Transcript of remarks by CS at media session on constitutional development (with video)

Transcript of remarks by CS at media session on constitutional development (with video)
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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session after attending the Hong Kong News Awards 2014 presentation ceremony today (April 27):

Reporter: Chief Secretary, a recent poll has found that 10 to 13 per cent are unsure about the Government's reform package while more than 50 per cent plan to support it. How does the Government plan to get that 10 to 13 per cent on board? And I know your recent bus campaign on Saturday didn't do so well, a lot of people complained that you didn't really connect with the people, and...

Chief Secretary for Administration: Thank you very much for raising that question. The constitutional development issue is the most important policy agenda of this term of the Government. So as government officials, we are duty bound to bring these proposals to the people of Hong Kong. And that's why we have been using all sorts of available means to publicise the reform package. I personally feel that an additional way to do it is to reach out to the people. In fact, during the second round of public consultation, I and my colleagues have been doing so. I went down to the street for at least five or six times but without prior notification, so generally we were able to do what we wanted to do – hand out leaflets, have a little discussion with the members of the public and so on. So we will continue to do so.

But the bus parade last Saturday was, as you know, disrupted by protesters who wanted to take the opportunity to make a scene of disrupting the government officials' presence. So, having evaluated the situation, we decided that we should not get off the bus. Otherwise it would cause more sort of disruption. It might even cause injuries to some of the participants. But in future, we will continue to do this out-reaching efforts but probably without prior notice to the media.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Monday, April 27, 2015
Issued at HKT 16:37

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