The Perfect Political System

Recent events in Australian politics had put me off writing social opinion pieces. Not that I have become less opinionated, but I just feel like I couldn’t be bothered anymore. The disappointment on both sides of the so-called Australian politics was just too overwhelming. However one of the discussions at tonight’s ABC’s “Q and A” got me thinking about something – is there really a perfect political system? Is politics ever meant to be for the benefit of the society?

These questions came about when they discussed about how China refuses to change politically but embraced western economic systems with open arms. They questioned how this is possible and whether this is, to an extent responsible. Now there is no doubt that China has become the core of the global economy. A lot of things, if not everything, are hinged on the Chinese market. When Deng Xiaoping opened up China economically, there was never an intention to change its core political ideology. This is why we have what we now called the June 4 Incident. The greatest concession China ever made was to establish the “One Country Two Systems” first with Hong Kong then with Macau. Even that, the autonomy is not complete and there were tensions from time to time over ideological controls.

People might condemn the political practice in China, but one thing I think a lot of people were never aware of was that China never really had a prolonged history of democracy. The Kuomingtang (KMT) Government was short-lived and corruption ridden, which I personally do not think left a good impression on the people of China at that time. Otherwise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not have a chance to undermine them during the war against Japan, which eventually led to the civil war and the KMT fled to Taiwan. So strictly speaking, China has been mostly under dynastic rules of successive kings and then a one party rule of the modern government. The good part of this is that things get done. I personally do not think the Great Wall of China would come into being if it were under democratic rules. No matter how much people criticised the Communist Party, they did get things done and brought China back up from the “Slicing of the Chinese melon” status to now a major player in international politics. This is the strength of single power rule. Similarly, Hong Kong never had real democracy under the British colonial rule. And at that time lots of things got done and Hong Kong evolved from a small fishing village to now a economically important metropolitan. Looking at now, with people throwing bananas in the semi-democratic Legislative Council, councillors seemed to have lost sight of what they were supposed to do.

These kinds of issue do happen in the western democratic establishments. The recent Australian election was just a farce of who is going to be voted out rather than which capable person is going to be voted in. There is no doubt that Labor lost because people wanted to vote them out and the Coalition won because people wanted to vote the Labor out. Tony Abott is not a popular choice to represent Australia with his “suppository of knowledge” and his decision to shy away from “Q and A” to debate with Kevin Rudd but appeared on “Big Brother” to talk up the hotness of his daughters. Democracy as great as it sounds, at the end of the day is just another tool of the privileged few. This was further proved last week when the American Government was shut down because the Republicans were playing their political games. These politicians, under the banner of democracy were supposed to seek benefit for the general public they claim to be representing. However, the government shut down saga exposed that all they cared about were their own power at the expense of average families getting paid so they could pay their bills.

Another common thread in all political systems is the act of corruption. We always hear about how corrupted in China is because of the one party rule. There is no doubt about that. The system has become so nepotic that it is virtually a family and good friends business. However one thing people tend to forget is that corruption exists in western democracy too. Australian political scene is constantly marred by corruption from council to state levels. Australia might have better systems to detect and litigate corruptive acts but if they think they are better than developing countries and non-democratic entities, they are just see the spike in other people’s eyes without seeing the logs in their own.

Of course there is the issue of oppression and persecution that were commonly exposed under single power systems.  The Cultural Revolution would always be remembered and not to mention stories from Iran, Iraq, Syria and North Korea. However, does that mean under democratic rules there would be no persecution and oppression? I personally do not believe so. These practices still happen but unlike the red terror that involves blood, under democracy it became things that played out in courts or during parliamentary sessions where people expose each other’s dark secrets to shut other people up. Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword, but in politics both are equally deadly.

To be honest I do not have an answer to what political system is better. For me if Adam and Eve were not left to their own device, we could still be enjoying free lunches in the Garden of Eden instead of working hard to pay our bills. So it seems right from the beginning mankind is not capable of self-governing. God might have given us a brain to figure things out and thus all those political ideologies and system, but maybe at the end we still need a divine intervention to set us straight. Could this be global warming? I don’t know. But the question is if this divine intervention arrives, where could we go? As we are no longer living in any paradise anymore.

