XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 17

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Governor: The Honourable gentleman, I'm sure would understand, that those people are in a wide variety of occupations. One of them is the Governor. It's a post only available to one person at a time and some may say alas, I'm not keeping a local out of the position, though in due course a local will take over the job and I'll have to look for employment elsewhere. Most, overwhelmingly, most of the rest are working in administrative and professional areas which aren't covered by the Labour Importation Scheme. Now the other day I heard somebody talking about large numbers being employed on the airport. There are a matter of a few dozen employed on the airport and so, I keep on looking at the representative of the Legal Functional Constituency and find myself about to say 'with respect', but with respect as barristers say, I really don't think that you could say that there is very much relationship between that issue, which is a result of history and Britain's responsibilities for Hong Kong and the levels of unemployment in Hong Kong.

Mr Ip Kwok-him (in Chinese): Now for jobs that Hong Kong people can take up, I think priority should be given to Hong Kong people, especially in the light of the economic conditions in Hong Kong at the moment. And so if Hong Kong people are capable and qualified, why shouldn't Hong Kong people be given priority? Now I think the same should apply to the Governorship or to administrative posts.

Governor: Well, in due course, and it's, I won't say it's something I'm looking forward to because people will misunderstand me, but in due course, Hong Kong people running Hong Kong will exclude the Governor, who may not even have the opportunity of running Britain!

To be serious, I totally understand the proposition that we should try to ensure that our own people get preference in the market place, provided of course they have got the skills which our economy needs. If, in some cases, they don't have the skills then it hurts all of us and hurts our economy if we don't bring in people with those skills. I'm sure, given the fact that so many people from Hong Kong have found employment in other communities, we wouldn't want to start sounding as though we advocated not allowing people from other communities to work here in Hong Kong. Because were we to do that people in other communities might start to think that the same should apply to us.

We have taken a very open minded view about employment, about the requirement to move around to get jobs, to move around internationally. When únemployment is increasing in Hong Kong, plainly we want to give preference locally but we don't want to behave as though we think that every worker who comes to Hong Kong from anywhere else is somehow a pariah. That's quite opposite to the contribution which many people from other communities make in what is an open, international city.

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