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building of some facilities there. Similarly, on the Southern District Board on which I now sit I have been very active helping them upgrade RCP's, trying to get the Wong Chung Hang Park going etc. and I am also working very hard to do something about the poor and expensive transport infrastructure in the Southern District as well as the obvious water pollution, but while I was sick and absent from the District Board, the Green Paper was discussed and considerable attacks were made on Urban Councillors to such an extent that I felt personally aggrieved, and I am tabling today a letter of resignation I wrote to the Chairman of that Board resigning from the Environmental and Transport Committees because I felt that in view of what had been said in the comments on the Green Paper my work in these committees was not appreciated and therefore it was quite useless for me to sit on them. The reply, which is also tabled, indicates that the attacks were not aimed at me personally but at Urban Councillors as a whole and asked me not to resign from the committees, which I subsequently rejoined. Now, I ask you, if on the one hand they think I am so valuable that they don't want me to resign from the committees, how can they possibly on the other say that I shouldn't be sitting on the District Boards because I don't contribute anything??
(5) I understand that EXCO members when they sat in on District Board discussions, were impressed by the fact that all District Board members wanted to get rid of the Urban Councillors, and this is one of the reasons why we are now having to fight this battle. I am a little surprised that EXCO members when listening to these debates (incidentally they have never come and listened to us,) did not realize that the only reason why District Board members want to get rid of the Urban Councillors is because they want to become Urban Councillors themselves. They envy us our financial autonomy and executive powers but they know they can't win a seat by direct elections against the much stronger candidates who run for Urban Council seats, so this is a cheap way of joining this Council. And I come back to the first point I made: How is it that EXCO can be persuaded by District Board members who, in comparison to Urban Council members, represent a minority of the electorate and ignore the Survey Report which shows a very large majority of the population not wanting to make any changes in this Council, and that in spite of the fact that the questions which were put in the Survey Report were loaded to get answers the CNTA wanted.
I hope what I have said is sufficient to persuade our unofficial colleagues in Legco to vote against the legislation.
But, of course, the Urban Council part of the White Paper, although it looms large for us, is not the major item. The main problem is going to be the introduction, or lack thereof, of representative Government, and this leads us straight to our present and future relationship with the People's Republic of
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China and the progress being made formulating the Basic Law. Weak-kneed as it is, the British Government has obviously agreed to what is known in popular front parlance as 'convergence'. And what are we converging to? As far as I can ascertain from the reports on the recent meetings in Canton of the Basic Law Committee, they are talking about a 25% directly elected LEGCO with another 25% elected by functional constituency and 50% elected by a grand electoral college, but no-one can tell me how that electoral college will be elected or appointed. In fact, it becomes fairly obvious that this grand electoral college is just a substitute for an appointment system, which is intended to give Beijing cast iron control over LEGCO and will negate the pious promise in the Joint Declaration of Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong after 1997. No wonder so many people here are beginning to prefer the snow and ice of Toronto, the threat of racial discrimination in Australia, and the clogged freeways of Los Angeles to Hong Kong. The recent statement by the senior Chinese representative in Hong Kong asking people not to leave struck me as something of a joke. Someone should tell 'responsible persons' in the PRC that actions speak louder than words, and that the citizens of Hong Kong are very highly intelligent and can see through the fairly obvious ploys and machinations which will prevent any real democracy, any real government by Hong Kong people, taking root here. We are presently losing the cream of our people. Loyal, hardworking, intelligent people who have been with local companies and organizations for 10 or 20 years and given of their best are leaving because they have no faith in the future of Hong Kong. There is a way of restoring some of that faith and that is to show that independence within the framework of the Joint Declaration is possible, that we can have a confrontation with Beijing and make our own laws, which we believe to be right and beneficial for the well being and prosperity of Hong Kong. A great deal of the fast ebbing confidence would be restored if the Hong Kong Government now showed sufficient guts and recommended direct elections for LEGCO with 25% of the membership directly elected in 1988 and 50% in 1991. This would show that there is some meaning to the pious fudge which was expressed in the Joint Declaration, and that in spite of the seemingly overwhelming monolithic power structure we will be joining in 1997, we really will have internal autonomy.