Hong Kong - 16 Years On

On 1 July 1997 Hong Kong was finally returned to the People’s Republic of China and thus ended 150 years of British colonial rule. It was a big day for China and a mixed one for the Hong Kong people. I was not there at that time because I preferred to keep myself distanced from this whole thing and went overseas to Hawaii for the sunshine and beaches. Nonetheless, I still watched the broadcast on CNN. I also spoke on the phone with my parents. That year that day, the sky was pouring torrential rain in Hong Kong and everything was drenched. I was joking about that with my parents saying that even the heavens were mourning over the change.

16 years onward, 1 July is still a day of mixed feelings for a lot of Hongkongese. This year under the torrential rain brought by a potential typhoon attack, around a 100 thousand people took it to the streets to voice their discontent with the current political situation. This is the 10th year for the 1 July demonstration. I personally had not participated in anyone of them as I moved overseas not long shortly after the handover. I was in need for an identity I could identify myself with. However this does not mean I care less (or couldn’t care less) about Hong Kong. I still have family and friends there and I still make regular visit to this Pearl of the Orient.

A lot of people continued to ask me whether Hong Kong has changed since the handover. My usual reply is “how could there be no change?”  Hong Kong was promised with 50 years of political stability and a status of autonomy through the establishment of the Special Administrative Region, and China seems to be keeping its promise. However, there were subtle things in the past 16 years that still triggered the nerves of the Hong Kong people. One of them was the progress for democratisation. The people of Hong Kong have been fighting for greater autonomy through a more progressive movement for democratisation, especially the ability to choose its own Chief Executive. However, the pace has been lacking and the discontent against this has grown with time. The fact is Hong Kong never had democracy and was doing very well, so why fighting for it now?

Personally, I think this reflects the continued distrust of the Hong Kong people with the Chinese government.  The irony is that in my opinion the Chinese government has been extremely tolerant with what is happening in Hong Kong and in fact has been pouring resources into Hong Kong to keep this place vibrant. So what cause this distrust prevailing in Hong Kong? One of the reasons I could think of was that China has never recovered from the image it established during the “June 4 Incident” in 1989. Certainly, there were already a few generations of leaders since then, but from the Hong Kong people point of view (probably also some international politicians too), it was a public display that the Chinese authority could turn hostile at any time and the only way to secure a stable and free future is to have democracy in Hong Kong.

Another reason for this fight for democracy was the incompetence of the current Hong Kong Government to present itself as autonomy. There were three Chief Executives since the handover so far and none of them was able to make the Hong Kong people feel “secure”. The first Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa proved to be incapable of governing despite earning the good wills of the Chinese authorities initially. Donald Tsang, an ex-government official who succeeded him was initially seen as a “Hong Kong local”. However, his background as an ex-colonial official and his position of being torn between the pro-China and pro-Hong Kong sectors exhausted his ability to govern. Further the later scandals about potential corruption had further tarnished his reputation as the Chief Executive. The latest and current Chief Executive CY Leung has long been regarded as the brown nosing kid for China who couldn’t be trusted. Further his dirty tactics during the “election” against Henry Tang and his repeated lies about his wrong doings uncovered by the media had further eroded people’s respect for him across the territory. However, in my opinion, the major concern for the Hong Kong people was that they did not exactly see these Chief Executives as their representatives to the Chinese authority. This is because they were elected by a small circle up high and the Hong Kong people never had a chance to choose.

For me being able to choose the Chief Executive of Hong Kong is a comforting move that the Chinese authority failed to see. It is not just about democracy but about the feelings that the Hong Kong people have. Simply able to choose who represents could them could make them feel that at least they were being heard. However, from the Chinese authorities’ point of view, they do not want to see anyone from the democratic camp to win the general election and become a sore in the eye for them. But what the Chinese authority failed to see is the great pacifying effect that a general election could bring to Hong Kong. The fact is once this aspect is being satisfied, Hong Kong would be a lot more stable and this could only work to the advantage of the Chinese government both economically and politically. This is not about ideology but practicality. At the end of the day, quality golden eggs could only be laid by a goose that is happily satisfied with life.

