XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 20

19 -

The Governor: No, I think it is a bit premature for people to say that I'm going to go ahead on a pre-determined course before they have actually heard the details of our proposals. Joseph Wong, the new Secretary for Education and Manpower, is going to be going down to the Legislative Council today to explain in detail what we have got in mind. We have got a document that we will be sharing with LegCo Members and later with the community and we start off, as I said yesterday in a genuine spirit of give and take. I think you can see from quality reactions this morning that there are some people who think we have gone too far and there are some people who don't think we have gone far enough. I think we have pitched it about right and I hope that we will be able to persuade a majority of Legislators of that in the coming weeks, but as far as we're concerned we very much want to carry the community with us, explaining some of the impossible difficulties of simply stopping anybody from outside coming to work in Hong Kong. At the same time recognising in the present state of the labour market we have got to tighten up a bit.

Question: Mr Governor, I should like to ask you a question regarding your Policy Address which you say is going to be the last speech of its kind. After hearing some initial reaction to your Policy Address, what are your views?

Governor: Well my main view is that if this is the sidelines I quite looking forward to being behind the grandstand at some stage. I mean I still feel very much in the centre of argument and debate which I enjoy, but it doesn't make for a quiet life. Hong Kong is such an open constructively argumentative place, it is part of Hong Kong's charm and I guess that one day but not for another twenty-one months I'll look forward to reflecting on it all. There is still a lot to do in the next twenty-one months and I'm looking forward to working with the Legislative Council as constructively as possible during that period.

Question: I would like the Governor to give me a positive answer to the following Question. My Question is in the policy address yesterday the Governor said that Legislative Councillors would be putting forward private member's Bills and the Governor did make it quite clear that he might use his prerogative to veto these bills that may be passed by LegCo. Mr Governor, before you use this power would you first of all have a referendum, so you could refer to the result of the referendum before you actually use this power to see whether there is a need to veto private member's Bills that have been passed by LegCo.

Page 20Page 21