LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10589

OFFICIAL RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS

Thursday, 8 May 2014

The Council continued to meet at half-past Two o'clock

MEMBERS PRESENT:

THE PRESIDENT THE HONOURABLE JASPER TSANG YOK-SING, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE ALBERT HO CHUN-YAN

THE HONOURABLE LEE CHEUK-YAN

THE HONOURABLE JAMES TO KUN-SUN

THE HONOURABLE CHAN KAM-LAM, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE LEUNG YIU-CHUNG

DR THE HONOURABLE LAU WONG-FAT, G.B.M., G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE TAM YIU-CHUNG, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE ABRAHAM SHEK LAI-HIM, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE TOMMY CHEUNG YU-YAN, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE FREDERICK FUNG KIN-KEE, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE VINCENT FANG KANG, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE WONG KWOK-HING, B.B.S., M.H.

10590 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

THE HONOURABLE JEFFREY LAM KIN-FUNG, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE ANDREW LEUNG KWAN-YUEN, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE WONG TING-KWONG, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE RONNY TONG KA-WAH, S.C.

THE HONOURABLE CYD HO SAU-LAN

THE HONOURABLE STARRY LEE WAI-KING, J.P.

DR THE HONOURABLE LAM TAI-FAI, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE CHAN HAK-KAN, J.P.

THE HONOURABLE CHAN KIN-POR, B.B.S., J.P.

DR THE HONOURABLE PRISCILLA LEUNG MEI-FUN, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE CHEUNG KWOK-CHE

THE HONOURABLE WONG KWOK-KIN, B.B.S.

THE HONOURABLE IP KWOK-HIM, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE MRS REGINA IP LAU SUK-YEE, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE ALAN LEONG KAH-KIT, S.C.

THE HONOURABLE LEUNG KWOK-HUNG

THE HONOURABLE ALBERT CHAN WAI-YIP

THE HONOURABLE CLAUDIA MO

THE HONOURABLE JAMES TIEN PEI-CHUN, G.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE NG LEUNG-SING, S.B.S., J.P.

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THE HONOURABLE STEVEN HO CHUN-YIN

THE HONOURABLE FRANKIE YICK CHI-MING

THE HONOURABLE WU CHI-WAI, M.H.

THE HONOURABLE YIU SI-WING

THE HONOURABLE GARY FAN KWOK-WAI

THE HONOURABLE MA FUNG-KWOK, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE CHARLES PETER MOK

THE HONOURABLE CHAN CHI-CHUEN

THE HONOURABLE CHAN HAN-PAN

DR THE HONOURABLE KENNETH CHAN KA-LOK

THE HONOURABLE CHAN YUEN-HAN, S.B.S., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE LEUNG CHE-CHEUNG, B.B.S., M.H., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE KENNETH LEUNG

THE HONOURABLE ALICE MAK MEI-KUEN, J.P.

DR THE HONOURABLE KWOK KA-KI

THE HONOURABLE KWOK WAI-KEUNG

THE HONOURABLE DENNIS KWOK

THE HONOURABLE CHRISTOPHER CHEUNG WAH-FUNG, J.P.

DR THE HONOURABLE FERNANDO CHEUNG CHIU-HUNG

THE HONOURABLE SIN CHUNG-KAI, S.B.S., J.P.

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DR THE HONOURABLE HELENA WONG PIK-WAN

THE HONOURABLE IP KIN-YUEN

DR THE HONOURABLE ELIZABETH QUAT, J.P.

THE HONOURABLE MARTIN LIAO CHEUNG-KONG, J.P.

THE HONOURABLE POON SIU-PING, B.B.S., M.H.

THE HONOURABLE TANG KA-PIU

DR THE HONOURABLE CHIANG LAI-WAN, J.P.

IR DR THE HONOURABLE LO WAI-KWOK, B.B.S., M.H., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE CHUNG KWOK-PAN

THE HONOURABLE CHRISTOPHER CHUNG SHU-KUN, B.B.S., M.H., J.P.

THE HONOURABLE TONY TSE WAI-CHUEN

MEMBERS ABSENT:

THE HONOURABLE EMILY LAU WAI-HING, J.P.

PROF THE HONOURABLE JOSEPH LEE KOK-LONG, S.B.S., J.P., Ph.D., R.N.

DR THE HONOURABLE LEUNG KA-LAU

THE HONOURABLE PAUL TSE WAI-CHUN, J.P.

THE HONOURABLE WONG YUK-MAN

THE HONOURABLE MICHAEL TIEN PUK-SUN, B.B.S., J.P.

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PUBLIC OFFICERS ATTENDING:

THE HONOURABLE JOHN TSANG CHUN-WAH, G.B.M., J.P. THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY

MR GODFREY LEUNG KING-KWOK, JP SECRETARY FOR COMMERCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (until 7.35 pm)

THE HONOURABLE GREGORY SO KAM-LEUNG, G.B.S., J.P. SECRETARY FOR COMMERCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (from 7.35 pm)

CLERKS IN ATTENDANCE:

MR ANDY LAU KWOK-CHEONG, ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL

MISS FLORA TAI YIN-PING, ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL

MISS ODELIA LEUNG HING-YEE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL

MRS PERCY MA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL

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BILLS

Committee Stage

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Committee will now continue with the second joint debate on the Appropriation Bill 2014.

APPROPRIATION BILL 2014

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any Member wish to speak?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I have been unable to speak clearly due to gum inflammation. Now it is more difficult for me to utter words probably because I ate "claypot rice" a couple of days ago, which has affected me.

Chairman, yesterday I mentioned special appointments of the Chief Executive's Office (CEO) with the conclusion that such an arrangement would dampen the morale of civil servants due to the lack of mechanism and appointment criteria for such high-paying posts, not to mention that their duties are unknown and there is no explanation by the authorities. Nepotism is obviously the norm under which almost all appointments are the means to transfer benefits from the political perspective. I would like to share some information with Members. Some government officials in this Chamber or those who are now lobbying Members outside have also been appointed to such posts …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, please indicate which amendment you are now speaking on.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Amendment No 11. It is resolved that head 21 be reduced by $11,658,000 in respect of subhead 000, which is roughly equivalent to the annual provision for the remuneration of special appointments of the CEO.

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As I mentioned earlier, some of the candidates are sitting in this Chamber today. Given that the annual remunerations of these Special Assistants are so high, the public consider that they are unworthy of their remunerations. It is also doubtful whether the appointees are worthy of such high remunerations. There are plenty of such posts. For example, there is a Senior Special Assistant under the Special Committee. The provision for remuneration of such a post including the payment of end-of-contract gratuity is $2.99 million. As for the other amendments, Chairman, I can deal with them jointly so that I need not repeat my arguments later.

Let us take a look at Amendments No 24 and No 25. Amendment No 24 seeks to reduce the annual remuneration of the Senior Special Assistant of the CEO, which is $2.99 million. Amendment No 25 seeks to reduce $2.61 million, which is the provision for the annual remuneration of Information Coordinator. I will discuss these two Amendments together with Amendment No 11 because these three are inter-related with similar logic and rationale. Take the duties of the Senior Special Assistant as an example. His duties are: Advises the Chief Executive on Mainland-related issues; liaises with the Central People's Government and provides support in the organization of Chief Executive's visits to the Mainland; and researches into matters relating to Chief Executive's networking with business and community organizations with strong Mainland connections.

If the aforesaid duties alone are taken into account, I think the LOCPG, to a certain extent, is performing all these duties. Its responsibilities are even broader and wider. I believe the Chief Executive does not need a so-called Senior Special Assistant to take up the liaison work with the LOCPG, thereby wasting almost $3 million per year. Perhaps due to the presence of this Senior Special Assistant, the Chief Executive has always travelled to the Mainland. As we can see it, he has paid so many visits to the Mainland in order to meet with relevant provincial and municipal officials that the public feel that he has completely forgotten to serve Hong Kong. Many people in Hong Kong have strongly criticized that Hong Kong has been Mainlandized and is no longer an international city. Furthermore, while Hong Kong continues to strengthen ties with the Mainland, it has lost touch with other major international cities. This is neither a proper trend nor a desirable phenomenon. The remuneration of this Senior Special Assistant can be compared with that of the Prime Minister of Japan, who is earning an annual salary of only US$160,000. But now this 10596 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Senior Special Assistant is only responsible for arranging visits and liaison work. I do not see any need to set up this post.

If my understanding is correct, the incumbent Senior Special Assistant is CHAN Kin-ping. I am not sure whether he has been replaced. If not, he is the incumbent post-holder. As we all understand it, according to information, this gentleman, who is a Communist Party member, has worked for Wen Wei Po. Owing to his special political background, the public wonder whether he is assigned by the Communist Party and the Central Government, just like the political assistants of the former Governors of Hong Kong who were assigned by the British Government.

In the era of the last Governor, Chris PATTEN, he had two aides nicknamed "big tortoise" and "small tortoise". We could see that they always came out with Chris PATTEN. But this Senior Special Assistant seldom appears in public. Such a political assistant with such a political background seems to be hiding himself away. It seems that he is working in a black hole and no one has seen him. As for his duties, there is no explanation on whether his performance and ability can meet the standard of value for money. Thus, the public do not have any confidence in him. Perhaps we should request the Audit Commission to conduct an in-depth, comprehensive and realistic review on these special appointments by the CEO according to the basic principle of value for money. Otherwise, the taxpayers' money will be squandered down the drain.

Some people who are familiar with CHAN Kin-ping, such as JIANG Weiping (姜維平), have described CHAN Kin-ping in the following paragraph (I quote to this effect): "According to my understanding, CHAN Kin-ping is appointed due to his connections accumulated over the years when he worked as a reporter. In other words, even TUNG Chee-hwa or Donald TSANG would be unable to do co-ordination with Beijing according to the Mainland people's values and approaches. But CHAN Kin-ping has such ability in this area, and he will protect the resources in this aspect. Furthermore, he is very skillful and successful.

"So, as a Special Assistant to the Chief Executive, CHAN Kin-ping is responsible for not only drafting speeches for the Chief Executive but also providing political advice and matchmaking in action. As a result, the media described his speeches as full of Mainland style between the lines."

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Chairman, if he is really such an influential person, we do not have to set up the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau to take up various duties because he can replace the civil servants concerned to provide support to the government departments and Policy Bureaux. However, the above description may be just based on some interpretation on the internal operation of the CEO. Anyway, as I said earlier, the mode of operation and specific function of the CEO as a whole can be described as black box operation.

If he is really like what JIANG Weiping has described, I believe Hong Kong people or the Legislative Council would have to ask: First, have the authorities clearly specified the essential duties in this aspect when the candidate is appointed? If these are not the proper duties of the CEO but are practices of someone due to his personal preference, this will undermine the traditional bureaucratic culture of Hong Kong. I wonder whether the development of the past 17 years is due to the presence of these people and whether these special appointments have led to a situation where the governance of Hong Kong as a whole has adopted the practices of the Communist Party or affected by local communists, resulting in a gradual destruction of Hong Kong's core values. Although they are holding such important positions at the upper echelon of the Government with such strong and special background and capacity, they are recruited without going through any formal appointment procedures. Furthermore, no formal account in this aspect has been provided. Worse still, they are so influential.

In recent years, the operation of Hong Kong Government has been Mainlandized. For instance, our police have become Mainland police, the Commissioner of Independent Commission Against Corruption has bought red wine and ox offal with public funds to treat Mainland officials. The entire bureaucratic framework of Hong Kong has been Mainlandized and characterized by graft and corruption and private deals. There are lots of discussion about these, resulting in …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, you are now raising irrelevant arguments, which have proved that you are repeating lots of viewpoints.

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MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Yes, Chairman. I come to the conclusion now, which is the last one. Having introduced the Mainland bureaucratic culture into the CEO, he plays an important role in exerting a bad influence on Hong Kong's political culture. So, he should not be allowed to hold an important position, thereby exerting influence on the governance of the SAR to the detriment of the local culture and core values of Hong Kong. Therefore, I propose to delete this post under Amendment No 24.

Regarding Amendment No 25, Chairman, in fact, when you pointed out my problem just now, I was talking about the last part of Amendment No 24. I will proceed to Amendment No 25, which seeks to reduce $2.61 million under head 21 in respect of subhead 000, which is roughly equivalent to the provision for the annual remuneration for the Information Coordinator of the CEO.

Chairman, I wish to declare that I know this person. I had poor relationship with him when I was a member of the Democratic Party because in my opinion, he is an ignorant person and will be a negative asset in any organization. So when he works in the CEO, he has become the CEO's negative asset. Let me go back to this post, Chairman. I will first of all provide some objective information about the main duties of this post.

Regarding the duties of the Information Coordinator, he definitely cannot compare with that of the White House Press Secretary as what he said. The Information Coordinator's responsibilities are as follows: Formulates media and public relations strategy for and co-ordinates the timetable of the introduction of major policies and programmes; liaises closely with Director of Information Services and Bureau Press Officers to ensure effective implementation of media and public relations strategy for major policies; monitors public and media feedback; and helps plan and implement the Chief Executive's programme of public functions involving media interactions.

Chairman, I will discuss in detail the principle and rationale behind the proposal of deleting this post under Amendment No 25 later.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I rise to speak on Amendment No 23 and No 24. Amendment No 23 is proposed by Mr WONG Yuk-man, which is about Head 21 ― Chief Executive's Office (CEO). It resolved that head 21 be reduced by $3.4 million in respect of subhead 000. The LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10599 amount to be reduced is equivalent to the estimated annual remuneration for the Director of the CEO. As Mr Albert CHAN has discussed Amendment No 24, I will not read it out to avoid making a very long speech.

Chairman, the way in which a leader or politician chooses a person for a job can prove his capability. The two persons I am going to discuss are certainly responsible for assisting him in his governance. Having discussed the Executive Council yesterday, I will not mention it any more today. The two persons, who are the subject of my discussion, are his aides directly under him. They are the Director of CEO and Senior Special Assistant to the Chief Executive. Certainly, their duties are separated. Why are there two aides? One of them in Hong Kong or … more specifically, he serves the Chief Executive in any place except the People's Republic of China. We can see that Edward YAU accompanied the Chief Executive in meeting with the President of the Philippines, Benigno AQUINO III. I have no idea whether CHAN Kin-ping attended the meeting. I will not repeat what has actually happened. The Senior Special Assistant is responsible for Mainland-related issues probably due to his strong Mainland connections. Therefore, it is relatively reasonable to appoint two assistants because LEUNG Chun-ying has made it clear that he will develop homeland relationship. But I would rather call it "compensated dating". In the development of homeland relationship, an assistant is needed and this is reasonable. But who should be appointed is a problem.

Let me talk about Mr Edward YAU first. I have described him as a "ghost man", meaning he seldom appears in public. Mr Edward YAU was originally the accountable Secretary for the Environment. Is he a capable person? From the perspective of meritocracy, he has failed to meet public aspirations in at least three aspects when he was in charge of the Environment Bureau. The first problem, which remains unresolved even though I have mentioned it time and again, is that he has not reminded the Marine Department to designate the Victoria Harbour as a special area where the use of highly polluting diesel fuel is prohibited. As a result, the regulations in Hong Kong are inconsistent with the laws of all other harbour cities. The second problem is the idling engine ban, which has become an international joke. Chairman, you may take a walk along the street after dinner to see whether the public observe the idling engine ban. It has taken three years to implement this policy and I have also helped him launch the initiative several times. The third is his dereliction of duty. But in what aspect is it? The legacy of Edward YAU is the problem that Secretary WONG Kam-sing has to make every effort to convince the public 10600 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 that the extension of landfills is urgently needed. In other words, when he was in office, he has wasted a lot of time in implementing useless policies, such as idling engine ban, which are totally fruitless. But he has failed to deal with a problem which has now become a time bomb.

If meritocracy is adopted, no one will spend $3.4 million of public fund on appointing someone to be his assistant who will do a disservice to himself, right? On this point, honestly speaking, I am baffled why this is so. Why did the Chief Executive find a nasty person in the official circle? In fact, he is good at public relations. Edward YAU is certainly excellent in public relations. As a result, even though he is such a bad public officer, not many people will scold him. After taxpayers paid $3.4 million, has Edward YAU discharged his duty? Certainly not. Chairman, you have also mentioned the five-page document, that is, the five-page document to explain the circumstances surrounding the incident of HKTV when LEUNG Chun-ying was asked to give an explanation. In the Chamber of this Council, the document was regarded as a laughing stock. Honestly speaking, the Director of CEO should be accountable to this, not to mention other omissions.

So, on this point, Mr WONG Yuk-man has proposed to reduce $3.4 million, which is the provision for his remuneration. In other words, he will not be paid. In fact, the purpose is to "combat internal unrest and remove evil ministers at the side of the emperor." What Mr WONG Yuk-man did is painstaking. "Oh, Chief Executive, you are already a very incompetent person. But why have you got an 'underperformed aide' to assist you?" We are called Members of the opposition camp. But Members of the opposition camp are good at logic, and certainly our logical mind is stronger than the loyalists' because we can see the problem.

In fact, if Edward YAU, Director of CEO, has heard what I said, he should come to the Legislative Council. Just like WONG Kwok-hing, who told someone that he had never drunk milk tea, Edward YAU should come to the Legislative Council in order to refute me. If he does not refute me, I cannot help saying so. Chairman, I know you consider my speech on Edward YAU alone is too long, right? Everybody knows the mistakes committed by Edward YAU. In other words, the Government has racked its brain to solve those problems due to his failure when he served as a public officer, not to mention the mistakes committed by him as an aide of LEUNG Chun-ying now.

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To put it simply, Chairman, in fact, it was you who has arranged the visit for us to Shanghai. But LEUNG Chun-ying hastily came forth claiming that he had made the arrangement, which is a big lie and empty talk. Honestly speaking, LEUNG Chun-ying may not be aware of taking the opportunity to make the claim. And I have pointed out that Edward YAU is a public relations expert. So, he would certainly adopt such a tactic. He came forth to make a gesture so that people would think that the Chief Executive arranged the visit to Shanghai for us. But the people can see through it. The person who has arranged the visit to Shanghai for us ate some snacks with us in a hurry. It is really disgraceful. It does not matter whether the mastermind is CHAN Kin-ping or he himself. It is the same. The Chief Executive came forth to tell us that he would like to eat snack with us. What was he uttering?

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, you have digressed from the subject.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): I know. The CEO has made it a disgrace for the Chief Executive. And Chairman, you were at a loss of what to do, right? It has totally violated courtesy. Well, I know you want to remind us not to repeat what has been said. I will not repeat it.

Regarding CHAN Kin-ping, last year we criticized him severely. I will not repeat what happened last year. Now I will discuss what has happened in this recent incident. Chairman, according to my experience, surely I know how incompetent CHAN Kin-ping is. Now let me tell you my own experience. Ever since I indicated my willingness to go to Shanghai, no one had been assigned to ask me whether I needed any help although I had been denied entry when I visited Sichuan earlier. Buddy, I am a Legislative Council Member, even though I live in a public rental housing unit and am as trivial as dust. When lining up with others in front of the China Travel Service (CTS), I was subject to inclement weather in an open space. I was even exposed to the scorching sun or lashing rain. If I lose my documents, what should I do? He is responsible to remove obstacles in the Mainland on behalf of LEUNG Chun-ying. As CHAN Kin-ping or Edward YAU wanted to take credit, claiming that they made the arrangement, then Chairman, frankly speaking, you did not have to take care of me because they should be responsible for it. The counterpart of a government is a government although one is at a lower level while the other is higher. The establishment of the SAR Government is independent. Although 10602 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 it was an arrangement between two governments and CHAN Kin-ping is so familiar with Mainland affairs, I was subject to inclement weather in an open space ― such a description may be a little bit exaggerated. It would be more appropriate to say that I had to queue up outside regardless of the weather. I had to queue up with other people and become the subject of gossips in the street because I seldom go to the CTS and do not know how to take photograph there. This is a very bad arrangement. In the past when we travelled to the Mainland, I did not have to go through the procedures myself. I just gave my document and photograph to them and at the customs … Chairman, in 2005 you went along with me, they shouted "LEUNG Kwok-hung (in Putonghua)." I replied "Yes (in Putonghua)." Then I got my documents and customs clearance was completed …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, you have spent too much time on this matter.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): No, I am now talking about CHAN Kin-ping. You and I have witnessed what happened. There is another incident which is the most ridiculous. When crossing the border, I was subject to body search. Our dear Secretary General, Mr Kenneth CHEN came forth bravely to raise objection against such an unreasonable demand of the Shanghai Customs. "Yuan Qiu" also bravely raised objection, but was finally taught a lesson. A customs officer said, "You are not allowed to talk here. (in Putonghua)" Buddy, you went along with Kenneth CHEN. You are responsible. You said, "I am Jasper TSANG, President of the Legislative Council." When such a major misunderstanding occurred, you remember that in the room …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, you have digressed from the subject.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): I am talking about how poor CHAN Kin-ping is. My proposal to reduce his annual salary by $2.99 million is a very serious matter. I must produce evidence to support me. And you have to know what I am saying. You should listen to me.

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After entering the Customs Department, the most absurd thing was that an official of Shanghai Customs asked, "What is President of the Legislative Council? (in Putonghua)" In reply, I told him that the President of the Legislative Council is equivalent to a "deputy of the National People's Congress". The official immediately looked frightened and his attitude suddenly became friendly. As CHAN Kin-ping is so familiar with Mainland affairs, "You should tell him: 'You have to respect our President.' You go to change his attitude. (In Putonghua)" … I, as a prisoner …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, I remind you again that you have digressed from the subject.

DR LAM TAI-FAI (in Cantonese): Do you know you have digressed from the subject?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): I know. It is really unfair. The President and I were bullied inside. I told them that the President was a good man who had served as a representative of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. But I also made a mistake and should have my remuneration cut. Actually, he has stepped down. The President said, "No, I have stepped down (in Putonghua)." Then, the officer looked serious and said that he had to take away the envelope of a complaint letter before allowing the President to get it back.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, what you are talking about is completely unrelated to the subject.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): "Why should CHAN Kin-ping be paid $2.99 million per annum? He did not do anything when you and I were going through the ordeal. (in Putonghua)" Right? He has claimed that CHAN Kin-ping has strong Mainland connections, knowing that the ways of doing things in the Mainland are civilized. But we were greeted by two custom officials. Honestly speaking, anyone casually assigned by the Shanghai Municipal Committee is certainly at a much higher level. Anyone who is assigned could 10604 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 directly tell us, "President, your colleague is denied entry. The matter is settled, OK? (in Putonghua)" By analogy, LEUNG Chun-ying considers a lethal weapon as a walking stick despite CHAN Kin-ping's poor performance. Buddy, his annual salary is $2.99 million. Chairman, how much is your annual remuneration? You were more competent than he was because you were very calm. You told him, "I am the President, if you want to do anything against a member in our tour, you have to seek my consent." Where did CHAN Kin-ping hide then? How come I have digressed from the subject? The annual remuneration of CHAN Kin-ping is $2.99 million … if he did not join us that day, there would not be … Dr LAM Tai-fai, you listen to me first, or else the Chairman would stop you.

(Someone interrupted)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Other Members please keep quiet.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): If on the day CHAN Kin-ping knew that we would go to the Mainland, and the Chief Executive told him to go with us, certainly the incident would not have happened. Because he had worked for Wen Wei Po as a reporter for many years and he is a member of the Communist Party with knowledge of the legal system and the ways of doing things in the Mainland. With only one word, he can solve a problem satisfactorily. "Wait, let me make a phone call. Two phone calls will do. (in Putonghua)" He would call the most senior official, that is, the Secretary of Shanghai Municipal Committee's Secretary, mentioning their acquaintance …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, I remind you again that you have digressed from the subject.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I have not discussed CHAN Kin-ping in the last session. This is the latest information. It is wrong for you to say that I have digressed because everybody, including LEUNG Chun-ying, agrees that CHAN Kin-ping has been appointed due to his familiarity with Mainland affairs. You were also present when the incident I testified today happened. You can certainly make a ruling on whether I have digressed. But honestly speaking, all those who are conscientious will shed tears on hearing it. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10605

His annual salary is $2.99 million. Dr LAM Tai-fai, how much is your monthly salary as a Member? Isn't it $80,000? He is a waste of public money. This made me, as a trivial Legislative Council Member, feel shameful. But this does not matter. The Legislative Council as a whole has been overturned.

Chairman, I know I cannot refute your ruling that I have digressed from the subject. Many people do not want to hear my speech. I now request a headcount. No one wants to hear such a wonderful speech, "it is really unreasonable! (in Putonghua)"

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(Dr CHIANG Lai-wan was speaking at her seat)

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): "Yuan Qiu", I am commending you. You played your part well, but your performance is at a 20% discount after being scolded by Mr CHAN Kam-lam.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, please sit down.

(While the summoning bell was ringing, some Members chitchatted with each other)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Please do not chitchat in the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, do you wish to continue to speak?

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MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, both milk tea and lemon tea are tea.

MR GARY FAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, this time, I am going to speak on Amendment No 31. This amendment is related to head 21 and it proposes that head 21 be reduced by $1.5 million in respect of subhead 000, equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for the Chief Executive's duty visits.

Chairman, LEUNG Chun-ying often stresses that Hong Kong people have to do a good job in homeland relationship, so he practices what he preaches by visiting the Mainland almost monthly to pay visits to local leaders or attend official activities. LEUNG Chun-ying said that by devoting more attention to developing homeland relationship, the co-operative relationship between China and Hong Kong could be deepened. However, the suggestions made by the public and the mass media after careful deduction differ starkly from LEUNG Chun-ying's argument. Here, I am going to share such suggestions with Members and make some criticisms. Moreover, I think what he has done represents a waste of public funds, so it is only right to reduce his expenditure for duty visits.

Chairman, first, it is said that the Chief Executive, in showing a particular preference for visiting the Mainland, is striving to win political capital for himself. Unlike the former Chief Executives, apart from going to Beijing to report his duties to the Central Authorities, LEUNG Chun-ying also likes to visit some second-tier and third-tier cities in his leisure or when he has nothing to do, be it Chongqing, Hainan, Guiyang, Nanning, Fuzhou or Xiamen and with regard to some places, one has no idea where they are even if one hears their names, for example, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang, and so on, where the Chief Executive has left his footprints. Among these places, LEUNG Chun-ying took the initiative to visit Chongqing in September last year, thus arousing a furore and many doubts among Hong Kong people. Why? Because at that time, there was a great deal of hubbub over and attention on the case involving BO Xilai. Was his visit to Chongqing for business or political purposes? Obviously, Hong Kong people have doubts over this.

Chairman, although most of the aforementioned cities lie within the Pan-Pearl River Delta Region, they have few connections with Hong Kong and we cannot find a particularly large number of business opportunities in them LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10607 either. Moreover, even if co-operation agreements have to be signed, it is not absolutely necessary for the Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying, to be present personally. He can task the Financial Secretary, Mr John TSANG, or the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Secretary Prof K C CHAN, or the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Gregory SO, to sign them. Here in Hong Kong, there are many local issues related to planning and public livelihood that call for actions and attention from the Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying. The words that I wish to address to the Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying, are "there is no issue of public livelihood that can be considered petty and homeland relationship is only of secondary importance". However, obviously, what he did is to put the cart before the horse. LEUNG Chun-ying goes back to the Mainland on a monthly basis, attends all functions he is invited to personally and he even takes the initiative to cross the boundary to meet the leaders of these cities. On seeing this, Hong Kong people have the impression that he is only using the excuse of exploring business opportunities to build his political connections using public funds.

Chairman, after the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, TUNG Chee-hwa, had resigned for health reasons, he was immediately appointed by the Central Government as the Vice Chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Since LEUNG Chun-ying was an important member in TUNG Chee-hwa's reign and knows TUNG Chee-hwa's upward trajectory in his bureaucratic career so well, as the palm of his hand, the motive of his various moves to ingratiate himself with the Central Authorities by crossing the boundary frequently to discuss co-operation, encouraging Hong Kong people to develop their career on the Mainland and attracting Mainlanders to Hong Kong through certain policy arrangements is all too obvious. LEUNG Chun-ying's further development of homeland relationship will only bring more or even an infinite number of visitors coming under the Individual Visit Scheme to Hong Kong, bring about the headlong integration between China and Hong Kong and give rise to more factors unfavourable to public livelihood in Hong Kong. These are my criticisms.

Chairman, to salvage the livelihood of the Hong Kong public and deal with the administration of the SAR Government properly, the Neo Democrats believe that deducting the expenditure for the Chief Executive's duty visits is a crucial step. On the one hand, this can prevent people from paving the way for higher official positions and riches after leaving office, thus caring only about the Mainland but not Hong Kong; on the other, this will also give the Chief 10608 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Executive more time to stay in Hong Kong so as to focus on and devote more time to public livelihood and keeping tabs on public sentiments. Such an approach and arrangement has a lot of downsides but not a single upside.

Chairman, according to the rumours making their rounds among the public, the second reason for LEUNG Chun-ying's love for visiting the Mainland is that more often than not, when he went to the Mainland, an all-inclusive package ― food, accommodation, transport expenses ― would be arranged for him by the Mainland authorities. Taking the Boao Forum for Asia attended by him in April 2013 as an example, his travels within the city and the accommodation for two of the three people in his retinue were sponsored by the Secretariat of the Boao Forum. Another example is that in September last year, during his visit to Guizhou for two days, his travels in the city and the accommodation for the Chief Executive and four members of his retinue were also sponsored by the Guizhou Provincial Government.

Chairman, it looks as though LEUNG Chun-ying's visits to Mainland cities were practically free sightseeing tours in which he stood to gain all the benefits offered by the Central Authorities and local Governments but what we gets in return may not necessarily be more business opportunities. Worse still, a series of adverse consequences may follow. What Hong Kong people are most concerned about is that there is no free lunch in this world. If our Chief Executive makes visits in the name of Hong Kong and spends the money offered by the Mainland in Hong Kong's name, often, the party that has to repay the money is perhaps Hong Kong People. Minor requests may include asking the SAR Government to adopt the same protocol and offer sponsorship in receiving Mainland officials and major requests may include offering concessionary terms in economic co-operation and even taking into account the feelings of Mainland officials when formulating public policies in Hong Kong.

