A 02/03-30

Legislative Council

Agenda
Wednesday 28 May 2003 at 2:30 pm



I. Tabling of Papers

Subsidiary Legislation / InstrumentsL.N. No.
1.Waterworks (Reduction of Water Charge) Regulation 2003130/2003
2.Sewage Services (Reduction of Sewage Charge and Trade Effluent Surcharge) Regulation 2003131/2003
3.Rating (Exemption) Order 2003132/2003
4.Tax Exemption (2001 Tax Year) Order133/2003
5.Telecommunications (Carrier Licences) (Amendment) Regulation 2003134/2003

Other Papers

1.No.86-Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Fund Annual Report for the year from 1 April 2001 to 31 March 2002
(to be presented by Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food)

2.No.87-The Government Minute in response to the Report No.39 of the Public Accounts Committee dated February 2003
(to be presented by Chief Secretary for Administration, who will address the Council)

3.Report of the Bills Committee on Tung Chung Cable Car Bill
(to be presented by Hon James TIEN, Chairman of the Bills Committee)

II. Questions

1. Hon YEUNG Yiu-chung to ask: (Translation)

Regarding the use of Chinese medicine in preventing and treating Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ("SARS"), will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the respective numbers of Chinese medicine prescriptions and treatment protocols for SARS received by the authorities from the people of Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas regions, and how the authorities handle these prescriptions and treatment protocols;

    (b)of the details of the participation of the two Mainland Chinese medicine experts invited by the authorities to treat SARS; and the specific participation of local Chinese medicine practitioners and the Chinese medicine experts teaching and conducting researches in Hong Kong in the prevention and treatment of SARS; and

    (c)whether it will use and promote Chinese medicine in the prevention of SARS; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

2. Hon CHAN Yuen-han to ask: (Translation)

Regarding the control of highly infectious diseases, will the Government inform this Council whether it will set up:

    (a)isolation centres at the airport and various border control points to admit cross-boundary travellers who are suspected to be infected with highly infectious diseases;

    (b)isolation centres in remote areas to admit those who are suspected to be infected with highly infectious diseases and have to be isolated; and

    (c)a hospital dedicated to treating patients suffering from infectious diseases?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

3. Hon LAU Kong-wah to ask: (Translation)

Regarding measures to attract tourists to Hong Kong, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the respective percentage drops in tourist arrivals at Hong Kong and the average hotel occupancy rates in each of the past two months when atypical pneumonia was rampant, as compared to the corresponding months of last year and February this year, as well as the estimated resultant financial losses;

    (b)whether the authorities concerned have formulated concrete plans to attract tourists to Hong Kong, to be launched immediately after the lifting of the World Health Organization's travel advisory against Hong Kong; if so, whether such plans include organizing large-scale promotional activities; if so, of the details of such activities; and

    (c)as the Mainland has been a major source of tourists to Hong Kong, of the specific measures to attract Mainlanders to visit Hong Kong and to ensure that an increased number of tourists will not aggravate the local atypical pneumonia situation?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Economic Development and Labour

4. Hon NG Leung-sing to ask: (Translation)

Will the Government inform this Council whether it has assessed the issuing of government bonds, in particular, its need and cost-effectiveness, whether it is appropriate to issue bonds now, and the impact of bond issuance on Hong Kong's credit rating, linked exchange rate system and the development of the local bond market; if it has, of the assessment results? Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury

5. Hon James TIEN to ask: (Translation)

To provide relief to the tourism, restaurant, retail and entertainment industries, which had been badly hit by the outbreak of atypical pneumonia, the Government set up a $3.5 billion Loan Guarantee Scheme last month. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the response of the industries concerned to the Scheme, including the number of applications from each industry;

    (b)of the number of applications from each industry which have been approved so far and the total commitment involved; and

    (c)whether it has assessed the effectiveness of the Scheme; if it has, of the assessment results?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Economic Development and Labour

6. Hon WONG Yung-kan to ask: (Translation)

In response to the motion on "developing eco-tourism" which I moved in May last year, the former Secretary for Economic Services indicated that the Tourism Commission would commission a consultancy study on the tourism potential of the Northern New Territories. The consultancy study was completed recently. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the scheduled timing for releasing the report of the consultancy study; and

