Every year when the Legislative Council goes into summer recess, the press reports on which lawmakers voted the least. The stories feature mainly the same people every year, usually from functional constituencies.
In all fairness, frequency of voting is not the only measure of whether a legislator is working hard. Helping constituents and serving on bills committees can take up a lot of time, not to mention all the behind-the-scenes negotiations on bills with officials.
And when one low-voting member was quoted as saying that many non-binding motions were simply political posturing, I have to say he had a point.
Even so, the story inevitably attracts attention. People know lawmakers' salaries are a multiple of what most people earn. The popular perception is that the lawmakers who represent functional constituencies are lazy and focused only on the interests of their own industries.
This year, the story comes at a time when there is already a public backlash against perceived business greed and wider unfairness in Hong Kong. Everywhere we look, there is a sensitive issue making people angry. As well as the property developers and property prices, we have the outcry over the sale of Octopus card users' personal information, the debate over a minimum wage, and even the court case involving a top judge's niece who was convicted of assaulting a policeman.
Few people would try to defend functional constituencies - they are, after all, aligned with business interests. But the summer recess report does not tell the whole story: change is almost certainly coming.
During my years representing the insurance industry in Legco, I came to two conclusions. First, the job of a lawmaker was becoming a full-time one. The days when members might just drop in occasionally, as if Legco were a club, are over. Second, every legislator, regardless of party or constituency, must consider the interests of Hong Kong as a whole - as if he represented the whole city. The days when small circles with their own narrow interests can have a seat for themselves are surely numbered.