1987 — Page 100

Urban Council Proceedings 市政局議事錄 All AI Reviewed

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190

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

to say that there are more people in favour of direct election than against it. Instead, I would like to remind all of you that we cannot just rely on figure quoted from a certain chapter or a certain section and conclude that this is the trend of public opinions. We should rather find out the interrelationship of the figures within the Report.

The second principle is that we should not only take into account the interrelationship of the figures but also the reasons supporting and opposing direct elections behind those figures as well as comments from the general public because these are really the basis for considering developments in Representative Government. Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind all of you that this Report conducted by the Survey Office is not an analysis of results from universal suffrage. If we just base on the figures to consider the future developments of Representative Government in Hong Kong, I believe that the damage resulting from this statistical game will certainly be greater than that from the recent collapse of the futures market. Therefore, apart from the interrelationship among those figures, we should also consider the reasons behind them.

Mr. Chairman, with these words, I support the motion.

MR. K. K. FUNG (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, my speech is in three parts. The first part is on the background of the 'Report of the Survey Office'. The second part is to analyze and discuss some problems concerning the Urban Council, with reference to the findings stated in the Report, especially the four controversial issues. And, the last part is my conclusion.

The first part concerns problems of Urban Council's structure, the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the controversial issue about direct elections in 1988. In my opinion, two problems did not exist in the whole event. With the reason, I think that the Report is reliable and acceptable. The first non-existing problem is that there are not so-called 'organized opinions', such as opinions from signature campaigns or from 'one-man-one-letter', included in the classification of submissions. Therefore, there poses no problem in calculating the number of people for or against direct elections in 1988. The other one is that all questions designed by the private survey company in this poll are direct, clear and concise. Thus, not a long or complex question is found in the questionnaire drafted for the survey.

Nevertheless, there is a background problem which has nothing to do with the survey but the Green Paper. Possible problems like the composition of the Urban Council, the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the structure of the Urban Council were not mentioned in the Green Paper. The Government only emphasized the desired future developments in the Urban Council as stated in the Green Paper. Over the past half year, the Government has given good publicity to only its proposed changes to the Urban Council through such mass media as televisions, newspapers and District Boards' leaflets whereas no one has tried to explain why the Council should not be changed. Consequently, the general public can be misled that changes must be made to the Urban Council as suggested in the Green Paper. This is indeed a big problem.

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

191

The second part of my speech talks about the four controversial issues and some analysis of survey findings. Mr. PAO stressed the importance of figures collected by the survey and the relationship among these figures. Yet, emphasis only on these figures can also be a tragedy. Survey is used to reflect public opinions. If we do not accept survey as a means to reflect public opinions, it is definitely meaningless to conduct this survey. I believe that the parts particularly concerning the Urban Council and District Boards in the Report produced by the Government-commissioned survey company are representative ones unless someone points out any mistake or problem in any part of the survey. Both public opinions and the number of respondents should carry importance because these can reflect how far the people understand the questions. All of us can see that there are problems in the Report. However, only several hundred people did give their opinions in response to the Report. This reflects that the public just have a superficial understanding of the problem.

Now, I would like to point out the four issues. First, should Urban Councillors be ex-officio members of District Boards? Some paragraphs in the Report require our attention. The first one is paragraph 8.4 and the second is 8.10. In the former paragraph, it shows that a minority of the general public indicated support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio membership of District Boards. Only 1,893 letters are from individuals, covering 26% of total submissions. In paragraph 8.10, according to the findings given by the Government commissioned survey company, 9% of submissions collected in the first survey showed support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio membership of urban District Boards and even 7% in the second survey. If the two surveys do correctly reflect and represent opinions of the general public, we can conclude that the majority are in support of retaining our Councillors as ex-officio members of District Boards.

The second controversial problem is the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards. Should the Urban Council return its seats for District Board chairpersons or members by indirect election? Paragraph 10.4 of the Report, however, is contradictory to the results of the surveys as depicted in paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10. It is pointed out in paragraph 10.4 that it is supported by many that District Boards should send their own representatives to the Council through indirect elections, while paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10 show that less people support the idea of having District Board members joining the Urban Council by means of election from amongst themselves. In fact, I feel that the survey is doubtful in that basically it does not state whether there are only 4 kinds of relationship as listed between the Urban Council and District Boards. In fact, there can be a fifth kind, i.e., just as both the chairman and the vice-chairman have just mentioned, there is no relationship between us.