The Big Brother Politics of Australia - The Recent Labor Leadership Spill

Ok the bloodbath is over. It was quite a frantic week in the Australian politics. There was yet another leadership spill and finally after several attempts Julia Gillard was removed and Kevin Rudd was reinstated. Watching this whole saga unfolding was like watching some bad reality series of six seasons – there is nothing left to exploit with the characters, so please move on to the finale already.

Although it feels like a cliff hanger on the day of the saga, it was of little surprise that Julia was finally replaced by Kevin.  Labor has been really bad in polls. As bullish as they wanted to be, they all know, well we all know, well the whole world knows that as long as the Liberals are willing to attend the party, the government is ready there at the buffet table in September. It is only a matter of how many dishes they could consume. So replacing Julia with Kevin is a desperate move at a desperate time for the Labor party.  The question now is how long would Kevin last? The thing is I don’t think Kevin is very popular still inside the Labor Party but he has become the necessary evil for the party to stay in power. What could happen is a year or two down the road they might try to replace him again. However, this would risk the Labor losing the remaining trust of the Australian public in them, and it would take a long time for them to recover from that (and this would be bad news for Bill Shorten).

As for Julia, she probably would “retire” and enjoy her latte (does she drink latte? Or would she prefer mocha or flat white?) for a little while with her 200K per year life pension before going back into her high paying legal profession or starting a consultation business for private companies. Either way, she is better off both financially and personally for life. A lot of people still think that Julia got removed because she is a woman. Seriously, this might play a part but then at the same time the truth is she never recovered from the “backstabber” image when she replaced Kevin 3 years ago. With this ghoul on her back, it would be hard for her to recover in any sense. And as much as a lot of people want to deny it, Australian politics has become a reality TV series and who wins the competition is based on image and popularity. Also Julia, as much as she wanted to do good the fact that we got one new tax after another after being promised with no new taxes at the last election just further cemented her image as a “liar” (although I personally did not agree with how certain media or media personalities treated her in this aspect).

So what are we, as Australians left with? Well, Tony Abbott now has a new A game to play against. And as a B game player, he would need to work much harder to get the job he desperately and unshamingly wants. In the past few years, he has been resolving to two roles only – producer of the series “Julia Gillard as a liar” and the producer of the B grade horror series “I Don’t Know What You Did Today and Ever After But It Is Scary Anyway”. Now with Kevin at the helm of the “New Labor” and he being the expert of those roles (we have already seen this from his “acceptance” speech), Tony Abbott needs to find new tactics to deal with this “new opponent”. The thing is Tony was never tested against Kevin. While Tony, despite his lack of intelligence speeches one after another, was seen as an easy win against Julia in the past few months. However, this last minute switch over immediately rings the alarm bell for the Liberals. Polls already showed a surge of support to Kevin Rudd against Tony Abbott. And for Kevin to stay in this honeymoon popularity, he only needs to continue exercising his charm and cashing in the last bit of sympathy from the Australian public. But for Tony Abbott, he really needs to step up with his intelligence and stop saying silly things such as “Malcolm Turnbull virtually invented the Internet in Australia” in the public (could you imagine him saying that when meeting other international heads of state?).  This is because Kevin Rudd would not hesitate to exploit all these silliness and further paints him as an idiot to the public. If Kevin Rudd is good with anything, he is a master of the reality show. He knows where he could solicit public support and let his opponents to undo themselves and go under.

Without a doubt the reality series of the Australian politics has got a dramatic turn last week. But how long would this sustain the public’s interest is still yet to be seen. The next few months would be crucial as I could see that the Liberals would not hesitate to play dirty (as they always do) while the Labors would be taking every opportunity to milk any mishaps from the opposing camps. As for the Australian public, unfortunately they would have no choice but continue to follow this reality series for as long as it lasts.

The Fight of 457 Visa

The recent debate about the change of the 457 Visa requirements has sparked debates on whether it is a racist policy in the public arena. For readers overseas, the 457 Visa allows employers to sponsor overseas workers to Australia to “fill certain skill gaps”. However, after the repeal of requirement in 2001 by the Liberal Howard Government to mean test the skill set shortage to do so, it has been regarded as a means for some employers to just freely import foreign workers at a lower cost. This puts the local Australian workforce at risk as they are competing at a lower wage with foreign workers who might have similar skill sets. The situation is similar to bringing manufacturing outsourcing at a lower cost into the country.

