XN000022-1995-07-29+30 — Page 7

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And has this further, long promised, step along the road to democracy been too much for Hong Kong? Has it set back our prospects? Well, hardly. We've continued to grow. Our public finances are the envy of the world. According to the "Economist" magazine the other day, we've got among the strongest financial reserves in the world. Our exports are booming. Investment both from home and abroad continues to pour into our future roads, railway lines, airport, houses, offices, factories. We've prudently developed our social and educational programmes to give the worse off a better deal. We've started to clean up our environment. We've put in place extensive protections for our human rights.

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Yes, there are still problems. Where isn't that so? Inflation and unemployment are at the top of most lists. We've got the added question mark of 1997, a year which I hope we can work with China to make into a launch pad not a hurdle. But, by and large, July '95 finds Hong Kong pretty well placed to face the future.

You can read about all this in our newspapers. Vigorous. Competitive. We've got more newspapers per head of population than anywhere else in the world. And several broadcasting stations, too. A free press, freedom of speech, is part of Hong Kong's success.

Can you imagine Hong Kong without that? Without what Franklin Roosevelt once called one of the world's essential freedoms. Free speech is the oxygen of a vigorous, open, bustling society. The free movement of ideas is as much a part of Hong Kong as the free movement of money and the free movement of goods.

So one of the main tasks of the Legislative Council in the last year or two has been to make sure that we have our legislation up-to-date and in line with the Bill of Rights, so that there aren't any old laws on the shelves which could be abused to endanger freedom of speech.

We haven't quite finished the job. To hear some less informed people talk we haven't even started. They are wrong. They obviously find it easier to sing last year's tunes rather than to learn some new and more accurate words.

Let me tell you, briefly, what we've done.

T

Since 1992, we've looked at 53 separate bits of 27 laws, which could repeat could-be wrongly used against the media. In 11 cases, we don't believe that it would be right to act because the legislation in question contains important provisions to protect privacy and the right to a fair trial. I don't think anyone has seriously questioned our judgement on those matters.