My Take | Time has come for the Legislative Council not to say thanks
- Lawmakers can save everyone’s time by agreeing to scrap the motion, a hangover from the colonial days, of expressing gratitude to the chief executive for the policy address
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has done everyone a favour – including herself – by ditching the old colonial tradition of word-for-word delivery of the annual policy address in the legislature. Those who want the boring details can readily get them online.
Now, if only lawmakers can save everyone’s time by agreeing to scrap another colonial tradition – tabling a motion of thanks for the chief executive for delivering the annual policy blueprint.
For a second time in a row, Lam received the symbolic motion last week. By contrast, her three predecessors rarely received a motion of thanks.
But she is just doing her job delivering the policy agenda for the year ahead. Why should we give thanks when we haven’t even seen the results? Are Lam’s two policy addresses so superior to those of her predecessors, or was it the result of insufficient voting power from the opposition, partly due to the number of localist lawmakers being disqualified?
Of the 32 geographical representatives, 17 supported it and 15 opposed, last Friday.
In any case, whether such a motion is passed is no indication of the quality of the annual address in question, but depends entirely on whether the opposition has enough seats to go against it.
