TNAG-1449-FCO40-1953-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 318

Supplementary to question No. 11 in the

Legislative Council on 12 March 1986

Miss DUNN: Sir, can the Government say what the important issues were that

required 18 months of internal discussion? And while I accept the Attorney

General's earlier comment that he is now long enough in the Government to

learn not to make predictions, can he nevertheless be more specific than

•

20 soon as possible' or 'nearly there' and tell this Council whether and

when a search and rescue centre will be established?

Attorney General: My experience is neither here nor there. (laughter)

But

I can assure Miss Dunn that since the report of the reconvened court is I

think expected by the end of this month, it may be quite soon that the Executive

Council will be asked to advise on these matters. May I just add that in

trying to find an improved system for co-ordinating the response to search

alerts, there are a number of difficulties which should not be

and rescue

under-estimated.

Search and rescue operation can involve the use of men

and resources from the Marine Department, the Civil Aviation Department,

the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, the Royal Navy, the Air Force and the Marine

Police, And these organisations obviously have many different priorities and

many competing needs which must be taken into account in designing a system

for responding to requests for assistance in search and rescue

operations.

are on a

And the incidents themselves that can require search and rescue

wide range from major disasters involving aircrafts or ships on the one hand

difficueries to quite small incidents involving pleasure craft that had run into in bad

weather. The search and rescue centre of the kind which the court is

recommending must take account of all these different types of incidents and

their complexities. The working group has also identified a number of

alternative approaches to that recommended by the Marine Court of Inquiry, so

these matters require extensive examination. Sometimes the Government might

be criticised for going too quickly and rushing to conclusions. On this

tw

occasion, I think all matters have be considered properly.

P.2