HOS and wealth gap 'top issues' for the next chief
The next chief executive should make narrowing the wealth gap and restarting the Home Ownership Scheme a top priority, respondents to a Sunday Morning Post opinion poll said.
They also said relaunching national security legislation should be the least urgent task. Just 6.2 per cent of respondents considered it a top priority.
Nearly 60 per cent of the 512 respondents polled on June 21 and 22 chose narrowing the gap between the rich and poor as top priority for the next chief executive, while 56.9 per cent said resumption of the Home Ownership Scheme was a top policy issue that must be addressed.
Of those polled, 38.3 per cent preferred introduction of a health-care financing scheme, compared with 33.9 per cent who chose establishment of a universal retirement protection scheme.
Among the respondents who attained tertiary education or above, 73.4 per cent called for narrowing the wealth gap, compared with 32.1 per cent of those who had primary education or below.
Of those aged between 18 and 29, 76.9 per cent wanted the next chief executive to narrow the wealth gap, against 47.6 per cent in the group aged 50 or above.
The respondents were asked by pollsters from the University of Hong Kong to choose a maximum of three out of eight policy issues as top priorities for the next chief executive.
The government is under growing political pressure to resume the Home Ownership Scheme, which was launched in 1978 to help people buy subsidised public housing. The scheme was stopped in 2003.
The government has refused to resume the scheme but Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen told the Legislative Council last month that the government would study the proposal and he laid out initiatives to help people acquire homes in his swansong policy address in October. Tsang's term as chief executive ends in June next year.
Dr Li Pang-kwong, the director of the public governance programme at Lingnan University, said the survey findings reaffirmed the major issues facing the public, such as soaring property prices.
Last month, Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, who is widely expected to stand as a candidate for the next chief executive, reignited the debate on the national security legislation.
Fan described the thorny issue as an 'unavoidable challenge' for the next government.
Wang Guangya , the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said during his visit to Macau on June 15 that a national security law under the Basic Law should only be introduced when the city reached a consensus on the issue.
Meanwhile, about 65 per cent of respondents polled agreed that candidates for the chief executive election should name the core members of their prospective administration during the election campaign while 24 per cent disagreed.
