XN000022-1997-01-23 — Page 9

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Thinking back to the remarks of the ubiquitous Foreign Affairs spokesman in Peking the other day, I am not quite sure who is misleading whom.

I'd go on, we have a moving speech from the honourable member Mr Arculli, in which he criticises the Bill of Rights for not going far enough.

Now, that Bill of Rights was introduced by the Government when members of the Executive Council included the aforementioned Maria Tam, Mr Allen Lee and Mrs Rita Fan. It was passed by the Legislative Council on a voice vote with nobody voting against it.

What about the Societies Ordinance? Well, among those existing Legislative Council members who supported the Societies Ordinance, which is now apparently to be struck down, were Mr Allen Lee, Mrs Selina Chow, Mr Ngai Shiu-kit, Andrew Wong, Lau Wong-fat, Edward Ho, Ronald Arculli, Miriam Lau, Leung Chi-hung, Eric Li, Philip Wong and Howard Young.

The Public Order Amendment Bill was passed by a voice vote with nobody voting against it.

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Then we come to the Boundaries or the Societies Ordinance, perhaps I should mention one or two other people who voted for the Societies Ordinance. They included, on the third reading, Rita Fan and Elsie Tu.

We then come to the Boundaries and Election Committee a Bill which was passed by this Legislative Council because this Legislative Council believes that these matters of electoral arrangements should be handled by an independent body in order to ensure that the arrangements are fair.

I am not quite sure what it is about having fair elections which is thought to contravene the Basic Law, but I will leave that to others to describe.

Boundaries and Election Committee members of the present Legislative Council who voted for it included Selina Chow, Ngai Shui-kit, Andrew Wong, Edward Ho, Ronald Arculli, Miriam Lau, Leung Chi-hung and so on.

So, to return to my starting point, whether or not these vital elements in maintaining Hong Kong's way of life are maintained is very much in the hands of Hong Kong people some very distinguished Hong Kong people who have already told us how important this legislation is.

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