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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr David Lan, in moving the committee stage amendments to the Family Status Discrimination (Amendment) Bill 2000 in the Legislative Council today (June 14):

Madam Chairman,

I move that clauses 2 and 3 be amended as set out under my name in the paper circularized to Members.

As I have explained at the Second Reading debate, we propose to amend clause 2, which in conjunction with new clauses 2A and 2B to be moved will limit the amendments of the Bill to sections 8, 9 and 16 in lieu of exceptions covering Parts III, IV and V of the Ordinance. This will not detract from the original aim of clarifying what is not unlawful under the Ordinance, but will address the concerns that the scope of the proposed exceptions might be too wide and the wording of the proposed new section 39A might cause confusion in relation to benefits for employees, contract workers and commission agents themselves.

As a consequential amendment, we propose to amend clause 3 so that it will refer to the relevant amended provisions under sections 8, 9 and 16 instead of Part III, IV or V of the Ordinance.

End/Wednesday, June 14, 2000

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