MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): President, the election of the next Chief Executive will soon be held, and people from all sectors of the community do have great expectations for the new Chief Executive. The motion today gives us an opportunity to talk about our expectations, and I believe all candidates who intend to run in the election will listen seriously to the views expressed.
First of all, I would like to talk about the housing issue, which I think will remain the top priority task of the new Government. It is not something new that Hong Kong people are deeply troubled by the problem of housing, and social grievances thus accumulated have intensified. Hence, my first expectation for the new Chief Executive is to solve the housing problem faced by Hong Kong people with great wisdom.
According to the Government, the potential supply of first-hand private residential flats in the coming three to four years is 93 000, a record high since 2004. In this connection, a lot of work has been done by Secretary Paul CHAN, and the achievements are obvious to all. With the marked increase in housing supply, it is expected that the property market will stabilize in the short run. However, analyses reveal that being the New York of China, there will be large inflows of funds into Hong Kong with the continued growth of the China economy, thus giving rise to a sharp increase in housing demand, which will in turn push property prices up again to a higher level. Therefore, even though the housing production can remain stable, the problem of high property prices will remain and frustrate Hong Kong people.
Hence, I suggest that we should follow the example of Singapore and work on a fundamental solution to our housing problem. In Singapore, 80% of its people are residing in public housing, and this is a peaceful and happy life that a lot of people in Hong Kong are yearning for. It would of course be impossible for us to achieve such a high percentage of 80%, but I believe that Hong Kong does have the ability to gradually increase our public housing population from 47% at present to 60% of the total population of Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, the Government has already increased its public housing flat production, but in order to achieve the target of providing public housing for more than 60% of the local population, a lot of resources and time are still required. I hope the new Chief Executive will have the determination to formulate long-term development policy for meeting such a target.
In order to achieve the target, it would of course be necessary for us to maintain a stable supply of land, and avoid a drastic cut in land supply due to fluctuations in property prices. The dilemma we are in is exactly the result of the suspension of the supply of land for a long time by the Government of the last term. In addition, land development has always been a very difficult task in Hong Kong, and the Government should adopt a proactive approach in this respect. For example, land supply could be enhanced through reclamation outside Victoria Harbour so as to ensure a stable supply.
My second expectation for the next Chief Executive is to build a happy society. It is indeed not a bit easy to meet the expectation, but it should be possible for us to provide some reliefs to the pressure of life of Hong Kong people. I have all along been urging the Government to promote work-life balance, that is, to join hand with employers to provide a better working environment for employees. Specific measures include implementing flexible working hours, granting special casual leave, providing an employee-friendly working environment, and all these are measures widely adopted in many overseas countries. The Government has also adopted some measures previously for this purpose, but they are ineffective and insufficient.
In fact, there are quite a number of options available if we dare to make some bold attempts. Employers and employees have been embroiled in endless arguments over the issue of labour holidays in recent years. According to the statistics of the Labour Department, there are currently nearly 1 million employees who are only entitled to 12 days of labour holidays a year, which are five days less than general holidays. In order to make labour holidays align with general holidays so that these employees will be entitled to five more days of holidays a year, some additional annual salary costs of $1.83 billion will be incurred. I have proposed to the Government that consideration may be given to following the example of the Community Care Fund and setting up a special fund to promote work-life balance, with a view to subsidizing the costs needed for granting five more days of holidays to these employees. This is in fact a very good deal for the Government to spend $1 billion-odd at most in exchange for the happiness of 1 million employees. There will definitely be more happy faces in the entire society if there are more happy families in Hong Kong, and these measures are indeed worth considering by the Government.
Moreover, I would also like to say a few words about some unhealthy trends and sophistries in society nowadays. We are debating here today on our expectations for the next Chief Executive, and although the new Chief Executive has not yet been elected, firing of rebukes has already started in both this Council and in various media. Incessant personal attacks have already been launched when potential candidates for the next Chief Executive election have not yet announced their election manifesto and policy objectives. Very obviously, many people are just finding fault with the Chief Executive, and whoever assumes the post will run into bad luck. It seems that the personal competence, governance team and governance plan of the new Chief Executive are not important at all. If members of the public can listen more carefully, they will realize that LEUNG Chun-ying as the Chief Executive has been fiercely dressed down, while potential candidates for the upcoming Chief Executive election are also subject to criticisms, and the reasons for hurling rebukes at them are more or less the same.
A lot of people have reflected to me that individual Members, various media and comics artists are mobilized by people from the opposition camp recently to form a united front to attack candidates whom they consider will possibly be acceptable to the Central Authority, and the scale and intensity of such attacks are both shocking and chilling. Anyone who solely reads the news reports published by such media will inevitably take them as Gospel truth and be deeply affected. In fact, in order to meet the requirements of today, those in the opposition camp should not be too lazy and attack potential candidates of the next Chief Executive election simply with all the excuses they have made up to attack LEUNG Chun-ying. They should be more rational and direct their comments at the issue instead of any individuals. As we can see now, all candidates who intend to run in the election have their own strengths and weaknesses, and for the real good of Hong Kong, we should treat them and comment on their performance more fairly.
Finally, I would like to point out that in recent years, there are words and deeds that are against development in the community, especially in this Council, and there is a ridiculous theory of “not to develop is the absolute principle”. Members advocating the concept will filibuster at full strength whenever development items are scheduled for discussion at meetings of the Establishment Subcommittee, Public Works Subcommittee or Finance Committee, even though they only involve project preparation works. However, as Hong Kong is an international city with a population of 7 million, the living standard of Hong Kong people will decline with just a slight slowing down of the pace of local development. Consequently, our resources will be insufficient to support the population of 7 million, let alone to maintain our welfare services at the current level.
There are people asking for the provision of more social benefits on the one hand, and trying to stop Hong Kong from making further development on the other. On deeper thought, it will not be difficult for us to realize that they are actually trying to make a fool of us. I so submit.