The Labor Party is keen to change it to reinstate the requirement for skill mean testing so the system would not be, according them, “rotted”. While the Unions are very welcoming about this policy change, it is not so much with employers who claimed that it would make employing foreign workers harder and “does not meet the labour market needs”. As missiles were shot all over the place, especially with Don Randall, a Liberal MP said the policy as racist, I can’t help but think, is that so?

As a migrant myself, I look at the situation from a different point of view. While the 457 Visa gives foreign workers are way to come to Australia, are we doing it in the right way? Certainly, there might be skill sets and expertise that are not available, especially when we talk about high level positions or highly specialised professions, but for example, is it really that hard to find, for example a baker for a bakery that operates by Mr Randall? I don’t want to sound sarcastic or anything, but with hundreds of people trying out Masterchef every year, and now a new reality series just about baking, is it really that hard to find a local baker to do the baking for Mr Randall? Or is it actually just cheaper to hire one from Vietnam (as he did) and lower the overhead? Is Mr Randall really passionate about the diversity of the Australian society or he is more passionate about more bread at a lower cost?

What really bugs me about Mr Randall’s comment is his using of racism as an attack to the bill. I mean seriously? Certainly now even in the Parliament there is a reflection of cultural diversity with Penny Wong becoming the sore in the eyes for a lot of Liberal MPs, so how is a policy that helps the ethnically diversed Australian workforce racist? The thing is, in case Mr Randall does not know, Australia, I mean modern Australia, not the one Mr Randall might have grown up in, is made up by a huge diversity of ethnicities. So can I ask Mr Randall how in the world that a policy aiming to protect this huge diversity of people in Australia be considered as racist? I am Australian and I don’t think it is racist. If Mr Randall thinks that by throwing this out he is doing his "White Man Duty" to protect the minorities, maybe it is a bit 20 years too late.

As some said the policy is xenophobic, maybe it is from a certain angle, but then the policy change is not about shutting out people from Australia but to ensure that employers source for suitable candidates within the country first before going external. This applies to a lot of companies that usually open up new positions internally first before going out to external recruitment when a candidate for the position could not be found. So from this angle, I don’t see how the policy is xenophobic. With projected unemployment rate hitting 6% in Australia soon, isn’t it the Government’s duty to protect the Australian workforce? If you look at other countries in the world, you might understand that working overseas, for example in the States is not as easy as you think either. So why should Australia give employers who only want to import cheap workers a free ride?

How the whole saga would unfold is still yet to be seen but I personally do think that if a policy is about promoting fairness to the people that a Government is responsible for, then people should put away their personal agenda, be it to just say no to a cabinet he doesn’t like or just felt that he would be gravely affected, to support that is something generally good for the Australian society. Then again, as I usually do, do these politicians actually care about the Australian public? Or they care more about their own jobs and financial security?

Forget Me Not? - June 4 1989

I have been avoiding writing a piece about the June 4 Incident around that time to avoid getting too emotional and not objective enough. It is more than a week after that day so I think I could start writing now.

On 4 June 1989 the Chinese government mobilised its army to “clear the venue” of protestors. The event was termed differently in different countries. While in Hong Kong we termed it as the June 4 Incident, in most parts of the western world it was regarded as the “Tiananmen Square Massacre”. That night a lot of people died, more people’s souls did too.