Chairman, in addition, past instances of public officers accepting sponsorships when making duty visits have drawn criticisms. What LEUNG Chun-ying is doing now is to flout the rules. At the end of 2012, the former Chief Executive, Donald TSANG, was exposed by the mass media to have accepted the entertainment offered by tycoons and visited Macao in luxury. As a result, his popularity plummeted immediately and he was subsequently given the sobriquet of "Greedy TSANG" by the public. Some time ago, Legislative Council Members accepted the sponsorship of an airline when making a visit to France and they were also queried by the public as to whether or not any conflict LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10609 of interest was involved. Chairman, in citing these examples, my aim is to show clearly that public officers, in accepting sponsorships when making duty visits, will give the Hong Kong public the impression of being corrupt and the acceptance of sponsorship by LEUNG Chun-ying is no exception. This is tantamount to adding salt to the injury of the plummeting rating in the degree of corruption-free practices in Hong Kong at present.

At present, frugality, the eradication of corruption, personal integrity and dispensing with all image projects are being advocated on the Mainland but the acceptance of sponsorships when making duty visits is running counter to this major trend. If our Chief Executive really cares about Hong Kong and is making efforts for the sake of Hong Kong people, he should put an end to these sponsored visits, so as to avoid scandalizing the Central Authorities and local governments.

Chairman, as a summary of the arguments advanced by me just now, the Neo Democrats believe that as the Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying cannot possibly be unclear about or fail to understand the pros and cons of accepting sponsorships for duty visits. As the Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying accepts the sponsorship from the Central Government when making duty visits but the intricate web of interests involved in dealing with the Central Authorities will actually sow the seeds of future trouble. The Neo Democrats, in proposing the amendment on reducing the estimates for duty visits, precisely wants to cut down on the activities in relation to homeland relationship undertaken by the Chief Executive ― to put it even more vulgarly ― to reduce the chances of promiscuous intercourses, so as to salvage the image of integrity associated with the Chief Executive and Hong Kong. At the same time, we want to prevent LEUNG Chun-ying from owing the Central Government and local governments a load of debt ― the debt of favours, which Hong Kong people have to repay after he has left office.

Chairman, ever since LEUNG Chun-ying took office, he made one visit per month on average and such a number of outside visits is unsurpassed by many heads of the states worldwide. As of February this year, the President of the United States, Mr Barack OBAMA, made 32 overseas visits in total during the five years in his term, or only one visit on average in almost every two months. Of one of the BRICS countries, Russia, its President, Mr Vladimir PUTIN, made nearly 80 visits in the 12 years of his office, so he has also made on average one visit in almost every two months. Another head of state of the BRICS, the 10610 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Prime Minister of India, Manmohan SINGH, has made 73 visits in a decade in his tenure, so on average, he also made only one visit in every 1.64 months. Even the number of visits made by the President of the Philippines, Mr Benigno AQUINO III, whose administration Hong Kong people consider to be chaotic and whom Hong Kong people despise, has made only 22 trips abroad in three and a half years, at an average of only one visit every two months, is also far smaller than that of our incumbent Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying.

Chairman, the frequency of duty visits made by the Chief Executive and even government officials of the SAR has aroused public concern as well as our queries. Was there any actual need for the incessant duty visits made in the course of months and years? The last Chief Executive, Donald TSANG, made 55 duty visits during his tenure which lasted seven years, at an average of one visit every one and a half months. When leaving office, he was criticized by the mass media and the public as wasting a large amount of public funds on pleasure trips and abusing his power of being the Chief Executive for personal gains. Another person that also came under criticism is the Former Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Timothy TONG, who is mired in the furore over his entertainment expenses. He used public funds to make duty visits, in which he privately inserted some sightseeing itineraries that were not appropriately regulated, and his conduct has disgraced and tarnished Hong Kong's corruption-free image.

Chairman, apart from the officials of the last Government, the approach of the present Government with regard to duty visits is also criticized by the public. In December last year, the Secretary for Education, Eddie NG, was exposed to have lavished $900,000 on making overseas visits for as many as 37 days and set foot on Mainland China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, and so on, since taking office. Most of these trips were for promoting education in Hong Kong and carrying out onsite visits rather than putting in place any actual bilateral programmes, so they were criticized by public as unnecessary. In view of this, he should reserve more time for dealing with the education problems in Hong Kong rather than making visits continually.

Chairman, the Neo Democrats believe that LEUNG Chun-ying, as the head of the SAR Government, should cut down on non-essential duty visits and the whole team under LEUNG should also set an example. Therefore, the actual benefits that can be derived will be far greater than the reduction of $1.5 million LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10611 in the amendment proposed by me. Last year, the annual expenses incurred by the three Secretaries of Departments and 12 Directors of Bureaux in making duty visits amounted to more than $6 million. In other words, if my amendment is supported by Legislative Council Members, the trend of righting the wrong of the entire Government in making frequent duty visits can be set in motion and the ultimate benefit may be equal to four times of $1.5 million. For this reason, I hope Legislative Council Members can perform their duty of monitoring the Government duly by supporting my amendment on reducing the annual expenditure for the duty visits of the Chief Executive.

Chairman, I so submit.

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, in this session, I will speak on Head 21 ― Chief Executive's Office subhead 000 in respect of deducting the expenditure for the Executive Council.

Last night, after going back, I went through the papers again carefully and I find that actually seven amendments involve expenditures for the Executive Council and they include Amendments Nos 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15 and 30, the harshest ones being Nos 7 and 8. These two amendments are the same. They resolve that head 21 be deducted by $280 million in respect of subhead 000 to deduct an amount approximately equivalent to … no, let me read it all over again. Rather, the sum is $20.8 million, to deduct an amount approximately equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for the Executive Council. I wish to explain one point clearly to Members. If Members really want to relieve the Executive Council of its powers completely, they have to support Amendments Nos 7 and 8 because the ensuing Amendments up to No 10 only propose to deduct an amount approximately equivalent to the emoluments for the Non-official Members of the Executive Council.

I will explain the composition of the Executive Council clearly again. At present, it comprises the Chief Executive, 15 Official Members and 14 Non-official Members. Although we do not know if there is any ordinance, legislation or guidelines stipulating the number of such Members at 14, it means that even if Members support Amendment No 10 and deduct the emoluments for all Non-official Members, in theory, the Executive Council can still function, only that the Executive Council will comprise of the Chief Executive, 15 Official Members and no Non-official Members. This notwithstanding, I believe that 10612 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 even if Non-official Members have their emoluments deducted or are not paid any emoluments at all, or they even have to dig into their own pockets, many people would still jostle with one another to serve as Executive Council Members.

Here, I will first look at some figures with Members. Concerning the expenditure for the emoluments of the Non-official Members of the Executive Council, in page 35 of the first part of the heads of the Budget, it is stated clearly that the original estimate in 2013-2014 was $13,425,000 but the actual expenses stood at $12,051,000, so why was less money spent? The Government did not give any account publicly to this Council. Concerning the discrepancy in relation to this item of expenditure, I wonder why such a desirable development arose and less money was spent. Did someone fail to receive the emoluments? Yes, someone did not receive the emoluments and perhaps one of them is Mr Franklin LAM because he was once suspended from his duties. During question time, we also tried to ask the Government if he had been paid emoluments but the Government did not reply properly. However, subsequently, I learnt by way of gossips and hearsay that actually, Franklin LAM did not receive any emoluments during the period in which he was suspended from duty.

Therefore, one of the factors for the discrepancy between $13,425,000 and $12,051,000 is perhaps the fact that Franklin LAM did not receive any emoluments and the second reason for the discrepancy is perhaps the resignation of Barry CHEUNG in the midst of his term, so some expenses could be saved. In recent days, I learnt of another reason. It turned out that Arthur LI also applied to the Chief Executive for no-pay leave for family reasons. However, what I wish to tell Members through such a detailed analysis is that our understanding or overseeing of the Executive Council or its Members is close to none and the reasons cited by me just now are purely my own speculation and I cannot provide any actual figures to Members.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time talking about how we went to great lengths to obtain the information on attendance rates. In view of this, it would be the wildest dream if we want them to provide detailed information on financial expenses or the payroll to us. Our overriding principle is that if we have the power of scrutiny but no power or ability to oversee them, we have to consider seriously if we need to scrutinize the relevant fund allocation. Even if I argue no more over the system of confidentiality or collective responsibility of the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10613

Executive Council, on matters relating to the administration or finance of the Executive Council, should they not take the initiative to give an open and transparent account to the Legislative Council? It should not have been necessary for us to go to great lengths to urge, exhort and coax them repeatedly before they were willing to tell us about the attendance rates.

However, we have no way of knowing what the actual expenses are at present and this also bears out another issue, that is, there is neither any mechanism for dismissal nor any principles for removal by the Executive Council, still less is there any principle for granting no-pay leave, so all decisions can be made simply with the nod of a single man, the Chief Executive. Therefore, at present, there are no stipulations as to when someone can take no-pay leave, when it is necessary to dismiss someone and when someone has to be removed from a post. Therefore, I hope this Council can support the passage of these seven amendments seeking to deduct the expenditure for the Executive Council, so as to exert pressure on the Executive Council. Even if they are bent on not telling Members the details or the agenda of the meetings of the Executive Council, they should take the initiative to give proper accounts to the Legislative Council, the Finance Committee and the Hong Kong public in respect of the establishment, attendance rates, administration and finance of the Executive Council. This is what I want to tell Members through the foregoing analysis.

Let us look again at the estimate for 2014-2015. Originally, they intended to apply for a fund allocation of $13 million for 2013-2014 but because of the numerous blunders made by this and that person, the final expenditure was $12 million. What is the amount of funds applied for 2014-2015? It was $12,221,000 and by looking at this sum alone, it can be seen that they have no intention of applying for the sum of some $13 million as that for 2013-2014. LEUNG Chun-ying has no intention of finding two other people to serve as Executive Council Members within this year and replace Franklin LAM and Barry CHEUNG. In fact, the two of them are dispensable and so are these two posts. That means two more mouths and two more voices would cost us some $1 million to $2 million.

Legislative Council Members can be divided into radicals and moderates. In view of this, I suggest that radical Members support Amendments Nos 7 and 8, which seek to deduct the annual expenditure for the entire Executive Council. As it is said, "Far from eye, far from heart". In the end, a single man can take everything upon himself, so that the Chief Executive in Council will not be turned 10614 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 into a black box, so much so that we cannot even ask questions in Chief Executive's Question and Answer Sessions. For the most moderate Members, they can support Amendment No 30. I thank Mr Albert CHAN for proposing Amendment No 30 because he only proposes to deduct the amount in subhead 000. Moreover, the amendment only seeks to deduct $1.68 million from head 21, that is, "equivalent to the estimated expenditure for the annual emoluments of two Non-official Members of the Executive Council (not including the Convenor of the Executive Council)". I believe that after deducting the allocated funds, the Executive Council will still be able to function very smoothly.

In addition, I wish to respond to Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung. He said yesterday that if the number of Executive Council Members was to be reduced, he hoped that the number of Executive Council Members with dual memberships could be reduced. Executive Council Members with dual memberships refer to those Executive Council Members who are both Legislative Council Members and Executive Council Members. I think Members also know that according to the record, there are only three such people, namely, Mrs Regina IP, Ms Starry LEE and Mr Jeffrey LAM. My view was originally different from that of Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung because I learnt from Mrs Regina IP that if a Legislative Council Member serves as an Executive Council Member at the same time, his or her emoluments will have to be discounted. I cannot remember if the rate of discount is 30% or 40%. Later, if there is the opportunity … is the pay two thirds? In fact, the account can be rendered more satisfactory. If the number of Members is to be reduced by two, the three of them should not be chosen because more money can be saved. However, after further consideration, I will now support Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung because there are very serious problems with regard to these Members with dual memberships. If an Executive Council Member has to withdraw from meetings frequently because he holds too many public offices, has too busy a schedule, serves in too many important posts or is involved in too many vested interests, this will affect him in performing his function as an Executive Council Member.

Take the Legislative Council as an example. If Legislative Council Members serve as Executive Council Members at the same time, what are the downsides? In fact, they should all be removed and there should not be any hesitation as a result of financial considerations, rather, they should all be removed as per the original proposal. For example, the Executive Council holds its meeting every Tuesday morning. If a Legislative Council meeting is LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10615 extended to Tuesday, these people will have strong justifications not to attend Legislative Council meetings. Even if there is the likelihood of a meeting being aborted, they still do not have to attend it. Is this not unreasonable? They can skip the meeting because they serve as Executive Council Members at the same time. I know some Members know very well that they have to attend the Executive Council meeting on Tuesday but they still put down on paper that they will attend the meetings of Bills Committees held on Tuesday. When the time comes, they would only attend these meetings for a short while, then they will go over to the other place to attend the meeting of the Executive Council instead. This is unreasonable. They know very well that they do not have the time to attend meetings and that on Tuesday, they have to attend the meeting of the Executive Council, so there is no reason for them to put down on paper that they can attend the meetings of Bills Committees or Subcommittees held on Tuesday morning. Do they know how to perform the magic trick of being in several places at the same time? They should apply for leave of absence from the Executive Council because anyhow, being absent from the meetings of the Executive Council will not lead to pay deductions, nor will one be held accountable or monitored by those groups called Catholic something, will they? They should apply for leave of absence from the Executive Council, then come here and attend Legislative Council meetings. If our Council meetings are extended to Tuesday morning, this is what they should do. I have strayed too far. What I want to point out is whether or not, regarding those Executive Council Members with dual memberships, or even some Members with trio memberships as they also serve as District Council members, they can perform so many functions at the same time. Therefore, if Members consider supporting Amendment No 30, when you consider which Members should be removed, those Members with dual memberships are actually prime candidates.

However, having said so much, I wish to tell Members that the "overall environment" and the "overall situation" is that the ability of the Legislative Council in monitoring the Executive Council is not just inadequate but practically non-existent. It is totally incapable of doing so. Our only recourse is to pass some motions on deducting the expenditure for the Executive Council at the Committee stage of the debate on the Budget on this occasion. In fact, we are considering proposing a deduction of $1 next year, that is, a nominal deduction that can exert pressure on the Government nonetheless and demand that the Government reform the Executive Council, so as to enhance the transparency of its administration and finance.

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Next, I wish to begin to voice my views formally. If two Executive Council Members are to be removed, I will propose to Members which two to remove. Due to time constraints, I think my speech cannot cover all 13 or 14 Members, so I will only comment on a couple of them and let the Hong Kong public make their own judgments. In fact, although I did not have enough time to speak last time, I already mentioned the name of that person. If one Member has to be removed, of course, CHEUNG Chi-kong must be the one.

All along, CHEUNG Chi-kong has been described as the principal henchman of LEUNG Chun-ying and in the past, he cleared the way for and came to the defence of the Chief Executive, who had low popularity rating, a number of times. The incident relating to the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of the University of Hong Kong is indeed a typical example of "a sore loser". When the results of public opinion polls are favourable to the Chief Executive, he sang praise of the POP as being impartial and professional but when the popularity rating of LEUNG Chun-ying in public opinion surveys went from low to lower, he criticized the surveys concerned as violating fundamental principles and the design of the questionnaires of the POP as misleading. For example, he claimed that 62% of respondents gave the Chief Executive a rating of over 50 points and criticized the POP for not publishing the figures, saying that there were other motives. However, 50 only means half-half and in this survey, 38.2% of the rating was between 0 to 49 points, 28.6% of the rating was 50 points and 33.1% of the rating was between 51 and 100 points, so in the end, the median was 47.5 points. It can thus be seen how the ability of this henchmen and Executive Council Member called CHEUNG Chi-kong is like and how he has been calling white black and black white by describing what is not up to par as otherwise. He is very well suited to a job in the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority as he can benefit students in Hong Kong by misrepresenting failures as success.

However, the other and the most important reason for cutting CHEUNG Chi-kong out is that he plays too many important roles, one being the Executive Director of the One Country Two Systems Research Institute. This role of his is in conflict with his role as an Executive Council Member and the two are conflicting. In fact, I suggest that Mr CHEUNG Chi-kong focus full-time on serving as the Executive Director of the One Country Two Systems Research Institute and should no longer continue to play the role of an (The buzzer sounded) … Executive Council Member.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10617

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, regarding the Information Coordinator I mentioned earlier, if we talk about his work arrangements in general, I believe very few people will dismiss the significance of this post in the Chief Executive's Office (CEO) because, insofar as the affairs dealt with by a government official at the highest rank are concerned, he is duty-bound to … the major tasks related to this policy were already read out by me in my previous speech. But the key point is: Is it reasonable and sensible to employ such a person?

Sometimes, you might be scared off by some people you do not know or by their exaggerated comments, and think that they are very authoritative. However, in the case of some people, the more you know about them, the more you find them "incompetent". For example, I have known some Bureau Directors, who were once criticized by me as untrustworthy villains seeking political gains, for more than two decades. Since they only knew how to draw close to benefits, they had never attempted to take charge of anything and do it properly throughout their career of more than two decades.

I have known this person, the Information Coordinator, for more than two decades. Judging from his analysis and handling of policies and social incidents when he was allocated some tasks in the organization, I found him an ignorant and incompetent person with poor analytical abilities and knew only how to "make gestures" and exaggerate his achievement in order to take credit. If you are well acquainted with someone with such personality and characteristics and when you note that he has taken up a post in a key government department and his post will basically affect public interest, the well-being of people in various social strata and the Government's operation, you will definitely criticize him, not to mention the fact that I am dissatisfied with LEUNG Chun-ying. Even people besides him will make negative comments about him, too.

Let me put aside my personal preference and comment purely from the angle of the use of public money and the Government's performance. In fact I, as a member of the opposition camp and a critic of many government officials, do not want to see the Government in trouble. It is because if the Government is in trouble, all Hong Kong people and the operation of the community will be 10618 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 affected. However, when you see that such an ignorant and incompetent person will take up such an important post, your first response and feeling must be that a disaster is on the way.

Actually, I already had a conclusion when the proposal was put forward for him to take up this post ― he would definitely bring disaster to the LEUNG Chun-ying Government and the CEO. Actually, my hunch has been proven to be justified and based on facts. Members should note that the annual remuneration for the Information Coordinator is $2.61 million. The first press conference held for the policy address by this ignorant and incompetent person who compared himself to a White House spokesman can be described as very ugly. In fact, he should have been "fired" right away. I really have no idea which person in the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government (LOCPG) was defending him as a reward for the accomplishment of his political mission because, under the Communist rule back then, he might be put in the Democratic Party to play a major role and undertake important tasks.

Obviously, the LOCPG must be doing something in giving justifications for the arrangements made and his employment. I cannot see any officials of the senior echelon of the government, including the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and Edward YAU, would have any close ties with this person or commended him. His appointment to this post by the LOCPG must be a political reward for properly playing his role or properly performing certain tasks assigned by the LOCPG or the Communist Party and fulfilling his pledge satisfactorily.

Members can see that he made a lot of simple and unusual mistakes during the first press conference he chaired for the policy address, and the mistakes he made were really laughable. Simply put, as a chairperson of a press conference, he should demonstrate professionalism in, for instance, arranging journalists to ask questions and paying attention to the relevant situation, the tone, standing positions, and so on.

First of all, he almost got the procedures wrong and did not know how to act according to changing circumstances. What made the journalists feel most humiliated or not respected was that he called them by their full names during the question session. This showed that he sought to show off himself or considered himself to be very authoritative. It was like in schools, students would be called LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10619 by their full names by their teachers and principals. He called the journalists by their full names probably because he thought himself to be a principal or a teacher-in-charge.

Even when we were sometimes told to leave this legislature, the Chairman would address me as "Mr Albert CHAN", though I was told to leave because of an inappropriate act. Likewise, he would address Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung as "Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung" and other Members in a similar manner. Although he was dissatisfied with our performance, he would still address us as "Mister" when expelling us from the legislature. This is basic etiquette. In overseas assemblies … Members are often addressed by their constituencies instead of their names. For instance, a Member belonging to a certain constituency will be addressed as "The Honourable" from his represented area instead of being called by their names. Actually, in this legislature, government officials were previously addressed by their official titles directly instead of full names. It is extremely rare for the Chief Executive to be called "689", as with the present case. It is even rarer for a government official to draw close to benefits.

Let me come back to the performance of Andrew FUNG. First of all, he has no knowledge of basic respect as a person, and this reflects his mindset and attitude. Coupled with his standing posture ― I do not know if he has any handicaps or illnesses or whether he has developed a sore in a certain part of his body, which makes it necessary for him to adopt a V-shaped standing posture ― it was very awkward. Members may look at this picture. When I saw the picture, I wondered if he had any health problem which obliged him to adopt such a standing posture deliberately. (Dr LAM Tai-fai said that the Member had strayed away from the subject) I did not stray away from the subject, as alleged by Dr LAM Tai-fai. This has something to do with professionalism. Will a White House spokesperson adopt such a standing posture while delivering a speech? No.

Furthermore, I have also noticed some minor gestures. For instance, in chairing a conference, he would frequently look at his watch. This showed that he was disturbed, uncomfortable, uneasy or nervous. A person-in-charge should look calm and relaxed and keep the whole situation in control to demonstrate his confidence. Even the Chairman would not look at his watch frequently while chairing a meeting. His performance demonstrates his lack of confidence and competence. He also lacks basic knowledge in dealing with everything.

10620 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Furthermore, he has made the most terrible mistake, that is, poor time management. Although he made it clear that the press conference would last 45 minutes, he made an announcement and concluded the conference three minutes earlier. This had caused an uproar among the journalists present in the conference because some of them waiting to ask questions had not asked their questions yet. Originally, they should be allowed to ask questions during the last three minutes, but the conference was axed by him all of a sudden. Was it because the Chief Executive was so incompetent that he could not handle the questions asked by the journalists during the last three minutes? These mistakes should not have occurred.

Apart from his incorrect calculation of time ― I do not know if his act was deliberate, there was anything wrong with his watch, or he intended to spare the Chief Executive from answering questions during the last three minutes to prevent him from making mistakes in the end. In fact, the situation might be that he intended to end the conference to prevent the Chief Executive from making a spectacle of himself when he noticed that the Chief Executive could not hold on and began talking nonsense at the very last moment. Perhaps he has even been given credit for doing so. Anyhow, we are not in a position to speculate if this is really the underlying reason. Nevertheless, a government representative who had promised to give the media 45 minutes must allow 45 minutes, no more and no less. This time around …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, you have made some of the details too tedious.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Fine, Chairman, I will raise my last point and conclude my speech afterwards. The last point concerns asking questions selectively, which is a very serious mistake. If questions are allowed to be asked selectively, reporters are very often allowed to ask questions on one occasion only, and some may not even have a chance to ask any questions. However, one pro-China reporter from Phoenix Satellite Television was called and allowed to ask questions on two occasions. Certainly, this has caused dissatisfaction among other journalists. Should he as the person-in-charge act in a fair and impartial rather than biased manner? If he were a White House spokesperson, and the media in the United States were faced with such a situation, he would definitely be attacked by other reporters.

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Under his arrangement, however, this named reporter from Phoenix Satellite Television was even allowed to ask questions on two occasions. I wonder if the handling of news in Hong Kong is, as we criticized CHAN Kin-ping earlier, becoming increasingly like that by Communists on the Mainland and accorded different treatment according to affinity and degree of trust. Hence, the modus operandi as a whole is unlike the usual practice of handling public affairs which the media or members of the public, especially Members of this Council, have observed over the years. In their opinion, such a performance is absolutely a failure and he should resign from his post.

My friends, even if Members are dissatisfied with the other amendments proposed by the People Power, I believe Members who are sitting here, especially Dr LAM Tai-fai, should support Amendment No 25 proposed by me to reduce the estimated expenditure of $2.61 million for the annual remuneration for the Information Coordinator.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I will speak in relation to Amendment Nos 25 and 29. Amendment No 25, as mentioned by Mr Albert CHAN just now, reads, "Resolved that head 21 be reduced by $2,610,000 in respect of subhead 000". There is a difference between the sum proposed in Mr WONG Yuk-man's amendment, that is, $2.18 million, and the one proposed by Mr CHAN. Why is there such a difference? I cannot make head or tail of it, either. As the difference is not too big, let us discuss these two sums jointly.

As the saying goes, "Every grudge can be traced to its source and every debtor has a creditor". The Information Coordinator of the CEO was not created in the establishment immediately after the reunification. What I mean is it was created by the Government as a new post. The creation of this post can be traced back to the TUNG Chee-hwa era when he was often found failing to deliver his speeches eloquently when quizzed by journalists and gave wrong answers to their questions. Let me cite a simple example to illustrate my point. I believe Members still have a fresh memory of a car accident which occurred on a New Year day and resulted in two deaths and several injuries. When Mr TUNG was asked by a reporter what he thought, he said "Kung Hei Fat Choi", which was certainly a very poor response. People who were acquainted with 10622 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Mr TUNG should be aware that he would frequently "lose his concentration" and make some inappropriate comments. As in the incident of "building 85 000 flats", he even said that the target did not exist if it was not mentioned anymore. When he was asked if Falun Gong was an "evil cult", he responded by saying that to a certain extent, it should be regarded as an "evil cult". Such examples are simply too numerous to be listed. Nor will I talk about his assistant Andrew LO, as this will be a digression. In fact I have prepared this example just now but I will skip it. The point is that the Information Coordinator is a confidant.

Is the creation of the post of Information Coordinator worthwhile? Let us look at its seven duties. There is no need for me to read them out seriatim. I would only read out four major points for Members' comment: (a) to formulate the media and public relations strategy for the introduction of major policies and programmes; (b) to co-ordinate the timetable of the introduction of major policies and programmes ― let us consider it as a separate item though it is repetitive ― (f) to act as Spokesman for the Chief Executive, as and when required. This duty is really remarkable. The Information Coordinator is also required to "plan and implement programme of public functions for the Chief Executive, including speaking engagements, overseas visits, community visits, meetings with editors and correspondents, and press conferences on an ongoing basis". Certainly, this is a routine duty.

The establishment of this post hinges on our development of electoral politics. Why? During the colonial era, people could hardly get a glimpse of certain Governors until a new trend was stirred up by "Fatty Patten" who ate egg tarts in public. Whenever he liked to meet journalists, an event would be organized for him to eat egg tarts or salted fish, or whatever. Given this practice of his, the Chief Executives as his successor has no option but to face the public. As a result, the post of Information Coordinator was created. Since the Governors from the United Kingdom were all diplomats, they simply had no problems. Why did I say so?

Actually, if our election culture can guarantee that all Chief Executive candidates are eloquent and fearless in front of the public, this post can be deleted. This is actually the case for the President of the United States. If anything happens, the United States Department of State will hold press conferences, as stated in the aforesaid item (f), the Information Coordinator will act as Spokesman for the Chief Executive, as and when required. However, I was talking about the Department of State. The post of Information Coordinator is therefore redundant. Why did I propose to delete this post in such a merciless LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10623 manner? Because it is a waste of money to retain this post. What else can Andrew FUNG do when the efforts made by LEUNG Chun-ying are so insignificant? Buddy, insofar as LEUNG Chun-ying is concerned, one plus one can make zero. Is there anything that is impossible? If his master is already engaging in empty talks, saying he can accomplish anything, could there be any more room for Andrew FUNG? As with a pig, the situation is really going from bad to worse. The lower it is, the fatter and tastier it gets.

Let us look at Secretary Stephen LAM. He was really remarkable for he had created several key expressions, namely "human flesh recorders" and all sorts of "human flesh devices". The expression "human flesh device" was invented by him. He said, "Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, I am a 'human flesh device' because recorders are already outdated." Not only was he graceful and easy, he also knew how to make a mockery of himself. It was reported that the appointment of Stephen LAM had something to do with Mrs Anson CHAN. As her henchman, Stephen LAM was introduced to Mr TUNG because she found him most incompetent. Furthermore, she was still in good terms with TUNG Chee-hwa at that time. Eventually, Stephen LAM took office in January 1999 …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, you have strayed away from the subject.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Am I? I am explaining the bureaucratic system. Chairman, you have some misunderstanding. My present proposal seeks not only to reduce the remuneration of this person, but also scrap the entire bureaucratic system. Since it cannot be changed under the Basic Law, we can only delete his remuneration to scrap his post. This is because if no expenditure is incurred year after year, this post will have to be scrapped. We have to explain to colleagues in this direction, or else some of them might think that "Long Hair" has done something wrong for asking someone to work without pay. I have been scolded many times for doing so. In the face of people like Mr WONG Kwok-hing, whose intelligence is two levels below mine, I can only make myself more stupid by considering the matter from his angle because this is the only way to make him understand. Why must there be a pay cut? Actually, we seek to resort to deliberate digression to oppose to this bureaucratic system which is a waste of public money without doing any good to Hong Kong people and the Chief Executive. This is pretty obvious. Why must I deliver such a 10624 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 lengthy speech? Because this post did not exist at the beginning. It was actually an illegal structure.

There is no need for me to add anything because Stephen LAM is known to everyone. He is now studying to be a pastor. I will let him go now. Let me say a few words about Andy HO, who formerly worked in the media. His problem was that he had invented a spin doctor, who had stirred up all the trouble. He had advised Donald TSANG not to do anything except putting make-up. As a result, Donald TSANG kept putting make-up. Buddy, the make-up made him look like the rump of a monkey, for his face was painted red. What could be done? In the poem "Bei Zheng", it read, "applying make-up after a while and drawing the eyebrows too thick by rashly shaping them". Do you understand? You surely do, am I right?

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, please do not stray away from the subject.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, "applying make-up after a while" denotes a situation in which a little girl applied make-up secretly, whereas "drawing the eyebrows too thick by rashly shaping them" denotes a situation in which her cheeks were so red that they looked like the rump of a monkey. If he has no idea how to do it, I can teach him. This is based on literature…

(Mr Albert CHAN stood up)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, what is your point?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): More Members should listen to Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung's brilliant interpretation of these beautiful lines.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Are you requesting a headcount?

