XN000022-1996-07-04 — Page 12

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Mr Law Chi-kwong (in Chinese): A simple suggestion. Could you consider that for certain fire-engines and ambulances they could be green in colour, because I have seen them before?

Governor: I would consider anything. It may disappoint quite a lot of children.

The president: The industrial safety-cross is certainly green in colour.

Governor: Perhaps it will be more environmentally-friendly if we change the colour.

Mr Sin Chung-kai (in Chinese): Mr President, recently we've got a group of people going to Beijing and they've been denied entry and they were checked against a name list. So we are concerned. Now where people use a Hong Kong ID and also the BN(O) to enter or go out of Hong Kong, now we've got this list, whether it be white or black, and then when they go through the immigration control point, would that scenario occur? That is, either our BN(O) or our identify cards be taken away. So there wouldn't be anywhere else in the world that would take us and then people in this Chamber and at least 20 people are on that list, if not 30. So what would the Government do?

Governor: Well, I attempted to answer this question at some length earlier, or a related question. I think the point the honourable gentleman is making is what would happen if, presumably after 1997, people with valid documents to go in and out of Hong Kong had them taken away. Is that the point the honourable gentleman is making?

Mr Sin Chung-kai (in Chinese): It's very simple. Now a lot of us want to go out of Hong Kong and travel as much as possible before 1997, because we fear that we might not be re-admitted to Hong Kong after 1997. Now that list might very well apply to people in Hong Kong later on.

Governor: I see why the events on Monday raise that anxiety in people's minds but it is, of course, I think I can say this with confidence. far fetched. Immigration is one of the issues that comes within the responsibilities of the Hong Kong SAR Government and it will be for the Immigration Department of the Hong Kong Government to apply the law and operate under the rule of law and under the rule of law it is simply inconceivable that the events that the honourable gentleman described could happen in Hong Kong, either before or after 1997. If that were to happen, it would mean that the rule of law had simply been trampled underfoot,

The President: But the list, if the list exists, it's not the responsibility of the Hong Kong Government is it?