Fast forward to present, nearly 25 years after that fateful night, the Chinese community in Hong Kong is still commemorating this day; and for the west, probably less so. However, this year in Hong Kong, for the first time there were people saying that we should forget about the June 4 Incident and move forward. These suggestions ignited another series of debates across the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Hong Kong had undergone a lot of changes. Whenever people knew that I was originally from Hong Kong they are interested to know whether Hong Kong has changed since the hand over in 1997. I would tell them change is expected so of course there are changes. While changes are structural and political, core values seemed to be remaining quite intact. Hong Kong is still a “work hard and live a good life” kind of place. However, as the wheel of time continues to turn, ideologies in Hong Kong have evolved too. I remember earlier this year when I was back for a family affair, I saw a TV forum discussing about what does it mean to be a person who loves his country – referring to China. The slogan of “Loving China, Loving Hong Kong” has been around for ages since the hand over, but the meaning differs to different groups of people. At the forum there was a girl representing the “China came first” camp. As I watched the debate unfolded, I was astonished by the bullying attitude she had whenever the discussion did not go her way. She would point her finger and tell people off in an authoritative way and also trying to shut people up by talking over them. My jaws dropped as I had never seen anything like that on Hong Kong TV before. TV forums are known to be civilised and rational, until that night.

At that time I thought “Yeah Hong Kong really has changed” and didn’t think about it much further. However, the recent comment from some people about forgetting June 4 really triggered a nerve in me. I was disappointed – how could you forget an incident when so many people lost their lives in one night? Not matter what your take is on this event, it is still in our history and forgetting this part of the history is not something that anyone should do. Does that mean we don’t need to learn anything about this anymore? Does that mean that lives lost are no longer valuable anymore? Or we are just applying the “Winner takes it all” principle to this pivotal historical incident in the Chinese history? Surely time had moved on and so does life, but then when we talk about June 4, it is not just something that should be taken lightly. China certainly doesn’t when you see how they usually tighten security in Tiananmen Square every year around this date. So if the Chinese government has not forgotten about this date (surely they learnt something out of this disregarding the outcome) should the people of Hong Kong be doing so? If Hong Kong no longer cares about what it stands for in Chinese history, is there still a role for Hong Kong being a Special Administrative Region in China? These were the questions I had in my head at that time.

Certainly, I don’t want to get too emotional or worked up about this whole thing, but then I did feel that if one wants to erase the June 4 Incident, they are no different from  people who wanted to erase the fact that Japan did invade China during the World War II. If they want to remember the latter, they have to remember the former – one cannot be so double standard about history, especially history involving the loss of lives. In my opinion, any suggestion to discount something of such importance is a step to the dark side of humanity – and that would bring no good to anyone.

Council Merger a Political Game?

The recent debate about the merging of councils is another demonstration of political arrogance. Currently there are about 37 councils around Sydney. Each of them is responsible for dealing with local issues from approving development of properties to keeping the streets safe from fallen branches. The talks of merging councils were along the line of operational efficiency and economy of scale. However, as a person who has appreciated what my local council (Randwick) had done for the area, I seriously doubt the motivation behind this is purely operational.

I don’t want to point finger to anyone but it was already pointed out by academics that merging councils could not achieve economy of scale so that particular argument is already proved to be bogus. However, as a common local resident, I could see all the detrimental problems that could be caused by such merger.

First of all, local councils operate within the local setting. Thus they are more familiar with what is happening locally and what the local concerns are, and more importantly where do those concerns come from. Just think about this, residents of Leichhardt, an inner west suburb would have different concerns as compared to residents of say Coogee, a beach side suburb. The reasons behind these concerns would be completely different even if it looks like they are the same e.g. a development proposal application for expanding a house or building an apartment block. With a mega council that focuses on “efficiency” and economy of scale overseeing these diversely different areas, I doubt any in depth investigation would be carried out to sort out the rationale behind these seemingly similar concerns. What would result is that a “one-size fits all” solution to be applied to similar issues that would in the end resolve nothing and left everyone unhappy.

Another potential issue that I can see with the merger of local councils is that there would be a lack of understanding of the local situation. For example, if the new headquarter of the mega council was located in the city people would be commuting to the city to work. Unless these people needed to travel from the relevant suburb to work, they would not have a sufficient understand of local situations to carry out informed decisions. For instance, a mayor who lives only in the inner city suburb would not be able to understand traffic situations in the roads around the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick during the peak hours unless he / she makes an effort to go there. Even so, without a day in day out experience of the local situation, there surely would be gaps in local knowledge about these situations. Under such circumstance could we still rely on the mega council to make correct and informed decisions?

