Public Eye | Our spineless officials will never tackle noise pollution

Dump politics, think livelihood issues? Sure, but let's start with something our overpaid bureaucrats have ignored for decades. Public Eye is talking about noise pollution - a livelihood issue our officials dare not touch. Fixing it means tangling with everyone from powerful property developers and the construction industry to home renovation workers and dog owners. Public Eye no longer complains about late-night bar music or after-hours jackhammering from building sites. Whenever we tried, we got bounced from the police to the Environmental Protection Department back to the police. We use earplugs now. The police tell complainants there is little they can do and refer them to the department. But of course, all good bureaucrats are unreachable after office hours, when noise laws are abused. Reach them during the day and they will tell you to call the police when the laws are being broken at night. Public Eye called the police on three occasions recently to report after-hours noise breaches at the former Central Police Station/Victoria Prison complex - a heritage site the Jockey Club is pretending to preserve. Two huge high-rises are now taking shape, destroying the entire ambience of the site. The site's contractor, Gammon Construction, behaves as if there are no noise laws. It is right, in a way. The laws are more a joke than toothless. That is why even supposedly reputable outfits such as the Jockey Club and Gammon think nothing of ignoring them. Public Eye bumped into a very senior Environment Bureau official and asked if noise laws would be made meaningful any time soon. The official candidly confirmed the government did not dare touch it. All hell would break loose, the explanation went, if, for example, the government imposed tougher controls on seemingly never-ending renovation in flats. Our impotent bureaucrats cannot even clean up the dirty air after promising to do so for years, and you want them to act tough on noise pollution? Forget it.

What else did you want Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office boss Wang Guangya to say? That Beijing will anoint Leung Chun-ying as chief executive for a second term? Of course he would say it was too early to say. It is Communist Party culture to keep everyone guessing and to keep its options open. Besides, saying Beijing intended to endorse Leung would expose the pretence that the "small-circle" election was really an election and not an anointment. But let's face it, who else would lust for the job? The pan-democrats are out of the equation. Don't read too much into that Xi Jinping handshake with Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah. Leung is still thick with the Beijing brass. Why else did you think he got Beijing's blessing to ditch two top officials, including a communist loyalist?