Path of Democracy – Imagine Hong Kong
Ten Recommended Policy Items to the CE Candidates
1. Governance and Political System: Reforming Governance and Implementing Universal Suffrage
• Promote an inclusive political system by inviting people with different political views to the executive committee
• Refine accountability system by allowing Executive Council members not to vote in favour of the Government’s stance on specific key issues
• Relaunch political reform to achieve Chief Executive election and Legislative Council election by universal suffrage in five years and ten years respectively.
• Institutionalise regular dialogue between the Central Government, HKSAR Government and people representatives (NGOs?) in Hong Kong with public consultation and reporting, to ensure correct implementation of “One Country, Two Systems”
• Protect Hong Kong’s core values and safeguard judicial independence in Hong Kong under the framework of “One Country Two System”
• Conduct public consultation on seven acts listed in Article 23 for at least two years and not to enact Article 23 legislation before a broad consensus is reached among public.
2. Economy: Refine Public Finance Principles and Diversify Economy
• Maintain fiscal reserves level at an amount equivalent to the total of 12 months’ government expenditure
• Review Hong Kong’s tax regime and widen tax base
• Maintain Hong Kong’s open economy and develop Hong Kong as Asia’s trade and services centre by leveraging China’s new economic strategy and finalising the Hong Kong, China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement
• Facilitate innovative technology development by increasing Government’s investment in Research & Development from the current level of 0.7% to at least 2% of Hong Kong’s GDP
• Further develop e-government by innovative technology talent acquisition, especially in the areas of big data and digital technology; transform Hong Kong into a smart city to smarten up Hong Kong people’s daily life
• Establish a cross-sector working group to study the necessity of developing a central code of conduct for players of the sharing economy industry
• Review financial regulations to promote Hong Kong as a FinTech hub
3. Social Welfare: Protecting and Supporting the Elderly with New Initiatives
• Replace the existing Old Age Allowance scheme with an universal retirement protection scheme with various levels of assistance
• Legislate standard working hours by phases. In the first phase, the standard working hours should be linked with minimum wages or applied to employees with monthly salaries below HKD 20,000
• Set up a public body to manage the investment of the funds of the MPF scheme in order to lower management fees, enhance transparency and improve return on investment; allow citizens to use MPF savings for purposes such as buying property and pursuing continuing education
• Increase supply of elderly homes to shorten waiting time; build wheelchair-accessible dormitories equipped with Personal Emergency Link Service device and other elderly-friendly facilities for single elderly people, with priorities given to those living in cage homes or subdivided units.
4. Social Inclusion: Creating a Fairer Society for All
• Rename “ethnic minority” policies to “non-ethnic Chinese” policies; extend the implementation of “Chinese Language Curriculum Second Language Learning Framework” for non-native Chinese speaking students from primary and second schools to pre-primary education; develop “Chinese as a second language” curriculum and Chinese language proficiency test which is recognised by the government, education institutions and employers; invite more non-ethnic Chinese professionals to join the Government’s advisory bodies
• Design corporate diversity guidelines; safeguard the right to breastfeed in public
• Protect the right of visually impaired people to use public facilities with guide dogs
• Review animal welfare laws in Hong Kong
• Legislate against sexual orientation discrimination
• Legislate for comprehensive consumer rights protection and personal data privacy protection
5. Education: Building Talent Pool through Quality Education
• Increase the portion of government expenditure on education to 25% over the coming four years
• Add coding in secondary school curriculum; increase the number of teaching hours for sports, music, as well as arts and culture in primary and secondary schools
• Improve student-teacher ratios in primary schools and reduce teaching hours for teachers; give greater care to students’ emotional needs and attention to students’ behaviours; increase permanent counseling teachers and school social workers
• Simplify school-based assessment (SBA) and suspend if SBA has not been implemented yet
• Review the Primary One Admission System and the Secondary School Places Allocation System to ensure fairness
• Introduce more degree programmes and vocationally-oriented diploma programmes on subject matters, such as big data management, environmental protection technology as well as arts and culture, to facilitate Hong Kong’s economic transformation and diversification
• Establish “First-in-Family” scholarships to open the door for university study
• Offer scholarship for overseas students to enhance internationalization of universities
• Allocate more resources to support students with special needs and create more employment opportunities for individuals with special needs
• Review the governance structure of universities to safeguard academic freedom and preserve adequate institutional autonomy
• Invite more young people to join the Government’s advisory bodies
6. Housing and Urban Planning: Shortening Waiting Time for Public Housing and Conserving Heritage
• Introduce a bottom-up urban planning consultation mechanism, focusing on conserving community characteristics and building elderly friendly and barrier-free community
• Include civil representation and full-time committee members on the Town Planning Board to improve decision-making
• Disclose database for brownfield sites and adopt a “brownfield first” approach for land development
• Prioritise community benefit and strike a balance between development and conversation; create a medium- to long-term land bank through disciplined reclamation outside Victoria Harbour to shorten waiting time for public housing
• Put strict conditions in place for developing country parks to meet necessary demand of the society
• Set clear and achievable public housing targets annually and establish it as a prerequisite of land sales
• Monitor progress of projects under the Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme and review the grading system of historic buildings to protect public interests.
7. Healthcare: Delivering Patient-Centered Care
• Strengthen public-private partnerships to balance resources between private and public healthcare sector, with a focus on medical services with long waiting time
• Ensure the new regulatory regime for private healthcare providers can alleviate burden on the public healthcare system while improving pricing transparency
• Ensure adequate policy support for the high-risk pool under the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme, encouraging young and healthy citizens to buy in with tax incentives
• Expand and strengthen the network of community healthcare centers to provide more care and support to patients with chronic diseases and their families
• Standardise definitions of health insurance policy terms to strengthen protection of consumer rights
8. Environment: Enabling Low-Carbon Lifestyle and Reducing Waste at Source
• Build a sustainable city with low pollution and low emission
• Provide financial aid to the recycling industry, enhancing their recycle and reuse capabilities through partnerships
• Review the Government’s green procurement policy and the independence of environmental impact assessment
• Adopt a waste management strategy that emphasizes reduction at source; implement the Municipal Solid Waste Charging
• Address issues such as sustainable water resources management, renewable energy development and energy poverty while mitigating impacts of climate change
• Review the Scheme of Control Agreement with Hong Kong Electric and CLP, expiring in 2018
9. Public Transport: Tackling congestion and Reducing Transportation Cost
• Set an upper limit for return of MTR and study the feasibility of a buyback
• Review the existing Fare Adjustment Mechanism for public transportation
• Equalize toll fees across Eastern Harbour, Western Harbour, and Cross Harbour tunnels
• Connect the cycleways of different districts
• Implement Electronic Road Pricing
• Establish “mainland officials can only handle immigration procedures in Hong Kong rather than enforcing other mainland laws” as the prerequisite for co-location system of the high-speed railway
10. Sports & Culture: Participation for All and Strategic Development
• Devise long-term development strategy, goals and implementation plan for sports, emphasising its contribution to the manpower enhancement and better management of aging population; develop sports industry to enhance Hong Kong’s international status
• Study the feasibility of opening up sports venues of primary and secondary schools and youth centers for loan and use by general public
• Improve governance of sports associations, align salary structures for professional athletes with international standards, allocate more resources for elite athletes development and groom sports management and marketing talents
• Develop arts and culture industries, as well as building international arts and culture; increase and consolidate venues; support small- and medium-sized art groups on long-term planning and development; nurture arts management and marketing talents
• Actively engage and cooperate with local and international corporations and charities to promote sports and cultural development in Hong Kong