    (b)whether it has worked out a timetable and set aside resources for implementing the recommendations of the consultancy report; if not, of the reasons for that?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Economic Development and Labour

*7. Hon Andrew CHENG to ask: (Translation)

Regarding the smuggling of Chinese national cultural relics, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the respective numbers of national cultural relics smuggled from the Mainland to Hong Kong and to foreign places via Hong Kong which were seized by the Hong Kong Police each year since the reunification;

    (b)whether it knows the number of national cultural relics seized by foreign governments and the Interpol each year during the same period and, among them, the number of those smuggled from the Mainland to foreign places via Hong Kong;

    (c)how it handles the national cultural relics seized in Hong Kong;

    (d)whether it has assessed if Hong Kong has become a major destination and transit point for smuggled national cultural relics; if the assessment result indicates that Hong Kong has become such a destination and transit point, of the measures in place to cope with the situation; if the result indicates otherwise, the rationale for that;

    (e)whether the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property which was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1970 and ratified by our country, applies to Hong Kong; if not, of the reasons for that, and when the Convention will apply to Hong Kong; and

    (f)whether it will legislate to combat the smuggling of national cultural relics so as to ensure that these relics will not be transported illegally out of the country; if it will, of the legislative timetable; if not, the reasons for that?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Home Affairs

*8. Hon SIN Chung-kai to ask: (Translation)

It has been reported that grid computing can integrate geographically dispersed computers into a computer network through the Internet for provision of super data processing power. Users can share and administer resources in the system to maximize the efficiency and utilization rate of its component computers. Grid computing also allows users in the system to collaborate in consolidating idle processing resources for enhancement of work efficiency and reduction of operating costs. In this connection, all computer networks throughout the United Kingdom will be linked into a large scale grid computing network; the U.S. Department of Energy will install its first systems on a nationwide computing grid; and computer resources for researches on subjects like bioinformatics at five universities in the Netherlands will be linked into a grid computing network. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)whether it knows the plans for grid computing implemented in the above countries;

    (b)whether it has assessed if grid computing is applicable to the operation of various government departments and the research work of various universities and research institutions in Hong Kong; if it has, of the assessment results; if not, the reasons for that; and

    (c)if the above assessment results show that grid computing is applicable to the operation of various government departments, of the government departments which will take the lead in adopting such technology, the estimated savings to be achieved and its effects on the service quality of the departments concerned?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology

*9. Hon Emily LAU to ask: (Translation)

It has been reported that a five-year-old boy, suspected of being infected with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ("SARS"), was admitted to Queen Mary Hospital ("QMH") on 3 April. During the whole period of his stay in hospital, he was treated as a SARS patient. The boy died afterwards and the cause of his death as stated in the death certificate was "atypical pneumonia (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and immunodeficiency". Subsequently, a staff member of QMH informed the boy's family that he had not died of SARS and sought their consent to delete from the boy's death certificate the reference to SARS. Meanwhile, the Department of Health has not counted this case as a fatality of SARS. In this connection, will the Executive Authorities inform this Council:

    (a)of the exact cause of the boy's death;

    (b)of the justifications for QMH's requesting to alter the cause of death of the boy, and whether this practice is unusual; and

    (c)whether they have assessed if the Department of Health's not counting this case as a fatality of SARS was an deliberate act to cover up the position of the disease?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

*10. Ir Dr Hon HO Chung-tai to ask: (Translation)

It has been reported that mobile toilets in country parks have no flushing devices, which easily gives rise to public hygiene problems. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)whether it has received complaints about hygiene problems of the mobile toilets over the past three years; if so, of the details;

    (b)whether the mobile toilets are regularly cleansed and disinfected; if so, of the details;

    (c)of the percentage of those country parks without permanent toilet facilities in all country parks in the territory, and whether the authorities have plans to replace these mobile toilets with permanent toilet facilities; if not, of the reasons for that; and

    (d)of the ways to avoid or reduce the use of vehicles for carrying human waste from the mobile toilets to sewage treatment plants, so as to minimize the chance of cross-infection?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works

*11. Hon LAU Kong-wah to ask: (Translation)

To avoid atypical pneumonia infection, an increasing number of people are using bleach to clean their homes. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)whether it plans to enhance public education on the proper use of bleach; if so, of the details of the plan;