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MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): A headcount please.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, please continue.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, what a great pity that no one listened to the poem recited by me.

Actually, as I mentioned earlier, the arguments put forward by the second Information Coordinator have nothing to do with the duties listed in (a) to (g), which are supposed to assist the Chief Executive in performing his work. The concept of "political spin" which he proposed is unrelated to the seven duties supposed to assist the Chief Executive in performing his work better. It is entirely an act of party politics. He was talking about how a politician tells lies, utters empty words and talks nonsense. Hence, Andy HO was actually a mismatch of the post.

This precisely demonstrates the futility of the bureaucratic system. A Chief Executive who was not eloquent asked a parrot to take up the challenge by repeating the same words on every occasion only to avoid making any mistakes. The jargon coined by Andy HO, "political spin", is incompatible with the entire executive system, that is, the Chief Executive has to be accountable to the public, not political parties. Our Chief Executive should be a man of integrity, or an Honourable person. Although his appointment was purely attributed to the Communist Party, or the 120 people, he should be a man who upholds justice. Andy HO would definitely suffer a crushing defeat because his skill of political spin got increasingly worse until he made one look like the rump of a monkey, as I mentioned just now, right?

Let us examine the extent of damage done by this bureaucratic system to Donald TSANG and how it has brought Hong Kong into disrepute. Regarding 10626 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 the incident involving his "lavish visits and spending", the relevant officers were unable to do anything about it, meaning that they had failed to perform the duties listed in (a) to (g). Not only did they fail to do a proper job to co-ordinate the timetable of the introduction of major policies and programmes, they also failed completely to formulate policies for the so-called six priority industries. Even the three main duties, namely acting as Spokesman for the Chief Executive as and when required, managing the Press Office in the CEO, and liaising with local and international media on behalf of the Chief Executive, have not been performed properly by such officers. When it was revealed that his "lavish visits and spending" involve air, land and sea, did the relevant officers perform these three duties? No, the Information Coordinator could not even tell when Donald TSANG would give us an account of the incident until the latter was brought into disrepute. Hence, we can see that this bureaucratic system is really a waste of public money.

His successor, June TENG, has turned out to be even more bizarre, as we pointed out last year. Honestly, it is really effective for us to monitor the Government, only that the more changes made by the Government, the more mistakes it would make. "Big Sister June TENG" made it clear that she could not accompany the Chief Executive on overseas visits. In other words, she would not follow the Chief Executive when he left Hong Kong for overseas trips. Despite this condition, she was employed. What did LEUNG Chun-ying have in his mind? Let me tell you. Since he believed he was even stronger than her when it came to indulging in empty talks, he considered it most preferable to get rid of this Information Coordinator. In other words, this post was no longer required. As a result, this soon-to-retire lady was enlisted to build relationships, and most importantly, iron out the conflicts and disharmony between the authorities and the media. Actually, this post was created to prevent the media from performing their duties. Not only was it unrelated with the duties listed in (a) to (g), it had no effects on Hong Kong people, either.

Judging from the performance of these three persons, if LEUNG Chun-ying could learn from lessons, he should not have employed another Information Coordinator upon June TENG's retirement, right? While Stephen LAM spoke like a parrot and Andy HO behaved like a spin doctor, June TENG was just taking up an acting post. When it comes to the fourth Information Coordinator, Andrew FUNG, things have become even more bizarre, for he has done something we have never seen before.

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Chairman, the employment offer was not given to June TENG until 23 August 2012, shortly after the incumbent Chief Executive took office and following the revelation of a series of scandals, including the one involving MAK Chai-kwong. At that time, the Chief Executive considered it necessary to build a better relationship with the media to prevent them from making disclosures incessantly. Subsequently, June TENG took up the post of Information Coordinator on 23 August 2012 and worked till she stepped down on 31 July 2013. Given the relentless efforts by all filibustering Members and me to bombard the authorities for wasting so much public money, she eventually decided to resign on the ground of her age and poor health. So, is it effective to monitor the Government in this manner? It is certainly effective to do so.

It is a pity that the Government has made even more mistakes with its appointment of a new Information Coordinator. Ms June TENG was at least able to bring her function of soothing wounds and wooing the media into full play, but what can Andrew FUNG do? He is not a member of the media industry, and even worse, he regards members of the media his enemies. As Mr Albert CHAN said earlier, he could even look at his watch, indicating his intention to leave. Dr LAM Tai-fai, will you look at your watch when you are in the course of business negotiations? You will certainly not do so. You will only treat your clients to one more cup of tea. Andrew FUNG was driving away his clients by looking at his watch. He only knows how to fathom the thoughts of his boss and be a bootlicker to prevent LEUNG Chun-ying from looking into a mirror. His duty is to cover all the mirrors in LEUNG Chun-ying's washrooms with pieces of black cloth every day to prevent him from seeing anything.

Perhaps I cannot spell out all his poor achievements. He is best known for following the SAR Government's policies and make noises. Although more than 100 000 people have voiced objection to the Government's implementation of national education and even LEUNG Chun-ying himself has backed down from this proposal, Andrew FUNG indicated his support for national education. This Information Coordinator comes not from the mass media, and he has even disregarded and trampled on public opinion. Worse still, he has now become a "traitor", though he was previously a pan-democrat ― he was a member of the Central Standing Committee of the Democratic Party. Buddy, this is like an emperor with a traitor by his side. Chairman MAO has once been betrayed by LIN Biao, who intended to kill him. So, it does not make any sense that we should spend money to employ someone to take up a non-standing official post to allow the two bad guys to engage in internal strife. Nevertheless, I will talk 10628 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 about this incident which involved Andrew FUNG to demonstrate that he should not take up this post when we come to this topic later. Now I will only show that this post should not be created in the first place. Thank you, Chairman.

MR ALBERT HO (in Cantonese): Chairman, I speak in support of the amendment proposed by Dr Helena WONG. It is Amendment No 713, about head 142, which resolves to slash subhead 000 and reduce the funding for head 142 by $105,004,000. This is equivalent to the operation expenses of the Central Policy Unit (CPU) for one whole year.

Chairman, as we can see in recent years, especially after LEUNG Chun-ying has taken hold of the Government, the CPU is really going from bad to worse. It is now crystal clear that the CPU has become a tool of the Government and changed from a public body engaging in policy studies for the well-being of the Hong Kong people to a political tool for those in power. There are officials who say unabashedly that it is going to be a propaganda machine in politics. This is miles apart from the public's expectation that the CPU should be an agency with quality and professionalism in research and able to give inspiring advice and a wide range of policy options to the Government after conducting professional studies. Moreover, it is expected that through its objective, scientific and professional surveys, the CPU can enable the Government to feel the pulse of society and hence formulate policies beneficial to the people.

After LEUNG Chun-ying has come into power, the CPU is obviously under the control of his supporters ― his circle of fans, so to speak. It is much worse than the time when it was under the leadership of LAU Siu-kai. There is an obvious mark of favouritism in the CPU. It goes without saying that people like Sophia KAO Ching-chi and WONG Chack-kie are ardent supporters of LEUNG Chun-ying. And now SHIU Sin-por has been promoted to become the Head of the CPU. He is a steadfast supporter of LEUNG Chun-ying. He has a tough stand and does not have any respect whatsoever for the Legislative Council, which is a legislative body representing public opinions from representatives of the general public.

One more outrageous thing about favouritism in the CPU is that there is a policy which gives Sophia KAO the power to engage in some preliminary gate-keeping work before the appointment of people to public office. She LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10629 almost has got the power to vet and approve such appointments. She gives advice to LEUNG Chun-ying and makes selection. Hence we can see that in the Government, with respect to matters of political appointment, it seems that a LEUNG dynasty has been founded.

However and moreover, with respect to the use of public money, we are enraged and we feel outrageous. Let me cite an example. In the past, the CPU never meddled with academic research. We know that the Research Grants Council (RGC) is responsible for vetting and approving applications for grants up to an amount of $20 million every year. The criteria adopted are solely on the topic proposed by the scholars concerned, that is, on the importance the topic to society. Besides the topic proposed, the content of the study and scholastic level are also considered. There are also internationally renowned experts who join the vetting and approval exercise and give their advice. However, the final powers lie in the Research Grants Council.

Starting from 2013, however, the RGC was informed that the relevant powers were to be handed over to the CPU. In other words, this tiny amount of $20 million given to the universities to engage in independent academic research will all be decided by the CPU. This is really outrageous. SHIU Sin-por is the head of the CPU and he says blatantly that the studies to be undertaken are meant to provide the theoretical basis for the policies to be devised by the Government. It is terrible to see this because there should be beliefs and convictions before there is any theoretical basis and with that, policies are devised after studies are undertaken. This is most important. It is your beliefs which decide on the entire set of policy directions and your value judgments are part of these. Of course, your policy directions may involve your objective understanding of issues and matters in society. Many feasibility studies will have to be undertaken before policies are devised. In such a process, there are bound to be many rounds of consultation. However, things are not like that now. As we hear from SHIU, it seems that the Government has certain policies first, then a number of people are hired to undertake studies and then provide a theoretical basis for the Government. This is a top-down process like putting the cart before the horse, which is typical of directive politics. I do not know who has got the conductor's baton in his hand to decide that things should be done this way. But it is clear that if this approach is adopted, the CPU has become truly a political tool and a propaganda machine. This makes us wonder what the point in funding the CPU is.

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With respect to this matter ― I mean this funding of $20 million every year ― the amount is actually very small. As far as we know, when the Government hires consultants to undertake studies, it is common that the expenses can go up to some hundreds of million dollars or more. Now, this power to allocate even a small sum of $20 million to academic institutions is taken back. This has upset many scholars. We can see from this that a black hand has held out and it is making its influence felt in the academic circle, affecting the autonomy of the academic institutions. We can see a lot from this incident. So with respect to the question of what will be done to other research projects, we all have a big doubt.

I am sure Members will remember that in recent years the community has been very concerned about the issue of universal retirement protection. This issue has been discussed for many years. Chairman, actually, it is not that the CPU has not undertaken any studies on it. A few years ago, at least three studies were undertaken and money was spent on asking some people to conduct a comprehensive study. Then they said that these studies were no longer useful. The first main reason was that there had been changes in the demographic structure and the situation of a large number of "doubly non-permanent resident" pregnant women was not envisaged and they had no idea about the population policy then. The second major reason sounded even more incredible. They said that the financial tsunami changed the entire macro-economic situation and therefore those reports were no longer useful and those studies were no longer needed. Now Prof CHOW Wing-sun is commissioned to embark on another study on universal retirement protection. However, the question is, in any case, we have the right to ask the CPU to hand out the consultant reports as they are compiled with funding from public money and I believe that a considerable sum of money is spent. Even if there were certain assumptions which have ceased to be valid due to changes in circumstances, the question is, we have the right to look at the data obtained at that time. Many of the assumptions made can serve as good sources of reference for us and they can also be used to justify the assumptions made by Prof CHOW Wing-sun in his report. Or we may compare the methodology used in the two reports. But this is not the case now. They insist that the reports must not be made public. We are strongly opposed to this. They think that certain reports which are not useful should be shelved and they become the private property of the Government. How can this be done?

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Chairman, if this state of affairs continues, this favouritism approach will become the order of the day and funding will be put under their control. The CPU will operate in black box. In the end, this important body will become a political tool of the LEUNG administration. It will function entirely for political purposes and it will carry out political propaganda for the LEUNG administration. The money so put in will be used to advance private ends instead of public ends. How can we accept it?

I am very disappointed with the Appropriation Bill this year. If the CPU can operate well, it will certainly be very important to Hong Kong as we have to carry out studies on many issues, including those on the problem of the wealth gap, how to promote social mobility, how to avoid an M-shaped structure in our society, how the tax regime should be revamped and so on. All these are important issues. With respect to healthcare, despite the large number of studies, no solution has been identified. But that does not mean we are going to stop here. There are still many healthcare issues that we need to study in depth. An example is on the administrative reform presently being carried out by the Hospital Authority. In the days to come, we may need to invite experts to examine these issues again to see if the reform carried out can solve the healthcare problem brought about by population ageing.

I am sure Members know that this Council has a Secretariat where many qualified staff members undertake researches for Members. But the Secretariat is incomparable to the large establishment of the Government. Putting aside the CPU, which undertakes a large number of studies every year, each Policy Bureau has got its own funding to hire people to carry out studies for it. The amount of money spent by the bureaux every year in hiring consultants is in the region of hundreds of million dollars. We are therefore very disappointed when a small public body like the CPU fails to provide its service to Hong Kong. The question is, now the CPU has indeed degenerated into this state. It cannot serve Hong Kong and bring any well-being to the people. Moreover, it makes no efforts in furthering the public interest of Hong Kong, feeling the pulse of society and undertaking in-depth studies for the officials and providing policy options for them. The CPU cannot fulfil these goals and instead, it becomes a political machine. What is the use of it?

I will not lend my support to the Appropriation Bill this time only because I want to convey a strong political message and that is, we should oppose this 10632 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 approach. We are not trying to abolish the CPU. If government policies can be put on the right track, the right candidates be found and funding can be allocated in a transparent manner and qualified persons can be hired to see how funding is used properly and in studies that truly benefit the people, the studies so carried out will not only be beneficial to the Government after they are released but also benefit the society in general. The studies can enhance the level of deliberations in the Government, political parties and the community. These studies can furnish us with a lot of useful information. This is what we hope to achieve.

I hope … despite the fact that voting down the Appropriation Bill would send home a negative message, the expectations behind are positive and they are exactly what I have just said. Thank you, Chairman.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, there are only 10 persons here, including you. I request that the quorum be counted.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, Mr Albert HO has spoken earlier to support the amendment proposed by Dr Helena WONG. It is Amendment No 713, about Head 142 ― Government Secretariat: Offices of the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary. The amendment proposes to slash a sum roughly equal to the estimates of the expenditure of the Central Policy Unit (CPU) for the entire year. I hope that Mr Albert HO will LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10633 support my Amendment No 716 because my amendment is in fact very similar to the one proposed by Dr Helena WONG. The difference is that my amendment resolves to slash subhead 000 and a sum of $105,003,000 from head 142. There is a difference of $1,000 in the amount when compared to that mentioned in Dr Helena WONG's amendment. My amendment proposes to slash the amount to $1,000. If the amendment proposed by Dr Helena WONG is voted down, I hope Members can consider lending their support to my amendment.

Before I start to talk about head 142, I wish to discuss why I think the salary expenditure of Members of the Executive Council should be slashed. What I am going to say coincides with what Mr Albert HO has said earlier. I will talk about matters concerning the granting of over $2 million of public money over the past three years to the One Country Two Systems Research Institute (the Research Institute), the Executive Director of which is CHEUNG Chi-kong.

When giving a reply to a question from a Member of this Council, the Administration Wing of the Chief Secretary for Administration's Office disclosed that the CPU granted $1.35 million of public money to the Research Institute, whose Executive Director is CHEUNG Chi-kong, over the past two financial years. For this financial year, the Research Institute will be granted a funding of $773,000. In other words, the Research Institute has obtained a total of $2.12 million of public money over these three years to finance its studies. Except for the University, which receives the largest funding from the CPU, the Research Institution is the largest single entity that has received the largest funding.

Some Members raised a question in the Finance Committee of this Council and the reply from the Administration reveals that in the previous financial year, that is, 2012-2013, the Research Institute was commissioned to undertake studies in media and current affairs, the funding of which was $368,000, and China national studies and policy studies, the funding of which was $210,000. During the year 2013-2014 and this year, the Research Institute continues to be commissioned to undertake media and current affairs studies. I have to make it clear that it is about public opinion and not about entertainment, though the two terms may sound similar in Cantonese, and the people of Hong Kong must make it clear. The amount in total for the two years is $1.54 million. The impression one gets from this funding is like passing money from one hand to the other and it is like putting the money from the shirt pocket to the trousers pocket.

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Why do we have this impression? It is because the person who is responsible for granting this funding is Mr SHIU Sin-por, head of the CPU. He is the former Executive Director of the Research Institute and CHEUNG Chi-kong is the incumbent Executive Director of the Research Institute. The two persons have a close relationship and it is only natural that both the public and Members are suspicious about them. Of course, the two persons are major supporters of LEUNG Chun-ying. CHEUNG Chi-kong, who heads the Research Institute, is also a Member of the Executive Council. This is the main reason why we propose to slash the salary estimates for the position which Mr CHEUNG Chi-kong holds when we want to slash the financial estimates of Members of the Executive Council.

Today I do not want to talk about each Member of the Executive Council. I will just pick two or three persons and talk about two or three matters related to each of them in order to justify my argument. I also hope that Members can lend their support to the amendment proposed by Mr Albert CHAN.

Based on what I have said about the funding obtained by the Research Institute, I think CHEUNG Chi-kong should not sit on the Executive Council. Apart from that, another charge related to CHEUNG Chi-kong is about a hot issue and that is on the soiling of streets in Mong Kok by visitors to Hong Kong.

CHEUNG Chi-kong publishes an article in his capacity as Executive Director of the Research Institute. He does not make use of his position as a Member of the Executive Council because if he publishes an article in his capacity as a Member of the Executive Council, he would invite greater responsibility. Having said that, there are still problems with his article. His article is entitled to this effect: "Civilized approach to tackle uncivilized acts". This is a commentary made on a case of a Mainland child who left human excreta on the street of Hong Kong. In the view of CHEUNG, the crux of the matter lies not so much in conflicts per se but in the attitude we display when we face these conflicts. He puts forward some of his grandiose views. For example, when we see a child who empties his bowels on the street, we should readily hand him a plastic bag or something of that sort, or point him to the nearest toilet. He asks, when compared to going up and scolding, which is more in line with the cultured way of life in Hong Kong, makes people feel more convinced and can better give a role model effect?

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I think his argument is better than the view put forward by Secretary SO because at most CHEUNG Chi-kong will only receive plastic bags sent to him. The greatest problem about this argument is what is meant by "civilized approach to tackle uncivilized acts". Emptying one's bowels on the street is not only an uncivilized act ― some people may think that speaking foul language is an uncivilized act, and this should not be mixed up with treating the street as one's toilet ― but a violation of the law and an offence. As a Member of the Executive Council and one who is at the centre of power, he should point out that the act is wrong and anyone who does that is breaking the law. He should urge the relevant government departments to enforce the law, instead of asking people to come forward and offer plastic bags. He is really causing more trouble. I am sure after the development in these few days, we will see that we should think again when we talk about tolerance or offering assistance.

In addition, he is elevating the issue to an even higher horizon. He thinks that people are making use of the case to go against communism, China and the Central Authorities. Actually, he is causing conflicts between the Mainlanders and Hong Kong people. I will not comment on his article in detail. I just think that he is not doing a good job as a Member of the Executive Council. He is a supporter of LEUNG and he is his henchman. It is only natural that he publishes articles on the newspaper. Now many newspapers have become party newspapers. What he is doing will only attract a war of words. But when he is a Member of the Executive Council, he puts forward such views, which I think is unacceptable.

As I have just said, I wish to discuss the so-called "double" Members. The salaries of those who are Members of the two Councils concurrently should be slashed. Now Ms Starry LEE and Mrs Regina IP are in attendance. Is Mr Jeffrey LAM also here? No, he is not. Then I will talk about Mr Jeffrey LAM.

Mr Jeffrey LAM is also the chairman of the Assessment Committee of the Mega Events Fund. In the latest report of the Commissioner of Audit, how is he criticized? The report reveals that there are problems with the effects of activities organized by the Mega Events Fund. There are big problems with these activities and the monitoring of their operation. The staff of the Audit Commission took part as observers in the Hong Kong Dragon and Lion Dance Extravaganza, which have been sponsored by the Mega Events Fund for many years in a row. A sum of $1 million a year is allocated to the Extravaganza. It 10636 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 was found that kindergarten pupils were passed off as staff filling up salaried posts and the number of participants was less than what was originally planned. No records of the recruitment of staff, their attendance and wages were found, nor were there any receipts on the remuneration given to the performers.

The report also discloses that under the funding agreement for activities organized by the Mega Events Fund, the organizers of the Extravaganza undertook to create jobs for 3 000 local persons as performers. But it was found by the staff from the Audit Commission who took part in the event that the performers who staged the show that day were not professional performers at all. Many of them were small children who went there under the company of their parents. Some of them were elderly persons. In the end, the organizers of the Extravaganza admitted that only 1 850 performers were hired. In this March, in reply to an inquiry made, the number was further revised downwards to only 1 317 posts. I am sure no one can refute these figures.

The Audit Commission discovers that all those procurements and recruitments have not been backed up by quotations and invoices …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, you should discuss these details at the meetings of the Public Accounts Committee instead of here.

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): All right. I will not discuss these in detail. But I will come to a conclusion; otherwise, the discussion will not be complete.

The Mega Events Fund, to which the Government has injected $250 million, is accused by the media of having achieved little or no results, and the monitoring is confusing. But Mr Jeffrey LAM, who is the chairman of the Assessment Committee of the Mega Events Fund, refuses to admit his faults. When people report to the ICAC that the Dragon and Lion Dance Extravaganza sponsored by the Mega Events Fund is suspected of fraudulence, Mr LAM claims that these people are merely putting up a political show. He says that reports in the media are incomplete and not accurate. This is very irresponsible of him. He just evades his responsibility and does not make any attempt to clarify things with facts. It may be that he does not have any facts in his hands and so he just accuses people of putting up a political show. Then why does he not accuse the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10637

Audit Commission of putting up a political show? His remarks have led to more accusations from all quarters and the row is still going on.

On the question of Members of the Executive Council, I will just cite two examples. I have discussed this in detail just now, so I still have time to talk about one more person. I will let Members pick one more person. If we support Amendment No 30, that is, the one proposed by Mr Albert CHAN which aims at cutting the estimates for the annual remuneration of two Non-official Members of the Executive Council, the Member chosen is Mr CHEUNG Chi-kong and not Mr Jeffrey LAM. Members can choose one more and that is, Fanny LAW. Originally I do not intend to discuss her. But since I have got time, I may as well do that.

Fanny LAW is the number one female supporter of LEUNG. It is rumoured that she is the person in charge of LEUNG's office to stand for a second term. What is the biggest problem with that? The role of Members of the Executive Council is very vague. When they make their so-called personal comments, there is often a need for the Government to remedy things. A big row would arise whenever they speak and there are serious repercussions found in society.

Let me give one example. Fanny LAW once said openly that the Central Authorities had disagreed that they would only play a gate-keeping role in the final appointment decision. These remarks are about the election of the Chief Executive in 2017. They are about keeping the final goal post as what Members often talk about. She also says that a reasonable deduction is that there should also be gate-keeping at the beginning, so that the candidates will all meet the requirement of loving both the Motherland and Hong Kong and will not resist the Central Authorities. She proves with her own words the idea of a front gate, that is, gate-keeping work with respect to candidates. She also proposes a theory on preventing underdogs from winning the race. She says the nomination committee should play a gate-keeping part such that candidates who resist the Central Authorities cannot win as underdogs in the Chief Executive race. This is because there is no guarantee that smear campaigns will not happen in an election. At least the candidates approved by the nomination committee will not resist the Central Authorities. It does not matter if there is any smearing because when one candidate is smeared, there is still a second one. Such remarks are simply shocking to the Hong Kong people.

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There is another count of charge on Fanny LAW in that she prevents people from making their views known in constitutional reform matters. She says that since Hong Kong is not an independent and sovereign state, people should know about the Basic Law and the real meaning of "one country, two systems" before they air their views. It means that if people do not know the Basic Law, they should refrain from talking nonsense. She also says that members of the public do not think and they just take information from the media. This is like eating without chewing and it will cause indigestion. She calls on the people to face media reports critically. I am sure the people of Hong Kong know how to think critically. After she has made these remarks, many people lashed their criticisms against her.

It is because of this problem of roles that every time when a Member of the Executive Council has made some controversial remarks, the officials will be in trouble. If these Members of the Executive Council do not represent government position, then there is no need for Raymond TAM to come out and make a clarification. Why need he clarify things and say that Fanny LAW's remarks do not reflect government position? This proves that there are problems.

Besides ― perhaps I do not have any more time in this debate session ― there are questions about the Innovation and Technology Bureau and the chairman of the Hong Kong Science Park. According to the latest report, Fanny LAW will take up the chairmanship of the Science Park. This is evidence that the influence of these LEUNG supporters will extend to other domains. As this debate session is not on the Innovation and Technology Bureau or the Science Park, I will leave these for detailed discussion later when we have time.

I hope Members can support the amendment proposed by Mr Albert CHAN.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I first wished to talk about Amendments Nos 36 and 37. However, Mr CHAN Chi-chuen mentioned an amendment proposed by me on the deduction of the honoraria for two Members of the Executive Council, so I would like to express my views in brief. He made some points which I actually planned to raise but I am not going to repeat them. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10639

I only wish to point out that when I talked about the performance of the Chief Executive's Office (CEO) as well as its performance in governance earlier on, I said that the mistakes made by these two major groups, namely, the CEO and the Executive Council, have led to the debacle in the governance of Hong Kong and plunged the public into sufferings in their living.

If I have to choose two persons out of the many Members of the Executive Council, I have two candidates in mind. The first is CHEUNG Chi-kong, whom Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung and Mr CHAN Chi-chuen also mentioned earlier. I have engaged debates with CHEUNG Chi-kong many times before, and in a programme of Asia Television Limited which served to provide a forum for debate on current affairs, I had the chance to have a dialogue with him. He is quite good in his debating skills and compared with many members of the pro-government camp, he had the courage to accept challenge more readily while putting forward his arguments and expressing his views in an attempt to build up the authority of the Government and boost public support for the Government.

But unfortunately, perhaps it is because members of the pro-communist camp or the leftists have generally been cold-shouldered over the years that they have become unbalanced psychologically and emotionally. People like us who study in the department of social work know only too well the mentality of these people, especially those with a low self-esteem. Many traits of their behaviour are different from those of normal people and more often than not, as they are overly eager to demonstrate their ability, a serious imbalance is resulted when they make analyses and handle matters.

CHEUNG Chi-kong is a typical example. He is certainly far more capable than the Information Coordinator but in handling major problems, while he is eager to claim credit for his achievement and get results, he does not have practical experience of public administration to back up himself. Chairman, public administration is a professional aspect. If a person lacks long years of relevant experience and actually engagement in policy formulation and implementation, and if he has not faced the public and the media before in handling problems, he would be easily led by the prevailing circumstances. When he is anxious to achieve success, he would miss the points in grasping the problem and he would make mistakes in tapping the public pulse. Once he has bias and made mistakes in responding to and addressing problems, the situation would certainly worsen continuously as a result. TUNG Chee-hwa is a typical case in point as he turned a minor problem into a big problem and a big problem into disaster back in those years. People who have a grasp of public 10640 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 administration know how to deal with crises and they are capable of turning a big problem into a small one and a small one into nothing. The Government has often created crises for itself recently, and it is precisely CHEUNG Chi-kong and his likes who have caused crises and decline of the Government's popularity. He is an Honourable Member of the Executive Council who has kept on creating disasters for the Government.

Therefore, of the many Members of the Executive Council, the candidates in my mind happen to be the same as those in the minds of Mr CHAN Chi-chuen and Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung … Since he is now the "No 1 hatchet man" of the Executive Council and the "No 1 hatchet man" of LEUNG Chun-ying, and as we all know that the political "hatchet men" create disasters, which also explains the emergence of the Cultural Revolution, in order for the Government to face less disasters, it is actually giving LEUNG Chun-ying a hand to kick him out. When these "hatchet men" are kicked out, the Government's reputation and popularity will be improved. So, the first person who should be kicked out is the "No 1 hatchet man", CHEUNG Chi-kong.

As for the second candidate, I share the view of Mr CHAN Chi-chuen that it should be Fanny LAW. I have known this lady for many years. As regards her performance when she was a government official, I am not going to make any repetition as other Members have already given their comments. Moreover, it may not necessarily be related to how she is performing now. Some former government officials who performed poorly or most pathetically when they were in office may show improvement when taking up other positions.

Then why I particularly think that it is more difficult for her performance to be considered acceptable among the many Members of the Executive Council? It is because I feel that she is extremely selfish. Let me cite a simple example. I do not wish to cite too many examples in order not to be accused as repetitive and superfluous. This is an example from my personal experience. I have been a Member of this Council for many years and especially after LEUNG Chun-ying came to power, we have had strong reactions on many issues and we have made many political gestures and acts to challenge and even to deal a blow to the Government. But over the years, this lady has rarely approached us in the People Power to hold discussion with us. A few months ago, however, after her repeated requests, arrangements were eventually made for her to officially meet with "Slow Beat" and me from the People Power. She was very sincere in inviting us to a meeting with her to discuss an issue. We then realized that her LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10641 purpose was to point out to us that the Government very much wished to propose the setting up of an Innovation and Technology Bureau again and that the Government hoped that the People Power would not resort to various means or methods to get in the way of the Government in setting up an Innovation and Technology Bureau.

I found it very strange and therefore asked her if she would take up the office of Director of this Bureau. While her attitude was not really categorical, she was actually telling us that she would not become the Director of this Bureau. I also think that she will not take up this post because judging from her current situation, it seems that she is unlikely to take up a high position in the bureaucratic structure on a full-time basis. But recently we have started hearing rumours that if an Innovation and Technology Bureau will really be set up in the future, other organizations relating to innovation and technology, such as an innovation and technology commission or committee, will be chaired by her.

Members may recall that she has actually done this before. When she was helping with LEUNG Chun-ying's electioneering campaign, rumour had it that arrangement would be made for her to take up an important post. She said openly at the time that she would not accept any public office appointment. I believe that to any member of the public, the office of a Member of the Executive Council is certainly public office. So, when she said previously that she would not accept any public office appointment but eventually took up the office of a Member of the Executive Council, she was obviously misleading the public or resorting to hypocritical rhetoric to distort the undertakings or remarks that she made previously.

