********************************************************
Following is the transcript (English portion) of the remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Rafael Hui, at the luncheon hosted by the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong this afternoon (October 20):
Chief Secretary: Well I don't have any full address that I intend to make today. After I have made a few points, I am prepared to answer questions and I will simply treat this as an extension to the press conference that we held yesterday afternoon. The three points I have just stated in Cantonese, are as follows:
First of all, our Chief Executive yesterday also made a statement in connection with the publication of our Report No. 5. He mentioned that the recommendations of the report were hard won, not easily won. This means two things. One, the conditions under which such a scheme can be proposed has to do with the circumstances, the atmosphere of the society in Hong Kong. We are now a much more relaxed, optimistic and confident community. And I think what he meant was that this particularly progressive scheme could not have been formulated under a situation where the community has a lot of tension, conflict and pessimism. And this precondition is a very, very important factor and is not easily won either. This precondition involves the work of so many of us, in the media, the press, the Government, commerce and all walks of life to turn some of the negative atmosphere that we had to witness and experience in the last few years into something much more positive. It could only be under such a positive atmosphere that such a particular proposal can be made, and everybody in fact had contributed including all the Legislative Councillors towards this particular situation that we are now, as it were, living under every day.
The other meaning is that this particular scheme represents the best point of balance that the Government can achieve, having taken into account all the divergent views and interests of the community. In the course of the past one and a half years, there has been a long series of consultation, very systematic and transparent, leading up to the final product. And this represents the best balance of interests and best balance of views. And talking about balance, the last point I made was that it is of course true that the legislative and the constitutional procedures are such that we must first start the first step with a two-thirds vote in LegCo for the amendment of Annexes I and II of the Basic law. Two-thirds is our target. It is not 24. It is not 25. It is not 30. So our proposal had to target, had to be designed in such a way that we think we have the largest possibility, not certainty, far from certain, at least some degree of possibility that it might gain acceptance by two-thirds of our Members in Legco. And that is in fact a very important consideration behind our proposal.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript of remarks.)
Ends/Thursday, October 20, 2005
Issued at HKT 18:02
NNNN
