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Question: After Mr James So's retirement, the Secretary for Education and Manpower has also retired. Do you think the Government has decided to apply responsibility for their own job, like, for example, the one for James So about the playground, and also about Lau Chin-shek's resignation. Do you think the Government has started to do this kind of system?

Governor: No, I think that both resignations come at the end of long and distinguished public careers. During the course of any career, as a civil servant or as a public official like me, you have occasionally to get involved in controversial decisions and you carry them out as well and as competently as you can. But both Michael and James did an outstanding job over the years and I think we should be grateful for the contribution they've made. We do, all of us, have lessons to learn from time to time, when things don't go as well as we would've liked. We said we intended to learn lessons from the report that we've had on the building and commissioning of the Hong Kong Stadium. There are lessons that we have to learn from the COMAC report on unauthorised building works. As the COMAC said, it's a complex and difficult problem, one we have been tackling at the rate of about twenty thousand structures a year. But we obviously can learn about how to do things better and how to co-ordinate our activities more successfully.

Question: Now you almost have the team for transition because they are young now. And so how would you expect the Chinese side to respond about your team of administration?

Governor: I said when I came to Hong Kong that I wanted to have in place as rapidly as I could a team of local officials and we've delivered on that promise. And I think the whole community recognises that that team is an outstandingly capable one, efficient, competent, young but also experienced. There is nothing wrong, there is no crime in being young,as. I am sure, all of you would agree. I doubt whether there is a better, more qualified, more committed public service anywhere in the world. And I hope that China recognises that and I hope that Chinese officials would recognise that people in Hong Kong are promoted on merit and that is going to continue to be the case. Last question.

Question: Is the government prepared to fight the Vietnamese case in the Privy Council?

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