Faced with so many problems relating to the people's livelihood, so many political problems, and so many confrontations and conflicts between this Council and the executive, if this lady, being a Member of the Executive Council who has known us for years and who knows us very well, is sincere in working for the interest of LEUNG Chun-ying's administration and the interest of Hong Kong, and if she is sincere in serving the people, there should be plenty of issues that she needs to discuss with us. However, she has almost never come to us. She has never approached Mr CHAN Chi-chuen and me on any major issues about the government or the public and listened to our views or "had tea and buns" with us; nor has she met with Mr WONG Kwok-hing to chat with him over a cup of tea with milk. She has never done this.

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That had been the case until the Government came up with this preliminary idea. At that time, the Government only had a preliminary idea, because as far as I understand it, on the question of whether the Government should reintroduce the proposal of setting up an Innovation and Technology Bureau, views were diverse in the Government then. Members may recall the previous proposal of five Secretaries of Departments and 14 Directors of Bureaux, and one of the Bureaux was the Innovation and Technology Bureau. But due to procedural problems in the proceedings, the proposal was eventually nipped in the bud. This is why when the Government planned to reintroduce this proposal to this Council, there were different views in the senior echelon of the Government, but as far as I understand it, Fanny LAW was exceedingly brave as she courageously came forth and said that she would take charge of and deal with this matter.

I do not think that Fanny LAW has any experience in innovation and technology before; nor has she made any comment on or acquired profound knowledge about innovation and technology. If she started out in the industrial sector, information sector or telecommunications sector and has rich experience and knowledge in these fields, or if it is due to her profession or personal interest that she said that she would lead the Government to strive for the establishment of this Bureau, then there would still be some reasons on the surface to convince the public of her suitability. But all of a sudden, without any background whatsoever and without any information showing her suitability, she nevertheless came to us to lobby for our support on setting up an Innovation and Technology Bureau. On the other hand, Members in support of innovation and technology, including those in the democratic camp, had not yet told the public that they would call on the Government to set up this Bureau at the time; nor was there any discussion on this issue in the media, but she acted ahead of others as early as such in an attempt to clear the obstacles for the Government over this issue. Of course, Mr CHAN Chi-chuen and I told her explicitly that we would certainly not accept the establishment of an Innovation and Technology Bureau but eventually the Government still decided to reintroduce it to this Council.

From this we can see whether she was doing it for the sake of Hong Kong people or for the sake of LEUNG Chun-ying's administration or for her personal benefits and reputation. This is a point worth noting. My personal interpretation is that her attitude and approach in handling issues and the fact that she has been selective in handling problems have given people an extremely bad impression. Therefore, Amendment No 30 proposes to deduct the expenditure LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10643 for the annual honoraria for two Members of the Executive Council at a total of $1.68 million, which is not a large amount. Of course, even if we can successfully deduct this expenditure of $1.68 million, the two of them may still hang on at the end of the day as we expected. But what I have just explained is the reason and intention of this amendment.

Next, I wish to briefly talk about Amendments Nos 36 and 37. Amendment No 36 seeks to deduct $1.09 million, which is roughly equivalent to the estimated expenditure for the annual salary of the Special Assistant in the CEO. I mentioned a few special politically appointed posts earlier, and this Special Assistant is one of these posts. The incumbent office bearer happens to be related to Wen Wei Po. It means that the CEO … It was said before that the Policy Bureaux or the Government's statutory bodies were clubs for retired senior government officials. Now that the CEO has become a club for former employees of Wen Wei Po. Of course, former employees of Wen Wei Po who join the CEO are probably paid higher than the President of Wen Wei Po. The annual salary for this post is $1.09 million. I think the President of Wen Wei Po is paid less than $1.09 million annually. This post is now held by a former political news editor of Wen Wei Po, YAU Ping-fei. Many members of the media know her but I do not know her well. I have heard of her and seen her name because she had interviewed LEUNG Chun-ying and reported it in three pages on how LEUNG Chun-ying grows vegetables and telling us that LEUNG Chun-ying does not watch television on holiday, and so on. The entire interview was just chit-chat and did not talk about work. This is obviously image building work. "Long Hair" mentioned spin doctors just now. Indeed, this kind of interview is exactly the work of a spin doctor.(The buzzer sounded)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR LEUNG YIU-CHUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, in my speech yesterday I mainly focused on the personal behaviour of the Chief Executive and the many instances where he acted against the rules and not in line with the people's opinions and sentiments insofar as his policy objectives are concerned. I, therefore, very much agree to the proposals made by several other colleagues to deduct the expenditure on salaries for the Chief Executive's Office (CEO) and the Chief Executive.

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Today, I speak in support of other deductions proposed by colleagues, including the deduction of $1.5 million for the expenditure on duty visits and $700,000 for the entertainment expenditure of the Chief Executive. Chairman, first of all, I wish to state that the Chief Executive's duty visits are not unimportant. However, their importance depends on the actual situation, particularly on whether these visits can effectively help the Special Administrative Region (SAR) or the SAR Government, and these visits should not be used to build relations for himself or to lay a foundation for his personal development in the future. I believe this criteria cannot be more obvious. Every Chief Executive should understand the need for self-regulation on his personal conduct. But most regrettably, both the last Chief Executive and the incumbent Chief Executive have failed to show us that they can meet this principle. On the contrary, the impression that they have given to people is just the opposite, for they both sought to pave road for their own future through these channels. Of course, Chairman, the last Chief Executive, Donald TSANG, belongs to the past, and it is not easy for us to pursue him. As a matter of fact, no progress has yet been made by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in its investigation into his corruptive behaviour over the past year or so and this is indeed regrettable. But insofar as this Chief Executive is concerned, I think we should not relax our guard any more. How can we exercise monitoring more stringently? Much to our regret, Chairman, as I said yesterday, there is so far no mechanism in place for monitoring the Chief Executive. Moreover, there is almost no transparency to speak of when it comes to the CEO making public these activities. There is basically no way for us to know what results can be achieved after the Chief Executive completed his duty visits; nor can we find out what kind of relations he has built up for us. We only know that he has made duty visits. Although he is obliged to tell us the expenditure involved, we cannot see what practical effects have been achieved.

Therefore, I think that these duty visits warrant our concern. In fact, for the past 20 months or so since the new Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying, took office, he went on a duty visit at least once a month on average. Some colleagues have already pointed out earlier that he seems to spend more time on duty visits than working in office, and the situation is miserable indeed. But it is regrettable that we have no mechanism in place to monitor his duty visits and as I have just said, it is not easy even if we wish to exercise monitoring. Therefore, I very much support the proposal made by Members to deduct the expenditure for duty visits by the Chief Executive, and I consider this proposal most meaningful LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10645 because if this expenditure can be deducted successfully, he would not have the chance to squander public coffers wantonly. Chairman, I have actually "given him face" in saying that he squandered public money wantonly, for this is downright abuse of public funds. Why do I say so? As Mr Gary FAN repeatedly mentioned earlier, with regard to the places visited by the Chief Executive, apart from the fact that we have no idea where the Chief Executive has visited, we cannot see how these places of visit are related to us directly or indirectly either. He sometimes had to spend a lot of money on these duty visits ― he once spent $100,000 on a duty visit ― and sometimes his spending may be zero. Even if he need not spend a penny, is it worthwhile to take these visits? Let me cite an example. On 21 March 2013 the Chief Executive paid a visit to Shenzhen. Chairman, do you know why he went to Shenzhen? He went there to attend the opening ceremony of the C-MER Dennis Lam Eye Hospital. Chairman, do you think that the Chief Executive's attendance was necessary? Even if it was necessary, must he attend it personally? In fact, when it comes to the opening ceremony of an eye hospital, I would consider it more appropriate for Dr KO Wing-man to attend it. Then why was it the Chief Executive who attended the ceremony? He is the Chief Executive and if he would be present on all occasions, what purpose could be served? We really have no idea about it, and there is basically no monitoring at all. Therefore, even though he is invited to attend an occasion and no spending is required, I still think that he should not go.

So, I think the proposed deduction of this expenditure is sending a warning to him that before he goes on a duty visit, he must carefully consider if there is such a need. Chairman, speaking of the need of these visits, of course, owing to the lack of information, it is difficult for us to gauge the extent to which each and every duty visit is needed, but it is precisely because of this reason that I hope that through this proposed deduction of this expenditure, we can make the Chief Executive draw up some regulations or guidelines to prevent the Chief Executive from abusing this power to pave road for his own future. I do not wish that he would continue to conduct duty visits in such a way, visiting places that we do not know why he should visit, just as Mr Gary FAN said earlier on. Therefore, if the Government does not wish to see the deduction of this expenditure proposed by us ― even if we do not succeed this year, I believe colleagues will propose it again next year ― I hope that it can expeditiously draw up guidelines and regulations, such as explaining the reasons and objectives of the duty visits and whether all the details will be subsequently made public, so that we will 10646 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 know what benefits these visits will bring to Hong Kong or the SAR Government. I think these explanations are necessary in order to prevent or stop the Chief Executive from abusing his powers to pave road for his own future. Chairman, I have to say this because the Chief Executive has already done this shortly after he took office and I think the situation will aggravate in the future for this has to do with whether or not he can be re-elected. If he really wish to be re-elected, we are worried that he will continue to make use of these duty visits to improve his personal relations with people. As we all know, the consent of the higher echelon must be sought in order to run in the election of the Chief Executive. He wants to improve his relations with people because he wants to obtain the consent of the higher echelon. If the establishment of these relations will increase his chance to obtain such consent, he will carry out more of these activities. Therefore, I hope that a set of criteria and guidelines can be drawn up expeditiously and what is more, the actual situation should be made public fully after the end of a duty visit.

Chairman, apart from the astonishing situation of the Chief Executive's duty visits, the holding of banquets by him is also a problem. After the Chief Executive took office, he has held a total of 296 hospitality events, 136 of which were held last year and this year, 160 hospitality functions have so far been held before the end of the year, surpassing the number of last year. This year's number has far exceeded that of last year as this year has not yet ended. Last year's events incurred an expenditure of $365,624 and this year's spending has yet been known. However, $700,000 have been earmarked for this purpose, which is almost double his spending last year. The amount has increased substantially.

Chairman, it is actually very common to hold banquets. This is originally not worth mentioning, but why do I have to raise this point here? Because I think our Chief Executive, LEUNG Chun-ying, is different from his predecessors in that he has often made use of his position to engage in affairs which are not related to his official duties but merely for his own sake and also for buying off people and building relations. Chairman, I remember that during the era of TUNG Chee-hwa, LEUNG Chun-ying was only a Member of the Executive Council and perhaps it is because he was the convenor that he outrageously borrowed the Government House to hold a reception for some professionals and elites. Chairman, I really do not know the reasons. Why could the Government House be lent for his use like that? He was not the Chief Executive. The Government House is a place for the SAR Government to hold LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10647 receptions for guests from overseas or for use by the Chief Executive but even a Member of the Executive Council could borrow it for his own use. At that time, many media kept on criticizing this as an abuse of powers.

He still keeps on holding banquets now. Is he doing this to lay a foundation for his own sake? When he held a reception for those professionals and elites on that previous occasions, I really did not know how that was related to him in his official capacity, except for the purpose of showing off his status or buying off people and even paving road for his own future, as I have just said. Therefore, I think if he is all working for his future and seeking re-election, I am concerned that the situation about the holding of banquets will remain serious and even deteriorate. I can see that as much as $700,000 has been reserved for this purpose now. The amount has been increased by him as such and this, I think, is worrying.

Chairman, the annual salary of the Chief Executive is $4,222,560 and if $700,000 is needed for holding banquets annually, he actually has the means to afford it. If he is holding the banquets for private purposes, he should not meet this expenditure with our public money. Therefore, I hope that this sum of $700,000 can be deducted. I also hope that the SAR Government can draw up the criteria to set out the circumstances under which such spending is allowed.

Chairman, of course, I am not saying that I want a puritan-like Chief Executive but I hope to have a Chief Executive who does not squander money wantonly and more importantly, does not splurge money to pave road for his own future. Chairman, I all the more hope that through these deductions, the SAR Government will be on the alert, for this money is the money of the public and should be used properly and should not be spent for personal interests. Therefore, I hope that through these deductions, we can make the SAR Government draw up criteria and put in place an effective system, so that we can establish clean practices to prevent the abuse of powers for private gains. I hope that a sound and transparent system can be put in place to ensure that members of the public are well-informed.

Chairman, I so submit.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

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MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I originally wished to talk about Andrew FUNG but having listened to Mr LEUNG Yiu-chung's speech, I hope he can understand that Chief Executive LEUNG Chun-ying was feeling kind of anxious. Why did he have to use the Government House or other venues? Let us not forget that in June 2012 LEUNG Chun-ying had not yet become the Chief Executive. He invited the Party Secretary of the Guangdong Province, WANG Yang, to have dinner at his house. A picture was taken by Ming Pao Daily News and he got into big troubles. Honestly speaking, to make sure that he will not make a fool of himself again, I think this spending is still worth it. The actual amount incurred is not much, and let me cite the information provided by the Government. Just listen to this: The Chief Executive receives a non-accountable entertainment allowance every year for meeting expenses on official entertainment at his official residences. The amount of the allowance was $768,300 in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, which was during the term of "Greedy TSANG" as the Chief Executive. The amount is not much indeed but it can prevent a scandal from happening. I, therefore, think that this spending is probably well worth it, because no matter how intelligent LEUNG Chun-ying is, he is still unable to cover the incident of unauthorized building works.

In 2013-2014, this allowance was $799,800, and in 2014-2015, it is $834,200, which is now tabled for our approval, and the increase is not hefty at all. I think it is impossible not to allow him to socialize with people, right? Besides, if LEUNG Chun-ying does not hold social functions at his official residences but invites his guests to his home instead, be it his mansion in Stanley or his house on the Peak, which are suspected to have unauthorized building works, I think this is not going to leave good memories and both the host and the guests will hardly enjoy the occasion. So, Members, I must speak in support of LEUNG Chun-ying this time around. With an additional spending of only some $100,000, he can cover up for himself and avoid an unhappy occasion for both the host and the guests. Moreover, comparing with Mr Andrew FUNG's salary, this amount of $100,000 or so is insignificant.

I have said that I will not speak too much. I know that I cannot be too specific and detailed. In fact, why should we not approve this sum of money? Because he is simply incompetent for the job, and he lacks the qualifications and experience. Chairman, as you may know, there was a popular saying during the Cultural Revolution, "The experts are led by the laymen". This is the reason why the Motherland is 20 years lagging behind. The experts are led by the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10649 laymen. It means employing people who are incompetent for the job and making them teach people capable of doing the job. Mr LEUNG Yiu-chung, if Andrew FUNG is only receiving his salary and doing nothing, I think there is no problem but if he is made to supervise people or supervise people under the Chief Executive …

(There were noises causing nuisance in the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, please hold on.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Why?

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Is any Member using a phone in the Chamber?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): I saw that it was Mr WONG Kwok-hing. He is putting away the earphones now. Mr WONG Kwok-hing, do you admit it? It is not about tea with milk this time. Are you making a phone call? Chairman, I told you this only to help you find out which Member is using the phone.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, it is the duty of the Chairman to handle issues relating to the Rules of Procedure. Members please do not engage in anything in this Chamber which is not related to the meeting, still less using a phone or talking. Members should keep silent while other Members are speaking. Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, please continue.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I report that Mr WONG Kwok-hing was not making a phone call. He was taking a phone call.

So, I was interrupted while I was speaking. If Andrew FUNG is only receiving his salary and doing nothing, the loss would be limited, but the Chief Executive's Office (CEO) has its establishment, such as the posts of Information Officers, and he has the special right to make staffing arrangements in the 10650 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Information Services Department (ISD) through his subordinates. I will talk about the ISD later. In other words, if a person is incompetent for his job, there is a chance for resources to be wasted. To ensure accountability, we must hold him accountable not only for his salary, as consideration should also be given to what consequences would be resulted by giving him his powers. Therefore, there is a need to maintain this post, just that the office bearer must be replaced. We must not let Andrew FUNG take up this post.

First of all, I think any senior information officer at the service of the Chief Executive must come from the press sector in order to ensure that he is competent for this job. Second, Chairman, you always correct our pronunciation when we speak. This actually shows that you are responsible, rather than trying to embarrass us, for you are worried that the public who are watching the live broadcast of our meeting may not understand what we are trying to say. Chairman, you have corrected my pronunciation of both Chinese and English words before and I am grateful to you. But the emails written by Andrew FUNG are full of mistakes. I do not wish to read them out, or else Members may flush on hearing them. For example, he even wrote the character "博" as in "博 取" wrongly. Frankly speaking, Chinese words can have multiple meanings. Wrong characters, if not corrected, will definitely cause confusion.

Chairman, this is what Andrew FUNG is like. I will not go into the details, and I think he will not refute this point. If an employee is hired and asked to write an instruction or if he is asked to convey a message to the media but what he said could not even express the meaning properly, is this not too bad? So, let us not talk about Andrew FUNG's political position. He is proven to be incompetent for the job by his power of expression alone.

When we propose to deduct all the expenditure for this post, I think this is to make us learn a lesson by heart and that is, this post probably should not have been created. I have stated the reasons earlier but I understand that in this Chamber, Members may have different choices. Now I will proceed to talk about this person of Andrew FUNG and explain why no salary should be paid to him even though this post is maintained.

There are certainly many instances in which Andrew FUNG made himself a laughing stock, and I am not going to point out these cases one by one. I only wish to point out a very strange phenomenon. After he took office as a senior information officer, he has repeatedly interfered with the coverage of news by the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10651 media. This is all the more unacceptable. When I came into this Chamber just now, a number of reporters asked me to make this point. After Mr FUNG took office, the reporters have been most unhappy with the difficulties encountered by them in reporting news as it is more difficult for them to cover news on the Chief Executive. They said that sometimes Mr FUNG might even reduce the time for them to cover news. Let me stop here, and I will not talk about Andrew FUNG any further. To be honest, speaking at great length can sometimes be cumbersome.

Now I wish to talk about another person, and this is also related to the staff establishment. I have explained the reasons why CHAN Kin-ping has been employed to replace Andrew LO as the Senior Special Assistant. At first, Mr TUNG said that he trusted Andrew LO, for he had long been an employee of his company and Mr TUNG, therefore, brought him into the Government. This reason is simple and correct. But the case of CHAN Kin-ping is strange as nobody knows him well. Chairman, I do not know if you were a Member of this Council then. When I heard of his appointment, I said right away that he was the "Minister of Army".

"Minister of Army" was a post in the Ming Dynasty, which was taken up by eunuchs appointed by the Emperor to keep watch on people with military powers, and people who were at odds with the Emperor would all be persecuted. The so-called Guards in Embroidered Coats, Eastern Depot, Western Depot, and so on, all derived from the concept of "Minister of Army". Now that I have spoken for a long time, and some people are even sending me emails asking where I have got to now. Right, it turns out that CHAN Kin-ping is brought in to be the Minister of the Army. We are not received appropriately in the Mainland or he cannot solve problems for us because he is mainly responsible for monitoring the whole situation. He is not here to give advice and suggest strategies. He is tasked to record remarks and acts of treachery and to keep an eye on the Chief Executive to see if he has acted against the Central Authorities. If the Chief Executive does not listen to the instruction of the Central Authorities, he would have to remind the Chief Executive and make him follow the instruction. The role of CHAN Kin-ping may worth some money or it may not. But the point is that he is responsible for supervising or managing people. At this juncture, I have to say that even though we propose to deduct all the expenditure on salaries for the CEO, two of the posts can be spared, which are the two posts under his supervision.

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Members please make a judgment. With regard to this post of Special Assistant of the CEO, frankly speaking, it is meaningless to talk about the concept of this post. I can see that a Member of this Council is not in the Chamber now. Will the Chairman please summon this person, who is a typical example, to come back and take a look? Will the Chairman please summon Mr CHAN Hak-kan to return to the Chamber, so that I can have a more specific example to cite when making explanation.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, please continue.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I was really free just now. Earlier on you pointed out a phenomenon, telling us that somebody was using the phone. "There is no one here whose phone has rung thrice; the person sitting next to me feels very much relaxed though he is not put through on the line".

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, let me remind you that you are speaking for the eighth time, and please do not stray away from the question.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Yes. All I have said is: "There is no one here whose phone has rung thrice; the person sitting next to me feels very much relaxed though he is not put through on the line". Mr WONG Kwok-hing did not make a phone call just now. He only received a phone call.

Mr CHAN Hak-kan is in the Chamber now. He used to be the Special Assistant of the CEO. According to Mr CHAN, he was responsible for making photocopies the first day he took office. They are really teaching in the right way. Senior staff members order junior staff members to make photocopies. Brother, he was paid $100,000 a month and he was made responsible for making LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10653 photocopies. Fortunately, Mr CHAN subsequently ran in the Legislative Council election and won and so, he did not work there for another two years. From this we can see that the staff establishment is undesirable. A person who fools around all day must have an axe to grind if he is not incompetent. This will hurt our young people and is a waste of public funds.

After CHAN Hak-kan quitted his job, his replacement, namely Ronald CHAN, was another typical example. He always came in and out of the Legislative Council. He was very much favoured by Mrs Regina IP and he joined the CEO under the auspices of cronyism. He was smart enough to find that he would not be going anywhere to work under CHAN Kin-ping and so, he left. Good fowls will choose the trees on which they will perch. He switched to work as a Political Assistant, earning more or less the same salary.

The undesirability of the staff establishment can be seen from the fact that CHAN Kin-ping has brought Ran CHEN into the CEO. She may really be suffering badly now. To Ran CHEN, "Brother Hak-kan" and "Brother Ronald", things have not turned out as they expected. Her name consists of only two characters, showing very probably that she comes from the Mainland, which is true. She is a member of the Communist Youth League but she did not pay for the party membership dues and is completely devoid of integrity. However, she has been able to ingratiate herself with the young generation of the bigwigs and university students who have come to Hong Kong from the Mainland because she is a core member of the Communist Youth League. LEUNG Chun-ying has actually broken the rules to employ her. Chairman, let me remind you that after helping LEUNG Chun-ying to complete the electioneering campaign, Ran CHEN had not yet landed a job but LEUNG Chun-ying invited Miss Ran CHEN to join his provisional office before he assumed office. This is all tailor-made for her. Mr CHAN Hak-kan, it is useless to be green with envy.

Chairman, for such a disgraceful post, do we still have to provide funding for it to do further damages to Miss Ran CHEN? Miss Ran CHEN, you really have to thank me. A lamb goes astray at a cross road. She is now at a cross road and now she knows that she is pitiful, right? It is CHAN Kin-ping who put her in such a sorry state. So, Chairman, let us stop doing evil, and let us make all these assistants and special assistants disappear in one go to the benefit of our young people.

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CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I will continue to speak on the remuneration for Members of the Executive Council under "Head 21 ― Chief Executive's Office". In my previous speech, I talked about the honoraria for Members serving both on the Executive Council and the Legislative Council, and I said that they received deducted honoraria from the Executive Council. However, this remark of mine deviates from the actual situation. Just now, a Member who is also serving on the Executive Council passed me a note telling me that what I said was not the case. The actual situation is that Members serving in both councils will receive full honoraria from the Executive Council while one third of their remunerations from the Legislative Council will be deducted, which means these Members will be receiving two thirds of their remuneration from the Legislative Council. It seems to have no bearing on the total honorarium expense for Members of the Executive Council, yet the expenses of the Legislative Council and the Executive Council come from the same purse, the people of Hong Kong, the public coffer. So the deduction of one third of their remunerations from the Legislative Council is in some way a saving.

This is the fact. Despite that, the three Members serving on both councils are not among Members of the Executive Council with the poorest attendance. The three Members of the Executive Council with the highest attendance which I have mentioned earlier are: CHEUNG Chi-kong with 100% attendance, Anna WU with 96% and Starry LEE with 95%. Starry LEE really deserves a "Like", for she is serving on three councils yet she still manages to maintain an attendance of 95%. As for the attendance of the other two Members serving on both councils, Mr Jeffrey LAM is 92% and Mrs Regina IP is 89%. It is evident that the attendance of Members serving on two councils or even three councils may not necessarily be low.

Yet there is another concern about the quality of performance, for we only have access to the attendance of Members in figures and no more. We are confined to this scope in monitoring Members of the Executive Council. Let me raise another point which I have not made very clear earlier. It is about a Member's question on the attendance of Members of the Executive Council. At that time, the authorities' reply stated that since non-official Members of the Executive Council might need to withdraw from the discussion of individual LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10655 items due to conflict of interest, the attendance rates of Members alone could not accurately reflect their participation. The Executive Council Secretariat had not compiled the relevant statistics, yet in view of the Member's wish to be informed about this, the Executive Council Secretariat reviewed the minutes to compile the statistics. Apart from attendance rate, withdrawal rate is also provided, yet not many people have discussed this. In my view, withdrawal rate should also be discussed in examining the reduction of the honoraria of Members of the Executive Council.

LEUNG Chun-ying took office on 1 July 2012, and as at the end of 2013 … The statistics for attendance rates cut off by the end of March, yet the statistics for withdrawal rates are recorded from the date he first took office to the end of last year but not as at the end of March. What an interesting way in presenting these figures! The Executive Council has held 69 meetings and discussed 365 items, and the number of items which Members have withdrawn from discussion is 99, while the total number of withdrawals is 248. Please remember this figure. In comparison with the 37 meetings in 2011 which 247 items had been discussed, the number of withdrawals of Members of the Executive Council was only 26. Certainly, 248 withdrawals is the figure for the period of one and a half year, and the 26 withdrawals of 2011 is only the figure for a year. But still, the great discrepancies in the number of withdrawals is palpable. As I pointed out earlier, the number of withdrawals for the period from LEUNG Chun-ying's assumption of office to the end of last year is 248, whereas the withdrawals for the previous year, that is, 2011, is 26.

Why would the number of withdrawals be so great? Conflict of interest is definitely the cause, where the discussion of relevant items should not be made known to certain Members lest they jump the gun to make car purchases, property purchases or land sales. That is definitely unacceptable. Yet, it is evident from the situation that the people appointed as Members of the Executive Council by the Chief Executive are involved in conflict of interest and entangled relationship, which has caused them to make 248 withdrawals. First, this is a cause of concern. Members who have declared their interest and know of the situation may withdraw, but what about those who have not declared their interest or are involved in indirect interest, such as the interest of the Members' wives and their family? We do not know how many declarations of interest are involved. Second, should the honoraria of Members who have made withdrawals be deducted? There is no explanation. We are now in the Committee stage to 10656 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 discuss this item, yet I believe no account concerning this has been included in the information we have at hand. We only get this withdrawal rate after making strenuous efforts to press on for a reply. Will Members consider this a serious problem? I reiterate that when we have the authority to grant provision for a certain item yet lacking the power or authority to monitor the item, we should consider carefully whether we should approve the provision.

I mentioned the three Members of the Executive Council earlier. Since Mr Albert CHAN mentioned the issue about Fanny LAW subsequently, I consider it necessary for me to explain some basic information, lest it would be unfair to Members. Earlier on, I have tried to read out a report from Post 852 which reads, "Rumour saying that Fanny LAW will be the Chairman of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, LEUNG's Fan extends cross-sectoral influence". This report is not first-hand coverage but the quotation of a report from the Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET). It is said in the report of the HKET that "A Member of the Executive Council promoting the establishment of the Innovation and Technology Bureau, Fanny LAW, is learnt to be appointed the Chairman of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks to replace Nicholas BROOKE whose term will expire by the end of June."

By the way, the FUNG Siu-por is also a "LEUNG's fan", a friend of LEUNG. Neither the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks nor the Government has come forward to make clarification, so I think the news is highly believable. Though there were rumours earlier that Fanny LAW would be the Director of the Innovation and Technology Bureau, I did not quite believe that. Since she had been a Director of Bureau in the past, there is no reason for her to return to that post, unless she is offered the post of a Secretary of Department …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, this is the seventh time you speak, please do not repeat the points which other Members or you yourself have mentioned before.

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Alright. I will then give more information about another Member of the Executive Council. I think that the honorarium of CHENG Yiu-tong should also be deducted. I will not read out his titles in detail. He is convicted for supporting the "sieve metaphor" made by LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10657

ZHANG Xiaoming, Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, last year. It is not a problem to give support to any opinion, but the remark made is, and I quote to the effect, "the universal suffrage in Western countries has ended up electing a porn star to the office, do we want to see this happen?" These remarks have fully exposed the lack of political wisdom. The Equal Opportunities Commission said later that the remark might give people the impression that people engaging in certain occupation were not entitled to the right to stand for election, which might be unfair to those people, and the remark was considered inappropriate. As a veteran leader of trade unions, he discriminates against certain occupations and he does not want the existence of the occupation of porn stars. Since he does not want to give them the opportunities to stand for election, he supports using screening methods to sieve out these people.

In March this year, CHENG Yiu-tong said that it was the wish of the Central Authorities to see Hong Kong heading towards democracy, but the Central Authorities did not want to see Hong Kong being brought into chaos because of the issue on universal suffrage, and the Central Authorities might even come to a state of not approving the appointment, so it would rather adopt a stricter approach at the nomination stage to play safe in all circumstance. He also intimidated Hong Kong people openly, pointing out that certain Beijing officials were considering issuing travel alert on Hong Kong and proposing to the National Tourism Administration at Beijing to issue travel alert on Hong Kong. He said he responded immediately, "No, never, for it will cause Hong Kong people to suffer". With that remark, he seemed to be concerned about the wellbeing of Hong Kong people, yet he added, "Only a small group of Hong Kong people are trying to bring chaos to Hong Kong". This is an alarmist talk.

That is all I want to say about the part on the Executive Council.

