232
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
That its Members, both elected and appointed, work together in close harmony in the interest of the public.
Consequently, the Government should refrain from tinkering with the existing system solely to satisfy the expansionist ambitions of a few disgruntled members of the District Boards.
Looking to the future I would like to stress again that the Council will spare no effort in improving the lifestyle of local residents, while keeping as tight a grip as necessary on the purse-strings. We know that some problems remain, but we also know we can solve them and that there is a concerned community out there watching to see that we do.
In conclusion, I must pay tribute to the Secretary of the Urban Council and his staff who have so effectively coped with the volume of work produced by our varied and expanding activities. In this connection to the Director of Urban Services and his senior colleagues and the 17 000 members of the Urban Services Department our sincere thanks for the efforts they have made to keep our complicated urban structure so clean, green and operating effectively.
MRS. ELSIE TU, VICE-CHAIRMAN, URBAN COUNCIL (in English):- Mr. Chairman, I rise to second your motion and to endorse the remarks you have made.
The ancient Roman god Janus, from which our month January derives its name, was said to have two faces, one looking backward and the other forward. Unfortunately we don't have the supernatural powers attributed to the ancient gods, so we poor mortals can only look back at the failures and successes of the past, and make good resolutions for better success in the future.
The past year has been a busy one for the Council, and at times quite eventful. Besides making important decisions on major projects such as the Museum of Science and Technology, the Lei Yue Mun, Kowloon and Hong Kong Parks and other facilities, we have continued the never-ending saga on hawkers, and the frustrating exercise on the Green Paper on Local Administration. The Council has also had praise and blame for some policies, and I think in the coming year we need to comb carefully through those policies which have drawn criticism, to find out whether or not we may be at fault, and where improvements to our services to the public may be made.
What has helped to carry us through many of our problems has probably been our sense of unity. No matter how we may differ on minor matters, I believe we have reached the happy position where we can say that we have been pitching in, as well as pulling together for the community as a whole, and unity is certainly a good omen for success in the year ahead of us.
Chairmen of various committees will be commenting on their own thing, I am sure, so I shall refrain, except to mention that the Markets and Street Traders Select Committee is now implementing whatever can be agreed upon, from the
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recommendations of the Working Party on Hawker and Market Policies. Those of us who are members of the special interdepartmental group on hawkers, are now feeling our frustrating way through the major issues of how to get land to carry out our aim to license as many genuine hawkers as possible, and how to control the remainder for whom sites are impossible. The hawkers appear to be as frustrated as we are, waiting for results. We believe that the recommendations of the Working Party are pragmatic, and can be implemented with favourable results, but unless the Government is going to accept that hawking is an economic factor in the everyday life of the vast majority of people in Hong Kong, and is willing to make provision for it in the way of land and other necessary resources, the problem will never be solved, or the situation even improved. Land and properly trained personnel are key issues which the Government must face up to, but unfortunately the Government has so far not been willing to do so. All I can say is, that if the Government will give us the tools, we can finish the job, or at least we can make considerable improvements. Working without the tools, the Urban Council and the Urban Services Department have accepted the blame too long for what is beyond their control. Triad control of hawkers has existed as long as I have lived in Hong Kong, and it has grown steadily worse as the population has increased and more people have taken to hawking for a living. If the Government is willing to close its eyes to triad control and simply find a scapegoat for the chaos on the streets caused by triad business, we are no longer prepared to be that scapegoat. The Government must require the police to admit triad activities, and do more than take token action against them. Our unarmed and largely untrained and grossly underpaid General Duties Teams cannot stand up against triads, nor should they be expected to do so.
Turning now to Local Administration, I know that some of my colleagues will be speaking on this subject, so my words on this issue will be few. In the weeks that follow, we can expect the excitement and maybe the frustration of the decisions in the White Paper. Personally I have no great expectations on that, because for over thirty years I have been preaching the democracy which is supposed to be the bulwark of British justice, but I have seen little progress in the democratic process at the legislative level, and indeed there have been some retrograde steps in recent years. If our new politicians are frustrated, I can well understand their feelings. As a veteran in political frustration, I have to conclude that it takes decades to get those in power to listen, let alone act on anything that ruffles their comfortable lives or attempts to share a few of their privileges. I must concede that we have moved away from the colonial thinking that used to border on apartheid, but it takes decades to remove some of the vestiges of colonial thinking. And one of those vestiges is the fear of democratic, representative government. We still have strange persons on the Legislative Council who believe in their God-given genius to rule-for their own business interests of course. The rest of us, apparently, were born without brains, especially those of us who care about people rather than money.
