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Question: Tuen Mun Committee, Tuen Mun District Board members instead of coming to Sha Tin and meeting Sha Tin District Board. Are you afraid that there may be a mob, over there?
Governor: No. James Blake, the Secretary for Works, Haider Barma, and other senior officials have been visiting Tuen Mun and when they think it would be sensible for me to do so, I'll go to Tuen Mun. If you are listening to the answer I gave a few moments ago, you would have heard that I went to Tuen Mun to see things for myself earlier in the summer, not just on the transport front. There are some other problems they've got as well, particularly in some of the older estates.
Question: Governor. you mentioned a lot of troubles and inconvenience because of that decision to close the highway. So should any government official apologise for such a decision?
Governor: I don't think anybody should apologise for taking the decision to close the highway. If we haven't closed the highway and people have been injured or killed as a result, then there would have been things to apologise for. And the questions you are asking today would have been very different. But one thing you can't conceivably do, if you have public responsibilities, the one thing that you can't conceivably do is to overlook the technical advice that you are given by your officials. If they are telling you that you could be risking people's lives, do any of you seriously suppose that we would have been right to take those risks, of course we won't.
Question: But do you think that the support of the Transport Department...
Governor: I fully support the decisions they took and they have been working 24 hours a day with the Police to try to sort things out. And we will have things sorted out as soon as we can. But I repeat. I hope people won't ignore that there is a longer term and more serious problem about transport links to the Northwest New Territories.
Question: you have no immediate plans to visit the area affected?
Governor: I'll visit the area affected as soon as the Secretary for Works and the Secretary for Transport and the District Board think it would be sensible. And just conceivably you may think that it would be sensible to do so shortly after the Legislative Council Election campaign.
Question: Mr Hanley, after few days in Hong Kong, what are you going to advise the new Foreign Secretary about Hong Kong in his meeting with the Chinese counterpart?