Donald Tsang Yam-kuen finally has a concrete achievement (in more senses than one) to show for his two-year term as chief executive: he has won the 'Battle of Tamar'. Victory came after he gained the support of the Democratic Party in return for assurances on environmental protection, restrictions on the height of government buildings and the net floor area.
The government has also agreed to seek public views on competing models for the $5.1 billion Tamar development project, to be unveiled by the end of the year. Director of Administration Elizabeth Tse Man-yee said focus groups would be formed to come up with the best plan for Tamar.
The government, however, continued to avoid questions about the basis of Mr Tsang's claim - made during an interview with Bloomberg - that 70 per cent of the public supported the Tamar project and only 20 per cent opposed it.
Now that the battle has been won, no doubt attention will shift to other issues. But it is important that the government not be allowed to make claims and then refuse to substantiate them.
The chief executive has provided no evidence to back up his assertion that 70 per cent of the public supported Tamar.
The government later explained that Mr Tsang's figures were 'a summarised description of internal [opinion] polls, meetings with different sectors including the Central Policy Unit, focus groups, and the views of callers when officials appeared on public affairs programmes'.
This suggests that Mr Tsang extrapolated from a hodge-podge of sources, most of which are unavailable to the public and hence cannot be examined and challenged. While polls, meetings and focus groups are all legitimate sources of information, unless the public has the opportunity to make its own evaluation, it is all rather meaningless.