Policy Address substantive: CE

October 12, 2018

Voiceover: 
Chief Executive Carrie Lam attended a morning programme to answer questions from the public on her second Policy Address, which outlined more than 240 new initiatives.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam:  
The second Policy Address has been very important, and I said this not now, I told my colleagues a year ago that let’s focus our mind on the second Policy Address because this has to be a very substantive one that will address long-standing problems, and try to find solutions and lay out these solutions for the public.

Voiceover: 
To promote a more liveable city, Mrs Lam announced a range of initiatives to ease traffic congestion in her policy blueprint, including redistributing traffic between the city’s three cross-harbour tunnels.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam: 
We have an option of doing nothing for the next five years. We have an option of trying to find a solution that will redistribute more evenly the cross-harbour tunnel traffic and we have really worked on it for over half a year, and now we have a solution. 

Which means we have to raise the toll of the other two tunnels, Hung Hom and Eastern, and we have agreed in principle with the private company to lower the toll of the Western Harbour Crossing. That will have the effect of redistribution and resolve this traffic jam and congestion considerably.

Voiceover:
The Chief Executive also eased some callers’ concerns about the environmental impact reclaiming land under the new Lantau Tomorrow Vision would have.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam: 
We are attaching a lot importance to the biodiversity strategy. Lantau has country parks, has a lot of spacious environment and green and nature and heritage conservation. These are all presented in the (Lantau Tomorrow) Vision document. And we will do conservation first before we do development. Actually a Sustainable Lantau Office has been set up in the last term of Government. So now they will have the money to engage NGOs (non-governmental organisations). I have made sure that they should work with NGOs and district and community groups in order to put in place some of those proposals. And those proposals, of course will contribute to the safeguarding of Hong Kong’s biodiversity.

Voiceover:
Mrs Lam also seeks to safeguard Hong Kong people’s health, by proposing to ban the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and advertisement of e-cigarettes and other new smoking products.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam: 
What is clear that this e-cigarette is not harmless, so it does have some harm. And to pick up this habit of smoking is really not good for the young people, the kids. And statistics in front of us do indicate that this trend of young people picking up the e-cigarettes is very prevalent, the figures are quite serious. So, for the sake of the health of the people, especially the young people, I decided that we should revert an earlier decision made in the last term of the Government.

Voiceover:
The Chief Executive not only attaches great importance to young people's health, but also their quality education, which she said requires several things: a conducive environment, very passionate teachers and numerous support from the Government.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam: 
If it is a question of resources, then there are now at least two initiatives. One is, in fact, it was last year, we have built up big reserve in what we call the Quality Education Fund. It started off with $5 billion but when I looked at the books it clocked up to $8 billion. I thought it’s time to spend to help some of the schools with the bricks replacement and other things, so we are rolling out a programme that will cost $3 billion out of the $8 billion to help the schools to do improvement.

The other thing is in this Policy Address, of the $4.7 billion extra recurrent expenditure, there’s a very big ticket item, (which) is to give schools on a permanent basis, a consolidated grant that would help kids to do a lot of extracurricular (activities). Whether they want to learn this and that, they want to go for competitions abroad, that will come out from that grant.

Voiceover:
On the issue of universal suffrage, Mrs Lam said the Government will continue to strive ahead to find a way forward, in giving people one person, one vote to select the Chief Executive, as that is Hong Kong’s ultimate objective as put down in the Basic Law.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam attended a radio programme today to answer questions from the public on her second Policy Address, which outlined more than 240 new initiatives.

Mrs Lam noted her second Policy Address is important because it has to be very substantive and address long-standing problems.

To promote a more liveable city, Mrs Lam announced a range of initiatives to ease traffic congestion in her policy blueprint, including redistributing traffic between the city’s three cross-harbour tunnels.

The Cross-Harbour Tunnel and the Eastern Harbour Crossing are owned by the Government and the Western Harbour Crossing will be reverted back to the Government in 2023.

“We have an option of doing nothing for the next five years. We have an option of trying to find a solution that will redistribute more evenly the cross-harbour tunnel traffic and we have really worked on it for over half a year, and now we have a solution.

“(This) means we have to raise the toll of the other two tunnels, Hung Hom and Eastern, and we have agreed in principle with the private company to lower the toll of the Western Harbour Crossing. That will have the effect of redistribution and resolve this traffic jam and congestion considerably.”

The Chief Executive also eased some callers’ concerns about the environmental impact reclaiming land under the new Lantau Tomorrow Vision would have.

She made clear the Government attaches great importance to biodiversity and that conservation would come before development.

For protection of public health, the Chief Executive proposed on Wednesday a ban on the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and advertisement of e-cigarettes and new tobacco products.

Mrs Lam noted statistics indicate the trend of young people picking up the e-cigarette habit is very prevalent and the figures are quite serious.

“So, for the sake of the health of the people, especially the young people, I decided that we should revert an earlier decision made in the last term of the Government.”

The Chief Executive not only attaches great importance to young people's health, but also their quality education. As the Quality Education Fund has clocked up to $8 billion, Mrs Lam said it is time to spend on helping schools carry out building improvement works.

On the issue of universal suffrage, Mrs Lam said the Government will continue to strive ahead to find a way forward, in giving people one person, one vote to select the Chief Executive, as that is Hong Kong’s ultimate objective as put down in the Basic Law.