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Hong Kong Arts Development Council Bill

Following is the speech by the Secretary for Recreation and Culture, Mr James So, in resumption of the second reading of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr President,

I would first like to thank Members of the Bills Committee, especially its Chairman, Mrs. Selina Chow, for their hard work and thorough examination of the Bill. In the course of this exercise, we have maintained very close liaison with the HKADC and the rest of the arts community to gather their views. We have discussed these views exhaustively with members of the Bills Committee. We have responded positively to the ideas put forward. As a result, we have now reached an agreement with the Bills Committee and the arts community on a package which broadly meets the aspirations of the arts community and includes significant improvements over the original Bill. I hope this Bill will now receive the full support of this Council.

Mr President, I would now like to outline briefly the three major elements of the agreed package.

First, in response to the strong desire of some sectors of the arts community and the Bills Committee, the Government has agreed to include explicit references to film art and arts criticism in appropriate clauses of the Bill. Whilst the Bill is enabling in nature and does not exclude any art forms from the scope of the HKADC, the proposed amendments I am going to move during the Committee Stage will give specific recognition to the contribution of film art to the local arts scene alongside other art forms such as visual, literary and performing arts. Arts criticism will also be appropriately recognised.

Secondly, we have agreed to amend the clauses dealing with the composition of the Council to provide for the membership to include persons drawn, one each, from nine specified categories of the arts. Furthermore, we have introduced a mechanism whereby organisations representing those categories may each nominate one person for consideration by the Governor for appointment as a member of the HKADC. These measures will ensure that the HKADC will have a good range of expert advice representing a wide cross section of the arts interests available to it, together with strong and credible link to the arts community. However, it should always be remembered that the HKADC's role is to develop the arts for the benefit of the community as a whole. The latter's interests must also be represented and this will be done by the other nine non official members who will be appointed by the Governor from the community at large.