Press Briefings & Releases
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Transcript of remarks by Chief Secretary for Administration Following is the transcript (English portion) of the remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Rafael Hui, at the press conference with other members of the Constitutional Development Task Force, the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, and Ms Elsie Leung, at Conference Hall, 1/F, Central Government Offices New Annexe, Central today (December 22): Reporter: First of all, now that all of the Government's political reform package has been voted down, what is the Government going to do next? And also, in your statement you were talking about blame. Can you clarify something. Are you basically saying it's because of the pro-democracy camp, like the outcome is because of the pro-democracy camp and is it because of their immaturity. Chief Secretary for Administration: It is ultimately up to the opposition to account to the public as to whether they have any responsibility or none at all, or if there is some responsibility, what it is. As for the Government, we have discharged what we consider to be our part of the responsibility, which is to try, after a period of protracted consultation lasting more than 18 months, to come up with a final, firm proposal that we hope would have the support of at least 40 members of Legco - not 25, at least 40. So do not take the position that if you were to accommodate more, as it were, requests of the opposition there, automatically, will be the passage of the reform proposals. So, as far as responsibilities are concerned, this is what I mean. And I have also said that during the entire process, since October the 19th, I, myself have never, ever in any, any occasion, tried to apportion any blame or responsibility on anybody. But if you look at and if you listen very carefully to the debate earlier, or rather yesterday, yesterday evening, a lot of the speeches of the opposition seemed to be very concerned about who is to take the blame. I don't know why, it's up to them to explain. (Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.) Ends/Thursday, December 22, 2005 |