Also no matter how the structure of the new mega council is sculpted one question remains – who is going to make decisions of local issues? How many layers of bureaucracy is required to have an application or complaint being dealt with? Also with so many areas involved, how are jobs being prioritised using standards that are fair and equal to residents of all areas? I wonder whether all these logistic issues were considered before someone throwing out such merger proposal in the name of economy of scale. Personally I think helping residents is not just about saving money but what you can really offer. If you lose sight of this there is no point of being in a government service, which I think we already have enough half-hearted politicians in the State and Federal levels. Also we have already throughout the years witnessed the detrimental effect of decisions made purely out of the aim save money. What we need is better financial management for certain councils not merge them to save money.

If the purpose of the merger is for economy of scales, there bound to be restructuring and lay offs in the mega council to trim “duplicate functions” that currently reside in individual councils. That could leave us with less people doing the same job because a number of roles were considered as “duplicate” locally. How would that be more efficient then? People who propose that might argue that this would not happen but to be honest, have we seen any merger in history that did not result in restructuring and layoffs?

Further, one of my biggest concerns is about the responsibility of these mayors after the merger. When a mega council is created, it will cover suburbs of greatly diverse cultures and people. However, to get re-elected, extensive local approval is completely out of the window as people who want to be elected only need to focus in certain areas, e.g. wealthier suburbs like Potts Point and Darlighurst. This lack of need for local approval as a scrutinising mechanism of performance for councils would only contribute to further dis-engagement of the mega council with certain localities. I personally do not think that this is a healthy way to go to manage local areas and suburbs.

One of the arguments about merging the councils is to reduce the chance of corruption. This argument lacks weight in my opinion as corruption happens if it needs to happen, no matter what your structure is. The only way to avoid corruption is to have tougher sentences and more comprehensive administrative mechanisms to avoid them. Also education is key to reduce mechanism. Corruption is an evil that I personally do not think could be eliminated by any structural management. It would be naïve and unrealistic to put this as an argument for the formation of a mega council.

I personally genuinely hope that this merger would fall apart. However, if the call is in those politicians’ hands, I doubt that this kind of consultation would end up in a non-merger. I sincerely hope that some responsible local mayors would have enough weight to stop this kind of crazy ideas to become a reality.

One Country Two People

It is no secret that since the opening of Hong Kong to Chinese travellers tensions between the two areas have been building. The difference in culture and life style had become more and more apparent and clashes in these areas have escalated discontents between the two groups of people under the One Country Two Systems rule. These issues were brought to the forefront earlier this year when a new television show portrayed them point blank at the audience. There were backlashes and supports alike. The New York Times even covered that in one of their articles.  But the issue here was, if these problems do not exist there would not be material to be put on. Further does avoiding such issue by not talking about them help at all?

The show went on from being sanctioned in China (the southern region of China can receive television signals from Hong Kong, but all ad times and news were replaced by “local” contents instead) to become one of the most popular shows in Hong Kong as people started to appreciate it in a different light. But the issues that were raised continue to exist and continue to pose problems across the borders.

Opening Hong Kong for Chinese tourists to visit was a measure adopted to save the Hong Kong economy during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC, which was also known as the Financial Tsunami locally). The measure did save the Hong Kong economy as a lot of wealthy Chinese tourists took advantage of this opportunity to come to this shopping paradise and buy genuine products (as compared to the predominance of counterfeit products in the mainland). This kept the retail business alive and thus the general economy. It was a great move, but then it opened up something that was more deep-rooted – the difference in life style and perception between the very distinct groups of people.

Hong Kong people have prided themselves as the more etiquette trained and sophisticated group as compared to the mainlanders (people from mainland China). The colonial rule probably had done good to “class up” Hong Kong in a way that common social etiquettes were well observed and respects for others are highly valued. So it is not surprising that the more “earthly” behaviours of a number of Chinese visitors continued to cause discontents among the Hong Kong residents. Before the influx of Chinese visitors, in the up market CBD and shopping areas, there weren’t people squatting along the streets smoking. Also spitting in the streets was virtually eliminated after decades of continued education. So it is not surprising when all these happened, a lot of Hongkongers were very upset. However, this was tolerated at that time because they needed these visitors for the money.

