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Governor: Thank you very much indeed, well there isn't actually any power in Hong Kong for me to call a referendum and in order to do that we would have to have Legislation and I dare say that that would be pretty controversial. But can I just say a word about the private member's Bills point which I dealt with I thought extremely delicately yesterday, rather more delicately than some of the newspaper headlines this morning. We have got a strange constitutional position in Hong Kong in which we have an executive led Government which I must maintain and a legislature with a mandate which is increasingly credible because now it is totally elected. I've got to try to make that situation work and I want to do so with the most co-operation with the Legislative Council, the only point I was making yesterday is that at the end of the day I've obviously got to stand up for executive led Government. I hope that I can do so in co-operation with the Legislative Council, but the buck stops with me. Now when President Clinton who is in a slightly different position because he is elected, but he is nevertheless dealing with a similar legislature, when he uses his veto which he has to do rather frequently, people don't jump up and down and say that shows that President Clinton isn't a democrat. I very much hope that we won't get into those sort of confrontational situations. Yesterday wasn't a threat, yesterday was just a statement of my determination to stand up for executive led government while at the same time recognising the broader mandate, though not the different mandate which the Legislative Council has.

Question: Good Morning Governor Patten, I spoke to you last year and in fact the year before on the radio at the same time. My call is with regard to the plight of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. I proposed to you last year that the government and the ethnic minorities worked together in trying to deal with our very worrying situation with 1997 fast approaching. Regrettably, the government responded to me that such co-operation was probably not necessary. There are many, especially a number of people like myself who are younger, western educated minorities in Hong Kong who really feel our situation is quite desperate with 1997 coming along. It's quite apparent from the Basic Law and the way things are working in Hong Kong today we are going to be treated differently from ethnic Chinese people in Hong Kong after 1997, we are being treated differently today. However, we don't seem to be getting the support we need in order to deal with this problem. My Questions are really twofold, first of all, why doesn't the government feel it is necessary for it to work closely hand in hand with our community to deal with these problems and secondly, given that, what concrete steps are the government really taking in order to help us to secure full British passports, because ultimately the whole of the Hong Kong community, these are Legislative Councils, Executive Council, which you are obviously a part of have acknowledged that we need to be treated differently, but in the last three years we have made very little progress.