I will then speak to support Amendment No 25. Mr Albert CHAN proposes reducing the estimated expenditure by an amount approximately equals to the remuneration of the Information Coordinator for the year. Some Members have put forth relevant arguments earlier. However, I would like to state firstly that LEUNG Chun-ying should not appoint an incumbent elected Member into the Government's establishment. I have mentioned this point earlier, but the Chairman said that it was irrelevant to the Registration and Electoral Office I was discussing at the time. Now, I am talking about this post. I want to tell the Government that the appointment is improper and it should not 10658 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 be done again via the proposal for reducing the remuneration of the Information Coordinator for the year. An elected Member, be him a Member of the District Council or the Legislative Council, must resign from his office as the Member before joining the Government establishment, which will trigger a by-election. If a by-election is inevitable, we cannot but spend the money. However, if a by-election is avoidable, it will be a waste of public money. I believe Members from the pro-establishment camp will agree with my remark that avoidable by-election is a waste of public money.

May I ask the Government whether it is a waste of public money to appoint an incumbent District Council member as the Information Coordinator? There are so many talents in Hong Kong, who dares to say that FUNG Wai-kwong is the only person who can take up or is willing to take up the post of Information Coordinator? I believe many candidates have attended the interview. If the candidate is an incumbent District Council member, marks should be deducted, for it will result in a waste of public money. I am not talking about the personal profile of FUNG Wai-kwong. I am saying that in terms of establishment, the appointment of an elected Member will trigger a by-election and thus waste public money. The Government has made a serious mistake in governance merely from this point of view. Therefore, I urge Members to support Amendment No 25 to send a clear message to the Government that this is a wrong move and should not be repeated.

The remuneration of FUNG Wai-kwong's post as the Information Coordinator is pitched at level 4 of the Directorate Pay Scale, which amounts to HK$175,000 per month, reaching the highest of $186,000 with increments. A spokesman of the Government said that FUNG Wai-kwong had experience in public relations and political work and was competent for the post of Information Coordinator. In this connection, FUNG Wai-kwong claimed that he was not a liability but added value to the Government. He said he could play a role comparable to the spokesman of the White House ― this is a joke. Another joke is about the remark he made when he was asked whether he was a suitable candidate for the post of Information Coordinator, for he said he had "no comment". His remark immediately attracted scoffing from the public, querying his competence to fulfil the duties of Information Coordinator and the justification of receiving the handsome remuneration. It seems that instead of handling news, he is creating scandals to the Government.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10659

I will then give arguments about his unsuitability and incompetence to perform effectively in the post and to get the job done, justifying that the reduction of his remuneration is fair and reasonable. FUNG Wai-kwong has opened a public relations company called the "靈思公關服務" (PR Concepts) to provide public relations services. Last year, the company successfully secured the bid for arranging election for the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Unexpectedly, serious mistakes were made in the election arrangement. Take the ballot papers as an example. Each set of ballot papers should include 10 sheets for electing representatives from 10 arts categories separately, but among the 5 000 sets or so ballot papers, three sets of ballot papers were found to include 11 sheets by electors. That means there was double voting, for the set of ballot papers included an additional ballot paper for a certain arts category. Moreover, printing errors were found in another five ballot papers by the public relations company, which made the number of flawed ballot papers to eight. As a result, the commencement of votes counting was delayed for six hours.

We queried the Government about this at a meeting of the Panel on Home Affairs. In my view, the most significant comment made at the meeting was that from Mr Christopher CHUNG, and I quote: "This is not a political issue. In fact, politics is important, for the authorities should find a fair, just and impartial company. However, it is more than a political issue but a matter of administration and approach. If the administration and approach have been made a mess, it is utterly unprofessional. It will be a laughing stock if this recurs."

In fact, the above remarks from Mr Christopher CHUNG can also be quoted to support Amendment No 25 proposed today requesting the reduction of the remuneration of Information Coordinator FUNG Wai-kwong.

Another incident which is related to Members of the Legislative Council is about the leader of the Liberal Party Mr James TIEN (The buzzer sounded) … I will provide further information later when I speak.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

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MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, thanks to Mr WONG Kwok-hing for staying in the Chamber to listen to our debate.

Regarding the special posts in the Chief Executive's Office, I mentioned his Special Assistant Ms YAU Ping-fei earlier. Indeed, I do not know her, and I only recall that I have read an article written by her once. It is the press report on her interview with LEUNG Chun-ying which I mentioned near the end of my previous speech, portraying LEUNG's habit of growing vegetables and his daily life. As I said earlier, it is obviously an image-building work, political makeup. Perhaps LEUNG was pleased by this interview and she was later appointed to take up this prestigious and high-pay yet dispensable position. For the post is …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, this is the eighth time you speak, so please to do not repeat the views you have already expressed earlier.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I have mentioned earlier that the post is dispensable. To develop my argument further, I need to give a brief summary of my views. Chairman, this post has been left vacant for a year. Come to think about that, if a senior post in the Government is of great importance, how can it be left vacant for one whole year? It is obvious that the post is dispensable. If that is the case, it is only reasonable to delete the post. However, the post has now been turned into a means for offering political rewards. Since LEUNG was pleased with the report of the interview, he offered this awesome post to this lady.

YAU Ping-fei has been engaging in political news report for over 10 years. She used to be a consultant to certain Member of the Legislative Council and she knows various major political parties, the business sector and the high echelon of rural bodies extremely well. Like the case of some other positions, personal network seems to be the main reason for the existence of this post, whereas the ability of the candidate and the need for establishing the post are no longer the primary concern.

However, LEUNG Chun-ying has participated in the political circle for 30 years. In the beginning, he was responsible for the drafting and consultation work of the Basic Law. Later, during the terms of office of TUNG Chee-hwa LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10661 and Donald TSANG, he was appointed Member of the Executive Council. In the dozen years after the reunification, it is palpable that he has managed to mix well with various camps and groupings, political groups and influential persons in the economic and political arena. He has even managed to establish a good relationship with HO Hei-wah of the Society for Community Organization. It means that he has already established an extensive and in-depth personnel network, and it is basically unnecessary for him to appoint other persons to assist him with the liaison work. Indeed, when it comes to personal relationships, if he deals with them in person, it may be more direct, more convenient, more comprehensive and more intensive than being left to those so-called assistants.

If we draw a comparison between the appointments and the duties of the appointed posts, we will discover how unacceptable it is. Let me cite a simple example to illustrate my point. Since LEUNG Chun-ying took office, it has become a prominent phenomenon that these posts which are offered as political rewards lack compatibility, co-ordination and focuses. The personnel arrangement for LEUNG Chun-ying's visit to Beijing is a typical example. When the Chief Executive attends important or major events in the Mainland, the Information Coordinator should be responsible for facilitating the liaison between the Chief Executive and the media, and according to the job description of the Information Coordinator, he should play a specific and professional role in information dissemination. However, when LEUNG Chun-ying attended the opening ceremony of the session of the National People's Congress (NPC), the officer helping him to make arrangement for the Beijing visit was not the Information Coordinator, who claims himself to be the "spokesman of the White House", but Ms YAU Ping-fei.

Regarding the arrangement for YAU Ping-fei to accompany the Chief Executive to visit Beijing and attend the opening ceremony of the NPC session, some of the members in the media considered it extremely strange, for YAU is only the Special Assistant as I said earlier, which belongs to a lower rank. It may be attributed to the special duties she is assigned or certain special political relationship she is involved in, which cannot be made open. I stress that I am now talking about political relationship. Under the arrangement for the Beijing visit this time around, the Special Assistant was assigned to accompany the Chief Executive to attend the opening ceremony of the NPC session and be responsible for the relevant liaison work, which did not fall within the spectrum of duties of the Special Assistant. The duties of the Special Assistant is to liaise with 10662 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 various sectors of society, and to undertake research and prepare information notes for the Chief Executive and senior government officials, and so on, whereas attending these important meetings and liaising with the media are not part of the duties of the Special Assistant.

The Information Coordinator was blatantly by-passed. Definitely, the authorities offered many explanations to this. It was said that FUNG Wai-kwong had to stay in Hong Kong to handle some important task, yet the authorities failed to explain what the important task was. I wonder if it was because the Information Coordinator had to monitor the performance of the Acting Chief Executive. I believe that be it Carrie LAM or the Financial Secretary acting up for the Chief Executive, neither of them would be willing or interested in allowing FUNG Wai-kwong to assist in the news announcement work. Any officials in the Government who are relatively capable will scorn this Information Coordinator who claimed himself to be the "spokesman of the White House".

The arrangement of the Beijing visit is not only ridiculous but also contrary to the established system and bureaucratic principle in the Government. It is evident that the work in this respect has slipped into chaos. There is no more system. We can see from the series of arrangements that the appointment should not exist. One of the reasons is that the post has already been left vacant for one whole year. There is no reason to appoint a person who does not have any experience in the field and pay him a monthly salary of $90,000 to take up these duties. For these reasons, I propose Amendment No 36 to reduce the expenditure in this respect.

As for Amendment No 35, it is another amendment relating to the reduction of expenditure for posts under the Chief Executive's Office. The amendment seeks to reduce the estimated expenditure by $1.15 million, which approximately equals to the remuneration for the Senior Personal Assistant for the year. The major duties of the post are to provide secretariat and supporting services to the Chief Executive. However, as I mentioned in my earlier speech, there are 104 posts under the establishment of the Chief Executive's Office on the whole, and the number of clerical and administrative staff is so copious that we find it unacceptable. The creation of an additional post of Senior Personal Assistant, which will incur an annual expenditure of over $1 million, is absolutely unnecessary, for under the establishment of the Chief Executive's Office, there LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10663 should be other posts providing secretariat support. Besides, a number of officers at directorate rank have been employed to take care of entertainment, administration and liaison, and other aspects of work, so it is absolutely unnecessary to create an additional post of Senior Personal Assistant.

As for the qualification for this post, we know nothing about it. Certain Members have asked about the basic requirement, such as academic qualification, as this post offers a salary of over $1 million per annum. I believe Members know clearly that more often than not, the salaries of government posts are pegged with qualification requirements. For certain posts pitched at certain salary points, only candidates possessing the specified academic qualification, as well as the required working experience, will be considered for employment. In the course of application, candidates have to pass all kinds of tests and interviews in competition with other candidates. Yet for the post of Senior Personal Assistant, the authorities have not even set out the qualification requirements. For this reason, the People Power proposes Amendment No 35 to request the deletion of this post.

Chairman, I would also like to talk about the proposal to delete the post of the Director of the Chief Executive's Office. Since a number of Members have talked about this earlier, I will not give a long speech about this. Regarding Amendment No 22, it resolves that head 21 be reduced by $3.4 million in respect of subhead 000, which is the remuneration of the Director of the Chief Executive's Office for the year. We are certainly familiar with Edward YAU. Yet when it comes to his performance, I have launched criticisms against him time and again, and even during his tenure as the Secretary for the Environment, for he is basically an extremely stubborn person who does not listen to others at all. When he comes across different views, he usually responds emotionally like me. There was a time we were in a discussion and he left angrily in less than five minutes. Among the government officials I have come across, rarely anyone behaves like him. His performance is completely different with that of LAM Woon-kwong during his office as the Director of the Chief Executive's Office in TUNG Chee-hwa's era. LAM Woon-kwong would listen carefully to the views of various sectors and then spend time to explain the case in detail. As such, he was relatively effective in helping the Chief Executive to resolve certain conflicts or lessen the intensity of opposition. However, we do not see Edward YAU playing any of these roles.

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In terms of work, certainly, he is directly accountable to the Chief Executive. His spectrum of work is heavy: to liaise with various political parties and groups, the Legislative Council, the Commission on Strategic Development and its members, representatives from various sectors of the community and district personalities, and secure their support for the work of the SAR Government. Among the previous Directors of the Chief Executive's Office, I consider his performance the poorest basing on my personal experience. In the event of certain issues of great import, he would come to the ante-Chamber of the Legislative Council. I have mocked him in some occasions, asking him if it was because other Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux could not handle the case, and the Chief Executive thus sent him to oversee the situation, and we might have some tit-for-tat exchanges.

I did meet with him at certain informal occasions, yet these were not meetings he took the initiative to arrange with a view to tackling the conflicts or problems or listening to our views. During the long period when he is the Director of the Chief Executive's Office, he has never made any proactive effort to seek our views. Even when he knew of the action we would take to oppose the decision of the Government, he did not take the initiative to contact us to try to understand the problem and ease the tension. Perhaps he has already characterized us as the "uncompromising camp", and there is no chance for successful persuasion. He may have no intention to listen to any views we put forth, for he considers that we are always repeating the old stuff. However, this attitude of refusing to listen and showing no interest and desire to address the disputes and problems is definitely not suitable for fulfilling the duties of the Director of the Chief Executive's Office. As for other (The buzzer sounded) …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I will now speak on another amendment, Amendment No 733, which is on "Head 142 ― Government Secretariat: Offices of the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary" ― Sorry, I quote the wrong number. It should be Amendment No 730 on "Head 142 ― Government Secretariat: Offices of the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary", which "resolved that head 142 be reduced by $3,750,000 in respect of subhead 000", a reduction approximately LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10665 equals to the estimated expenditure of the Chief Secretary for Administration for the year.

The Chief Secretary for Administration is above all but one, comparable to the Chief Secretary or Colonial Secretary during the British-Hong Kong Government era. I forget the correct title of the post, and it should be the Chief Secretary. When a decision was made by the Governor, the Chief Secretary, though not responsible for announcing the decision, would be the officer actually delivering the decision. To enable Members to understand the significance of this position, I will first quote a paragraph from an ancient Chinese article to illustrate my point: "The most irremediable calamity in this world is the superficial stability in society, where unpredictable and hidden worries causing instability are in the brewing. If I wait passively for the deterioration of the situation and make no effort to address the problem, I fear that it will develop into an irremediable stage. But if I come forward to initiate change, I worry that the public will not accept the change as they have already been used to the superficial stability." The principle is straightforward. In other words, we should be watchful with situations which seem to be alright on the surface but are actually problematic. Now, the incumbent Chief Secretary for Administration is Carrie LAM, "a real fighter", who was promoted to the position of Secretary for Development by the former Chief Executive and has attained a higher rank in the current-term Government. Certainly, no one can tell by now whether LEUNG Chun-ying really wanted to appoint her as the Chief Secretary for Administration, for after LEUNG Chun-ying's proposal on five Secretaries of Departments and 14 Directors for Bureaux was rejected, Carrie LAM was eventually appointed as the Chief Secretary for Administration. Has Carrie LAM ever considered these issues? Should we reduce her salary?

Frankly, I have not prepared the information in this regard, yet reasons for reducing her salary can be given readily. When she was the Secretary for Development, she wanted to show her competence and thus declared openly a number of things she would deal with. First, she declared that unauthorized structures of buildings in the New Territories should be removed. As a result, certain villagers presented to her some paper figures for offering to dead people. This proposal of removal is an example indicating that "proactive action to initiate changes is not accepted by the public". She knew very well that the change was impracticable, but she still made the bold promise during her tenure as the Secretary for Development to pursue that. Perhaps her boldness won LEUNG Chun-ying's recognition.

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The second incident is one she has failed to achieve to date. This incident has been turned into a laughing stock to the world, which is another example indicating that "proactive action to initiate changes is not accepted by the public". When she assumed the office of the Chief Secretary for Administration, she recommended her friend MAK Chai-kwong to take up a post. She said she respected MAK and that MAK was capable. Honestly, MAK Chai-kwong is really a capable person. He was a civil servant. He was in the post of Permanent Secretary prior to his retirement. However, he was suddenly uplifted to the position of Director of Bureau. She had not asked MAK about his status of property possession. No, she had not done so before lifting him to a higher position. I would describe it as the "proactive action to initiate changes is not accepted by the public". The incident should be attributed to her negligence, but in the end, she could not help coming forward to wield her influence as the Chief Secretary for Administration to call on the public to believe MAK. Buddy, she has made such a mess from the beginning of her tenure.

There is another incident. For her failure to achieve her initial plan to remove unauthorized structures, I may let it go. But then she turned to bully the tenants of sub-divided units. These tenants of sub-divided units are made targets of bully for they are not backed up by organizations like Heung Yee Kuk. We cannot find a "Bureau for Sub-divided Units" in Hong Kong but only a Director for sub-divided units, "Paul of sub-divided units". Am I right? In the absence of a "Bureau for Sub-divided Units", she bullied the tenants of sub-divided units and said that sub-divided units might be offered. She joined hands with Paul CHAN, the successor of MAK Chai-kwong, to promote sub-divided units and convert buildings into sub-divided units to offer 10 000 units. Again, she failed. Buddy, I do not need any preparation to give the reasons for cutting her salary, do I? These incidents are in great abundance that I can easily quote one at my fingertips.

In respect of these three incidents, she as the Chief Secretary for Administration is firstly wrong, secondly wrong again, and thirdly wrong time and again. However, she refuses to admit her fault. Chairman, it is acceptable to make mistake. Am I right? But one must admit his or her fault. However, she refuses to admit her fault. To date, the culprit has not yet been identified. The truth seems to be nowhere in sight. Let us look at the first incident. Back then, she said unauthorized structures of buildings in the New Territories should be removed. What should the residents of the New Territories do? Had they removed their unauthorized structures once they heard the remark from the most influential government official, in what situation would they have ended up LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10667 today? A person lacking credibility cannot maintain his or her position. The Chief Secretary or the prime minister is above all officials but one, so she should not act this way. She must think carefully and consider comprehensively, and like the Chairman, she should shun giving comments, should she not? The Chairman will not criticize us hastily. He will only comment when there is something wrong. On the contrary, she does all the talking. This is the first point.

Second, even though she is not the emperor, she is the leader of feudal rulers, which should not hastily proclaim an expedition. When LEUNG Chun-ying introduced the proposal to set up five Secretaries of Departments and 14 Directors of Bureaux at the beginning of his tenure, I mentioned the story about Emperor Yingzong of Ming Dynasty. Back then, I said that the incident was comparable to the Battle at Tu Mu Castle, it was doomed to fail. The same applies to Carrie LAM. In the MAK Chai-kwong incident, her comments were unnecessary. Public opinion in society would decide on it and the person involved would defend himself. Why had she to come forward to ask people to trust him and thus put the prestige of the SAR Government at stake … Right, Carrie LAM may have time, and I should perhaps call her to come in to listen to me, so that I will not be talking to the air in this Chamber. Chairman, according to Rule 17(3) of the Rules of Procedures, will you please call Carrie LAM to return to this Chamber and listen to my great speech.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, please continue.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, sorry that my request for a headcount has affected other Members. I intend to call Carrie LAM to this Chamber. Chief Secretary Carrie LAM, will you please come in, otherwise, Members can hardly enjoy a moment of peace to finish their meals. Chief Secretary, if you come, I will not request for a headcount.

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Certainly, Carrie LAM is not in the Chamber, yet I suppose she is watching the live broadcast of the meeting and I will continue. Just now, I said that when she assumed office, she did three things which undermined the prestige of the person appointing her. I have quoted the first paragraph from "Comments of CHAO Cuo", colleagues responsible for translation work may look it up, for I have just read out according to the original text. Since it is a very old article, I do not quite remember it. It is said in the article that "… I worry the public will not accept it". It is correct. If a person does not consider the possibilities that something may go wrong in the course and simply insist on doing so despite the problems, the person will be in trouble, for he or she will feel uneasy. Yet how should a person deal with such a situation? Chairman, I will go on, for I have just finished the first part. Under such circumstances, "a person with kindness and nobleness will still come forward to face the grave risk in order to make great achievements for the benefit of society, which cannot be achieved by any person running hastily after fame and trying to make achievement within a short time." This is rightly the description of Carrie LAM.

The sentence "to face the grave risk in order to make great achievements for the benefit of society" is regarded as the key of the whole article according to the commentary of this ancient Chinese article. Chairman, SU Shi is a famous writer and a political commentator. In other words, the article is saying that if anyone wants to make some achievements, he or she must come forward and take the risk. Am I right? What has Carrie LAM done? Chairman, how can you leave the Chamber now? Do you not understand what I say? The right approach is to come forward and take the risk. But Carrie LAM has not done so, and her failure to do so has given rise to many problems.

(THE CHAIRMAN'S DEPUTY, MR ANDREW LEUNG, took the Chair)

Deputy Chairman, she has done something wrong, but she refuses to admit her fault. Worse still, she finds others to admit the fault for her. This is the nature of Carrie LAM. I believe the conservative camp, the pro-government camp and the pro-establishment camp have all experienced that. She not only adopts strong-handed approaches but also refuses to reason and is extremely arrogant. We may simply look at the case of the Old Age Living Allowance (OALA). At that time, the Chief Secretary had just assumed office … I guess LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10669

LEUNG Chun-ying must have appointed her to take full charge of the case because he was entangled by various political issues at the time and must feel annoyed. Besides, he might be scratching his head to find a way out for the incident involving the unauthorized structures. At that time, she should have taken the risk or come forward to take the risk. Even if she did not do so for the public, she should have done so for her master. But she had not done so. There was no room for negotiation. The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong and the Liberal Party had all approached her to discuss it and asked why she demanded Directors of Bureaux under her to be so heavy-handed. How would Matthew CHEUNG be hard-nosed? He would be frightened simply when I threw things at him. I do not know what is wrong with Carrie LAM's mindset, for she would come to the Legislative Council in person to monitor her subordinates and demand government officials to remain strong-handed. It is troublesome, is it not? The OALA case has fully reflected that she is not suitable to assist or deliver governance.

She has failed to correct her mistake, and worse still, she continues to make mistakes. Come to think about the various blunders made by the SAR Government. Take the ferry disaster involving the Marine Department as an example. When Secretary Anthony CHEUNG refused to admit his fault, she should have instructed him to do so. Even a junior official in the Marine Department adamantly refused to admit his fault, which was an indication that the Chief Secretary lacked leadership. This should be attributed to the philosophy adopted by the Chief Secretary, for she thinks the Legislative Council can be ignored … I will not go further to complete my remark. To her, the organization responsible for monitoring her is but an idiot, and public opinions are but shabby and worthless shoes. What should we do then? Carrie LAM's practices in governance will naturally cause a lot of troubles. Having said that, why "Longhair" has to request a 12-month salary cut when others only request a four-month cut? More will be explained in the next episode. By now, I want to state the point that when LEUNG Chun-ying is taking care of numerous issues and flying to the Mainland every day, she should stay in the headquarters in Hong Kong to guard strategic points and handle certain administrative issues. She is paid to alleviate the worries of her boss. When she stays in Hong Kong to guard the place, she should bring her ruling ability into full play. May I ask Members which of the above tasks has she fulfilled?

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There is one more incident which I would like to mention, that is, the HKTV incident. When LEUNG Chun-ying was stuck in the HKTV incident, what did Carrie LAM do? Carrie LAM simply let LEUNG Chun-ying to be the "mandarin offered at the ancestor's altar", which would be dried out gradually. She did not render assistance to her master but instead put forth some unconstructive remarks. Buddy … Deputy Chairman, have you ever employed an employee or a general manager like her? Would you kick her out? In fact, her position is comparable to a general manager or a chief executive officer. Yet when the boss was in trouble, she did not come forward to help but instead hid herself and gave some unsympathetic remarks. Even if her boss were on the brink of death, she would not come forward to help him out. For this reason, she should stop being the Chief Secretary for Administration. Her ability and shoulders cannot bear such pressure. I propose the amendment to reduce her salary by 12 months. Yet to be fair, the incidents I mentioned earlier can only justify a four-month salary cut, which I consider adequate. Since time is running short, and if Members want to know why I propose to reduce her salary by 12 months, I will explain it in detail to Members later. She has been in the office of the Chief Secretary for Administration for over two years, and by now I have only mentioned the incidents occurred in a year or so. I hope Members will grasp the opportunity to return to the Chamber to listen to it, so that I do not have to request a headcount to call Members to come back. Later, I will call Chief Secretary Carrie LAM to come back … Let it be, I will not call her. That is all.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): I would like to add a few points. Regarding the previous part, I support Mr Albert CHAN's proposed Amendment No 25, which involves "Head 21 ― Chief Executive's Office (CEO)". It is to resolve that head 21 be reduced by $2.61 million in respect of subhead 000. The amount of money is equivalent to the annual remuneration for the Government's Information Coordinator. I have to explain clearly that I wish to reduce the provision of $2.61 million which includes $2.18 million as annual salary and $430,000 as allowance. I believe the general public in Hong Kong, on hearing that Andrew FUNG Wai-kwong is drawing a remuneration of $2.61 million, should support this amendment. Furthermore, the Information Coordinator is entitled to 22 days paid annual leave.

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I have cited some examples, including Mr Christopher CHUNG's criticism on the election chaos of the Arts Development Council. After that, I would like to add some more points. This Information Coordinator was found by an Honourable colleague from the Liberal Party, Mr James TIEN, that he wrote articles in newspaper under the pseudonym "金鐘仁". In this regard, a reporter asked the Government whether Andrew FUNG received any royalties and whether the Government would investigate whether Andrew FUNG had violated the regulations. But the CEO's Permanent Secretary, Alice LAU, said that she had communicated in writing with Andrew FUNG, but there was no information indicating that Andrew FUNG had any problem. In fact, it is an irrelevant answer trying to evade the issue.

However, under the Civil Service Code, a civil servant who wishes to contribute articles to newspapers or magazines in his personal capacity for remuneration is required to submit prior application to the department head for permission for paid outside work. However, the CEO has adopted a low-key approach and is reluctant to respond whether Andrew FUNG has violated the regulation. Such an approach is too sneaky. In fact, as long as he has acted honestly and if there is a declaration mechanism, there is no regulation prohibiting civil servants or accountable officials from writing articles on newspapers. But the most serious problem is that Andrew FUNG wrote articles under a pseudonym. Many people also write articles under pseudonyms which may not be a big problem. The problem is that he has written articles under a pseudonym, and this is discovered by Mr TIAN due to his strong connections. Further, the articles written by him are in "hatchet-man style". So, why should his remuneration be cut? It is because of his poor public relations skills. As the saying goes, one can recognize the whole through observation of the part. The fact that Mr FUNG was discovered to have written articles under a pseudonym shows that he is not competent to be the Information Coordinator. So, I urge Members to support Amendment No 25 which seeks to reduce $2.61 million. Whenever this amount is mentioned, we feel pain in the heart. How much do we, the so-called Honourable Members, earn in a year? But Andrew FUNG can earn $2.61 million.

This session has come to an end. Then I will turn to the disciplined forces after discussing the CEO. I would like to discuss the amendment by Mr WONG Yuk-man relating to "Head 45 ― Fire Services Department". Under Amendment No 192, it is resolved that head 45 be reduced by $1,828,000 in respect of subhead 000, which is roughly equivalent to the provision for the 10672 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 remunerations of five newly created posts in the Fire Services Department (FSD) for enhancing support to increase land supply. Looking back at the section "governance, constitutional development and district administration", provisions for security and the disciplined forces have also been reduced while only one expenditure item of the FSD has been cut under Amendment No 192 proposed by Mr WONG Yuk-man.

Among all the disciplined forces, the FSD ranks first in terms of public image as its popularity and support rating also rank first. Since firemen are responsible for rescuing the vulnerable, they seldom come into any major conflict with the public when compared with other disciplined forces. So, the firemen's support rating is higher and their image is always more positive. But this does not mean that there is no problem in the establishment, operation and administration of the grade. Although Mr WONG has not yet spoken, I wish to hear his justifications on deducting the remunerations for the five additional posts which are created for strengthening the support for increasing land supply. I expect that this is just a nominal deduction. He does not have any intention to greatly reduce the provision for the FSD.

But I hope that Members will support this Amendment and face squarely some of the governance problems in the FSD in recent years. I would like to explain the governance problems of the FSD in this part. The FSD is scandal-ridden in recent years. Apart from having procured inappropriate equipment several times, the FSD has been criticized in the Director of Audit's Report No. 61 for its progress in building inspections being too slow. There is an internal discussion on whether an Administrative Officer should be assigned to serve as Director of the FSD so as to roll out reform. With the support of the Hong Kong Fire Services Department Ambulancemen's Union (the AU), a task force has been set up to study how to promote the initiative.

Perhaps the more serious problem facing the FSD is about the Ambulance Stream because the FSD has been accused of practising favoritism, meaning that firemen are treated much more favourably than ambulancemen. By taking a look at the head, there are two streams of staff, including firemen and ambulancemen, in the FSD. The Ambulance Stream in the FSD has long been dissatisfied with the biased attitude of the FSD, which tends to tilt towards the fire personnel in dealing with the establishment of the two grades.

The AU, in its special notice on 31 December 2013 to its members, has raised several allegations, including a serious allegation that the management has suppressed the ambulance crews by all sorts of tactics. Further, they would LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10673 stage a collective action and urge members to participate in a large-scale activity to fight for their interests on 20 January this year. The FSD certainly was very disappointed at the allegations of ambulancemen. In the press release issued by the AU, the FSD was criticized for adopting a delaying tactic in dealing with the demand for reasonable meal breaks by ambulancemen. The FSD was also criticized as being unsympathetic and biased towards the Fireman Stream. Through this notice, they fight for their reasonable interests. But they also believe that their demand will not be entertained and have written to the Chief Executive LEUNG Chun-ying, requesting that the Ambulance Grade be separated from the FSD to become an independent disciplined force so as to solve the long-term dispute with the FSD and its inequality in staff treatment.

Just now I mentioned that on 20 January this year, more than 1 000 off-duty ambulancemen staged a large-scale demonstration on the ground that they were dissatisfied with the long-term suppression of the FSD. In response to the media inquiry about the parade, the FSD expressed regret over the ambulance crews' action and urged the AU to exercise restraint and continue to negotiate and maintain communication with the management. The high-profile statement issued by the authorities has dealt a heavy blow to the morale of many front-line ambulance staff members.

In Programme (3) under "Head 45 ― Fire Services Department" of the Budget: "Provision for 2014-15 is $101.4 million (7.6%) higher than the revised estimate for 2013-14. This is mainly due to the net increase of 65 posts, additional provision for filling vacancies and increased operating expenses and cash flow requirement for capital items". Members can make reference to page 217 of the Estimate, which is as thick as a traditional telephone directory. Are the newly created 65 posts sufficient to respond to the demands of front-line ambulance crews? By taking a look at the "Matters Requiring Special Attention in 2014-2015" under the Programme ― there is a paragraph about "Matters Requiring Special Attention" under an analysis of the figures. It indicates what to do with the funds by the Department in the financial year concerned ― we do not see any clear indication that the Department is concerned about the welfare of the Ambulance crews.

