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because they are scared of being sent to a concentration camp when they get it wrong, they will not even inform their own superior when something goes wrong. Therefore, our monitoring must be very much better than anyone would normally expect it to be to give us warning of an accident which might not be notified to us. I criticised then and I criticise now the quite insufficient baseline monitoring, which should have started three years ago and has, to the best of my knowledge, not started yet and when it will start will not give us the sort of readings that we need in order to make fair judgements as to what is going on 20 kilometers over the border.
At the time I circulated my warnings to all and sundry, including EXCO and LEGCO members. I was told by many not to rock the boat because the Daya Bay concept was an important bargaining chip in the then on-going negotiations between Beijing and London to try and resolve the 1997 problem. I felt very strongly that this was the wrong approach and am glad to note that some of the same people who told me then that I had to live with political realities and that I was exaggerating the safety risks of a PWR nuclear reactor are now showing signs of changing their minds. Sad to say it wasn't I who persuaded them but a nuclear catastrophe. And now, of course, in the usual way of the converted they are busy trying to throw out the baby with the bath water.
A year later, in January of 1984, I made a speech in the Urban Council and among other things I said then:
"I can't help but feel that Government is sleepwalking into the nuclear age. Everything I have been told so far about Government's attitude to safety connected with this power station seems to indicate that they feel this can be all left to the Chinese authorities (who themselves have no experience with nuclear power for peaceful purposes) and the power station authorities here who are no doubt employing consultants to help them understand the risks involved, and that therefore everything will be just fine on the day.
Wearing
Before I go on, let me make my own position clear. my hat as Chairman of the Special Committee on Air Pollution, I am convinced that we cannot afford to add another gram of air pollution to our already very polluted
We cannot under any circumstances afford another coal or oil fired power station just as we cannot afford another incinerator. You just have to look out of the windows of this building to see how temperature inversions give us almost a Los Angeles look. So that assuming all the forecasts for power requirements are correct and we do need more electric power, then we can only get this power from China because we have run out of space to produce it ourselves. And if China decides that they also have enough pollution, and they certainly do have, then they are quite justified in producing the extra power both they and we need by nuclear power. I am not against a nuclear power station. What worries me is how we in Hong Kong are going to cope with the possible effects of such a nuclear power station. As far as I can ascertain, the Hong Kong Government is not making any proper contingency plans.
Let me therefore ask the Government some relevant questions:
1. Is Government satisfied that their present background
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