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SCMP Reporter

Site workers littering Stanley with impunity
I refer to letter by William Brenner ('Selfish attitude must change', September 7). 
I could not agree more about the level of waste in our waters and on our streets. I live in Stanley and it is embarrassing to walk along the waterfront and see so much rubbish washing up on our shores. 
The International Coastal Clean-up Challenge is an annual event and will be taking place in Hong Kong later this month.
It would be wonderful for the government to work with the organisers to educate Hong Kong's communities about refuse disposal and its effects on the environment. 
However, this is not the only problem area when it comes to rubbish. Last Sunday I wanted to take my dogs for a walk along Stanley Beach Road. No6 Stanley Beach Road is a complete eyesore. 
I have called the Environmental Protection Department office several times over the past year about the rubbish strewn about the ground. 
We now have two rubbish bins at the top of Stanley Beach Road, as well as a huge refuse unit blocking the road, but teaching the construction workers to use them is another problem. Is it legal for these workers to dump their rubbish on the ground? 
Why is it that government agencies and the local community patrol and walk  our roads and yet turn a blind eye to rubbish that is all around them? 
Karen Brown, Stanley
Judiciary has lowered the bar
I disagree with Russell Coleman's view in his article ('Room to breathe', August 31). 
When  Canada's  Fraser Institute made its assessment of the competitiveness of Hong Kong [in 2009], it lowered its mark for the Hong Kong judiciary. 
The chief failure of the former chief justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang was his inability to lure people of high calibre to join the judiciary. 
If one goes through the Newly Added Judgments published by the judiciary every day, one will find that those judgments consist of bald statements, with the exception of those made by courts higher than the Court of the First Instance, and one can form the view as to the standard of those judgments. 
On two occasions I complained to Mr Li about judicial abuses at the Probate Registry. He shifted the problem to the Registrar and as a result very little progress has been made. 
Finally, when the National People's Congress Standing Committee slapped the face of the Court of Final Appeal by reversing its ruling in Ng Ka-ling and others v Director of Immigration, Mr Li should have resigned to preserve the judicial independence and the dignity and integrity of the Court of Final Appeal. However, he did not do so. 
As a result, the NPC's Standing Committee went on, without hesitation, to interpret the Basic Law twice. 
S. W. Lau, Central
Narrow defeat for mining cabal
The long-winded electoral process is over in Australia, at least for the time being. 
The country has been soaked to saturation point with excited blethering  over the prospect of a hung parliament and what great fun it would be to have a government teetering on a knife edge of uncertainty, courtesy of (if the truth be known)  a bunch of tax-shy billionaires from the international mining industry, orchestrating things in the background.
Their nominee [Tony Abbott]  may well have been pipped at the post, but they came astonishingly close to appointing a government of their choosing, with their very first shot. Tomorrow is another day. They have plenty more shots in the locker. 
But, for the bamboozled voters, bored and sickened by the entire process, it has been an  irritating disappointment.
Dave Diss, Glengowrie, South Australia
HK needs own office in Manila
I refer to Frank Ching's article ('Manila's ignorance of Hong Kong affairs an insult', August 30). The points raised are very interesting, but Hong Kong does not have a separate liaison or representative office in the Philippines.  
So the Hong Kong government should have gone through the Chinese Embassy during the hostage crisis in Manila on August 23.
From the relevant website, one can see just where we have many local representative offices - for example, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, even Vietnam - but none in Indonesia or the Philippines.  
So with more than 300,000 maids from  these two countries, shouldn't their governments demand a Hong Kong representative office in their countries to help with cases that arise in Hong Kong? 
Timothy Greening, Sha Tin
Banks' junk mail costs trees
I am annoyed by all the pamphlets from banks that end up in my mailbox and urge the banks to stop sending them out. 
They are bad for the environment, because they waste a lot of  trees. If all these pamphlets were counted, I wonder how many tree trunks they would represent? 
Large-scale deforestation leads to soil erosion and, when there is heavy rain, there can be devastating mudslides. Take, for example, the recent catastrophic mudslide in Zhouqu, in Gansu  province. 
Printing and distributing these leaflets is also very time-consuming. Customers then waste their time reading and discarding them. All this time and labour by the banks would be better spent coming up with ideas for sustainable development, such as planting more trees. 
Instead of sending out these promotional leaflets, banks should make better use of today's sophisticated information  technology, for example, official websites, e-mailing services and promotional hotlines. 
Cheng Hoi-wah, Tsz Wan Shan
Vaccine plant would cut waste
I refer to your editorial ('Lessons to be learned over swine-flu vaccine', September 3). 
A vaccine remains the most effective weapon against infectious diseases. There is no  doubt that buying the vaccine was  the correct thing to do. 
However, the delivery of the vaccine was delayed, and by the time the shipment eventually arrived, there was already clear evidence that this swine flu pandemic was not as lethal as was first feared.  
Also, a survey indicated that few people were interested in having  the jab. Why was there no 'escape clause' in the contract to reduce the quantity or partially cancel the  vaccines that had not yet been delivered? It appears that we  were bullied. 
I believe that,  in addition to an unfounded perception of being unsafe, the low vaccination rate was in part due to a 'mistrust' of the vaccine manufactured by profit-driven multinational pharmaceutical companies. 
One solution is to have a home-grown vaccine. Hong Kong is almost the only  developed economy that does not have its own vaccine production capacity. 
Fine-tuning of the overall situation and providing rapid responses are just some of the advantages. 
Therefore, a vaccine production facility should be part of the overall plan to protect the citizens of Hong Kong against future flu pandemics. 
Alexander Lai Chi-keung Kowloon Tong
Curb flat sales to foreigners
We have tens of thousands of investment tools in Hong Kong, one of which is property.  
It is a good investment tool in that it does  relatively well during a financial crisis. It is an attractive investment for foreign investors given the  apparently never-ending upward trend.
However, these people have no connection to Hong Kong.  They may lavish millions of dollars on ridiculously expensive condos only to leave them empty.  Property prices in the city have clearly climbed to  alarming levels.  
Most countries impose some restrictions on foreign investors when it comes to purchasing properties.  
Our great rival Singapore has rules in this regard and we should follow suit. 
Most Hong Kong families are looking for apartments that are below HK$5 million. Therefore, we should not allow foreigners to purchase property below this sum.  
Matt Chan, Yau Yat Tsuen
Don't interfere with markets
The Hong Kong government wants to cool down the property market and last week organised an auction to  increase land supply.
I do not think the administration should use land auctions to  control the property market.  
Hong Kong is known throughout the world for being a city where capitalism thrives. 
Under capitalism,  the property market should be free. If the Hong Kong government  introduced laws to control the price of flats, it would be moving further towards socialist policies.  
Therefore, I  would be against any legislation that would try to cool  the property market. And what if we then experienced problems similar to 2003?
Having policies that lower flat prices is not easy, but it is far more difficult to find ways to raise these prices.  
There are always fluctuations in free-market economies. Sometimes prices are high and then they drop.  Those citizens who cannot afford to buy a flat just now should rent one.
Above all, the government should not do anything to interfere with the property market. It should let it develop freely.  
C. Y. Kwok, Sham Shui Po



Letters