Deputy Chairman, as I find that Mr WONG Kwok-hing is not here and there are fewer than 10 Members in this Chamber, I request a headcount.

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DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN Chi-chuen, please continue.

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Just now I spoke on Programme (3): Ambulance Service under "Head 45 ― Fire Services Department".

The original financial provision for ambulance service in 2013-2014 is $1.288 billion, which has been increased by 3.8% after revision, meaning that it is over budget. The provision for 2015 is $1.439 billion, an increase of 7.6% over the previous year, representing a significant rise. But in the Matters Requiring Special Attention in 2014-2015 as I mentioned earlier, no suggestion has been made on improving the establishment of the ambulance crews. There are proposals such as to continue to strengthen publicity activities to educate the public on the proper use of emergency ambulance service. I believe it aims at reducing misuse, and abuse of ambulance service, thus reducing the pressure on ambulance crews. Other proposals include: plan for the acquisition of a computer system for the provision of post-dispatch advice to callers requesting emergency ambulance service; continue to explore the long-term arrangement for the provision of emergency ambulance service. This is nonsense because these are simply the routines of a department.

However, the FSD has issued a letter entitled "Response to the AU's Special Notice 30/2013" to each Ambulance Stream staff member earlier. I do have a copy of this letter but certainly I will not read out the whole letter. In the letter, the management said that the letter seeks to enable the ambulance personnel to have a clear understanding of the latest development of their concerns and the follow-up action of the department. In response to the AU's concern on meal breaks, the FSD said at the outset that "The consistent position of the Civil Service Bureau and the Security Bureau is that as personnel of the disciplined services have to work on shifts and there are different duty rosters, apart from the need of tackling urgent and unforeseeable incidents, all disciplined forces are subject to different working hours in addition to meeting the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10675 operational needs of individual services. Hence, different meal breaks are arranged for the personnel." We all understand that people work hard for food. When Members are having a meal and the summoning bell is being rung, they will also feel unpleasant as they have to take a meal by different time intervals. Thus we should understand why the meal break arrangement is so important to ambulance crews and why I wish to discuss it here.

"Owing to the actual operational needs, personnel of the disciplined services may be summoned for duty during usual meal breaks." It means that they have to eat their meal in a hurry or go to work before finishing it off. "Under such circumstances, the management will arrange meal breaks for them after being out on duty for the disciplined forces as condition permits." This is a very bureaucratic answer. The FSD tried to further explain that this flexible meal break arrangement is based on civil service regulations. The management said, "In response to the relevant issue, the former Secretary for Civil Service stated clearly at the meeting of the Panel on Public Service on 16 January 2012 that as the ambulance crews are disciplined forces, section 544 of the Civil Service Regulation would apply to them instead of section 541. Under section 541, the official meal beak for civil servants whose conditioned hours of work were 44 hours gross per week is 1 hour. Under section 544, the conditioned hours of work of disciplined services staff members were governed by operational needs" (The buzzer sounded) …

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Deputy Chairman, regarding the composition and the staff members of the Chief Executive's Office (CEO), I said earlier that the Director of the CEO, Edward YAU, is definitely not suitable for the post. Therefore, the relevant expenditure should be deleted. The duties of the Director of the CEO, as I pointed out in the first part, include liaison with political parties. Another important duty is to take charge of research and study on the work of the SAR Government and major policies, working closely with the Central Policy Unit in order to grasp public sentiment. There are many criticisms in this regard saying that many policy researches, especially those which are carried out jointly with the Central Policy Unit, are carried out in black box operation. Many research reports have not been released immediately. Worse still, subsequent requests for access to these reports are simply denied. 10676 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Although these reports involve the use of public funds, formulation of government policies, and gaining an understanding of social, political and current affairs, the public and even the Legislative Council are unable to know exactly whether these studies can reach certain requirements and standards.

Recently, there were lots of criticisms on the University of Hong Kong (HKU)'s Public Opinion Programme, including the lack of reasonable explanation for certain criteria and studies, as well as the failure to meet certain expectations and requirements. Academically, some pro-China or Mainland scholars have also expressed some comments. However, there is a total lack of foundation for the work of the Central Policy Unit and the Director of the CEO in grasping public sentiment. Members are not here to listen to my speech. They will neither be able to grasp the contents of our speeches nor have any basis to criticize us later. So, please summon Mr WONG Kwok-hing to return to the Chamber again. Deputy Chairman, please do a headcount.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr Albert CHAN, please continue.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Deputy Chairman, as some Members said that they have the right to take meal, I will not request a headcount in the next 10 minutes in order to respect Members' right to take meal even though Mr WONG Kwok-hing is not in the Chamber.

Deputy Chairman, in comparison, the duties of Edward YAU are equivalent to that of the Chief of Staff. But the problem is the same as that of the Chief Executive, that is, he is earning an exorbitant salary. Compared with the remunerations of the leaders of many other countries and regions, the Chief Executive's remuneration ranks top in the world. Compared with other democratic countries, Edward YAU's remuneration is also too high, almost $3.4 million per year. The annual salary of the Chief of Staff of the United LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10677

States is only $1.34 million. However, the latter is responsible for managing a team of 461 people in the White House while the former is responsible for managing 104 people. By comparing the number of subordinates and the nature of work, we can see that his remuneration absolutely does not meet the basic requirements of value for money. More importantly, his performance is poor. We all see what happened during the meeting with the President of the Philippines by "689" and Edward YAU. I will not make a detailed description.

However, his way of assisting the Chief Executive in handling a series of crises, particularly issues of great importance, can be described as extremely inappropriate. The licensing incident of the Hong Kong Television Network is an example. The Government and LEUNG Chun-ying have made announcement on this incident several times. In dealing with the problem and giving an account, they provided information in a piecemeal matter like "squeezing toothpaste" under the pressure of the media or Legislative Council Members. The way of handling the problem gives people a strong impression that there are contradictions within the Government, a lack of consistent understanding among government officials and a divergent interpretation of the problem among the Executive Council Members. The incident as a whole gives people an impression that there is contradiction between the Government and the Communications Authority. Furthermore, a chaotic situation exists among government officials, between the CEO and other Bureau Directors, between the CEO and the Executive Council Members, among the Executive Council Members themselves, and among different levels and groups of personnel. They are extremely loose and there are divergent opinions. There is also a lack of capability in dealing with the crisis in the subsequent development of the incident. The performance of the holder of such a high-paying job is disappointing. I believe if this is the case in a private enterprise or organization, the person concerned will certainly be dismissed by the board of directors. Therefore, the People Power has proposed Amendment No 22 to delete this post and our proposal is fully justified.

Just now "Long Hair" and other Members mentioned the problem of spin doctor. When I looked up the data concerning the three Chief Executives, including TUNG Chee-hwa, Donald TSANG and LEUNG Chun-ying, as well as the data concerning Chris PATTEN, I found that the spin doctor of Donald TSANG was effective. The support rate of Donald TSANG when he took office was 72.3 marks, which is the highest compared with the similar ratings of other Chief Executives and Governors since the polling system has been put in place. 10678 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

His support rate during the first two years of his term maintained at more than 60 marks, while the support rate for his performance has reached 72 marks.

With a support rate of 52.5 marks in the first month of his term, LEUNG Chun-ying is similar to Chris PATTEN, whose support rate is 53.3 marks. TUNG Chee-hwa got a better rate, which was 64.5 marks. TUNG Chee-hwa's support rate reached its peak at 67.7 marks, while Chris PATTEN's support rate also reached its peak at 64.1 marks after taking office for seven months. However, the support rate of LEUNG Chun-ying began to fall from 52.5 marks and soon fell below 50 marks before climbing up to around 52 marks and maintaining at 50 marks for two months. However, his support rate maintained at less than 50 marks in the past year, which is regarded as below the passing mark. As a result, this has given rise to criticisms on the HKU's Public Opinion Programme by henchmen such as CHEUNG Chi-kong.

The support for Chris PATTEN was absolutely worse than that for LEUNG Chun-ying and Donald TSANG, not to mention that he faced a crisis. We all know that due to the intensified Sino-British conflict, he faced accusations such as "car crash and fatalities" and "a bull in a china shop". However, his support rate had been maintained at more than 50 marks and reached almost 60 marks upon his departure. His popularity rating at departure is higher than that when he took office. But LEUNG Chun-ying has not yet stepped down. The support rates of TUNG Chee-hwa and Donald TSANG at the time when they stepped down were significantly lower than those at the time when they took office. When TUNG Chee-hwa stepped down, his support rate dropped to 47.9 marks, and his support rate hit the lowest at 36.2 marks, which also hit the record of the public opinion poll on the Chief Executive's popularity. At that time, he had taken office for 73 months. Certainly, a lot of political issues such as the legislation on Article 23 of the Basic Law were involved. He had to bear the consequences of these political issues and other objective factors.

However, compared with TUNG Chee-hwa's era, over the past year or so after LEUNG Chun-ying took office, there is no negative factor such as SARS or financial crisis. While the economic and financial condition is sound, the Government is holding a healthy reserve with surpluses every year, enabling it to hand out cash to the public. However, his support rate, according to an opinion poll, has almost remained low for a long time without any change. This is related to the CEO, the Executive Council and the Central Policy Unit, which will be discussed later. Even though the leader is incompetent, if other "generals" or LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10679 officials do not create any troubles to the Government in dealing with problems, the situation might be different. The present predicament is that the officers in the CEO and Members of the Executive Council do not give any support to the Government. Nor do they bring any surprise to the public. If the performance of some political figures in answering public questions or handling certain issues is good, the morale and reputation of the whole team will be enhanced. However, the CEO, the Executive Council and people around LEUNG Chun-ying have often led to negative comments by the public. Therefore, we have proposed various amendments which seek to delete the remuneration for some officials of the CEO, or the annual provision for some departments. All these are verified and supported by objective circumstances.

Just now "Long Hair" was not in the Chamber. I mentioned earlier that owing to the efforts of the spin doctors, Donald TSANG has got high marks. Therefore, I may not entirely agree to that his spin doctors committed mistakes. But finally, owing to the fact that he has committed "land, sea and air corruption" ― are these luxury tours to Singapore, Japan or Thailand? I cannot remember it clearly ― his popularity has bottomed out and hit 44.4 marks when he stepped down, which was lower than the current popularity rating of LEUNG Chun-ying. The lowest score of LEUNG Chun-ying in the past few months has dropped to 40 marks, which is lower than that of Donald TSANG. Nevertheless, in comparison, TUNG Chee-hwa still keeps the lowest score on record. Of course, there is a chance that LEUNG Chun-ying may get such popularity rating. In the absence of a reorganization of the Executive Council and the CEO, I believe his popularity rating will continue to sink.

(THE CHAIRMAN resumed the Chair)

Chairman, I have basically completed my discussion on the CEO and the Executive Council. I hope Members will support the amendment. Chairman, now the progress is satisfactory as we have finished the debates on around 70 amendments. Therefore, under the current circumstances, I believe we can finish the debates and voting in a reasonable manner provided that sufficient time is given by the Chairman.

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CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, as the saying goes, people work very hard for food. I hereby declare that even though Carrie LAM does not listen to my speech, I would not summon her to come here in order to avoid a situation that Members have to take their meal in a hurry. I will not summon her. Does she have such compassion towards others? I do not think so. Speaking of Old Age Living Allowance, she treats all political parties as fools in a tough manner. I wish to point out that Secretary Matthew CHEUNG is willing to discuss the matter. The reason why discussion has become impossible because of his supervisor …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, I remind you again that you should not repeat what you have said. This is the 10th time you speak.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): … I know that. Yes … about her fault and about deducting the provision for four months' remuneration of hers, why do I insist to cut her remuneration? The reason is that these are trivial things insofar as governance of the SAR Government is concerned. As the saying goes, people's livelihood is no trivial matter. But she has added a few words to it to distort the meaning: people's livelihood, which is trivial matter, can be put on the shelf. Nevertheless, there is an important thing. Chairman, she, as the Chief Secretary for Administration, has committed a mistake on an important political issue, that is, the implementation of universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Her mistake is that her popularity rating is higher than that of her boss. I have watched a lot of propaganda films by the Government, but I have never watched a film like that, except the film in which Anson CHAN wore red clothing and appeared in the reunification ceremony. It looked as if she had signed the death certificate. The second one is Carrie LAM, although she is not wearing red. In the propaganda film, a woman leading two men claims that she, Carrie LAM, will do this and do that.

I will not discuss whether what she did is right. Mr Gary FAN, who is sitting next to me, asked me in private whether Carrie LAM has approached me. "Why should she approach me?", I replied. As she is a tough lady and I am also tough, would both of us suffer if she approaches me? She will certainly not LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10681 approach me. Buddy, what would happen if I hit her with my fists? Mr Gary FAN said that he recently talked to her, but she said that she would not negotiate with the Neo Democrats. Afterwards, Mr Gary FAN said that she had also met with other people. In fact, even though it is a small opposition party, just like mine, a one-man party, she should discuss with him because she should make efforts to gain every vote. If people's livelihood is no trivial matter, then no political party should be regarded as too trivial in respect of constitutional reform. Each party will be entitled to one vote. When Mr Gary FAN approached her on his own initiative and wanted to meet with her, she refused. Was she pretentious?

Chairman, if this is true … she is not in her seat today. But forget it, because I am not going to summon her as I mentioned that I did not want Honourable colleagues' bellies and throats to suffer. Nevertheless, what did she really want to do? The Central Authority, that is, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has commanded LEUNG Chun-ying to do something. But he may not be able to do it. As he has travelled to other places, she sits in the Chamber to command. She has made it clear that a film would be shot. But the feeling I get is anger. So far, she has not met with anyone. Honestly speaking, Mr Gary FAN will surely come here to tell his bitter experience that he was regarded as trivial as grass by a senior government official. Chairman, is this a right approach? In fact, the secret of the incident as a whole is that LEUNG Chun-ying is unable to do it and she has been instructed to do it. But her performance is poor. One cannot do it while the other one has failed to do it well. These are two different things. Here comes Secretary Gregory SO. Are you assigned by her?

Another incident is the incident about HKTV. As an advisor, you should remind your boss that he has to repay a previous debt before he can ask for a new loan. Chairman, if I have borrowed $5,000 from you and not yet repaid it, will you lend me $10,000 again? The general practice of an experienced borrower is that he will first of all repay $4,000. Then he will say, "Jasper, as I have repaid $4,000 for the previous debt of $5,000, could you lend me $10,000?" But she did not adopt such an approach. LEUNG Chun-ying said that an Innovation and Technology Bureau would be set up, which is your Bureau. I saw you coming in when speaking of this Bureau. But she has not reminded LEUNG Chun-ying. The five-page statement ― five pages, not five people ― cannot convince the public. If LEUNG Chun-ying really wants to apply for funding for the setting up the Innovation and Technology Bureau in order to delete some duties of 10682 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Secretary Gregory SO, he has to obtain the support of the Legislative Council, regardless of whether Secretary Gregory SO likes it or not. The Legislative Council has the right to grant the funding or reject it. It has the right to approve or veto the legislation …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, what is the relationship between what you are talking about and your amendment?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): … Yes, because the ranking of Carrie LAM is so high that she is under only one person. She has the responsibility to handle both administrative and political affairs. Just now I mentioned politics. Now I wish to talk about administration, which is certainly related to politics. Secretary Gregory SO, as your bureau will be trimmed down, you have to give an explanation to this Council on how you will handle it. You have a conflict of interest. Your bureau will be trimmed down and you come here to give an explanation. But you are unable to do any innovation. Your portfolio is the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau. Some people will repay stool for your words. What would you do?

So, even though Carrie LAM does not come here in person to give an explanation to Members … She should have the same courage as that of Fanny LAW, who stood up to lead the charge when establishing "five Secretaries of Departments and 14 Directors of Bureaux". Today, Fanny LAW does not comment on it because it is not her job. It is certainly Carrie LAM's duty. But she looks down upon the others. Just now I mentioned the bitter experience of Mr Gary FAN. Could she win his vote? So, in fact, she knows that there are two conditions in respect of administration. First, if the Chief Executive is in all sincerity and frankness to tell us the truth why he refused to issue licence to Ricky WONG, we would certainly grant him funding. The reason is very simple. We have blamed a good person and we will restore confidence in the Government. We would then realize that he has bitten the bullet. Today, he has to speak out because he wants to set up the Innovation and Technology Bureau. Do you think that he is in all sincerity and frankness? Carrie LAM, you should have reminded him. If you have reminded him, there will be an opportunity of setting up the Bureau. Administration is certainly related to politics. Chairman, you have also mentioned that the relations between the legislature and the executive should be restored. Unfortunately, Carrie LAM LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10683 holds some wishful thinking but he is not so inclined. I will immediately vote for the setting up of the Innovation and Technology Bureau if LEUNG Chun-ying comes here with Carrie LAM again and answers our questions at this forum, and then he said, "Ricky WONG's death is worthwhile. I certainly do it for some purpose. I see that Asia Television has the opportunity of development. It is right to refuse issuance of licence to him."

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, what you said just now is unrelated to your proposed amendment.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Why? She has received remuneration but she did not remind her boss on the setting up of this Bureau. She did not come here in person either. Instead, she has assigned a Director of Bureau who involves in a conflict of interests and is incompetent to set up a new Bureau. This is poor administration, right? If the issue is related to economic matter, John TSANG is the responsible official. He can say that it does not work without the Innovation and Technology Bureau. A Secretary of Department is the head of a bureau. John TSANG and Carrie LAM should be responsible for economic and political issues respectively. If a general does not go to the battlefield by himself, it is really undesirable. If he shies away from the horrifying battlefield, I hope there would not be a crisis of Tu Mu Castle …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, you have raised this point of view, please do not repeat.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Yes. I shall stop here now. This has become a scandal. As Carrie LAM is not present, I will not discuss it any more. Well, Carrie LAM has not committed any mistake and she has really done a good job. The Innovation and Technology Bureau has nothing to do with her.

However, there is another problem, that is, constitutional reform. She has been entrusted with this task. Let us not talk about the experience of Mr Gary FAN ― as she follows suit blindly. What does it mean? It means when one dog barks at a shadow all the others will join in. The remark of a trivial Beijing 10684 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 official, who is too low-ranking compared with members of the National People's Congress and will not be permitted to go into the Valhalla, is regarded as the final word. How many Hong Kong people felt hurt in their hearts? What does "the final word" mean? Now a public consultation is being launched. Chairman, the worst characteristic of a person is that he is holding different yardsticks. The consultation chaired by her has come to an end. At the beginning of the consultation, she said that views, whatever they were, would be listened to. Later, she said, "Your views will be truly reflected because you are Hong Kong people." In fact, she does not care whether or not the Central Authority will listen to it. She will simply read it out.

Finally, what did she said? "Views that are considered inconsistent with the Basic Law will not be incorporated in our report." Buddy, there are just a few months in between. At the beginning, she said that whatever she heard would be recorded as she was an official of Hong Kong, not Beijing. In that case, the views expressed by Hong Kong people, regardless of whether these views are right or wrong, should be recorded so that they can be heard by Beijing. Now, the statement of such a low-ranking official is regarded as the final word. Today, before the end of the consultation, she told me, "LEUNG Kwok-hung, civil nomination, which is mentioned by you on the last day, will not be included." She should have told me earlier so that I had better take breakfast with you in the morning, Chairman. I submitted my views in the morning and it was received by someone on her behalf. In the afternoon, I heard that civil nomination would not be included. "The trust of the people can only be established with credibility." I mentioned this many times. How could she confuse the right and the wrong?

Second, Carrie LAM, in the whole process, have you ever tried … It does not matter that you do not like me because I am a Member of the radical faction and you do not want to see me. You should talk to Mrs Anson CHAN and express your views on the proposals by "Hong Kong 2020" and "18 Scholars", such as whether these proposals are feasible or whether they will be included. Now the answer remains unknown. These people have lost in the voting on Occupy Central movement. Will this be taken into account? The answer remains unknown. What should they do? The money spent is public fund, Chairman. They have made so much effort. They have played their roles well. But in the end, it is a fruitless task. Frankly speaking, I do not know whether the CCP has told her to do so. I do not think the CCP has done so because the CCP LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10685 has made it clear that ZHANG Xiaoming will meet everybody. I am not on his schedule yet. "ZHANG Xiaoming, why didn't you make an appointment with me? (in Putonghua)" While the door on that side is wide open, your door is entirely closed. ZHANG Xiaoming has made it clear that we can express any views. There are 19 hierarchies of officials under ZHANG Xiaoming. But she said that views unacceptable by the Central Authority would not be included … Chairman, please note that I am talking about views being included in the consultation conducted by the Government on public money. The consultation is assured by the integrity of the Chief Secretary that it will be comprehensive. But all of a sudden, she said that some proposals will not be included. Should I believe in Carrie LAM or ZHANG Xiaoming? So, in any event, she is wrong.

Am I wrong in proposing to cut her remuneration? There could have been some leeway. But today she did not come here. If the amendment on deducting her remuneration is passed, then she deserves it because she is indifferent to it. Chairman, if I propose to cut your remuneration, you will certainly say, "'Long Hair', if I do not order you to leave the Chamber, our regulations will not be observed. My remuneration should not be cut." Right? You have done your job but she has not. In fact, this is not important. Worst of all, she is prone to making mistakes in carrying out her duties. So, how could she be paid? Right?

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I have finished discussing the Chief Executive's Office (CEO). I will discuss the disciplined services under the Security Bureau.

My previous speech is about Amendment No 192 proposed by Mr WONG Yuk-man, which seeks to deduct the expenditure under "Head 45 ― Fire Services Department". Although Mr WONG has not yet spoken, this is a nominal reduction according to my knowledge. Just now I mentioned that there were some important allegations against the Fire Services Department (FSD), that is, the allegations of the Ambulancemen's Union (AU) in relation to its system. When Members are taking meal and the summoning bell rings, they will also feel how awful it is. This is to let Members get the same feeling of the ambulance crews who have to go out on duty during meal breaks. How much time should 10686 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 be compensated for their meal breaks after they have gone out on duty? I think Members can particularly feel their suffering tonight.

I would like to repeat some points because I was interrupted earlier. According to the Civil Service Regulation, section 544, instead of section 541, would apply to them. Under section 541, the official meal beak for civil servants whose conditioned hours of work were 44 hours gross per week is one hour. But under section 544, the meal breaks of disciplined services staff are determined in relation to the total responsibilities of each service, its complement, and the actual manpower situation. In other words, the rules are not observed. In response to the fact that their meal breaks are often interrupted, the FSD says that flexible meal break arrangements have been made. As disciplined services staff members are required to perform emergency duties and respond to emergency calls, the Administration considers it appropriate that their hours of work are determined according to the operational needs. This means that the problem has not yet been addressed.

How does the FSD make flexible meal break arrangements? According to the schedule set out in the Fire Services Department General Orders, the front-line ambulancemen can take meals during a designated meal break period of one hour and 55 minutes ― they can take lunch during this period, but it does not mean that this period is uninterrupted. Like other disciplined services staff who are on a gross conditioned hours system, the original meal breaks of front-line ambulancemen may be interrupted because of emergency duties. The department says that it has the responsibility to ensure the efficient provision of emergency ambulance service to the public while providing reasonable meal break arrangements for front-line staff. What means by "reasonable"? The FSD states that the Government's guidelines have been strictly complied with in making meal break arrangements for ambulancemen and improvement will be gradually made if operations and resources permit. What does "improvement will be gradually made if operations and resources permit" means? It means compensatory meal break will be provided on discretionary basis. There is absolutely no question of exploiting their meal breaks.

But the FSD also says that if the meal break of the ambulancemen is one hour during which they are not required to perform emergency duties, this is tantamount to changing the service conditions of ambulancemen to be the same as those of disciplined service staff. So, the FSD is unable to make such an arrangement. What is the actual situation? To put it simply, there are three kinds of systems. Firemen, control room staff and ambulancemen all belong to LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10687 the emergency services department and they have to be on standby duty. But there are three kinds of standby durations, namely, 75 minutes, 60 minutes and 30 minutes. At present, the department has only assured that they can take a continuous 30-minute meal break and compensatory meal break is provided. Under such a system, the number of working hours of an ambulanceman has indirectly been increased by about 100 hours per year. The crux of the problem is whether they have been deprived of their meal breaks rather than whether they can take uninterrupted lunch breaks. No wonder the front-line staff are shouting that the authorities have deprived them of their meal breaks.

The authorities have provided some data to show that the number of staff in the Ambulance Stream increased by 16.3% (that is 396) from 2008 to 2013, which is slightly higher than that of the Fire Stream and Clerical Grade. However, it is difficult to explain why it is so hard to allow front-line staff to have one-hour meal break. Have the authorities ignored the needs of the ambulancemen and seriously underestimated the demand for ambulance service under Programme (3) when compiling the estimate? Is there any loophole in the spirit of section 544, thus denying the public officers' basic right of having one-hour meal breaks?

Besides, the ambulancemen also feel angry about the response of the department to the delay in increasing the allowance for the Paramedic Ambulance Supervisors. The FSD says that in early 2010, the department, in response to the request of the Civil Service Bureau, followed up the recommendations of the report on Grade Structure Review of the Standing Committee on Disciplined Services Salaries and Conditions of Service. In the report, it is said that there will be a "further review by the management on an appropriate continuous professional development framework with a robust accreditation to sustain and enhance the quality of paramedic ambulance service in Hong Kong, having regard to the interface of various providers of pre-hospital care and other paramedic services in Hong Kong." This is also gobbledygook. On the one hand, the department says that improvement has been made and the review was completed in late 2012 with a series of recommendations, including qualification accreditation arrangements, payment of paramedic allowance to be continued, and an ambulanceman who is always required to perform the duties of a Paramedic Ambulance Supervisor (not less than 50% of the working day in a month) and is a qualified Emergency Medical Assistant II, will be entitled to the allowance even though he is not a Senior/Principal Ambulanceman.

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But on the other hand, the department also evaded the issue, saying that it understands some staff hope that the amount of paramedic allowance will also be reconsidered during the review, but as the subject does not fall within the scope of the review ― meaning that the staff have digressed from the subject ― and the department has to conduct an in-depth study of the level of allowance, if these two issues are handled at the same time …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, what is the relationship between the circumstances you mentioned in detail and the amendment under discussion?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Yes. I will delete the details and now go back to the Audit Commission.

The Audit Commission has pointed out the misleading data in the annual report of the FSD. The FSD should feel shameful for the fraudulent annual report. When being pointed out by the Audit Commission that there were mistakes and omissions in its report, the FSD argued that a passive reporting mechanism was adopted. It shirked its responsibility by saying that the front-line staff members have not submitted report on their own initiative. Furthermore, owing to chauvinism of the fire personnel, firemen are treated much more favourably than ambulancemen as I mentioned earlier. As a result, the ambulance crew has been subject to exploitation for a long time. As pointed out by the Audit Commission, it is worrying whether the FSD can rectify its previous mistakes according to its pledges.

The Audit Commission has pointed out 10 sins committed by the FSD. First, delay in handling complaints: there were 1 525 outstanding complaint cases. Second, further actions delayed: for some complaint cases, no instruction had been given for as long as 425 days. Third, fraudulent information in its report: the FSD falsely claimed that the performance target of 100% was achieved in three areas in respect of handling complaints last year and the year before. Fourth, no follow-up actions had been taken to ensure compliance after warning letters had been issued to buildings which had not submitted Certificate of Fire Service Installations and Equipment. Fifth, no inspection certificates were received for four years from some licensed premises, such as premises for storage or manufacturing dangerous goods, but the FSD had taken no enforcement action. Sixth, efforts in combating illicit fuel activities were ineffective: the FSD did not apply to a magistrate for the forfeiture of dangerous goods. Seventh, the FSD LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10689 had not conducted analyses to identify buildings with many unwanted alarm cases even though there were buildings having over 100 unwanted alarm cases a year. Eighth, in promoting the use of electronic forms, it was claimed that more than half of fire service installation (FSI) contractors would use it, but in the end, utilization rate was only 25%. Ninth, over the past 13 years, there is a lack of progress in implementing the recommendation of improving the FSI contractor registration scheme. Tenth, contrary to the guidelines, the time lapse between the date of approval by the FSI contractors' disciplinary board for hearing and the date of hearing ranged from 16 to 50 months.

Just now many issues were raised. In fact, I am quite sympathetic towards the ambulance crew. A substantial deduction in the expenditure of the FSD will make the situation even worse. According to head 45, the total estimate of FSD for this year is $5,007.2 million, which is not the highest among the disciplined services. Therefore, I believe WONG Yuk-man's amendment seeks to make a nominal deduction on some items which will not affect its duties of rescuing the vulnerable. According to his amendment, the amount to be cut is roughly equivalent to the annual provision for the remunerations of five additional posts created by the FSD for strengthening the support for the increased land supply. But it seems to be irrelevant as the amount to be cut is only $1,828,000. This is only a nominal reduction in the expenditure of the FSD in the hope that it will review the problems that I have mentioned, especially the practice of attaching importance to the Fire Stream at the expense of the Ambulance Stream, as well as the 10 sins mentioned by the Audit Commission. It is hoped that improvement can be made expeditiously. Otherwise, we will propose to cut the expenditure of the FSD in other areas next year. As for the amendment this time around, it is only a small warning. I hope Members can support this Amendment No 192 proposed by Mr WONG Yuk-man.

Next, I wish to talk about "Head 94 ― Legal Aid Department". Chairman, I will now speak on head 94 and the amendments involved are Amendment Nos 493, 494 and 495. Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung has proposed two amendments. One is: "Resolved that head 94 be reduced $2,423,400 in respect of subhead 000, which is roughly equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for salary of the Director of Legal Aid at entry point." And the other is: "Resolved that head 94 be reduced $1,211,700 in respect of subhead 000, which is roughly equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for salary of the Director of Legal Aid at entry point for six months." These two amendments are proposed so that Members will have more choices. Mr WONG Yuk-man has also proposed an amendment to reduce the expenditure of the Legal Aid 10690 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

Department (LAD). The wording of the amendment is as follows: "Resolved that head 94 be reduced by $100,000 in respect of subhead 000, which is roughly equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure on entertainment of the LAD."

