Why Hong Kong people should support move to end filibustering in Legislative Council

Tony Kwok laments the time and money wasted by opposition legislators who take advantage of chamber rules to block government proposals that many ordinary people would welcome. It’s time to rewrite those rules

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Groups representing the construction trade take part in a protest rally in June this year against filibustering in Legco’s Finance Committee. Because of the filibustering, the Finance Committee approved only about half of the HK$130 billion needed for the construction projects approved in the 2016/17 legislative year. Photo: David Wong

Published: 10:28am, 1 Dec 2017Updated: 6:29pm, 1 Dec 2017

If one has to name a single factor why Hong Kong is losing its competitiveness vis-à-vis its neighbouring cities, such as Singapore and Shenzhen, many people are likely to blame our legislature’s filibustering problem.

Just look at the facts. In the year 2016/17, only 12 of the government’s 29 proposed bills were passed. Many of these bills involved enhancing the development of Hong Kong.

In that year, opposition party members of the Legislative Council called for quorum counts on 95 occasions, wasting many hours set aside for debates. It is sad that these legislators forgot their basic duty as lawmakers, and intentionally absented themselves to force an adjournment of the meeting due to the lack of a quorum.

Because of their filibustering, the Finance Committee approved only HK$58 billion of the HK$130 billion needed that year for construction projects that had been approved by the public works subcommittee. In the past, the Finance Committee took an average of two hours to approve one item; last year, it needed an average of 4.2 hours to do the same.

Dr Leung Ka-lau, the medical sector's representative in the Legislative Council, scuppered a government bill to restructure the Medical Council with his filibustering. Photo: May Tse

In one case during the 2015/16 legislative year, a filibustering lawmaker representing the medical sector single-handedly succeeded in scuppering a government bill to restructure the Medical Council. Without such reform, there is little hope of relaxing the Medical Council’s high entry bar for foreign-trained doctors, and Hong Kong hospitals continue to suffer from a shortage of manpower.