'The more you consult, the more people you engage, the more interests you wish to take care of, the slower you go'. So says Lau Siu-kai, head of the Central Policy Unit, the government think-tank responsible for turning the chief executive's election platform into the policy address. 'It's much more difficult to make policies and get things done in the post-colonial era because in the colonial era the government was the only political power in Hong Kong and it encountered no challenge from other political parties,' he said. 'Even before the handover, the colonial power found it difficult to accomplish its goals.' Professor Lau likened Hong Kong to the US, where he said the term 'demosclerosis' had been coined to describe the effect of many interests competing. 'Incrementalism', he said, was the price Hong Kong often paid. 'You can only take a moderate approach or moderate pace of policy development.' He said this was particularly true with issues like the minimum wage, in which fundamental principles about the free market and non-intervention were at stake. If the government paid attention to public opinion, it had to move carefully, he said, adding that Hong Kong was in a difficult period, with newly empowered 'actors' who were neither from London nor Beijing. 'We're in the process of rebuilding a political and policy consensus which has been lost for many years, even before the changeover to China,' he said. 'We need a new conception of the Hong Kong-China relationship because of globalisation. We need to see how we compete in this new global environment. Because of the extreme income inequality of Hong Kong, we need to rethink whether the government can still stay on the sidelines and let the market decide.' There were new challenges, such as rising food and petrol prices, which would require policy changes. Professor Lau said Donald Tsang's election platform was the result of 'a lot of research work' done by the government before the election. It was then 'transformed' into the main content of the policy address. Promises made in the policy address covered areas and initiatives for the next five years, and only a year had passed, he said. 'But basically I would say that the electoral promises have already been enshrined in the policy address and that the progress we are making to deliver on the promises made by the chief executive is okay. We still have four more years.' Government sources dispute the view that Mr Tsang's administration is making the least possible change. From their standpoint, the government had taken 'bold initiatives' in the past year to tackle thorny issues that had long been deferred, such as health-care financing reform. As for the accusation that Mr Tsang had pulled back from his election promise to increase public participation in decision-making, the government argued to the contrary. 'On a day-to-day basis I can assure you our engineers, architects, even our administrative officers are spending much more time answering questions, attending meetings,' said one government insider. 'The complaint within the government is that these types of engagement assignments are taking the lion's share of their working time.' Professor Lau said the mindset of civil servants was changing out of necessity. 'It is not a matter of whether [they] would like to engage the public or not, or to consult widely or not. They have to do so, because otherwise we won't be able to have any of our bills passed by the legislature.'
