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Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, for the Debate on the Motion of Thanks (Debate Session 3: Poverty Alleviation, Welfare and Medical Services, Elderly Care, Public Health and Population Policy) in respect of the Chief Executive's Policy Address at the Legislative Council meeting today (February 18):
Mr President,
At this juncture, I hope you'll forgive me for switching to English, because I need to refute the allegations made by the Honourable Claudia Mo. She said that this Government's mentality in treating ethnic minority is as if they are official outcasts, and she also accused the Government of only paying lip service to supporting ethnic minority community in Hong Kong. This is totally unsubstantiated. As a matter of fact, the Chief Executive and this term of the Hong Kong SAR Government attach a lot of importance to integrating ethnic minority people in society, and as a result of that we have been according priority to helping ethnic minority people. As early as 2014, in the then annual Policy Address, we rolled out a full package of measures with an investment of $200 million to support ethnic minority people. I have with me a six-page note on all the measures that we have introduced to support the ethnic minority. If the Honourable Claudia Mo is interested, I'll pass her a copy later on.
She also suggested that I should sit down and listen to people from Unison. I want to let her know that I have spoken to the former Chairman of Unison, Miss Margaret Ng, as well as the current Chairman of Unison, Mr Stephen Fisher, who is of course a member of my Commission on Poverty. I have also received words of appreciation from organisations like Oxfam, the India Association and other ethnic minority associations in Hong Kong on the efforts made by this term of the Hong Kong SAR Government to support the ethnic minority community.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the speech.)
Ends/Thursday, February 18, 2016
Issued at HKT 19:12
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