The amendments proposed by the two Members focus on the salary of the Director of Legal Aid (DLA) and the expenditure on entertainment of the department. While the former is related to the performance of the Director, the latter is concerned about whether the LAD will observe the principle of fairness and integrity rather than trying to ingratiate itself with anyone in the administration of justice. This is about the administration of justice rather than the Government's administration.

The public are most concerned whether the existing appeal mechanism is comprehensive and can ensure that the DLA's powers will not be abused. As the LAD is a government department, can it manifest its independence? Firstly, legal aid services have been transferred from the Administration Wing under the Chief Secretary for Administration's Office to the Home Affairs Bureau since 2007. Secondly, the results of the 2008 review and a previous study by the Legal Aid Services Council (LASC) differ greatly from each other. In fact, as early as 2010, some Legislative Council Members considered that these phenomena proved that there was a setback in the independence of the LAD. At that time, the authorities said that to set up a separate body under the LASC responsible for the management of matters relating to legal aid independently is only an ideal approach. But some Members expressed disagreement at a meeting of the relevant panel, pointing out that in many overseas jurisdictions, the organization responsible for providing legal aid services was not affiliated with the Government.

Members queried the basis on which the LASC claimed that LAD's service was very satisfactory. Meanwhile, they also pointed out that as the DLA and members of the LASC were appointed by the Chief Executive, legal aid matters may be subject to the interference of the executive. They also stressed that not only must legal aid services be provided independently, it must also be seen to be provided independently. This is most important. And they also reiterated their support for the establishment of an independent legal aid authority.

At the meeting of the Panel on Administration of Justice and Legal Services on 25 June 2013, it was proposed that an independent legal aid authority be established. But the authorities still adopted an indifferent attitude. Even though some community organization expressed that applications for legal aid LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10691 were rejected when the applicants were really in need of the services, and legal aid was susceptible to interference by the executive, the authorities still considered the existing structure effective. Even though the two legal professional bodies ― Hong Kong Bar Association (The buzzer sounded) …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I now briefly express my opinion about the Amendment No 34 proposed by Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung to demonstrate my opposition toward his amendment. His amendment seeks to reduce the estimated expenditure of $1.34 million, which is roughly equivalent to the annual remuneration of the Convenor of the Non-official Members of the Executive Council.

Chairman, we agree to the deletion of the whole Executive Council as well as the idea of expelling some Members of the Executive Council. Accordingly, I have also raised some amendments. However, on the issue of singling out and deleting the post of Convenor, particularly the current Convenor, I cannot agree with Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung's opinion unless he has some other convincing justifications. I have been acquainted with Mr LAM Woon-kwong for many years. According to his work performance, he is one of the few Members of the Executive Council who actually know the pulse of the public. He is also a government official who is much less politically biased. During his long period of civil service, he held many key posts and tackled a number of crises for TUNG Chee-hwa's administration.

Let us take a look back at the recent problem and you will know why I strongly oppose this amendment. In this Chamber, I have rarely expressed opinions contrary to that of "Long Hair". Let us look back to the whole incident of HKTV's application for free television programme service licence. As the Convenor of the Executive Council, Mr LAM Woon-kwong was completely different from LEUNG Chun-ying in the manner in which he dealt with or said about this incident. We have lately found out gradually that the decision was finally made in breach of the proposals reached by the Executive Council and the Communications Authority. The decision was made either on the basis of LEUNG Chun-ying's personal preference, personal political reason or some unspeakable reasons. Coming back to the licensing issue, Mr Joseph WONG, a 10692 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 former Director of Bureau, also pointed out that it was extraordinarily unusual to have discrepancies between what was said by LAM Woon-kwong and LEUNG Chun-ying.

Chairman, about LAM Woon-kwong's speech, what has he actually said? After attending the ceremony of Sino-Japanese War Victory Day, he told the media that there was a gigantic gap between the decision of the Chief Executive-in-Council and the expectation of the general public in dealing with the whole licensing issue. He did not mention anything about the Chief Executive's decision ― he was referring to the decision of the Chief Executive-in-Council. Then, he reiterated (and I quote), "I hope that the Chief Executive can make an in-depth review of the whole licensing process." (unquote). Chairman, we can say that … his speech has reflected as well as comprehended the public dissatisfaction of the Government's refusal to issue a license to Ricky WONG. The extent of the public discontent was far beyond the initial calculation of most government officials, including the Chief Executive. The public discontent was immense and the people's anger was very strong.

As the Convenor of the Executive Council, he should speak out the truth in accordance with his own analysis and philosophy whenever there is any important or major decision which is made contrary to the Chief Executive's opinion. The Convenor should not simply be an apple-polisher. There are many "apple-polishers" in this Chamber and there are also many in the Government. During this two-day debate, we have pointed out that many Members of the Executive Council and relevant officials together with those holding very special key posts have been totally indifferent to Hong Kong people's wishes for political sake. But in that incident, LAM Woon-kwong was able to stand his ground against immense pressure from many fronts and demonstrated his personal wisdom, political integrity and morality by speaking out at the critical moment.

Therefore, if the Government had listened to LAM Woon-kwong and taken appropriate follow-up action when he proposed to conduct a thorough review, the snapback as well as the subsequent development of the whole incident could have been very different from where we are now. It would not have turned into a scandal of maladministration of LEUNG Chun-ying's Government. The people of Hong Kong have kept losing confidence in this Government. They have lost faith in the overall operation of the administration. Chairman, the discrepancy we have never come across is that the Government has many statutory LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10693 organizations, each of which has its own scope of duties according to its policy domain. As for licensing, the Communications Authority has subsequently issued a lot of information and employed many consultants to carry out the study. Upon completion of the study, the Communications Authority confirmed its stance by releasing a report which brought out quite a number of questions as well as suggestions. However, under the leadership of LEUNG Chun-ying, the politics-centered and blindfolded Government refused and contravened the Communications Authority's proposal. This kind of practice can be said as extremely rare.

On major issues, LAM Woon-kwong could come out and speak from the bottom of his heart, getting to the core of the matter. He ought to be praiseworthy. So, in spite of our frequent co-operation with Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, the People Power should make known its position, that is, we cannot just support his proposal of deleting the remuneration of the Convenor of the Non-official Members of the Executive Council. If he proposes to delete the whole Executive Council, we will definitely support him. In this respect, I have also proposed an amendment.

Chairman, after discussing the Chief Executive's Office and the Executive Council, our colleagues should have finished their lunch. We should ring the bell to summon them back in. Chairman, I request a headcount.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr Albert CHAN, please continue.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I will skip the other amendments and discuss Amendment No 710: "Resolved that head 142 be reduced by $181,097,000 in respect of subhead 000, which is equivalent to the estimated expenditures on hire of services and professional fees of the Chief Secretary for Administration's Office and the Financial Secretary's Office."

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Chairman, this is relatively less political. The expenditures to be reduced are basically and mostly related to hire of services and professional fees. One of the spectacular part is building management services while the other part is consultancy studies and studies on public policy which are funded.

In fact, on other occasions, other Members have mentioned a lot of policy studies, in which there are several problems. First, these reports are not open to the public. Second, these studies are characterized by secret dealings and, to a certain extent, are a kind of transfer of benefits or political reward. Chairman, let us take a look at the studies in this area. The Government funding for studies on public policy this year reaches $20 million. But serious doubts are cast on whether these studies could benefit the public and whether they are helpful to governance. May I ask Members in this Chamber whether they have ever tried to understand the purpose of Amendment No 710? It is related to the expenditure of more than $100 million under head 142. Have they tried to find out whether the money is spent in an appropriate way? Over the past few years, the Audit Commission has monitored the spending of public money by the Government. It can complete an assessment and review on even the Mega Events Fund. Through value for money studies, it can decide whether the money is well spent. It has also made judgment and evaluation in this regard.

But honestly speaking, even though each research project is carefully studied by the Audit Commission, it is difficult to determine whether they are worth the money. We can say that it is extremely difficult to assess the so-called social and academic research by value for money. The Audit Commission has recently made some negative comments on the funding for filmmaking, leading to very strong criticisms in the entertainment industry. It is pointed out in the Director of Audit's report that the box office receipts of some films which are subsidized by public funds are not very good. This has also led to negative comments on the report by many Members.

So, the best way to assess whether the money on these studies is spent properly is to publish all the study reports because academics and researchers are very interested in whether others' studies are authoritative or erroneous. In many master's and doctoral dissertations, many studies have been analysed and even severely criticized. If, in my master's or doctoral thesis, I could make an analysis, which is as painstaking as an anatomy, of the Government's most authoritative studies which are carried out by public fund so that the readers feel that these studies are not worth a cent, and my comments are recognized and LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10695 published by an international academic institution or publication, I will immediately become famous. However, if these so-called academic studies are not published, they are merely tools of mutual flattery and transfer of interests behind closed door.

I wish to point out that some Members in the Chamber are responsible for some of these studies, and they are also members of the research centre. One of these "LEUNG Fan" organizations is Dashun Policy Research Centre, which is managed by Raymond HO, a former Legislative Council Member, CHUNG Sze-yuen, a political veteran in Hong Kong, and Dr Priscilla LEUNG, whom we are very much familiar with. Her academic standard is well known. So, as the institution is led by them, I think at the political level, crony interest and clique interest has taken precedence over everything.

Last year, funding for this research centre was $570,000. People query whether favoritism is practiced in it. They are a group of people who are familiar with each other, and they will let each other gain public applause. Through these studies, they can hire those whom they are familiar with to conduct some studies which no one knows what they are.

I would also like to point out that $8.77 million of public funds were spent on a total of 20 research projects in the past year. But only one of these funded research projects was conducted by an academic institution which is not a university. As for the others, most of them are conducted by universities. As these studies are carried out by universities, I do not understand why they are not accessible by the public.

As I mentioned just now, the total funding is $20 million. The one who is responsible for approval is "LEUNG Fan No 1". He is SHIU Sin-por, another local communist belonging to the "hawks". He is also responsible for co-ordination. Certainly, an application for funding will be vetted primarily on the basis of political considerations. At present, decisions on the handling of public money and expenditure are made in black box operation. Many decisions are referred to "LEUNG Fan" by the "hatchet man No 1". For instance, Dr Priscilla LEUNG is responsible for studies in this area, but the reports are never disclosed.

Therefore, it is absolutely reasonable to delete the expenditure in this aspect.(The buzzer sounded)

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CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I was refuted but little did I expect the rebuttal to come from my own side. I really had no alternative but to ask Mr Albert CHAN to enlighten me. To my surprise, he said that I was wrong, so he was really talking nonsense. What are his grounds for refuting me? I proposed two amendments, one being Amendment No 34 involving head 21 in respect of subhead 000, which says it is resolved that this and that be deducted and in fact, it all boils down to deducting the expenditure equivalent to a year's or half a year of emoluments for the Convenor of Non-Official Members of the Executive Council. I have really tried to give him the "benefit of doubt and exercise leniency". If Members do not agree, they can deduct half a year of his pay. It is said that this is not a crime that warrants death and that he should be spared dismemberment after death. In fact, Members have choices, so why is it necessary to refute me so quickly?

Frankly speaking, the thing of foremost importance in life is to know people and one's station in life. Chairman, LAM Woon-kwong deserves to be removed in the middle of his term for not knowing people and his station in life. It serves him right. Members all remember that after LEUNG Chun-ying had taken office, he went about looking for people for the posts but when he goes about his business, he attaches great importance to pragmatism, so much so that he has no friends, because he is very hard and always rigid. No other people wanted to take this post, so he found LAM Woon-kwong to take it. In fact, LAM Woon-kwong should not have degenerated to such a state that he is being criticized by me because at that time, he was serving in the post now taken by York CHOW, that is, the Chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). Compared with the Government, the EOC enjoys very good reputation in Hong Kong. Even though it operates on government funding, it still has the gumption to criticize the Government's wrongs.

What York CHOW is arguing over with the Government is the issue of same-sex marriage and York CHOW actually came out to voice his admonishment and was really inveighed by the Government and its supporters. Had LAM Woon-kwong not mistakenly believed that LEUNG Chun-ying would really make every effort to rule well and had LEUNG Chun-ying not concealed the mathematical miracle of "one plus one equals zero" but had told him, LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10697

"Mr LAM, I have some "unfinished job" to do as I also have some cellars. In pointing an accusing finger at others, I am pointing the other four at myself …"

Frankly speaking, he only has himself to blame in having his pay deducted by me today. First, if he wants to serve in this kind of post, he has to "admonish". Chairman, I have said a number of times that he has to act like WEI Zheng. The Convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council should be like WEI Zheng. Whoever is in the wrong will be inveighed and one can even slap the table, can one not? Of course, we know that after PENG Dehuai had slapped the table in the presence of MAO Zedong and exchanged some foul language in their conversation, PENG Dehuai died a very miserable death. He can slap the table and criticize the Government for its wrongful actions. He has to show leadership and lead Non-Official Members, who are surrounded by Official Members, in becoming a fresh and clear stream of water in a pool of muddied water. However, did he do such a thing? Did he manage to do such a thing?

He is a person with aspirations. When he was serving as the Director of Chief Executive's Office under Old TUNG, he was ravaged, so he thought it would not do to remain in the bureaucracy, so he hopped out of it to work in the EOC and secured some independent powers, yet in the end, he ended up in the bureaucracy again. However, he has one problem, that is, he is incapable of leading Non-Official Members in counterbalancing Official Members because Official Members do not leave any room for discussion. At present, such a design really represents a waste of time. The numbers of Official Members and Non-Official Members are more or less the same and perhaps there are more Official Members because at any time, some Non-Official Members may not be able to stay, as in the case of Franklin LAM. Members all know this, so their number will get smaller. In other words, if they are the minority, they have to play the role of the loyal opposition, that is, whenever the Chief Executive has oversights or has done something wrong in administration, they have to speak up.

What did Mr LAM Woon-kwong say? If we look at his performance in past Executive Councils, no matter if he was serving as a Non-Official Member or Official Member, he always sought to withdraw in great haste, humiliation and despondency. What has he said before? What good did he do to Hong Kong people? He is just like the light bulb in my home, "Sometimes bright, sometimes not, as changeable as the moon.". He even jumped off the bandwagon in the incident involving the HKTVN. Buddy, when others tell him 10698 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 to man the helm and he finds the seas heavy and the wind strong, he went into the washroom instead. This will surely result in a collision.

In terms of justice … Chairman, listen to me, I really have not accused him wrongfully. In terms of justice, if one voices opposition over the failure of one's master (or whatever it is) to listen to oneself, one should resign, so as to show that one is blameless. However, this is not what he did. He only buzzed, saying a few words and nothing further. This would only make other people hate his master even more. If he can say frankly that he really cannot hold out any more…Secretary Gregory SO, "If one cannot hold out any more, one should call on the police", should one not? However, he cannot call the police, so he had to say to Hong Kong people that on the issue of HKTVN's application for a licence, the Chief Executive did not listen to their views. I did not accuse him wrongly on this point. Since LAM Woon-kwong is the Convenor of Non-Official Members, in fact, he has the power because if all Non-Official Members voice their opposition to the Chief Executive, this has to be put on record. However, did he do so? No one knows. Did he come out to say a few words? Did he do so?

Now, no one will come out winners. After LAM Woon-kwong had buzzed something, LEUNG Chun-ying released a five-page statement, then this matter remains unresolved and it is not possible to deal with the whole matter. The Non-Official Members under his leadership just took their respective course of action and made different comments. They offered one version of the story in the legislature but another when facing the mass media outside. When they were interviewed by Commercial Radio, they offered yet another version and all versions are different. How can there be any dignity?

Chairman, if LAM Woon-kwong had leadership skills, he would have said, "We are going to vote. Do not vote in support of him, rather, we have to be a counterbalance to Official Members," ― these idioms are really useful ― "and be as different as the waters of the Jinghe and the Weihe, so as to leave a record for posterity and let them see that Non-Official Members of the Executive Council could really serve as a counterbalance.". This is what is called "everyone must die; let me but leave a loyal heart shining in the pages of history" but the fact is that he did not do so and everyone danced, going their separate ways in face of catastrophe. This is indeed a sorry sight to behold. At present, all those people are not present but I am not going to ask for a headcount any more.

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What Mrs Regina IP said was another version and what Ms Starry LEE said was another version and what Mr Jeffrey LAM said was yet another version. How far have they strayed? How does LAM Woon-kwong lead them? Has he ever led them? All the … had he put up a proposal like this, "Today, we have to exercise our power and after voting here, we will go out and I, LAM Woon-kwong, will speak, pointing out that we as Non-Official Members unanimously oppose the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive's claim that there is major work to be done is actually a lie. Since Official Members are his servants, he has no so-called privacy. We will say that we all oppose him.". In this way, LEUNG Chun-ying's black box will be opened because Non-Official Members are not afraid of letting others know how they voted. Buddy, the way of leading one's life is "he who eats salted fish must stand the saltiness and he who eats preserved plums must stand the sourness" but he did not do so. He only buzzed. What I can see is that initially, he met the wrong person and was deceived, then, having been ravaged under his despotic power, he only moaned a few times but failed to speak up sternly and righteously to resist his despotic power. This is not right. Frankly speaking, his pay deserves to be deducted by half on account of this alone.

In addition, in the furores that occurred repeatedly, and take constitutional reform as an example, I know LAM Woon-kwong would not talk about civil nomination because this is a capital crime. Buddy, I beg you. Before you joined the Executive Council, you talked about core values. Core values have already become a platitude, so I no longer know what they actually refer to. Now, even if Hong Kong people made a concession by settling for the second best, even if civil nomination were not allowed, we should still be allowed to nominate the candidates who can get through the gate, then it can be decided if the candidates nominated by us should be allowed to exit the gate and take part in the race. This is the so-called core proposal and the future discussions will also follow this line.

Did LAM Woon-kwong reflect this view in the administrative team of the Chief Executive,? Even the pro-establishment camp thinks that after shutting the door, there will not be any other way. Has he reflected this and has this been discussed? If there is no such agenda item, he should propose it. If there is, he should try his utmost to do something for the moderate pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong. When he was in the EOC, he sounded as though he had no match in the world, talking about core values. Buddy, when situations have really emerged, although we cannot vote for you, a mechanism is still in place. Under 10700 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 the Basic Law, and no matter if it is blindly copying others and making oneself look foolish or what, this is to adopt the British approach and let the local capitalist class and local compradors counterbalance a Governor coming from faraway England, so this has happened before. Since my computer has broken down, I cannot press the keys to show you the information but Members can see that this could be done even under colonial rule in the past.

As an example, let us talk about Lydia DUNN … or within the term of Chris PATTEN, he wrangled with the Chinese side and there were also people in the Executive Council who criticized him, saying that this Governor was wrong. Such things did happen. That was a big era but is this not also a big era now? At that time, it was a closed constitutional system upholding the Letters Patent and now, the Basic Law confers a legal right on us. We are carefree and there is no need for civil disobedience. However, he did not say anything and only buzzed. Just now, when talking about the conduct of the Chief Secretary for Administration, Carrie LAM, did he come out to say something in fairness in this regard? Chairman, I think that by deducting half his pay, he can still survive and be allowed to continue with his work. If all his pay is deducted, this is to clip his wings and there will be nothing left and he will be done for.

Chairman, I have had dealings with LAM Woon-kwong before. I think his ability in handling matters is quite good and is one of the better people. For example, in the Olympic equestrian events, I went to a venue to watch the equestrian events with a permit. Someone said he wanted to give me a body search but Mr LAM Woon-kwong said there was no need, saying that I was a Legislative Council Member and should not be given a body search. In the end, I took out a piece of paper to stage a protest for the sake of civil rights activists on the Mainland. Look, this person could do such a thing but the worst thing is that he has taken a step backward. Therefore, if Honourable colleagues have any love for LAM Woon-kwong, I call on Members on this side, that is, the opposition and the pan-democratic camp, to slash all his pay. If they think that he should be given "the benefit of doubt, leniency should be exercised and he should be granted the favour of death without dismemberment", they should deduct half of it. Chairman, who can still say that I am a radical? I am actually open to negotiations. Old Mrs CHAN said I was a radical but this is really outrageous. I always give others the benefit of doubt and exercise leniency, and I am also open to negotiations and reductions.

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If Members think that he does not deserve death for his crime, they can vote in support of Amendment No 41 proposed by me. If Members think that what "Long Hair" said is justified, it is more preferable to "deprive him of his manhood", so that he can draw a lesson from a bitter experience and in that case, they should vote in support of Amendment No 34. Frankly speaking, I dare not say that this is something you do not often hear and can only say that I am extremely foolhardy. I have been trying to evoke Members' feelings and speak eloquently about someone who enjoys support in the pan-democratic camp and towards whom the pro-establishment camp is also favourably disposed, so in determining whether he should live or die here, unless we are a rubber stamp and know that everything has been predetermined, just like "Siu Mai" (steamed dumplings with pork fillings) that have been left overnight, we must rise and debate this issue by either advocating that no deduction should be made, or that the deduction should be halved or that he should be completely deprived of his manhood.

Chairman, this is really all too lonely, is this not? Let me say clearly that I am talking about a major advisor and a leader representing the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council appointed in accordance with the Basic Law. There is nothing I can do. No one is paying any heed to me and I have promised that I will not summon Mr LAM Woon-kwong to attend the meeting. Maybe it should be like this (The buzzer sounded) …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr LEUNG, please stop speaking.

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): I also think that instead of having fruit after a meal, it is better to have a walk after meal. We should have a walk after meal. I request a headcount in accordance with Rule 17(3) of the Rules of Procedure.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

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CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, before I continue with my speech on the last part, I have to respond to Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung first. He proposed Amendment No 34 to deduct an amount approximately equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for the Convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council. Please excuse me for not being able to support Amendment No 34. Why? Because if one does not support deducting the annual expenditure for the Executive Council, that is, Amendments Nos 7 or 8, one has to support the earlier proposals to deduct the expenditures for 13, seven or two Non-Official Members of the Executive Council.

However, I do not know the rationale behind the arrangement of amendment numbers. After all, under this arrangement, it is only after all preceding amendments on deducting the expenditures for Executive Council Members have been negatived that it will be decided if the emoluments for the Convenor of Non-Official Members will be deducted, that is, Amendment No 34. I wish to tell Members that if all preceding amendments have been negatived, there is no reason for supporting Amendment No 34. With regard to Non-Official Members of the Executive Council whose performance can be considered satisfactory, I think Mr LAM Woon-kwong should be ranked among the first three and there would not be much controversy over this. If nonetheless the preceding Amendment No 30 moved by Mr Albert CHAN on deducting an amount equivalent to the expenditure for two Non-Official Members of the Executive Council (excluding the Convenor of the Executive Council) is negatived, there is no longer any reason for agreeing with Amendment No 34. Otherwise, this is tantamount to awarding the lazy and punishing the hardworking, thus letting the bad drive out the good, that is, people with satisfactory performance will, perversely, have their pay deducted, which is illogical and unreasonable.

However, I am still considering Amendment No 41 proposed by Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, which resolves that head 21 be deducted by $669,999 in respect of subhead 000 to deduct an amount approximately equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for the Convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council for six months. I think this amendment can be considered but I have not yet made a decision because I often have doubts about the effort and time devoted by the Convenor and ordinary Members of the Executive Council. For example, Chairman, you receive double pay because you work LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10703 very hard and have to sit here throughout the whole meeting. We all understand this. With regard to the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council, however, apart from performing ceremonial functions, what else have they done to make them deserve more pay? Despite two years of discussion, I still cannot see it. Therefore, even though after deducting an amount equivalent to six months of emoluments, the amount will be less than that for an ordinary Member of the Executive Council. This can reflect the situation that I can see and consider rather unreasonable ― I am not targeting any individual and is purely focusing on the establishment ― that is, the emoluments for the Convenor of the Executive Council are higher than those for ordinary Members. This is my response to the several amendments proposed by Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung.

I will now continue with my speech in the last session on "Head 94 ― Legal Aid Department" involving three amendments, that is, Amendments Nos 493, 494 and 495. The first two amendments seek to deduct an amount approximately equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for salaries of the Director of the Legal Aid Department (LAD) at entry point or for six months, and the third is related to the entertainment expenditure. One of the major reasons for my supporting these several amendments is the Government's refusal to establish an agency to administer matters related to legal aid independently. As I said before, in many overseas jurisdictions, the agency in charge of legal aid may not necessarily be government departments and there were instances of the applications of some civil groups requiring legal aid were turned down. They think that legal aid is susceptible to the interference of the executive.

In last session, I said that the two major professional legal bodies, that is, the Hong Kong Bar Association and … both agree with the need to establish an independent legal aid agency and they even believe that there should not any further delay. However, the Administration believes that there is no urgent need, so this is really a difficult case for a judge. I maintain that there is an urgent need to do so immediately and that this should be done, yet the Government maintains that there is no urgent need. Even though inside the Law Society of Hong Kong, there may be different views on legal aid, it also agrees that the LAD lacks independence and should reposition itself by reverting to the arrangement before 2007, that is, to answer directly to the Chief Secretary for Administration. This is a highly controversial matter. The Government is unwilling to let it move forward and become independent, nor does it want to take a step backward by letting the Chief Secretary for Administration take charge of it.

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Legal aid is the cornerstone of society that ensures everyone can have equal opportunities in receiving legal protection and getting a fair trial. We all know that "everyone is equal before the law" but the cost of initiating legal procedure is very high, so for those who are rich and have the time, of course, they can afford to play this game. For this reason, an independent legal aid authority is very important. In fact, as early as 1993 in the last century, the Legislative Council already passed a motion in this regard but the legal aid authority was established instead and one of the proposals that Members had to lobby for and is related to our discussion today is the proposal of not imposing any cap on the estimates for legal aid.

I remember that Mr Martin LIAO once asked the Secretary for Home Affairs a question about the fund allocations for 2014-2015. He asked why it was $10.1 million less than the revised estimate for 2013-2014. Whenever we taught Members how to look at the Budget, it would be found that the revised estimates were in the end less than the original ones. Does this mean that the Government has been thrifty, or has it been lazy and unwilling to do anything? Why did the estimates decrease instead of increasing? In this regard, we have to look at the actual situation. In the face of ever increasing litigation services, will sufficient funding be provided to the LAD to meet legal aid expenses and the relevant expenses in the coming year? The reply of the Administration at that time was like this, "The annual estimates of legal aid costs are drawn up holistically based on past actual expenditure pattern and an estimate for the upcoming financial year.". This is again nonsense and is tantamount to saying nothing. It also adds, "As legal aid costs are highly demand-led, in the event that expenditures are expected to exceed the approved provisions for a financial year, supplementary provision would be sought in accordance with the Public Finance Ordinance (Cap. 2) so as to ensure that no eligible legal aid applications would be turned down owing to the lack of funds.". That means how much provision it can obtain does not matter. If the provision obtained is too little and not enough, it can seek additional provisions through the mechanism mentioned by me just now.

However, concerning the aforementioned proposal of not imposing a cap on the estimate, Mr Nicholas PIRIE of the Hong Kong Bar Association pointed out earlier on that the claim of not imposing any cap is purely hallow as the Administration has never applied for supplementary provisions from the Finance Committee but the relevant expenditures have shown a trend of steady increases. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10705

This year, the estimate has decreased instead of increasing. Has the need for prudent fiscal management overridden the need for legal justice and legal needs? Is it the case that in order to save some money for depositing into the Future Fund, each Policy Bureau has to save some money? What can be reduced without affecting the operation of the Government is legal aid. Legal aid is used to help people involved in legal cases instead of helping the Government. It is for the people involved in legal cases to oppose the Government and take legal actions against the Government.

Meanwhile, since the administration practiced by the Government is fraught with blunders and problems in infrastructure projects have arisen time and again, judicial reviews are increasingly frequent. Without legal aid, it is difficult for ordinary members of the public to afford taking legal actions against the Government. I believe there is no need for me to explain this at length to convince Members of the rationale therein.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, how is your rationale related to the proposal to deduct the pay for the Director of Legal Aid?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): It is like this: Since the Director of Legal Aid conducts his business like this, I am now setting out the evidence and the facts to convince Members to accept Amendments Nos 493 and 495 proposed by Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung and Mr WONG Yuk-man. I have not repeated anything. If the Chairman is feeling bored with listening to my speech, I will hurry up a little and be more concise …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): I do not quite understand the rationale advanced by you. What have the issues got to do with your demand to deduct the pay for the Director of Legal Aid?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): The rationale is that since the Legal Aid Department refuses to go independent, after deducting the expenditure for the post of the Director of Legal Aid, there will no longer be any such Director and they will have to reflect on their system.

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I now want to cite some figures in relation to cases. Let us not talk about too long a time ago. Since 2001, the number of cases has seen a decrease but in 2013, it still stood at 119 cases. This is … I am somewhat flustered by the Chairman, so I have to search a little bit …

According to the statistics provided by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Rimsky YUEN, regarding the judicial review cases heard in the Court of Final Appeal and the High Court from 1997 to 2013 in which the Government was involved, the respective number of cases in which the outcome was in favour of the Government is far more than those against the Government. In the past 17 years, the highest percentage of outcome against the Government in the above judicial review cases is in 2001, which was 36%, in 2002, it was just 0.5%, and for the rest of the years, generally speaking, …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, I still do not understand. What has the issue of which side had more favourable outcome in judicial reviews got to do with the pay for the Director of Legal Aid?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): All right, Chairman, I am not going to talk about this anymore.

