9.
W
Ms Emily Lau (in Chinese): Mr President, the Chief Secretary told us earlier on, that the Chinese Government or the ten point request from the Preparatory Committee and some people call that the Ten Commandments in fact were given to the Hong Kong Government on April 1st. And yesterday, the Preparatory Committee's Secretariat published the ten points. My question is this: Why did you have to wait a whole month before the Hong Kong Government released the details?
unaware
-
Of course we have read articles from magazines but we do not know if they can be confirmed. We also know that the upper echelons of the Government are unaware - of these details, although it is within their ambit. Can I ask if the Chief Secretary has actually got the agreement from the Chinese Government to publish these details as soon as possible and to inform your colleagues what the details are? And more importantly, should there be further orders coming on the horizon, would the Government trust the people of Hong Kong, trust your colleagues, and inform us of these events as soon as possible?
CS: Mr President, the list is, of course, a list that was handed to the Hong Kong Government by the Hong Kong Secretariat of the Preparatory Committee, and it was agreed that whilst we were in the process of considering in a very preliminary way our response to these ten items of co-operation, that we should for the time being hold off publication of the list. This is not in any way an attempt to prevent members or the community from learning the details of this list of items for co-operation. And of course, as the Honourable Emily Lau pointed out, the Secretariat of the Preparatory Committee has now published the list.
Internally, the Constitutional Affairs Branch is of course responsible for considering our initial response to the list of requested co-operation and he has done so on the basis of established policies which are clear to all policy secretaries. Clearly, as our initial response develop on the basis of further clarification from the Preparatory Committee there may be a requirement to seek further and more in depth views from policy secretaries which we will of course do.
Mr Zachary Wong (in Chinese): Mr President, as far as I know the Preparatory Committee has already asked the Government to provide a lot of information and my question for the Chief Secretary is this: when you provided the Preparatory Committee with this information, is all the information open and would it include information that you cannot or you will not make known to the Legislative Council?
CS: Mr President, all the information that we have provided so far is open information that is readily available to members of the public. To the extent that additional information may be required by the Preparatory Committee and which we feel able to offer, we have already undertaken to keep members of this Council fully informed by regular briefings.