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tionial facilities. I think this is wrong and I think that education should come under the general management of the Urban Council.
The other point I wish to stress is the White Paper. I entirely agree with Mr. BERNACCHI that there should be an elected majority. Also, as the New Council is entirely unofficial, care has to be taken that the Urban Services Department, appreciate that it is bound to carry out the wishes of the Urban Council, and I hope, that in the final draft of the legislation, the Urban Council would in the end have the final say as to what personnel it wants and, in the event of a particular person being un-co-operative with or even disobeying the Council's wishes, the right to have him either transferred or even dismissed. Members must appreciate, however, that it is the wishes of the Council as a whole that the staff would carry out on the ground, not that of any particular Member however good he may be. The Urban Council should make clear to the Government's staff whom they control, that as long as they obey the orders of the Urban Council and are honest and hardworking, the Urban Council for its part will be solidly behind them pressing Government for the best terms possible as to pay and conditions of service.
With these few remarks, Mr. Chairman, I support the motion. (Applause).
MR. LO TAK-SHING: -An old English proverb says that "you cannot have too much of a good thing". I don't know whether this holds true about comment during this debate on the White Paper on the Urban Council. But certainly the matter is of such importance to this Council's future that I must take the risk that surfeit will, as the poets say, bring loathing.
First however, I should like to make a brief reference to the suggestion I made in this debate last year: that Government might consider setting up an Anti-Sharp Practices Bureau which would help to protect the public by taking action against commercial sharp practices designed to take unfair advantage of the individual. I shall not repeat my arguments about that today. I simply would like to remind Government that throughout the course of last year gullible members of the public have continued to be cheated and throughout the course of last year they have continued to fall prey to sharp practices carried out by the more cunning and unprincipled members of our sophisticated society.
Let me now turn to the White Paper. First of all I would like to say that I support the demarcation of the Council's functions, as set out in Paragraph 7, in the four fields of environmental public health, recreation and amenities, cultural services and public housing. Though some may favour broader pastures in which to roam, I consider that these by themselves would be able to exercise this Council to the full extent of its capacity.
I also support the idea of giving this Council a substantial measure of financial autonomy and of developing it, within the framework of its functions as previously mentioned, into a more effective body.
Having agreed with these principles, the question to be asked is, how satisfactorily does the White Paper chart a course towards their implementation? The answer is not encouraging. I, for one, found it difficult to ascertain in what direction we were intended to be heading, and to pursue the metaphor-whether we were proceeding by steam, sail or just paddling along.
The White Paper contains, in short, a disturbing amount of confused thinking, inaccuracies and, contradictions as well as gaping voids on important points. Let me cite a few.
The very first sentence states that "in the past, the functional responsibilities of the Urban Council have not been wholly defined". Yet the annex to the White Paper sets out in great detail the "present mandatory and permissible functions" of the Council.
If the annex does not accurately list these functions, why has it been included in the White Paper? If it does list these functions accurately, how can it be said that the functional responsibilities still need to be clearly defined?
This confusion of thought continues in Paragraph 5(d), mentioned by Mr. Wu earlier, which says that "it is desirable that the Council have a more clearly defined area of responsibility within which to operate" as "the present system under which the Council has a statutory responsibility for particular subjects but, on occasion, debates publicly a much wider range of subjects has led to confusion in the minds of the public about the Council's statutory function and its relation to the Central Government".
What is the logic of this statement? As I have said, the annex itself contradicts the assertion that the Council's statutory responsibilities have not been clearly defined. But, even if we grant that these responsibilities need to be defined even more clearly than set out in those four pages of small print, how can it be supposed that such definition will prevent debates on a wider range of subjects?
Perhaps what the author of the White Paper had in mind was stricter Standing Orders-but a failure to distinguish and I am sure
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tional facilities. I think this is wrong and I think that education should come under the general management of the Urban Council.
The other point I wish to stress is the White Paper. I entirely agree with Mr. BERNACCHI that there should be an elected majority. Also, as the New Council is entirely unofficial, care has to be taken that the Urban Services Department, appreciate that it is bound to carry out the wishes of the Urban Council, and I hope, that in the final draft of the legislation, the Urban Council would in the end have the final says as to what personnel it wants and, in the event of a particular person being un-co-operative with or even disobeying the Council's wishes, the right to have him either transferred or even dismissed. Members must appreciate, however, that it is the wishes of the Council as a whole that the staff would carry out on the ground, not that of any particular Member however good he may be. The Urban Council should make clear to the Government's staff whom they control, that as long as they obey the orders of the Urban Council and are honest and hardworking, the Urban Council for its part will be solidly behind them pressing Government for the best terms possible as to pay and conditions of service.
With these few remarks, Mr. Chairman, I support the motion. (Applause).
MR. LO TAK-SHING: -An old English proverb says that "you cannot have too much of a good thing". I don't know whether this holds true about comment during this debate on the White Paper on the Urban Council. But certainly the matter is of such importance to this Council's future that I must take the risk that surfeit will, as the poets say, bring loathing.
First however, I should like to make a brief reference to the sugges- tion I made in this debate last year: that Government might consider setting up an Anti-Sharp Practices Bureau which would help to protect the public by taking action against commercial sharp practices designed to take unfair advantage of the individual. I shall not repeat my arguments about that today. I simply would like to remind Govern- ment that throughout the course of last year gullible members of the public have continued to be cheated and throughout the course of last year they have continued to fall prey to sharp practices carried out by the more cunning and unprincipled members of our sophisticated society.
Let me now turn to the White Paper. First of all I would like to say that I support the demarcation of the Council's functions, as set
:
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357
out in Paragraph 7, in the four fields of environmental public health, recreation and amenities, cultural services and public housing. Though some may favour broader pastures in which to roam, I consider that these by themselves would be able to exercise this Council to the full extent of its capacity.
I also support the idea of giving this Council a substantial measure of financial autonomy and of developing it, within the framework of its functions as previously mentioned, into a more effective body.
Having agreed with these principles, the question to be asked is, how satisfactorily does the White Paper chart a course towards their implementation? The answer is not encouraging. I, for one, found it difficult to ascertain in what direction we were intended to be heading, and to pursue the metaphor-whether we were proceeding by steam, sail or just paddling along.
The White Paper contains, in short, a disturbing amount of con- fused thinking, inaccuracies and, contradictions as well as gaping voids on important points. Let me cite a few.
The very first sentence states that "in the past, the functional responsibilities of the Urban Council have not been wholly defined". Yet the annex to the White Paper sets out in great detail the "present mandatory and permissible functions" of the Council.
If the annex does not accurately list these functions, why has it been included in the White Paper? If it does list these functions accurately, how can it be said that the functional responsibilities still need to be clearly defined?
This confusion of thought continues in Paragraph 5(d), mentioned by Mr. Wu earlier, which says that "it is desirable that the Council have a more clearly defined area of responsibility within which to operate" as "the present system under which the Council has a statutory respon- sibility for particular subjects but, on occasion, debates publicly a much wider range of subjects has led to confusion in the minds of the public about the Council's statutory function and its relation to the Central Government".
What is the logic of this statement? As I have said, the annex itself contradicts the assertion that the Council's statutory responsibili- ties have not been clearly defined. But, even if we grant that these responsibilities need to be defined even more clearly than set out in those four pages of small print, how can it be supposed that such definition will prevent debates on a wider range of subjects?
Perhaps what the author of the White Paper had in mind was stricter Standing Orders-but a failure to distinguish and I am sure
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