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Page 100 of 185 190 HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL to say that there are more people in favour of direct election than against it. Instead, I would like to remind all of you that we cannot just rely on figure quoted from a certain chapter or a certain section and conclude that this is the trend of public opinions. We should rather find out the interrelationship of the figures within the Report. The second principle is that we should not only take into account the interrelationship of the figures but also the reasons supporting and opposing direct elections behind those figures as well as comments from the general public because these are really the basis for considering developments in Representative Government. Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind all of you that this Report conducted by the Survey Office is not an analysis of results from universal suffrage. If we just base on the figures to consider the future developments of Representative Government in Hong Kong, I believe that the damage resulting from this statistical game will certainly be greater than that from the recent collapse of the futures market. Therefore, apart from the interrelationship among those figures, we should also consider the reasons behind them. Mr. Chairman, with these words, I support the motion. MR. K. K. FUNG (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, my speech is in three parts. The first part is on the background of the 'Report of the Survey Office'. The second part is to analyze and discuss some problems concerning the Urban Council, with reference to the findings stated in the Report, especially the four controversial issues. And, the last part is my conclusion. The first part concerns problems of Urban Council's structure, the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the controversial issue about direct elections in 1988. In my opinion, two problems did not exist in the whole event. With the reason, I think that the Report is reliable and acceptable. The first non-existing problem is that there are not so-called 'organized opinions', such as opinions from signature campaigns or from 'one-man-one-letter', included in the classification of submissions. Therefore, there poses no problem in calculating the number of people for or against direct elections in 1988. The other one is that all questions designed by the private survey company in this poll are direct, clear and concise. Thus, not a long or complex question is found in the questionnaire drafted for the survey. Nevertheless, there is a background problem which has nothing to do with the survey but the Green Paper. Possible problems like the composition of the Urban Council, the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the structure of the Urban Council were not mentioned in the Green Paper. The Government only emphasized the desired future developments in the Urban Council as stated in the Green Paper. Over the past half year, the Government has given good publicity to only its proposed changes to the Urban Council through such mass media as televisions, newspapers and District Boards' leaflets whereas no one has tried to explain why the Council should not be changed. Consequently, the general public can be misled that changes must be made to the Urban Council as suggested in the Green Paper. This is indeed a big problem. HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL 191 The second part of my speech talks about the four controversial issues and some analysis of survey findings. Mr. PAO stressed the importance of figures collected by the survey and the relationship among these figures. Yet, emphasis only on these figures can also be a tragedy. Survey is used to reflect public opinions. If we do not accept survey as a means to reflect public opinions, it is definitely meaningless to conduct this survey. I believe that the parts particularly concerning the Urban Council and District Boards in the Report produced by the Government-commissioned survey company are representative ones unless someone points out any mistake or problem in any part of the survey. Both public opinions and the number of respondents should carry importance because these can reflect how far the people understand the questions. All of us can see that there are problems in the Report. However, only several hundred people did give their opinions in response to the Report. This reflects that the public just have a superficial understanding of the problem. Now, I would like to point out the four issues. First, should Urban Councillors be ex-officio members of District Boards? Some paragraphs in the Report require our attention. The first one is paragraph 8.4 and the second is 8.10. In the former paragraph, it shows that a minority of the general public indicated support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio membership of District Boards. Only 1,893 letters are from individuals, covering 26% of total submissions. In paragraph 8.10, according to the findings given by the Government commissioned survey company, 9% of submissions collected in the first survey showed support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio membership of urban District Boards and even 7% in the second survey. If the two surveys do correctly reflect and represent opinions of the general public, we can conclude that the majority are in support of retaining our Councillors as ex-officio members of District Boards. The second controversial problem is the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards. Should the Urban Council return its seats for District Board chairpersons or members by indirect election? Paragraph 10.4 of the Report, however, is contradictory to the results of the surveys as depicted in paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10. It is pointed out in paragraph 10.4 that it is supported by many that District Boards should send their own representatives to the Council through indirect elections, while paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10 show that less people support the idea of having District Board members joining the Urban Council by means of election from amongst themselves. In fact, I feel that the survey is doubtful in that basically it does not state whether there are only 4 kinds of relationship as listed between the Urban Council and District Boards. In fact, there can be a fifth kind, i.e., just as both the chairman and the vice-chairman have just mentioned, there is no relationship between us. Page 100 Page 101 Page 101 of 185