232
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
That its Members, both elected and appointed, work together in close harmony in the interest of the public.
Consequently, the Government should refrain from tinkering with the existing system solely to satisfy the expansionist ambitions of a few disgruntled members of the District Boards.
Looking to the future I would like to stress again that the Council will spare no effort in improving the lifestyle of local residents, while keeping as tight a grip as necessary on the purse-strings. We know that some problems remain, but we also know we can solve them and that there is a concerned community out there watching to see that we do.
In conclusion, I must pay tribute to the Secretary of the Urban Council and his staff who have so effectively coped with the volume of work produced by our varied and expanding activities. In this connection to the Director of Urban Services and his senior colleagues and the 17 000 members of the Urban Services Department our sincere thanks for the efforts they have made to keep our complicated urban structure so clean, green and operating effectively.
MRS. ELSIE TU, VICE-CHAIRMAN, URBAN COUNCIL (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I rise to second your motion and to endorse the remarks you have made.
The ancient Roman god Janus, from which our month January derives its name, was said to have two faces, one looking backward and the other forward. Unfortunately we don't have the supernatural powers attributed to the ancient gods, so we poor mortals can only look back at the failures and successes of the past, and make good resolutions for better success in the future.
The past year has been a busy one for the Council, and at times quite eventful. Besides making important decisions on major projects such as the Museum of Science and Technology, the Lei Yue Mun, Kowloon and Hong Kong Parks and other facilities, we have continued the never-ending saga on hawkers, and the frustrating exercise on the Green Paper on Local Administration. The Council has also had praise and blame for some policies, and I think in the coming year we need to comb carefully through those policies which have drawn criticism, to find out whether or not we may be at fault, and where improvements to our services to the public may be made.
What has helped to carry us through many of our problems has probably been our sense of unity. No matter how we may differ on minor matters, I believe we have reached the happy position where we can say that we have been pitching in, as well as pulling together for the community as a whole, and unity is certainly a good omen for success in the year ahead of us.
Chairmen of various committees will be commenting on their own thing, I am sure, so I shall refrain, except to mention that the Markets and Street Traders Select Committee is now implementing whatever can be agreed upon, from the
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 121 of 185
233
recommendations of the Working Party on Hawker and Market Policies. Those of us who are members of the special interdepartmental group on hawkers, are now feeling our frustrating way through the major issues of how to get land to carry out our aim to license as many genuine hawkers as possible, and how to control the remainder for whom sites are impossible. The hawkers appear to be as frustrated as we are, waiting for results. We believe that the recommendations of the Working Party are pragmatic, and can be implemented with favourable results, but unless the Government is going to accept that hawking is an economic factor in the everyday life of the vast majority of people in Hong Kong, and is willing to make provision for it in the way of land and other necessary resources, the problem will never be solved, or the situation even improved. Land and properly trained personnel are key issues which the Government must face up to, but unfortunately the Government has so far not been willing to do so. All I can say is, that if the Government will give us the tools, we can finish the job, or at least we can make considerable improve- ments. Working without the tools, the Urban Council and the Urban Services Department have accepted the blame too long for what is beyond their control. Triad control of hawkers has existed as long as I have lived in Hong Kong, and it has grown steadily worse as the population has increased and more people have taken to hawking for a living. If the Government is willing to close its eyes to triad control and simply find a scapegoat for the chaos on the streets caused by triad business, we are no longer prepared to be that scapegoat. The Government must require the police to admit triad activities, and do more than take token action against them. Our unarmed and largely untrained and grossly underpaid General Duties Teams cannot stand up against triads, nor should they be expected to do so.
Turning now to Local Administration, I know that some of my colleagues will be speaking on this subject, so my words on this issue will be few. In the weeks that follow, we can expect the excitement and maybe the frustration of the decisions in the White Paper. Personally I have no great expectations on that, because for over thirty years I have been preaching the democracy which is supposed to be the bulwark of British justice, but I have seen little progress in the democratic process at the legislative level, and indeed there have been some retrograde steps in recent years. If our new politicians are frustrated, I can well understand their feelings. As a veteran in political frustration, I have to conclude that it takes decades to get those in power to listen, let alone act on anything that ruffles their comfortable lives or attempts to share a few of their privileges. I must concede that we have moved away from the colonial thinking that used to border on apartheid, but it takes decades to remove some of the vestiges of colonial thinking. And one of those vestiges is the fear of democratic, representative government. We still have strange persons on the Legislative Council who believe in their God-given genius to rule-for their own business interests of course. The rest of us, apparently, were born without brains, especially those of us who care about people rather than money.
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