A bid to allow legislators' assistants to go on a mainland fact-finding mission has received its first setback.
Carson Ng Ka-chun, chairman of the Association of Assistants to Legislative Councillors, said the union approached Xinhua only to be told that only the group executive could go.
Although the initial response from Xinhua seemed promising in April, last month it declined to make the planned trip open to all Legco aides.
Mr Ng said Xinhua was worried about just who would go on the trip, apparently worried that some aides might use it to obtain China home return permits. Xinhua, which envisaged Democratic Party aides would re-join the association later in the year, would only agree to a request to allow the seven-member Executive Committee to visit.
Mr Ng said he could not accept this conditional offer.
'It would be meaningless to classify us into categories and to merely open the trip to our Executive Committee members,' he said. 'We hope that all members will be allowed to join.' The committee has three Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong aides, two from the 'Breakfast Group' of independents and one each from the Liberal Party and the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance.
