Motion Debate on Motion of Thanks for Policy Address (1) (25 October 2006)

MR JAMES TIEN (in Cantonese): Deputy President, Chief Executive Donald TSANG has delivered his last policy address in his current term of office. It is entitled "Proactive, pragmatic, always the people first". The policies and measures put forward in this policy address are basically some pragmatic initiatives. The Liberal Party supports many of these initiatives, including the reiteration of "big market, small government"; the introduction of the education voucher system; the introduction of tax concession to enable vehicle owners to replace their vehicles with more environmentally-friendly ones, and the promotion harmony in family. However, I wonder if it is because the measures are not good enough or not comprehensive enough, his opinion poll ratings have seen some sharp decline in some recent surveys. Mr LEUNG Yiu-chung has already mentioned the figures, so I am not going to repeat them here.

The Liberal Party also appreciates the difficulties faced by the Chief Executive: That there are only eight months left in his current term of office and soon he will have to conduct his re-election campaign for the office of the Chief Executive. So he needs to hold back some of the measures that might arouse suspicions that he is exercising his power beyond his term of office. I think this is inevitable.

However, it is most unfortunate that the people find this policy address too middle-of-the-road. Last week, when Chief Executive Donald TSANG spoke to some young students on the contents of the policy address, he also said that possibly it would be better written next year. The Liberal Party hopes that we do not have to wait until the release of another policy address next year. We hope the Chief Executive can outline his overall policy objectives for the next five years in his election platform.

Deputy President, in the Work Review section of the policy address, it is mentioned that the Chief Executive has done a lot in maintaining small government. Now, the total public expenditure of the Government has already been reduced to 16.4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the civil service establishment has been kept under 160 000 person. The Liberal Party strongly supports these initiatives. However, in the meantime, the Government has proposed two concepts to us, that is, the creation of the posts of Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries in the Bureaux. The Liberal Party thinks that, as the Chief Executive, if he wants to pursue strong governance, if he wants to govern Hong Kong in this manner, we can understand it and can render our support. However, we also feel that, since we have already managed to keep the civil service establishment under the figure of 160 000, and the public expenditure has been contained at 16.4% of the GDP, we feel that, if such posts have to be created, some suitable posts in the civil service system may be deleted?

As a matter of fact, with regard to the proposal of creating posts of Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, one of the most significant justifications is that persons holding such posts are required to promote policies formulated by the Government; in particular, they are required to come to the Legislative Council to communicate with Members. If we really have such Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries doing such jobs, then the number of civil servants who currently come to this Council to explain to us matters related to bills and various policies of the Government ─ mostly Permanent Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries ─ can be reduced correspondingly.

The Government says it may affect the morale of the Civil Service. But we think we must strike a balance between the two sides. We must understand the morale of the Civil Service on the one hand, but on the other, we must also take good care of the money of taxpayers. What is more, the Government has always mentioned "big market, small government". We hope the Government can pay more attention to this aspect.

Deputy President, with regard to the constitutional system as a whole, the Chief Executive now says that he intends to pursue strong governance. We find that the Government does not have a single vote in the Legislative Council. After the new administration has been formed next year, that is the third Government, it will continue to have no votes at all. So even with the creation of some more Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Assistant Secretary posts, I do not believe that the Government's difficulties in implementing policies and the problems it is facing can be solved substantially by their talking to us more in the Ante-Chamber or their giving us one or two more telephone calls.

Therefore, the Liberal Party has always felt that, before launching these new policies, the Government had better discuss them with all the political parties. Different political parties may have different degree of closeness with the Government, so the most important point is that the Government should first discuss such policies with political parties supporting it. We have come up with such a concept of "a ruling coalition" because we want to start the discussion with the Government earlier, so that when the Government promotes its policies, instead of obstructing the Government's implementation of work, we will be able to convey the views of our voters to the Government on their behalf, in order to support the Government. This is different from the allegation made by some people opposing this notion, that we are advocating a sharing of the Government's power by forming a ruling coalition.

Please imagine, among the present Members of the Legislative Council, how many of us can give up our present positions and assume the posts of Secretaries of Bureaux? For example, Mr Tommy CHEUNG has had a lot of discussions with Secretary Dr York CHOW on the anti-smoking bill. We use this as an example precisely because we want the Secretary to understand that, before he makes the decisions on the anti-smoking legislation, health is most important; that second-hand smoking is definitely unacceptable and its occurrence must be avoided. However, on the other hand, can we at the same time also take care of the interests of certain restaurants? Had this concept been adopted earlier, we would not have seen so much opposition from Members when the Government said that it would consider allowing restaurants to establish smoking rooms when the relevant bill was passing this Council. This is about the "ruling coalition" concept. We are not proposing to allocate any proportion of the 11 Secretary posts to the Liberal Party or other allied political parties. If this concept is not yet mature, I think it would be difficult to implement other measures in pursuance of strong governance. The Liberal Party also strongly supports the election of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage through a nomination committee in 2012. But, by the same token, if a ruling coalition cannot be formed by then, the Chief Executive returned through universal suffrage will have to go on looking for the right persons to fill up the posts of three Secretaries of Departments and 11 Directors of Bureaux, who cannot have any political party affiliation; and he still will not have a single vote in the Legislative Council. We think that, in the long run, strong governance may not be feasible.

Deputy President, talents are required in achieving effective governance. With regard to effective governance, I wish to mention that talents in society are also very significant. If a society is governed well, and there is harmony in society, the Government will naturally become a "small government", and there can be effective governance. What actually am I trying to say after all? What I wish to say is in fact this. The Chief Executive said in the policy address, "To attract talent from around the world …… to participate in Hong Kong's development, we must adopt a more open-minded and proactive approach. The Government will continue to review the situation and fine-tune policy to expand the pool of human capital so essential to Hong Kong's sustainable development." The Liberal Party agrees to all these. However, I feel that the way in which the Government puts it is not very proactive because it is by no means enough if all we are going to do is just to "review" the situation or "fine-tune" the policy. We think that we should adopt an even more proactive attitude in order to attract talents to Hong Kong to assist our overall social development. And such talents should naturally include talents in the fields of medicine, commerce and all sorts of trades. We should actively attract talents from both overseas countries as well as the Mainland. For example, we should do our best to attract such talents with all our advantages, such as high efficiency, law and order and a high standard of living, albeit we have an air pollution problem. Besides, we should also make reference to the proactive attitudes adopted by some major mainland cities in attracting talents from other provinces.

In addition, we also feel that the quota of 1 000 persons under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme may deter people from making applications. Actually is it necessary for the Government to set this ceiling of 1 000 persons? Hong Kong has a population of 8 million. As our population is ageing and the present immigration policy of allowing 150 migrants to come to Hong Kong daily have already brought many people with low skills and low education into Hong Kong. If we can solve problems in this regard, and allow more quality talents into Hong Kong, then we believe the overall governance of Hong Kong will make some improvement. With these remarks, Deputy President, I support the motion.