The Legislative Council temporarily added a meeting to question Chief Executive Carrie Lam's "reflection theory", which caused anger and was questioned by the establishment

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will attend the Legislative Council question-and-answer session tomorrow (23rd) afternoon to receive questions from members.

This question-and-answer session is an ad hoc meeting, which will not affect the morning meeting. Carrie Lam has to "go twice". After attending the anti-epidemic press conference in the morning, he will face Members in the afternoon.

Carrie Lam announced the mid-term review of the epidemic prevention policy yesterday, including the suspension of the nationwide testing plan, which is expected to become the focus.

It is reported that this question-and-answer session was not deliberately arranged to stop the nationwide testing, but was based on the major political parties in the establishment, and many of them tended to understand the government’s decision. It is mainly based on "deep blue", and the controversy itself is not too big.

However, some members of the establishment reported that Carrie Lam did not name at the press conference and criticized some lawmakers who had "pressured" to conduct a nationwide test to "reflect", and it was a no-brainer to provoke a fire. It is expected that there will still be many sparks in answering questions.

Carrie Lam has not attended the Legislative Council meeting for two and a half months

By convention, in each Legislative Council session, the Chief Executive will attend four Legislative Council meetings, including at least one policy address reading and three question-and-answer sessions.

When Carrie Lam took office, she attended a half-hour "short question and short answer" once a month. After that, it was suspended due to the storm of amendments to the bill, and it was not resumed until the pro-democracy party resigned last year.

In January this year, when the new Legislative Council took office, Carrie Lam attended the first meeting in person, emphasizing that he would cooperate with the work of the Legislative Council and regularly attend question-and-answer sessions of varying lengths to directly respond to questions from members.

However, Carrie Lam has not attended the Legislative Council meeting since then. Since the outbreak of the fifth wave of the epidemic, the entire SAR government has been busy fighting the epidemic, and traditionally there are fewer formal meetings in February and March (due to the Lunar New Year, the Budget, factors such as adjournment during the two sessions).

In fact, since Carrie Lam announced at a press conference last Thursday that there would be a "bold" adjustment to the anti-epidemic policy, many lawmakers have reported that Carrie Lam is the commander-in-chief of anti-epidemic and has not attended the Legislative Council meeting for a long time, and should accept the Legislative Council. supervision.

At the House Committee meeting last Friday, New Thinking Di Zhiyuan suggested that the Chief Secretary for Administration should come to the Legislative Council meeting to explain the epidemic prevention policy.

At that time, the chairman of the internal council, Li Huiqiong, responded that when he met with the President of the Legislative Council, Leung Kwan-yan, on the same morning, the other party also expressed the hope of inviting the Chief Executive or other officials to come to the Legislative Council to communicate and dialogue with members.

It is understood that the Internal Council then formally invited Carrie Lam to attend a question-and-answer session in the Legislative Council through the Chief Secretary for Administration, Lee Ka-chao.

▼On March 22, the enclosure inspection of Lize House, Ze'an Village, Sham Shui Po ▼

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Li Zijing: Supporters will pursue two epidemic prevention issues

According to regulations, the President of the Legislative Council will determine the order in which members ask questions at the Chief Executive's Q&A session and question time based on the number of questions asked at previous Q&A sessions during the current term. Members who have asked the fewest questions have priority.

The two MPs who had the most opinions on the epidemic prevention policy in the past, namely Tian Beichen from the roundtable on real politics and Chen Kaixin from the election committee, have already asked questions at the last question-and-answer session.

In other words, the chances of the two being arranged to ask questions this time are very low.

However, this is expected to damage the "flavor of gunpowder" of tomorrow's Q&A session. Li Zijing, a member of the Legislative Council of the New Democracy Party, predicted to the author that if he is arranged to ask questions tomorrow, he will attack two questions: why is it so quickly determined that the forced inspection of the whole people cannot be done; the epidemic has not been significantly relieved After the delay, he announced the relaxation of various measures, whether it was derailed from the country, and went in the direction of "coexistence on a flat surface" in the West.

He made it clear that after the Chief Executive announced the new arrangement yesterday, supporters were "disturbed" both online and offline.

Chen Yingxin, a member of the Legislative Council of the Federation of Trade Unions, said that the government said that the best time for universal testing has passed. If we want to "look forward", citizens will pay attention to the government's relaxation of measures, and how to prevent the rebound from causing the sixth wave of the epidemic. For example, whether the real-name system of "travel with peace of mind", three-color health code, etc. can be implemented.

She believes that the Chief Executive's explanation of the suspension of testing for the whole people yesterday was not convincing enough, nor did he explain the specific conditions under which there would be a chance to restart the test. He will ask the public clearly.

The suspension of national testing has caused some reactions from the establishment.

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Minji, Federation of Trade Unions pay attention to future epidemic control methods

However, Cheung Kwok-kwan, a member of the Legislative Council of the DAB who is also a member of the Executive Council, replied to the inquiry that if he is arranged to ask questions, he will pay attention to how to protect the elderly and children after the mid-term review of the anti-epidemic policy, such as better promoting the vaccination of Changxiang and the resumption of classes. After the campus epidemic prevention arrangements, etc., there is no plan to ask about the national testing.

Wu Qiubei, president of the Federation of Trade Unions and member of the Legislative Council, also pointed out that the public is concerned that the epidemic situation is still serious. Missing the opportunity of compulsory national inspection, what methods can the government use to achieve the goal of "dynamic clearing" in the future?

He pointed out that experts from both places have said that the best time for the nationwide compulsory inspection has been missed. If it is done at the wrong time, the original goal will not be achieved. Of course, this is understandable, but the Federation of Trade Unions will pay more attention to what concrete measures the government can come up with. methods to curb the spread of the epidemic.

Senior establishment: Understand the government's decision, but Carrie Lam's remarks make it "disorderly"

A senior pro-establishment faction said privately that, in fact, universal testing is not the top priority at the moment, and it may not be appropriate to do it now. It is the consensus of domestic and local experts, not an arbitrary decision of the SAR government. Those who reacted strongly mainly focused on the members with more "dark blue" positions.

Another senior pro-establishment faction said that since the government has suspended the nationwide testing, it is inevitable that lawmakers want to know more about the logic behind it, especially that many supporters of the establishment faction "must be unhappy", and they should also take care of their emotions.

However, the person added that Carrie Lam called for the suspension, but at the same time, he wanted to criticize the MP. For this reason, as a MP, he must be "out of order" and have to respond.

He pointed out that individuals would not take the right seat, but he did not think that giving strong opinions to the government was "applying pressure".

Some lawmakers sighed in private that Carrie Lam's words called for "reflection", but have you ever asked yourself how many times the government's attitude towards national testing has changed in recent months? I can’t do it. I’m playing the Central Committee, I’m playing with the MPs, and I’m playing with the citizens. I believe people with different political views agree, and it’s Carrie Lam who should reflect the most.”

Lam Cheng Ming went to the Legislative Council in the afternoon to applaud the pressure from the members. Leung Jun-yin: It is a good time for the members to ask questions about customs clearance | Lam Cheng did not respond directly to whether to give priority to customs clearance with the Mainland: no conclusion on today's report is needed. Lawmakers push for tougher prosecutions to urge pressurers to reflect on costs