Baseline (Original)

Page 100 of 185 190 HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL to say that there are more people in favour of direct election than against it. Instead, I would like to remind all of you that we cannot just rely on figure quoted from a certain chapter or a certain section and conclude that this is the trend of public opinions. We should rather find out the interrelationship of the figures within the Report. The second principle is that we should not only take into account the interrelationship of the figures but also the reasons supporting and opposing direct elections behind those figures as well as comments from the general public because these are really the basis for considering developments in Representative Government. Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind all of you that this Report conducted by the Survey Office is not an analysis of results from universal suffrage. If we just base on the figures to consider the future developments of Representative Government in Hong Kong, I believe that the damage resulting from this statistical game will certainly be greater than that from the recent collapse of the futures market. Therefore, apart from the interrelationship among those figures, we should also consider the reasons behind them. Mr. Chairman, with these words, I support the motion. MR. K. K. FUNG (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, my speech is in three parts. The first part is on the background of the 'Report of the Survey Office'. The second part is to analyze and discuss some problems concerning the Urban Council, with reference to the findings stated in the Report, especially the four controversial issues. And, the last part is my conclusion. The first part concerns problems of Urban Council's structure, the relation- ship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the controversial issue about direct elections in 1988. In my opinion, two problems did not exist in the whole event. With the reason, I think that the Report is reliable and acceptable. The first non-existing problem is that there are not so-called 'organized opinions', such as opinions from signatue campaigns or from 'one-man-one- letter', included in the classification of submissions. Therefore, there poses no problem in calculating the number of people for or against direct elections in 1988. The other one is that all questions designed by the private survey company in this poll are direct, clear and concise. Thus, not a long or complex question is found in the questionnaire drafted for the survey. Nevertheless, there is a background problem which has nothing to do with the survey but the Green Paper. Possible problems like the composition of the Urban Council, the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the structure of the Urban Council were not mentioned in the Green Paper. The Government only emphasized the desired future develop- ments in the Urban Council as stated in the Green Paper. Over the past half year, the Government has given good publicity to only its proposed changes to the Urban Council through such mass media as televisions, newspapers and District Boards' leaflets whereas no one has tried to explain why the Council HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL Page 100 of 185 191 should not be changed. Consequently, the general public can be misled that changes must be made to the Urban Council as suggested in the Green Paper. This is indeed a big problem. The second part of my speech talks about the four controversial issues and some analysis of survey findings. Mr. PAO stressed the importance of figures collected by the survey and the relationship among these figures. Yet, emphasis, only on these figures can also be a tragedy. Survey is used to reflect public opinions. If we do not accept survey as a means to reflect public opinions, it is definitely meaningless to conduct this survey. I believe that the parts particularly concerning the Urban Council and District Boards in the Report produced by the Government-commissioned survey company are representative ones unless someone points out any mistake or problem in any part of the survey. Both public opinions and the number of respondents should carry importance because these can reflect how far the people understand the questions. All of us can see that there are problems in the Report. However, only several hundred people did give their opinions in response to the Report. This reflects that the public just have a superficial understanding of the problem. Now, I would like to point out the four issues. First, should Urban Councillors be ex-officio members of District Boards? Some paragraphs in the Report requires our attention. The first one is paragraph 8.4 and the second is 8.10. In the former paragraph, it shows that a minority of the general public indicated support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio member- ship of District Boards. Only 1 893 letters are from individuals, covering 26% of total submissions. In paragraph 8.10, according to the findings given by the Government commissioned survey company, 9% of submissions collected in the first survey showed support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio membership of urban District Boards and even 7% in the second survey. If the two surveys do correctly reflect and represent opinions of the general public, we can conclude that the majority are in support of retaining our Councillors as ex-officio members of District Boards. The second controversial problem is the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards. Should the Urban Council return its seats for District Board chairpersons or members by indirect election? Paragraph 10.4 of the Report, however, is contradictory to the results of the surveys as depicted in paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10. It is pointed out in paragraph 10.4 that it is supported by many that District Boards should send their own representatives to the Council through indirect elections, while paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10 show that less people support the idea of having District Board members joining the Urban Counicl by means of election from amongst themselves. In fact, I feel that the survey is doubtful in that basically it does not state whether there are only 4 kinds of relationship as listed between the Urban Council and District Boards. In fact, there can be a fifth kind, i.e., just as both the chairman and the vice-chairman have just mentioned, there is no relationship between us. Page 100Page 101 Page 101 of 185

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Mr. Chairman, with these words, I support the motion.

