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that the Government had a fairly free hand with regard to the composition of the Municipal Councils and District Boards. We should be bound by the Basic Law, but there was much scope for manoeuvre within that, for example in the electorate of functional constituencies.
8.
The Governor said that this was an important
As he point, and he would like to get it clear. understood it, members of Meeting Point accepted that the Chinese were unlikely to change the Basic Law, and therefore that they would probably not be prepared to make any move on direct elections. So we should look at other ways of making LegCo more democratic in areas that were not set out in detail in the Basic Law. Mr. Cheung confirmed that this was Meeting Point's view. Another area was appointment to Advisory bodies, which were very important in policy making. The Governor said that he
He would not was grateful for this frank statement. repeat it publicly.
9.
Mr. Anthony Cheung said that if Hong Kong was to have autonomy after 1997, we must allow political groups to develop. He would like to have regular meetings with the Governor to review developments. The Governor said that he would welcome this. He was also keen to find a way of being more accountable to LegCo, without getting into a situation like Prime Minister's Question Time. Mr. Fred Li said that he found the Hong Kong Government's Very response to LegCo debates generally unsatisfactory. few policy secretaries took account of the points made in the debate. The Governor said that this was also often the case in the UK. The fact was that everyone in Hong Kong was still learning how to operate a political system. Branch Secretaries had not been trained to operate as politicians. This was one reason why he thought he should answer questions in LegCo. Mr. Anthony Cheung said that Meeting Point would welcome this idea.
10.
Mr. Fred Li said that Meeting Point welcomed the
But they FS consulting different groups on the Budget. were concerned over the guideline that expenditure should
GDP increase only in accordance with increases in GDP.
If we had a did not reflect Hong Kong's true wealth. $200 billion surplus, it was ridiculous only to allow $5 billion for new spending. Many welfare programmes that had been agreed by all concerned had not yet been implemented because of lack of funding.
$100 million
would be enough to do this. Meeting Point was also concerned that the Gini co-efficient had increased over the past decade, showing that the gap between rich and poor in Hong Kong had grown wider.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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