, for the OPS in some way have all qualifications, qualifications as so fundamental as to affect the concept, the basic concept of the OPS as presented by Government. For examples, many Members raised the question of Government contribution, tripartite funding, this changes fundamentally the nature of the OPS as we proposed, therefore it is not a support of the OPS as we sought.
Secondly, those Members who supported the OPS, as they said, also wanted the CPF, in addition to the OPS, again how can this be a support of the OPS as we presented this to this Council?
And thirdly, many who spoke, so call in support of the OPS also wanted to have the old age allowance increase as well, so Mr President, how can we say those that who spoke allegedly in support of the OPS are really in support? None of them, none of them except Mr McGregor, gave us the wholehearted support on the OPS without qualifications. This is a matter of record and Members can read the hansard for themselves on 9th November 1994.