    (b)of the number of reports received by the authorities since March this year of accidents caused by the improper use of bleach, and the number of persons thus injured; and

    (c)whether the Administration will step up the monitoring of the water quality of Hong Kong waters to ensure that the ecological environment has not been affected?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

*12. Hon Emily LAU to ask: (Translation)

In the current legislative session, the Chief Executive delivered the Policy Address in January instead of following the previous practice of delivering it in October, while the Financial Secretary still delivered the Budget in March. After reviewing this arrangement, the Executive Authorities have advised this Council that shortening the interval between the delivery of the Policy Address and the Budget to about two months is appropriate; it facilitates a more timely reflection of the Policy Address' priorities and policies in the Budget and a closer interaction between the Policy Address and budgetary processes, as well as enhances the overall efficiency of the government machinery. Therefore, they have decided that the practice for this session should continue to be adopted in the coming years. However, the Executive Authorities admit that such an arrangement may have the drawback of creating a null period of Legislative Council ("LegCo") activities between the start of a legislative session in October and the time when the Policy Address is delivered in January the following year. In this connection, will the Executive Authorities inform this Council:

    (a)of the specific justifications to prove that the delivery of the Policy Address in January instead of in October will enhance the overall efficiency of the government machinery and enable a closer interaction between the Policy Address and the Budget;

    (b)whether they have conducted an assessment to ascertain that the delivery of the Policy Address in January can benefit the public; if they have, of the assessment details;

    (c)which of the executive authorities of overseas countries do not deliver the policy addresses (or equivalent papers) at the start of a session of their legislatures; and

    (d)whether they will reconsider reverting to the previous practice of delivering the Policy Address in October each year, in order to avoid the creation of a null period of LegCo activities in the first few months of a legislative session; if not, of the justifications for that?
Public Officer to reply : Chief Secretary for Administration

*13. Hon YEUNG Yiu-chung to ask: (Translation)

Regarding the installation of escalators inside and at the entrances and exits of MTR stations by the MTR Corporation Limited ("MTRC"), will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:

    (a)the numbers of MTR stations and entrances and exits installed with escalators, their percentages in the total numbers of MTR stations and entrances and exits, and the entrances and exits of MTR stations at which MTRC is installing or plans to install escalators; and

    (b)the criteria adopted by MTRC for determining the entrances and exits of MTR stations at which escalators should be installed; whether MTRC will review and revise these criteria; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works

*14. Ir Dr Hon HO Chung-tai to ask: (Translation)

It has been reported that the Government plans to provide a temporary cruise terminal at the Macau Ferry Terminal site. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)when the construction works of the terminal will commence and complete;

    (b)of the facilities available at the cruise terminal; and

    (c)of the estimated number of cruise liners which will use the terminal each year?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Economic Development and Labour

*15. Hon LEUNG Yiu-chung to ask: (Translation)

I have received complaints alleging that industrial accidents frequently occurred in prisons recently. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the number of industrial accidents involving inmates serving their sentences in penal institutions under the Correctional Services Department in each of the past three years and, among them, the number of serious industrial accidents; and

    (b)whether victims of such industrial accidents have been granted compensation; if so, of the method of calculating the amount of compensation?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Security

*16. Hon Frederick FUNG to ask: (Translation)

Regarding the environmental hygiene of the common area of single private residential buildings ("SPRB") for which owners' corporations have not been formed, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)whether it has statistics on the number of SPRB without owners' corporations and its percentage in all SPRB;

    (b)of the number of complaints or requests for assistance received by the departments concerned in relation to the environmental hygiene of the common area of such buildings in each of the past three years; and how they were followed up;

    (c)of the measures to assist the residents in keeping the common area of such buildings clean; and

    (d)whether it will consider sending government contractors to clean the common area of such buildings and then recover the costs from the owners concerned; if it will, of the details of its consideration and the implementation timetable; if not, the reasons for that?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Home Affairs

*17. Hon LEUNG Yiu-chung to ask: (Translation)

The Architectural Services Department is planning to build a Joint User Complex and Wholesale Fish Market at Area 44, Tuen Mun, and the Environmental Impact Assessment Report ("the EIA Report") submitted in respect of the project was approved with conditions set by the Director of Environmental Protection ("the Director") on 14 March this year. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