However as the economy recovers and the need for this money lessens, Hongkongers have become less and less tolerant. At the same, the mainlanders who still think that they are “doing Hong Kong a favour” have grown more and more arrogant. Under such circumstance, clashes are bound to happen. Last year when a certain brand name specialty shop started to blatantly practice favouritism to mainland shoppers (which was understandable as these shoppers do shop without considering the price), it caused an outrage among the Hong Kong communities. Further when stories about the complete lack of respect to the Hong Kong society by mainlanders such as parents asking kids to urinate or even excrete on public transport or in front of other people’s shops surfaced, tensions between the two groups of Chinese immediately reached new levels.

In the midst of all these, Hongkongers is by no means pure and innocent either. There were local companies that organise these tours aiming to rip off mainland tourists. Stories about tourists being forced to shop at overpriced outlets were not uncommon. These so called “shopping tours” were very cheap to sign up for but people who joined would be butchered financially during the trip. These unsuspecting victims soon started to fight back by complaining and going to the media. Calls for compensations were frequent. Funny enough though, it seems that recently some of these mainlanders were skilful enough to even exploit these by signing up and then complain to the media asking for compensations that were a lot higher than their sign up costs.

Having moved overseas for some time now, I was repeatedly told by my friends in Hong Kong that I am lucky that I do not need to tolerate or deal with these mainlanders. Nonetheless, I was by no means immuned from them during my last visit home. Mum and I were at the check out of a shop in Tsimshatsui, one of the major shopping districts, when mum was pushed aside aggressively (they nearly knocked her down) by a group of Chinese women jumping the queue to the cashier. I was shocked to experience this first hand but immediately could understand the anger of the Hongkongers when considering this is what they are dealing with day in day out.

There is really no easy solution to this. The mainlanders and Hongkongers are basically two distinct groups of people. As nice as it sounds to have a unification the social differences would continue to exist until the current generations of Hongkongers disappear. But this will take decades to happen. The lack of intervention form both sides of the border did not help either. It seems that at this point it is really up to the civilians to tackle this difficult problem, but I don’t see either party would be giving in. I am sad to see that it comes to this but then being sad about something that has no solution did not help either. I just sincerely hope that one day this could be resolved in a civilised manner and the two territories could have a real unification for the better of the Chinese race, if that is going to happen at all in my life time. 

It was a glorious moment for China, but has the shine worn off?

An Election With No Selection

As September is drawing closer and closer, I feel more and more torn about the whole Federal Election thing. This is the second time that I don’t really want to vote for anyone in an election.

Democracy gave us an illusion that we have a choice but in fact from the Australian politics perspective that choice does not exist. Well, it does exist but how do you choose from candidates who, one of them does not seem to know what she is doing or saying but just asking for more tax payer money and the other who only cares about adding the Prime Ministership to his CV and does not care a darn about the general Australians? In the last election, we still have a stronger but smaller party to choose from but this time round, that option is gone too as it seems that they have lost the plot too.

At the moment there is no best bet for the September election. If I chose Labor , then I will be participating in another round of fiasco of mismanagement and lack of vision. Probably more tax increase because no money for other things. However I am always surprised that when it comes to their own welfare there is always money. I still continue to question about why retired politicians who are receiving huge sum of money as consultants for private businesses need the Government to provide an office at Macquarie Street while they don’t need it. Also why do we need to pay for their airfares every year when they have more than enough money to fly business class or even first class themselves? Every time a new tax is introduced I question that. Even worse was the recent news that the Labor Government just increased the payout of severance packages for people in their offices if they did not get re-elected – which is quite obvious this is a hush hush approach to save their financial asses.

As for the Liberals, they are really nothing liberal about. They are against basic human rights such as marriage equality. Now I don’t want to get into the whole religious debate. For me it is not about religious righteousness but about basic rights. Faith and believe is a very personal relationship between an individual and God, and I do not condone using your religious agenda to achieve personal preferences. Not allowing people to get married because of your personal religious agenda as a Catholic is similar to what you attack about the Muslims. Yes Tony Abott I am looking at you. Further Tony Abott is not the most religious Catholic in the world for he nearly had an illegitimate son! Who is he to cast the first stone and cry foul to marriage equality? Also the Liberals lack of vision about the NBN project is a blatant way of putting Australia’s economic success in the future in jeopardy. Do they really care about Australia? Or they just care about whether they have enough money for their retirement funds in the future?

