New CE's first press conference.
Live Feed:Chief Executive, Mr John Lee
Time: 9:30am, July 5, 2022
https://webcast.info.gov.hk/revamp/eng/livecast.html
Highlights:
- Running late ... not a good sign. What is with these events, they should be precisely timed. 9:35 - Exco members being paraded for a photo shoot.
- Press corps being asked to squat, bend over, remove hats and all sort of conditioning exercises... Just release a standard group photo FFS.... Exco, look to the left, look to the right, lets get it right.
- CE: Civics lesson on what the Exco does and expresses gratitude to Mrs R. IP. who can tell a good story of HK and speak well for HK.
- Nothing else .. was expecting an announcement about Shenzhen border changes in Aug.
Q&A
- Bloomberg in English: Quarantine hotels at max capacity and flights being cancelled. With cases rising what measures are you taking and are you contemplating 5 day quarantine.
-- HK is an international city. Is conscious of the need to remain open.. BUT it is important to address the risk. Sec Health to review evidence and stats and figure out how to contain pandemic and reduce travel headaches. (Because this has not been done in the last 2 years... needs time to look at stats and formulate options..)
- Must continue to keep pandemic under control. If the figures go up and affects HA services.
- Sec Health to look at how to protect high risk demographics, again because this has not been thought about for the last two years. Identify people early - radical new strategy apparently.
(Not bad .. a bit more eloquent in English than expected)- Civil servant pay hike - what is the mechanism, salary reviews, performance reviews etc?
- We need to be fair, because civil servants impact the efficiency (or lack off... the govt). Blah.. blah...
- Public housing wait times & production:
- Dedicated a whole chapter in my election manifesto to this. We are fully committed to this, BUT .... REALITY... issues which require lots of time.
- I am not a CE who chants slogans and will be frank and tell you what the problems are. (Has this not been the case with previous CEs?)
- When will Article 23 be introduced?
- Constitutional duty ... required to be done ASAP. Reviewing common law jurisdictions for similar laws.
- Is the Civil Service pay hike too much? Linked to inflation indexes?
- Not answered.