Opinion | A sweetener-free policy address is just what Hong Kong needs
Alice Wu welcomes the belated attention paid to the city's poor and disadvantaged in the policy address, with no attempt to overreach
The fact that the chief executive isn't the life and soul of any party isn't news. He's not the type to dazzle, so when the time came for his second policy address, there wasn't a lot of pre-address fanfare, which was really kind of nice.
Opinion polls leading up to the address showed that public expectations were low.
That may be the most striking thing Leung Chun-ying did right with the address. Low popularity ratings can never be a blessing in disguise but Leung made expectation management work in his favour.
A non-crowd-pleaser has no need of grandstanding statements. So out went the bells and whistles of previous policy addresses, and in came the non-flashy "Support the Needy, Let Youth Flourish, Unleash Hong Kong's Potential" and its content that did not try to overreach.
However, to say that this year's policy address was inconsequential would be grossly unfair.
Despite its presentation, it carried far greater meaning than those that came before. The focus on supporting the needy, which took up the bulk of the policy address, is a first for this city.
For years, we have been outraged by how little the government has done for the poor. The so-called "N-nothing" class, the working poor and wealth disparities have been given considerable media attention for a long time. The response, in real policy terms, has been disproportionate, year after year.