    (a)of the number of written objections the Director received from the public during the public inspection period of the EIA Report; and of the reasons for the Director's approving the EIA Report despite the large number of objections received;

    (b)whether it has decided to implement the project; if so, of the implementation schedule; if not, whether it will consider identifying an alternative site for the provision of the facilities; and

    (c)whether it plans to contract out the daily operation of the Wholesale Fish Market to the private sector; if so, whether the selection exercise for the operator has been completed; if so, of the name of the operator selected?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

*18. Hon Frederick FUNG to ask: (Translation)

Will the Government inform this Council of:

    (a)the current number of public housing estates ("PHEs") with sewage disposal systems (including the vertical sewers or waste pipes, and trunk sewers) installed inside the flats, and the percentage of this number in the total number of PHEs in Hong Kong; and

    (b)the number of complaints, broken down by estates, received by the authorities from tenants of PHEs mentioned in (a) regarding the seepage of sewage disposal systems of the estates in each of the past three years, and the average time required for carrying out the relevant follow-up actions and remedial works?
Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands

*19. Hon Kenneth TING to ask: (Translation)

Will the Government inform this Council whether, in order to contain the continuous spread of atypical pneumonia in Hong Kong, it will follow the Guangzhou Municipal Government's practice of allowing law enforcement officers to make video recordings of spitting citizens and use them as evidence for prosecution, with a view to enhancing enforcement effects; if not, of the measures in place to step up prosecution against spitting citizens? Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

*20. Dr Hon LUI Ming-wah to ask: (Translation)

I have received complaints from members of the public that many staff of food establishments handle food (such as cooking and serving food to customers) and work as cashiers at the same time. Their hands will be contaminated by bacteria when handling notes and coins, and in turn contaminate the food. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether existing legislation requires persons in charge of food establishments to arrange for different staff to handle food and work as cashiers; if not, of the reasons for that, and whether it has plans to legislate in this regard; if it has no such plans, the justifications for that? Public Officer to reply : Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

*For written reply.

IIA. Statements

Interim Report on Measures to Improve Environmental Hygiene in Hong Kong:Chief Secretary for Administration

III. Bills

Second Reading (Debate to resume), Committee Stage and Third Reading

Tung Chung Cable Car Bill:Secretary for Economic Development and Labour

IV. Motions

Proposed resolution under the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food to move the following motion:

RESOLVED that the Prevention of the Spread of Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Regulation 2003, published in the Gazette as Legal Notice No. 107 of 2003 and laid on the table of the Legislative Council on 30 April 2003, be amended in section 3 in the new regulation 27C(1) by repealing "Any" and substituting "As a measure for preventing the introduction into, the spread in and the transmission from Hong Kong of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, any".

V. Members' Motions
  1. The 4 June incident

    Hon SZETO Wah:
    2. (Translation)

    That this Council urges that: the 4 June incident be not forgotten and the 1989 pro-democracy movement be vindicated.

  2. Clean Hong Kong

    Hon YEUNG Yiu-chung:
    3. (Translation)

    That this Council urges the Government to expeditiously draw up a set of cross-sector and sustainable framework and strategies to reorganize and enhance the environmental hygiene improvement measures of the relevant government bureaux and departments, and to pool the efforts of various sectors of the community, including the business and education sectors, professional bodies, District Councils and non-government organizations, to mobilize the participation of all citizens to ensure that Hong Kong becomes a clean and hygienic metropolis.

    Amendment to Hon YEUNG Yiu-chung's motion
    Hon Fred LI:     (Translation)

    To add "which should include: (a) amending the relevant legislation to raise the penalty level for spitting in public places and to include the performance of community services as one of the penalties; (b) resolving the problem of domestic waste disposal in the public housing estates in the territory; and (c) reviewing the effectiveness of the existing Anti-rodent and Anti-mosquito Campaigns, and implementing anti-cockroach campaigns in various districts;" after "to reorganize and enhance the environmental hygiene improvement measures of the relevant government bureaux and departments,".

    Public Officer to attend : Chief Secretary for Administration

Clerk to the Legislative Council