MR. K. K. FUNG (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, my speech is in three parts. The first part is on the background of the 'Report of the Survey Office'. The second part is to analyze and discuss some problems concerning the Urban Council, with reference to the findings stated in the Report, especially the four controversial issues. And, the last part is my conclusion.

The first part concerns problems of Urban Council's structure, the relation- ship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the controversial issue about direct elections in 1988. In my opinion, two problems did not exist in the whole event. With the reason, I think that the Report is reliable and acceptable. The first non-existing problem is that there are not so-called 'organized opinions', such as opinions from signatue campaigns or from 'one-man-one- letter', included in the classification of submissions. Therefore, there poses no problem in calculating the number of people for or against direct elections in 1988. The other one is that all questions designed by the private survey company in this poll are direct, clear and concise. Thus, not a long or complex question is found in the questionnaire drafted for the survey.

Nevertheless, there is a background problem which has nothing to do with the survey but the Green Paper. Possible problems like the composition of the Urban Council, the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards and the structure of the Urban Council were not mentioned in the Green Paper. The Government only emphasized the desired future develop- ments in the Urban Council as stated in the Green Paper. Over the past half year, the Government has given good publicity to only its proposed changes to the Urban Council through such mass media as televisions, newspapers and District Boards' leaflets whereas no one has tried to explain why the Council

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Page 100 of 185

191

should not be changed. Consequently, the general public can be misled that changes must be made to the Urban Council as suggested in the Green Paper. This is indeed a big problem.

The second part of my speech talks about the four controversial issues and some analysis of survey findings. Mr. PAO stressed the importance of figures collected by the survey and the relationship among these figures. Yet, emphasis, only on these figures can also be a tragedy. Survey is used to reflect public opinions. If we do not accept survey as a means to reflect public opinions, it is definitely meaningless to conduct this survey. I believe that the parts particularly concerning the Urban Council and District Boards in the Report produced by the Government-commissioned survey company are representative ones unless someone points out any mistake or problem in any part of the survey. Both public opinions and the number of respondents should carry importance because these can reflect how far the people understand the questions. All of us can see that there are problems in the Report. However, only several hundred people did give their opinions in response to the Report. This reflects that the public just have a superficial understanding of the problem.

Now, I would like to point out the four issues. First, should Urban Councillors be ex-officio members of District Boards? Some paragraphs in the Report requires our attention. The first one is paragraph 8.4 and the second is 8.10. In the former paragraph, it shows that a minority of the general public indicated support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio member- ship of District Boards. Only 1 893 letters are from individuals, covering 26% of total submissions. In paragraph 8.10, according to the findings given by the Government commissioned survey company, 9% of submissions collected in the first survey showed support for withdrawing Urban Councillors from ex-officio membership of urban District Boards and even 7% in the second survey. If the two surveys do correctly reflect and represent opinions of the general public, we can conclude that the majority are in support of retaining our Councillors as ex-officio members of District Boards.

The second controversial problem is the relationship between the Urban Council and District Boards. Should the Urban Council return its seats for District Board chairpersons or members by indirect election? Paragraph 10.4 of the Report, however, is contradictory to the results of the surveys as depicted in paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10. It is pointed out in paragraph 10.4 that it is supported by many that District Boards should send their own representatives to the Council through indirect elections, while paragraphs 9.4 and 10.10 show that less people support the idea of having District Board members joining the Urban Counicl by means of election from amongst themselves. In fact, I feel that the survey is doubtful in that basically it does not state whether there are only 4 kinds of relationship as listed between the Urban Council and District Boards. In fact, there can be a fifth kind, i.e., just as both the chairman and the vice-chairman have just mentioned, there is no relationship between us.

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