It appears also that the Basic Law Committee is going through some very complicated convolutions trying to make civil servants members of a fully elected Legislative Council. And, of course, which ever way you look at it, that just won't work. There is no room for appointed civil servants in a Legislature which, according to the Joint Agreement, 'shall be constituted by elections'. This implies a ministerial system and the lack of mention of a ministerial system in the Hong Kong Government's Green Paper is a serious omission, but the lack of apparent discussion of a ministerial system in the Basic Law is a disaster. Now, many of us in this Council have pointed out to anyone willing to listen that a ministerial system in fact operates in this Council. The Chairman of each committee is de facto a minister in charge of the Department covered by his or
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building of some facilities there. Similarly, on the Southern District Board on which I now sit I have been very active helping them upgrade RCP's, trying to get the Wong Chung Hang Park going etc. and I am also working very hard to do something about the poor and expensive transport infrastructure in the Southern District as well as the obvious water pollution, but while I was sick and absent from the District Board, the Green Paper was discussed and considerable attacks were made on Urban Councillors to such an extent that I felt personally aggrieved, and I am tabling today a letter of resignation I wrote to the Chairman of that Board resigning from the Environmental and Transport Committees because I felt that in view of what had been said in the comments on the Green Paper my work in these committees was not appreciated and therefore it was quite useless for me to sit on them. The reply, which is also tabled, indicates that the attacks were not aimed at me personally but at Urban Councillors as a whole and asked me not to resign from the committees, which I subsequently rejoined. Now, I ask you, if on the one hand they think I am so valuable that they don't want me to resign from the committees, how can they possibly on the other say that I shouldn't be sitting on the District Boards because I don't contribute anything??
(5) I understand that EXCO members when they sat in on District Board discussions, were impressed by the fact that all District Board members wanted to get rid of the Urban Councillors, and this is one of the reasons why we are now having to fight this battle. I am a little surprised that EXCO members when listening to these debates (incidentially they have never come and listened to us,) did not realize that the only reason why District Board members want to get rid of the Urban Councillors is because they want to become Urban Councillors themselves. They envy us our financial autonomy and executive powers but they know they can't win a seat by direct elections against the much stronger candidates who run for Urban Council seats, so this is a cheap way of joining this Council. And I come back to the first point I made: How is it that EXCO can be persuaded by District Board members who, in comparison to Urban Council members, represent a minority of the electorate and ignore the Survey Report which shows a very large majority of the population not wanting to make any changes in this Council, and that in spite of the fact that the questions which were put in the Survey Report were loaded to get answers the CNTA wanted.
I hope what I have said is sufficient to persuade our unofficial colleagues in Legco to vote against the legislation.
But, of course, the Urban Council part of the White Paper, although it looms large for us, is not the major item. The main problem is going to be the introduction, or lack thereof, of representative Government, and this leads us straight to our present and future relationship with the People's Republic of
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 128 of 185
247
China and the progress being made formulating the Basic Law. Weak-kneed as it is, the British Government has obviously agreed to what is known in popular front parlance as 'convergence'. And what are we converging to? As far as I can ascertain from the reports on the recent meetings in Canton of the Basic Law Committee, they are talking about a 25% directly elected LEGCO with another 25% elected by functional constituency and 50% elected by a grand electoral college, but no-one can tell me how that electoral college will be elected or appointed. In fact, it becomes fairly obvious that this grand electoral college is just a substitute for an appointment system, which is intended to give Beijing cast iron control over LEGCO and will negate the pious promise in the Joint Declaration of Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong after 1997. No wonder so many people here are beginning to prefer the snow and ice of Toronto, the threat of racial discrimination in Australia, and the clogged freeways of Los Angeles to Hong Kong. The recent statement by the senior Chinese representative in Hong Kong asking people not to leave struck me as something of a joke. Someone should tell 'responsible persons' in the PRC that actions speak louder than words, and that the citizens of Hong Kong are very highly intelligent and can see through the fairly obvious ploys and machinations which will prevent any real democracy, any real government by Hong Kong people, taking root here. We are presently losing the cream of our people. Loyal, hardworking, intelligent people who have been with local companies and organizations for 10 or 20 years and given of their best are leaving because they have no faith in the future of Hong Kong. There is a way of restoring some of that faith and that is to show that independence within the framework of the Joint Declaration is possible, that we can have a confrontation with Beijing and make our own laws, which we believe to be right and beneficial for the well being and prosperity of Hong Kong. A great deal of the fast ebbing confidence would be restored if the Hong Kong Government now showed sufficient guts and recommended direct elections for LEGCO with 25% of the membership directly elected in 1988 and 50% in 1991. This would show that there is some meaning to the pious fudge which was expressed in the Joint Declaration, and that in spite of the seemingly overwhelming monolithic power structure we will be joining in 1997, we really will have internal autonomy.
It appears also that the Basic Law Committee is going through some very complicated convolutions trying to make civil servants members of a fully elected Legislative Council. And, of course, which ever way you look at it, that just won't work. There is no room for appointed civil servants in a Legislature which, according to the Joint Agreement, 'shall be constituted by elections'. This implies a ministerial system and the lack of mention of a ministerial system in the Hong Kong Government's Green Paper is a serious omission, but the lack of apparent discussion of a ministerial system in the Basic Law is a disaster. Now, many of us in this Council have pointed out to anyone willing to listen that a ministerial system in fact operates in this Council. The Chairman of each committee is de facto a minister in charge of the Department covered by his or
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