In fact, with regard to the legal aid system of the Government, does the Chairman think that the Director of Legal Aid has to assume responsibility? I will advance my second argument, that is, many members of the middle class are not eligible for applying for ordinary legal aid. In fact, the ground for the Government's opposition to the independence of the Legal Aid Department is very simple. It does not want members of the middle class to receive legal aid in taking legal actions. Many of the voters who voted for Members are members of the middle class, so Members have to speak up for the middle class and this policy is targeted at the middle class. People earning higher salaries are not eligible to make applications under the Ordinary Legal Aid Scheme (OLAS) and have to apply for supplementary legal aid instead. How is supplementary legal aid different from ordinary legal aid? The difference lies in the restrictions on the type of litigation. Ordinary legal aid covers virtually all types of cases but the types of cases covered by supplementary legal aid are fewer. According to the information provided by the Legal Aid Department, the financial eligibility limit of the OLAS is $269,620 but members of the sandwich middle class whose LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10707 financial resources exceed this amount but is less than $1,348,000 are not eligible, so they have to apply for the supplementary legal aid as I mentioned just now.

The types of cases covered by the OLAS range from those of family and matrimonial disputes, personal injuries claims, employment disputes, contractual disputes, immigration matters, professional negligence claims, and so on. With effect from 30 November 2012, the expanded scope of OLAS and Supplementary Legal Aid Scheme was implemented. For OLAS, it was expanded to cover monetary claims in derivatives of securities, currency futures or other futures contracts when fraud, misrepresentation or deception is involved in respect of the sale …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, since this is the tenth time that you speak, even though I have said this before, I have no choice but to remind you again. What you are discussing now is the policy on the provision of legal aid services by the authorities. If your amendment targets the provisions for legal aid services, you can debate the relevant policy. In other words, if the relevant funding is used for the provision of legal aid services and you are dissatisfied with the relevant policy, of course, you are fully justified in demanding a revision of the amount of funds allocated. However, the amendment that you have referred to in your speech has all along been the pay for the Director of Legal Aid and this is not directly related to the policy on legal aid services.

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, thank you for your enlightenment. Since the expenditure for legal aid services is not involved …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): When a number of Members spoke just now to demand making deductions to the pay for certain officials, they spent considerable time on talking about the personal performance of these officials to express their dissatisfaction with these officials, believing that these officials are not competent in their posts, and therefore they demanded that the pay for them be deducted and in this way, I can see the relationships therein. However, you are now criticizing the policy on the services, yet the amendment seeks to deduct the pay for the official, so the two do not have any direct relationship.

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MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, I agree and I am not going to argue with you. However, I want to spell out my rationale, that is, the Director of Legal Aid has the responsibility to make improvements to the policy on legal aid as well. Since such a bias in the policy on legal aid has occurred, I will support Amendments Nos 493 to 495.

I am not going to wrangle anymore and will discuss the next amendment on "Head 136 ― Public Service Commission Secretariat". On 10 April this year, the Information Services Department issued a press release on staff movement in the Public Service Commission. The Chief Executive appointed …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Are you talking about Amendment No 600?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): No. I am very clear about this. All right … fine, I will speak again later on when I have found it.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Please be patient. There are over 1 000 amendments but we are speaking so systematically, presenting both logic and justifications, that you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves. In fact, I believe that had we not raised many of the issues, you probably would have never heard of them, would you?

Chairman, an example is the amendment proposed by me now. This amendment is on deducting the professional fees for the Offices of the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary. Perhaps Members have never looked at these items of expenditure before. As I said earlier on, the offices of these two Secretaries of Departments are an instance of "fattening the top and slimming the bottom" because the increases in the total annual expenditures of these two offices stand at 18% and they are the highest among all Policy Bureaux and departments, so is this not "fattening the top and slimming the bottom"? How can Members of the royalist camp refrain from directing criticisms at this?

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Chairman, I am just voicing my grumbles, particular when I find that this bunch of people make such a great fuss whenever they find some minor issues. In particular, the behaviour of "YUEN Qiu" … Chairman, I request a headcount.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Will the Clerk please ring the bell to summon Members back to the Chamber.

(After the summoning bell had been rung, a number of Members returned to the Chamber)

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr Albert CHAN, please continue.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): Chairman, this story tells us not to show mercy to enemies because as soon as they are well fed, they will begin to rear their ugly heads.

Chairman, concerning the part on deducting the expenditure in Amendment No 710, I have cited some examples and arguments earlier on. Now I will only add a small part concerning the funding for some research items. It is all slated for the One Country Two Systems Research Institute, which is managed by "LEUNG Fan No 1", CHEUNG Chi-kong. As we all know, the One Country Two Systems Research Institute receives funding from a major source, and the growth in that sum of funds is also irrational. The funding received by this centre in 2012 was $368,000. In fact, this sum of money was already quite substantial but in 2013-2014, it doubled to $772,000. Buddy, we really have to ask Mr WONG Kwok-hing how many tins of fried dace with salted black bean and how many lunch boxes can be bought with this sum of money. How many tins of fried dace with salted black bean and luncheon meat have the authorities deprived of elderly people by allocating public funds to this kind of institutes to conduct studies?

Such transfers of interests among LEUNG's supporters are very absurd and in letting SHIU Sin-por take charge of vetting the fund allocation to the One Country Two Systems Research Institute under the charge of CHEUNG Chi-kong, if one does not call this mutually profiting one another in a closed pool 10710 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 or cliques acting in collaboration to shield one another, what else can one call this? Moreover, those studies have never been made public, so were the funds spent on visiting night clubs? What kinds of studies have been conducted? This is indeed difficult to understand.

The part of expenditure to be deleted, which I mentioned just now, actually involves some professional fees and hire of services. But it is very difficult for us to look at the details therein. The expenditure of over $90 million involves other hired services and professional fees but the Chief Secretary for Administration and Financial Secretary have not displayed transparency in giving accounts in this area, so it is indeed very difficult to convince other government departments. If one is not clear about the figures of the expenditures, how can one require other departments to account for them?

A part of this head involves an expenditure of some $46 million used in services related to building management. Of course, there is no reason for opposing the expenditure in this regard because this item of expenditure is at odds with a principle in which I have believed deeply for many years. I oppose the outsourcing of services by the Government, so I will oppose such expenditure. If the Government needs such services, it should recruit manpower on its own because the outsourcing of services will create exploitation to some extent and allow the intermediary to reap exorbitant profits by obtaining the management right over services and exploiting employees, in particular, front-line employees. In the past, there were countless such instances. For example, some years ago, the wage for cleansing workers was suppressed so much that the rate was reduced to $7 per hour. Because of our opposition to the outsourcing mode, we propose to delete the expenditure for the services in this regard altogether to express our dissatisfaction.

I have finished talking about Amendment No 710. Now, I will hop to Amendment No 731. Chairman, our progress is satisfactory, so I believe the Chairman ought to be very pleased about making such smooth progress.

Concerning Amendment No 731, which is to resolve that head 142 be reduced by $3,630,000 in respect of subhead 000, this sum of money is approximately equivalent to the estimated annual expenditure for the emoluments for the post of the Financial Secretary. The Financial Secretary is the overall helmsman in charge of the Budget and now, we want to target him and dismiss LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10711 him by deducting his pay. Why do I want to make this demand? With regard to past budgets, a lot of people have criticized this overall helmsman for playing down figures in respect of fiscal management and exaggerating figures at other times. In sum, he always makes mistakes. A common phenomenon is that the Financial Secretaries make wrong projections and he is also infamous for this reason. Over the past years, he has never made any accurate estimation. If he only made wrong estimations for one year, he could still be forgiven, but he makes mistakes over and again. Buddy, if I were to hire him to take charge of the accounts of a company, I would sack him in the first year.

In fact, he made outrageous mistakes. If Members look retrospectively at the budgets over the past years, in 2009-2010, the reserves of the Government at that time were some $520 billion and the estimated deficit for that year was $39.8 billion but the actual outcome was that there was $25.9 billion in surplus and the discrepancy was $65.7 billion. It was even more outrageous in the ensuing year ― I am not going to read out those figures in detail or the Chairman will accuse me of filibustering again ― in the ensuing year, the discrepancy amounted to $100 billion. The ensuing year fared better but the discrepancy was still as much as $80 billion. In 2012-2013, the discrepancy was $68.2 billion and it is estimated that the discrepancy this year will still amount to more than $20 billion. In other words, the total amount of discrepancy in the estimations in the budgets of the past five years amounted to some $300 billion in total. I believe one can apply for this figure to be included in the Guinness World Records, that is, we can apply in terms of the percentage to the GDP or government expenditure but if purely in terms of the actual amount of money, it will be difficult to break the Guinness Records …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Mr CHAN, you have already voiced these views in the debate on the resumption of Second Reading of the Bill.

MR ALBERT CHAN (in Cantonese): … however, Chairman, this is about the special projects. The Chairman has a good memory, so I must praise you for being so astute. However, this point is related to the deduction of his pay. I must cite the figures because it is about the mistakes made by him. Chairman, I did not talk at length and I have already shortened my speech.

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Chairman, another issue ― I am sure I have not repeated this ― is his comments. Recently, he has been unwilling to be forsaken, probably because the Budget has not yet been passed and he is feeling very troubled. As a result, he "crossed the line" by doing something that he should not have done, that is, to suddenly discuss politics. This is very unusual and I have seldom seen Financial Secretaries discuss politics.

Chairman, in his blog of 4 May, he suddenly voiced his opinion, saying to the effect that "the developments in recent months are indeed somewhat beyond my expectation". I can only say that he is not up to scratch in that he cannot even gain insight into such a political situation. Had he communicated and discussed with us more often, he would not have had such a feeling of surprise. Now, he is far removed from public opinion and public sentiment, so much so that he cannot grasp public anger. As a result, he expresses this kind of political analyses and rationale in the blog, which has revealed his own grotesquerie and shortcomings. He says that the present situation is beyond his expectation and the behaviour of some representatives of the public make one suspect that their extreme stances are not intended to enable them to bargain, rather, they are determined not to concede in any way and that they are even prepared to bring everything down. What he means is not the Budget. It is certainly most desirable if the Budget is shot down but what he refers to is the constitutional reform. His comments are very similar to those of old Mrs CHAN. I wonder if this is because politically, he still have some links with old Mrs CHAN and still maintains contact with her, so his analyses and discourses, in particular, his comments on the so-called progressive pro-democracy camp, closely resembles those made by old Mrs CHAN.

First, his capacity is the Financial Secretary and politics is the policy area of Carrie LAM. In doing so, is he giving Carrie LAM a reminder? Does he mean that he finds serving in the post of the Financial Secretary not gratifying enough? In fact, he should spend more time lobbying us for an early passage of the Budget, for the support of other political parties for the Budget, for more Members to sit still in the Chamber and refrain from being absent all the time but he has not done so. Instead, he talked about political issues in the blog a few days ago, that is 4 May. However, discussing political issues absolutely cannot resolve the political wrangles and conflicts at present. In view of his conduct, I think that his pay deserves all the more to be deducted. Of course, when I proposed the amendment on deducting his pay, he had not yet published that blog LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10713 but the comments in that blog make me believe that I have to make greater efforts and strive harder to lobby Members to support deducting the emoluments of the Financial Secretary.

Let me go back to the economy and the duties of the Financial Secretary. For many years in the past, I pointed out a number of times that the Financial Secretary should carry out analyses on the effectiveness of the Budget or fiscal management on society and make judgments on the effectiveness of the Budget. In other words, he must have a yardstick to measure the effects achieved by the budgets published by him and assess the benefits that have arisen by adopting objective criteria. In particular, there are two major issues, the first is to resolve the problem of poverty and the other is to provide assistance in achieving economic success. Perhaps I am an ignoramus but for many years, I have never seen the Financial Secretary make any specific analysis on these two major issues in his reports and budgets. I stress that there is a lack of specific analysis on the effectiveness and there is also a lack of analysis on his performance. The budget each year is drawn up by him and he is also in charge of public fiscal management. A huge team is under his management and the overall expenditure has even increased by 16% this year. Is his performance actually up to par? This is no information whatsoever in this regard.

Many studies, including international ones, point out that the problem of wealth disparity in Hong Kong is worsening all the time. A study conducted by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service also points out that the number of the poor is increasing year by year, rising from some 1 million earlier on to 1.1 million now. The analysis report of a number of surveys and various organizations all point out that Hong Kong is facing problems in various areas. The Financial Secretary, however, did not analyse the issues concerned by various parties and the effects of the budgets prepared by him on society as a whole, and in particular, the effects on the public and the specific achievements. He has not made any analyses at all; nor has he made any judgment. This is evasion of responsibility and dereliction of duty. Since he has both shunned his responsibilities and neglected his duties, there is no reason to let him continue to enjoy his glamorous official residence. If Members have ever visited the official residence of the Financial Secretary located at Deep Water Bay, they will know that the surroundings there are excellent and that it enjoys a panoramic sea view, with a big fish pond and in it, one can find koi swimming round and round ― perhaps it was built when Donald TSANG was serving as the Financial Secretary 10714 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 but it has not been demolished. Since the Hong Kong public are having a hard time, it is reasonable that the Financial Secretary's pay is deducted.

Another point is that earlier on, I compared the remuneration of officials in Hong Kong from several perspectives and showed that their emoluments were on the high side. Now, as the usual practice, I will also compare the pay of the Financial Secretary. The annual pay of the United States Secretary of the Treasury is only $1.54 million but the annual pay of John TSANG is as high as $3.6 million, more than double of the United States Secretary of the Treasury. Members may as well evaluate if he is worth the money.

Chairman, I will let other Members speak first. I will further talk about the analyses in respect of the Chief Secretary for Administration.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Chairman, I want to talk briefly about John TSANG because he is not present today. Mr Albert CHAN really does not know the ways of officialdom very well. When John TSANG was studying, he never studied economics …

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Which amendment are you talking about?

MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): The one on deducting the estimated expenditure for the emoluments of the Financial Secretary. It was proposed by me and I have talked about it before. It is the same as the one related to Carrie LAM. Do you want to ascertain which one? I can help you look for it.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): You are speaking on Amendment No 733. Please go on.

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MR LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (in Cantonese): Right, no point in wasting any time. At any rate, you know what I want to say. If you really want to waste time, I can search a little bit.

Why do I want to deduct the expenditures related to him? Mr Albert CHAN asked why the Financial Secretary had made mistakes in forecasting the fiscal situation of the Government. Buddy, because he has never studied economics. He may have taken some short-term courses but judging from his qualifications, he has never studied economics. It is said that appointments should be made on the basis of merits but no matter how you look at him, John TSANG is no talent. He may be a martial art talent because he often brags about being a "fighter" but unfortunately, he got into the wrong trade. Chairman, if you want to hire a Secretary but the interviewee says that he only knows how to assemble plastic flowers, would you hire him? Of course not.

I would not bother to read out John TSANG's biography but it can be seen therein that he has never taken any programme in economics. He lived in the United States when he was small, so there is little wonder that he is not well-versed with the situation in Hong Kong. He studied architecture in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was awarded a Bachelor's Degree. Actually he should have joined the Architectural Services Department. What I find most amazing and puzzling is why an undergraduate in architecture would read so many works written by a certain professor admired by him. I am not going to mention the name of this professor purposely but this CHOMSKY who advanced semantics is someone whose stature John TSANG could never hope to match no matter how hard he tries as CHOMSKY is anti-war and opposes Wall Street.

After graduation, he studied for a postgraduate degree in Bilingual Education from Boston State College, so he should have taken the post of that "No Good NG", so at present, this is a total mismatch. The programme that he then went on to take was just passable, that is, Public Administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and this is also the most famous education institution in his resume.

After coming back to Hong Kong, he joined the Civil Service and as we all know, he could rise through the ranks because he surfed on the tides of honour and disgrace of the "TSANG's clansmen association". It is said that his "sworn elder brother", Donald TSANG, had a fairly good track record in administration 10716 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 while serving as the District Officer of Sha Tin and that he deserves some credit for the positive development of Sha Tin nowadays and his follower, John TSANG, also rose through the ranks accordingly. Therefore, if we want to blame him for the mistaken forecasts of the fiscal situation of the Government, we may as well condemn that person who entrusted such great responsibilities in him.

Chairman and students, this can really be described as the most laughable textbook about the bureaucracy illustrating what is meant by not applying what one has learnt and lacking self-knowledge. In 1997, he took the post of the Director General of the London Economic and Trade Office and naturally, he came back without achieving anything because Hong Kong was about to be reunified with China, so what need was there of talking about Sino-British relationship? It was either very good or it had to be severed. It turned out that on his return, at one point, his served as the Commissioner of Customs and Excise. May I ask Members what bearing does this have with economics?

Of course, this has some bearing with economics, albeit at the level of micro affairs. They included such matters as clamping down on parallel trade activities and the protection of intellectual property rights but at that time, the concept of intellectual property rights had not yet been widely accepted. In his bureaucratic career, the occasion on which he was associated with the scourge of property speculation was July 2001, when he began to serve as the Secretary for Planning and Lands. We often talk about land shortage and it turned out that he was also in charge of planning. Next, from July 2002 to July 2003, he rose one more rank to serve as the Permanent Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands. It can be said that he already reached the highest official position in the Civil Service and there was no more room for promotion.

Next, he was transferred again and August 2003 was a month with a lot of happenings. When the Government was in a very weak position after the 1 July rally, he took up the post of Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology. Secretary Gregory SO, he was your predecessor but what did he do? The so-called six priority industries, which have made no achievement at all, and the hollowing of the industries in Hong Kong are attributable to him. The shortage of land in Hong Kong and the hollowing of the industries in Hong Kong were all caused by him. All that he knows is to brag about his academic qualifications.

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Why did he manage to rise to yet another higher rank? Because his "sworn elder brother" became the Chief Executive in 2006, so he was appointed Director of the Chief Executive's Office (CEO) in January that year. After the crestfallen LAM Woon-kwong had left office, he took this post as the stepping-stone to land this plum job. That was just like Donald TSANG taking Mr TUNG's place after the latter had left office, so in the place of Mr TUNG's favourite underling, Mr Anthony LEUNG, also took the post of Financial Secretary.

Since the "sworn elder brother" was a rising star, the "sworn younger brother" was naturally nervous and did not know which way to go, so it was necessary to find a place to accommodate him, so what were the choices? It was perhaps better for him to take over the post once occupied by his "sworn elder brother" because be it the connections or the secret keys related to this post, all were kept in a safe. To put it as a joke, if anything happens, it is only necessary to open the safe and one can say, firstly, one does not know, secondly, there is a conspiracy and thirdly, one has nothing to say and any matter can then be settled.

Chairman, I wonder if you have ever played the age-old game called "Sheng Guan Tu" (Civil Official Promotion Board Game) when you were small. I also wish very much to take it out to relish it a little. However, this very foul-smelling chapter of "Sheng Guan Tu" exposes not only how this Financial Secretary, whom we hired with our money, got to the highest official position but also how he can inveigh and threaten to hit Members for the slightest reasons, as well as how he can make wrong forecasts of the Government's fiscal situation, saying that the elderly is a social burden. He has never studied economics and does not know what economics is about.

Let me cite an example to explain why he made wrong forecasts of the Government's fiscal situation. His "sworn elder brother", Donald TSANG, managed to rise through the ranks in the bureaucracy because he once served as the Secretary for the Treasury. When the British were making preparations to leave, they felt that this lad who knew how to whistle and keep koi was quite good, so they decided to elevate him. Subsequently, when the "sworn elder brother" wanted to elevate the "sworn younger brother" … he let the latter, who had not even served in the Treasury, take an elevator, just as the Gang of Four joined the Communist Party and gave promotions all of a sudden, and that is why we are in the present quagmire.

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He took the post of Director of the CEO in January 2006 but buddy, what has this got to do with economics? He served in a number of posts but apart from those two years in which he served as the Director General of the London Economic and Trade Office, all of them had nothing to do with economics. However, he is now in charge of Hong Kong's economic lifeline and is the one drafting the most important Bill in Hong Kong each year, so what is so surprising about his mistaken forecasts? Fortunately, his mistaken forecasts were on the low side, so all people thought that since there was more money to be pocketed, they would not pursue this matter. However, under-estimations will give rise to one problem. Since we have to make ends meet, when setting expenditures and estimates, less money will be spent and in the end, it is necessary to hand out money. Since this person is so ineffectual, how possibly can the Government not encounter crises perpetually? Since the forecasts were wrong, he had to hand out money. Handing out "sweeteners" is not what he wants to do but is a necessary move after making wrong forecasts. Otherwise, "wealth weakens one's health" and ailments will be attracted.

Mr Albert CHAN, you are really ignorant. Don't you know that this person is just like "Mr NAN Guo", who pretended to play a musical instrument in order to make up the number for an orchestra? He even directed accusations at me in his blog, so he is really talking gibberish. This resume is arguably a coroner's report showing that in January 2006, he cleared the courtyard for his "sworn elder brother" and became the Director of the CEO by purging the influence of Mr LAM Woon-kwong. Then, he became the Financial Secretary of the SAR in July 2007. As we all know, this is because after Donald TSANG had taken the post of Chief Executive, in order to hand out rewards and pass his place to Henry TANG so that the latter could take the post of the Chief Secretary for Administration, John TSANG took the place of Henry TANG as the Financial Secretary. This being so, what is so surprising about his wrong forecasts?

He achieved nothing in the Government whose term started in 2007 and he only relied on such measures as the Individual Visit Scheme and CEPA and made use of the wealth effect to make the Hong Kong economy develop like a bubble. He did not study economics but I wonder if he has ever read Times. When people were saying all the time that there was too much hot money and both the Indonesian and Singaporean Governments wanted to expel the hot money, he did the opposite by allowing more hot money to flow into Hong Kong and created a LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10719 bomb for us. He is such an ignoramus that he can only talk about coffee in his free time. Otherwise, what else can he write about? At any rate, he knows nothing.

Chairman, the character of this person is actually quite good. Had he not been a government official, he would have been quite a fine fellow for a chat. He has fairly good demeanors but today, we are talking about his mistaken forecasts of the fiscal situation. I have shown leniency for him by deducting just half of his emoluments because the inappropriate choice of people may be involved. When one wants to prepare Beijing roast duck but a chicken is bought instead, how can the meal be prepared? Therefore, I have already given him the benefit of doubt by letting him receive half of his pay. As regards the other half, the person who appointed him will have to assume responsibility, be it his "sworn elder brother" or whoever it is, since it is believed that he is competent, so we will give him, someone who is incapable of achieving anything, half of the pay and this is only reasonable.

In this term, he also invented something new, which is called the Future Fund. This is why it is said that one has to know when to exercise restraint. If one does not know economics, one should just discuss a little of it casually and make one's assistants copy some jargons for the discussion. One must not touch on the ethics and when preparing the Budget, one must not talk about ethics. The first presumption for the Future Fund is that our productivity may falter because there will be too many elderly people, thus making the labour force and the GDP contract. With more people retiring, they will become a burden. Why does he not learn from Adam SMITH? He advanced The Theory Of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations one after another and his mind was so great. He could not possibly be such an ignoramus. People who study economics want to administer the country and benefit mankind, otherwise, they would not have passed down such things as The Wealth of Nations to us. Buddy, do not just muddle through. You have to know that only in this way can one be considered an economist. He aspired to make the United Kingdom develop even better. One who has only taken short courses in Harvard University for two or three years cannot be compared with SMITH. Does he know that the middle class also need knowledge? This is why I tried to test him by asking him if it was a philosopher or economist who said such a thing.

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Chairman, having spoken for such a long time, it can only be proven that there are problems with the system. Since a change of sovereign brings a change of ministers, this person who is educated but useless took this post. It is not true that he did not study. The problem is that what he learnt does not match his official post. At present, this is just like "a blind man on a blind horse coming to the edge of a deep pond in a dark night". So what should be done? After forecasting the fiscal situation wrongly each year, he is still in charge of preparing the Budget and asking us to have discussions. Frankly speaking, if it is not for the sake of lobbying for welfare benefits for the elderly, I really do not want to have discussions because it is just a waste of time and it is not worthwhile to take a look at the Budget. One may as well save some time to read another book.

Therefore, Chairman, Mr Albert CHAN does not understand that John TSANG is actually most pitiable. He is floundering in the raging currents of officialdom but in the end, it turned out that he managed to get to the senior level. How possibly can he not struggle very hard? Therefore, I believe that it is desirable to deduct half of his pay. This will make him reflect on his mistakes in solitude, spend some money on buying books to read, instead of just indulging himself in drinking coffee because the middle class not only know how to drink coffee but also have to read books.

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): Does any other Member wish to speak?

MR CHAN CHI-CHUEN (in Cantonese): Chairman, originally, I wanted to speak on "Head 136 ― Public Service Commission Secretariat", on which Amendment No 600 sponsored by Mr WONG Yuk-man was proposed, and I support this amendment proposed by Mr WONG Yuk-man.

On 10 April, the Information Services Department issued a press release concerning staff movements in the Public Service Commission, with Rita LAU succeeding Nicholas NG as Public Service Commission Chairman for a three-year term from 1 May 2014 to 30 April 2017. As we all know, Rita LAU joined the Government in 1976 as an Administrative Officer. She was promoted to Administrative Officer Staff Grade A1 in 2004 and left for health reasons in 2011. Rita LAU is well versed in the operation of the Civil Service and it is LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10721 believed that with her experience in administration and management for many years, she can discharge her duties appropriately and perform the work of Public Service Commission Chairman properly.

After the Government has announced her name, some people consider this arrangement quite acceptable because she is not what is called "LEUNG's supporters with a black heart" but an experienced civil servant. The fundamental role of the Commission is to advise the Chief Executive on civil service appointments, promotions and discipline; and to ensure that appointments, promotions and disciplinary cases are efficiently processed in a proper and equitable manner. However, ever since LEUNG Chun-ying has taken office, there is an early exodus of civil servants ― someone called this "leaving the hot kitchen" ― and at present, manpower shortages have occurred in a number of Policy Bureaux and departments, thus affecting work progress.

If we look at the figures, the estimated expenditure for the Public Service Commission in the coming year will rise from $20,782,000 in 2013-2014 to $20,522,000 in 2014-2015, then to $20,782,000, so it can be seen that the increase is very slight. In the coming year, the establishment will increase from 27 people to 28 people only. Can this solve the problem of a shortage of civil servants? We are worried about whether or not there is enough manpower to help replenish staff wastage.

We note that in the Budget, the Government announced that 2 556 new posts will be created in 2014-2015, so that the civil service establishment will reach 173 961 posts, an increase of 1.5%. I wish to cite two examples. The number of new posts created by the Social Welfare Department, at 277, is the largest and half of them are for dealing with duties related to CSSA and Old Age Allowance. Another example that I believe Members have already noticed is the Housing Department, the front-line staff members of which staged strikes and were involved in labour disputes earlier on. It will create an additional 215 posts in the coming year, so as to step up law-enforcement actions related to building safety and speed up the vetting of building plans. However, I think the increase in the estimated expenditure for the Public Service Commission is far too low. In fact, there are often more "commanders than soldiers" in the Government, so I am afraid it will not be possible to attain the envisaged targets.

10722 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014

If Members look at this subhead, what actually does Mr WONG Yuk-man want to cut? He is quite lenient and only proposes to deduct the annual estimated expenditure for official entertainment for the Public Service Commission, that is, $38,000. In fact, I do not know why the Public Service Commission has to host entertainment. At present, it only has a staff of 28 people in total. Therefore, I speak in support of the amendment proposed by Mr WONG Yuk-man. Although he did not speak today and I am not clear about the original intention of the amendment proposed by him, I still want to express my support first.

Next, I want to deal will "Head 142 ― Government Secretariat: Offices of the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary", in particular, the deduction of the expenditure for the Central Policy Unit. First, I wish to express an observation. I am not going to discuss this in depth today because I do not wish to prevent Members from finishing work. My observation is that although I find the Central Policy Unit under "Government Secretariat: Offices of the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary", after looking at the heads of the entire Budget, there are only four Programmes under head 142, namely the Efficiency Unit, Government Records Service, CSO-Administration Wing and Protocol Division. After reading through the whole Budget, I still cannot find the words "Central Policy Unit". That is to say, by virtue of the heads in this Budget alone, the veil on the Central Policy Unit cannot be lifted. So we can only rely on the questions asked by Honourable colleague in the special meetings of the Finance Committee to learn that the provisions for the Central Policy Unit actually come under the CSO-Administration Wing. Subsequently, I turn to the pages about the Administration Wing but in the aim and description about the Administration Wing, we cannot find the Central Policy Unit either. Its invisibility makes it difficult for Members to look at its expenditures.

In this year, that is, 2014-2015, the annual estimated expenditure for the Central Policy Unit is $105,004,000 and many Honourable colleagues have already targeted their criticisms at this huge amount of estimated expenditure, with Dr Helena WONG proposing a motion in this regard. In this session, first of all, I wish to raise one point in particular, then I will wait until tomorrow morning before discussing it with Members in detail, that is, Amendments Nos 739, 740 and 741. These three amendments were proposed by three Members, including me, Mr WONG Yuk-man and Mr LEUNG Kwok-hung, LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ─ 8 May 2014 10723 respectively to demand that an amount approximately equivalent to the annual estimated expenditure for the interim contract gratuity for the Head of the Central Policy Unit be deducted.

In fact, on seeing the term "interim contract gratuity", I was already somewhat puzzled. Why is there such a thing as "interim contract gratuity"? If the term is four years, an amount of gratuity has to be paid after two years. Is it because it is feared that he may not be able to complete his term, or is it feared that LEUNG Chun-ying will not be able to complete his term that an "interim contract gratuity" is introduced? In fact, we know that this sum of interim contract gratuity exists because a Member asked what the estimated expenditure for the annual emoluments and subsidies of the Head of the Central Policy Unit is and the reply he got was that his annual emoluments and subsidies were $2,755,737 and $576,056 respectively. Then, the official also raised another point and he can be considered candid. This is how we learnt that there is a sum of interim contract gratuity. How much is this sum of interim contract gratuity? It is $1,626,659.

First, I have a lot of doubt about the offer of interim contract gratuity but due to the time constraint, I am not going to embark on a detailed debate this evening. Instead I will wait until tomorrow before giving Members a detailed account of this.

SUSPENSION OF MEETING

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese): I now suspend the meeting until 9 am tomorrow.

Suspended accordingly at ten minutes to Ten o'clock.