Confrontational politics rarely yield progress. The government of the North Korea has certainly got that down to a tee: provoke, taunt, and threaten. And inside our Legislative Council, we have the screaming, banana-throwing, glass-knocking League of Social Democrats, who, for the past year, have been burning taxpayer money with their regular disruption of Legco sessions.
So no one should be surprised when a recent Chinese University survey revealed record low public satisfaction with our lawmakers' performance. With little done during the last session, the league's fascination with political showboating has left the public with little more than a mere spectator-like relationship with lawmakers.
Worse yet, that brand of politicking has left our government with little to do. As former US senator H. L. Richardson pointed out in his book Confrontational Politics, confrontationists put non-confrontationists at a competitive disadvantage. As a result, our officials have clammed up and disengaged - a reflex response that has unfortunately carried over into public policies and public-engagement exercises.
Take, for example, the consultation on the new Wan Chai ferry pier and helipad that former Legco and Exco member Bernard Chan mentioned on these pages not long ago. The government didn't consult the public on whether we liked the idea; instead, the government made the decision and only left the colour scheme (brown or white?) for public input. And with that attitude, it is safe to assume that the upcoming consultation on the third phase expansion of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre will be just more of the same: what colour would you like it in? Not, do you want it all?
Faux-consultations fail to placate our confrontationists, and with the mother of all consultations - constitutional development - coming up (again), nothing will be achieved if the government plans to treat it the same way as the ferry pier.
It doesn't help when members of the pan-democrat camp have been seriously considering league chairman Wong Yuk-man's by-election ruse to counter any government proposal that doesn't say 'universal suffrage by 2012' - an impossibility that will result in a repeat of the government's defeat in 2005. If the league is able to carry it off by convincing the rest of the pan-democrats to back its ploy, any hopes of 'a step forward' in our democratic development will go down in flames.