XN000022-1996-07-05 — Page 14

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Governor: You have actually raised an extremely important problem because I actually think that while most of the statistics about Hong Kong make terrific reading, frankly the figures for industrial safety make awful reading. We are a first world economy and we have pretty well third world statistics on industrial safety. They have got a bit better in the last year or two but they are still awful. We have been trying to deal with that, working with employers and employees. I am not sure whether you know about the work of our Health and Safety Council of the Labour Advisory Board but I think they try to do what you were describing earlier. We have increased the number of factory inspectors, we have increased the number of laws and regulations and penalties for people who behave badly.

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But at the end of the day and I would welcome your thoughts and advice on this at the end of the day what we have to do is to change the culture on the factory floor and above all on the construction site. We have problems working at height, we have problems in the construction industry as a whole, we have problems where people have to work in a confined space. We have problems elsewhere but those are the main ones and we really do have to tackle them more energetically and with more commitment, otherwise there are going to be many more widows and many more children without a father. So I would welcome any thoughts and ideas you had and totally agree with you that it has got to be a combined effort.

Question: You seem to have a good grasp on it. I actually heard you say...

Presenter: Thank you very much.

Question: ... LegCo last night. The problem..

Presenter: Mr Law on the line.

Question (Mr Law) (in Chinese); You are a fighter for democracy in the international arena. In the United Nations Commission on Human Rights they are saying that you should reform the Hong Kong system of receiving complaints but then it seems the proposals are not materialised. The Complaints Against Police system is now being handled by the police themselves. For the average citizen, even if they are assaulted and if they are treated badly, it seems they are not redressed properly because even if they take the complaint to somebody it is to no avail and they say that there is no evidence, something like that.

We know that some parts of the disciplined services, for example policemen were assaulted by the policemen themselves because they were having covert operations and they were treated as criminals; and also there are six customs officers who have been assaulted by the police and so they got a ruling from the courts. We think that the present system is not sufficient to protect the citizens' right.