IT IS A strange world indeed when legislator Emily Lau Wai-hing regrets indulging in freedom of speech and suggests that key public policy issues not be discussed in public.
She as much as did so last week after the stock market took a brief scare from her earlier proposal that the Legco secretariat study the linked exchange rate system.
Legislators with the penny stock debacle still in mind instantly fell over themselves in their haste to retract their previous support and even she became apologetic for it.
In fact she said a possible approach for future Legco studies involving market sensitive information would be to make them available to legislators on a confidential basis and not to the general public.
Yes, that was Emily Lau, champion of our civil liberties. Would you believe it?
Listen, Emily, there is nothing wrong with you or any other legislator asking whether we should keep the peg and nothing wrong with society at large debating the question.
If the thing is so fragile that a little talk will destroy it then it is gone anyway and the sooner the better in that case.