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<English only> Mr. President, Ladies & Gentlemen, As usual I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation to the FCC’s Board of Governors for this speaking invitation. With just over two weeks to go to the forthcoming LegCo By-election, today’s invitation provides me with a good opportunity to take stock of how my campaign has gone so far and to share with you some of the key messages of my Election Platform. You will not be surprised to hear that I’ve learned a good deal in the past few weeks. I’ve had some unexpected insights into human strengths and frailties. I’ve learned the hard way about some of the banana skins along the campaign trail which, however well-intentioned, the unwary can slip on. I’ve also learned a lot about myself. When I set up my Core Group last year, to lend support for faster progress towards the achievement of full universal suffrage, the last thing on my mind was that I might find myself standing for election to the Legislative Council. In the event, the opportunity which this election provides me was one which I simply could not pass up. I truly sensed that, for me, it was a defining moment – a chance to demonstrate that I really am prepared to stand up and be counted for the values I believe in. Having said this I wasn’t sure how I would cope with the rough and tumble of street campaigning. I knew there would be some who would react negatively – possibly even with hostility – to my candidature. But I was also confident that I could call on a strong reservoir of affection and trust within a community that recognizes that, although my role in public life has changed, my convictions have not. I want to focus for a moment on the issue of trust, because I believe this must be a crucial consideration in this election. In essence, the voters of Hong Kong Island are being asked to choose the candidate who can most faithfully speak for them in the Legislative Council and who can most effectively work for achievement of a better, more democratically based system of governance. Some commentators have bemoaned the fact that there are now so many candidates standing for election that differences between electoral platforms are becoming less clear cut. I view the high level of participation in this election as entirely positive. On the one hand it offers voters more choices; it also shows that more and more citizens, from a wide spectrum of social and political backgrounds, recognize that direct accountability to the public, by means of fair and equal election, is the only way to attain a genuine mandate to participate in government. It is true that, in some people’s minds, the lines are becoming blurred between different campaign messages. For example, I am not the only candidate campaigning on a pro-democracy platform. So it is all the more important that voters distinguish clearly between genuine and counterfeit democracy. I would like to suggest some ground rules for determining who can best be trusted to deliver the early achievement of full universal suffrage which successive public opinion polls have shown is the earnest aspiration of the majority of Hong Kong people. First, I recommend that voters keep in mind an old saying – which has its origins I believe in one of Aesop’s fables – ‘by their friends ye shall know them’. This suggests that if you truly want to understand where someone is coming from you should look hard at the company they keep. In this election campaign I am allying myself whole-heartedly with the aspirations of the pan-Democratic camp to achieve universal suffrage for both election of the Chief Executive and all members of the Legislative Council in 2012. While, as a grouping, we may not agree on all policy issues – which is why I have chosen to stand as an independent candidate – we see completely eye-to-eye on the fundamentals. These are:
Secondly I want to remind voters of another important truism, namely that ‘the devil is often in the detail’. In short, before you cast your vote, please be very sure that you understand the full implications of the policies which each candidate is putting forward. Please look at the small print and not just the title page. A case in point. Following her three years of studies in the US, Mrs. Regina Ip now professes to be totally convinced that democracy is the way forward for Hong Kong. As a result her platform ostensibly advocates full universal suffrage in 2012. However, if you look a little more closely at the details, you will see that her proposals on the procedure for nomination of candidates who wish to stand for election to the post of Chief Executive can hardly be called democratic. Mrs. Ip is recommending that potential candidates must obtain the support of a minimum of 10% of voters in each of the four sub-sectors of the future Nominating Committee. Quickly, to refresh memories, these sub-sectors are likely to be broadly the same as those in the current Chief Executive Election Committee namely:
This proposal is blatantly regressive; it is manifestly less democratic than the current system which requires candidates to obtain a minimum of 100 nominations from the total of 800 members of the Election Committee. If such a system had applied to the this year’s election for the post of Chief Executive Mr. Alan Leong would have failed to qualify as a candidate, because he did not obtain any nominations at all from the Industrial, commercial and financial sector. I challenge anyone to argue that Mr. Leong, a moderate thinking and highly respected member of the professional community, is somehow fundamentally unsuitable to be a candidate for CE. Placing these sorts of hurdles into the nomination process would inevitably result in the filtering out of some entirely worthy candidates and deprive Hong Kong people of the choices they want and deserve. At the beginning of this address I said I had learned a lot from participation in this campaign. In particular it has been brought home to me just how wide a disparity is growing between the incomes and quality of life of the haves and have nots in our society. Hong Kong is currently enjoying a period of welcome economic buoyancy after a number of years of recession, falling wages and rising unemployment. There is no doubt that the current ‘feel good factor’ feels good to many. The stock market is booming – for the time being at least - the property market is robust, wages are going up. When things are going well, some will argue, why rock the boat by pushing for political change? The problem is that what goes up will, inevitably go down again – and possibly sooner than we think if the fall-out for the US economy of the current home loan crisis, falling dollar and record oil prices becomes more serious. As it is, the sort of economic growth we are now enjoying is not being shared proportionally throughout the community; the rich are getting richer, but the poor are not becoming better off and in some cases are seeing the real value of meager pay packets eroded by rising prices. As I have said in my Election Platform, I don’t want to see Hong Kong become a tale of two cities – one rich, one poor. I want to help build a society that is not only democratic and free, but also compassionate and just: a Hong Kong we can all be proud of! Years ago, when I was a very junior member of the Hong Kong Government Administrative Service, we were periodically reminded by senior colleagues that, in framing policies, we should never forget that ‘… the view from the Peak is very different from the view from the top of the Shau Kei Wan tram’. A now rather tired cliché? Maybe, but like most clichés, it still embodies a fundamental truth. If we are to avoid the pitfalls of becoming an increasingly unequal and possibly polarized society then it is necessary for all sectors of the community to do their bit. Hong Kong’s social and business elite have an excellent record of charitable fund-raising. Donating to charity is admirable of course, but so is paying your staff a fair wage which means that they and their families do not need to rely on charity. The low level of support for the Government’s voluntary Wage Protection Movement is profoundly disappointing. Instinctively, in a free market economy, we would all like to see earnings regulated by market forces, rather than government intervention. However, having seen at first hand the deprived living conditions of families trying to make ends meet on pitifully low incomes I am prepared to support the introduction of legislation to mandate a minimum wage level for those categories of unskilled workers – such as cleaners and security guards – who it seems simply do not have enough economic bargaining power to adequately protect their own interests. It flows from what I have just said that I do not believe the Government should shoulder the whole responsibility for narrowing the wealth gap, but it does of course have a vital role to play. I believe that government action is required on a number of fronts. First it must channel more resources into supporting the really needy members of our community such as the elderly and families living in poverty. Women are often particularly vulnerable, because the burden of raising children and caring for elderly relatives typically falls more heavily on them and prevents them from achieving their full potential educationally, or in the workplace. The needs of poor families in general and single parent families in particular need to be addressed holistically, within an integrated framework of subsidized child care, welfare and community support services. This is not the moment to disband the Poverty Commission and, if elected, I will press strongly for it to be re-established, along with a new and much-needed Family Commission which has a mandate to advise Government on ways of strengthening support to families overall. Secondly, we must do more to ensure that our education policies are producing both the quality and range of skills that we need. If we are to sustain Hong Kong’s position as one of the world’s leading international cities then we must arrest the current decline in standards of English, promote higher standards of Putonghua and satisfy ourselves as to the effectiveness of mother tongue teaching in improving students’ all-round academic performance. In order to enhance the employment skills and earning power of the broadest cross-section of the community there should be more effective support for Associate Degree programmes, for the work of the Vocational Training Council and for a broad spectrum of subsidized employee re-training schemes. We cannot and should not rely on new infrastructure projects alone to create jobs. Hong Kong is, first and foremost, a service based economy and we should use all the means at our disposal to encourage the development of the skills and creativity which will nurture the entrepreneurial spirit and create new opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses. I have been out of the mainstream of public policy making for over six years. While I have made a point of keeping informed, I am not going to pretend I am fully up to-date on all fronts. While I don’t have the benefit of a think-tank to support me, I can assure you that I am a fast learner and foresee no problems in catching up where necessary. In the meantime, I am particularly concerned at what I perceive to be a marked decline in the quality of governance in the last few years. The checks and balances which are so essential to maintaining accountability are being eroded because, while the Government goes through the motions of consulting the public it all too often doesn’t appear to be listening. Government policies seem increasingly to be mandated from the top-down, rather than working their way up through successive layers of civil service scrutiny and analysis which serve to ensure, as far as possible, that they are sound, practical and truly in the best overall interests of the community. The addition of further tiers of political appointees at the top levels of the Administration will only compound the problem by centralizing more and more power in the hands of the Chief Executive and his hand-picked officials and further eroding morale at the upper levels of the civil service. This is not the way to groom political talent. The way forward for Hong Kong, as with all aspiring democracies, is to promote the development of political parties which can, between them, include and give a voice to the interests and concerns of all sectors of the community. Only then will we attract into public life a new breed of talented, able and committed individuals who seek a genuine mandate to govern in the interests of Hong Kong and our nation as a whole and who, I believe, will be our best hope of continuing to build for a future we can all be proud of. Thank you. |
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