As for the Greens, well I really got nothing more to say about them except having my face’s colour turning green when I imagine them to become a ruling party (which they would not anyway). While I appreciate a lot of their efforts and their visions, nothing much was accomplished in the last few years apart from showing that they do have a say in the Parliament.

Seriously in the last three years, the Australian political scene showed us nothing but fiasco and stupidity.  Apart from more taxes being introduced and people yelling at each other and throwing names at each other each week, what has been done? Julia’s speech on misogynist will still go down as one of the great speeches for women politicians but Australia needs a Prime Minister who actually has a clear vision and at the same time the ability to bring this vision to reality. Julia Gillard might have a vision but at this stage she seems to lack the ability to carry that out. As for Tony Abott, he is neither a visionary nor a capable person from what he exhibited in the last three years. He just look like a spoiled brat who knows nothing about life but just want more from his supporters. If he became Prime Minister (which probably he would) Australia could enter a long period of dark age for nothing would be done because Tony Abott will just be focusing on staying in power and getting rid of differences in the party and the Parliament. Debates will become talk shows that don’t even scratch the surface of any social issues.

I wish the No Parking Meter Party was a federal level political party as at least its agenda is out there and I do genuinely do not like parking meters in certain areas. 

ICAC Vs ICAC

Recently got quite disturbed by a piece of news in Hong Kong. The ex-head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong Timothy Tong Hin Ming was reported to have involved in corruptive acts while he was still on the job. Reports have it that he was spending public money to hold and invite Chinese officials to banquets and providing them with expensive gifts. Also involved in this was his partner, who was also using the ICAC money to attend these functions. It was revealed that during his office Timothy Tong had hosted more than 20 lavish banquets for top office holders in China and spent over HK$200,000 on expensive gifts to these Chinese officials.

At the time of writing the Timothy Ton had gone into “hiding” and still has not come out to explain his actions nor was there an official inquiry to this whole mess. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong Leung Chun-Ying seems to be unwilling to get involved at this stage claiming that the ICAC should complete their own investigation before other public inquiry should be carried out. There were also ex-ICAC officials coming out trying to salvage the now tattered image of ICAC claiming that Timothy Tong does not represent ICAC and so people should not judge the operation of ICAC according to the behaviour of this person. At the same time other ex-ICAC officials have started a petition for a public enquiry into this whole saga.

There are several things that troubled me in relation to this whole thing.

Firstly, The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Leung Chun Ying did not come out to make a statement immediately. His first public statement was only made two weeks after the news broke. Yes he might want to have more information before making a formal statement but then as a responsible Chief Executive, two weeks is too much considering that this is not a trivial issue – corruption claims against the body set up to fight against corruption. There are members of the Legislative Council who criticised Leung for trivialising this matter, which I do not blame them for their frustration and anger. Seriously, does Leung think that announcing no National Day fireworks is more important than making a statement and stand on the corruption claims on Timothy Tong? As the head of Hong Kong, it really baffles me about his ability to prioritise work.

The other thing that worried me was that so far there wasn’t a list of those Chinese officials that Tong was “building relationship” with. I do not know whether such a list exists but then it would be important for the public to know who these people are so that transparency could be achieved when it comes to a fullscale investigation. Who these people are could help to reflect Tong’s motivation to shower these people with gifts and inviting them to lavish banquets. I supposed maybe it is hard to obtain such a list as this would get the Chinese Government involved, but two weeks on the lack of transparency on the Chinese side was quite astounding in my opinion, especially the new head of state had publicly announced that he was determined to fight corruption in the Chinese Government.

Thirdly, Timothy Tong was still not “invited for coffee” (this is the local slang for being investigated by ICAC) and is still hiding from the public. Although there were reiterations that ICAC will conduct an internal investigation on this matter, but the fact is under such circumstance whether an internal investigation could help to rebuild the image of ICAC that was destroyed by Timothy Tong. An investigation might be an established procedure but the fact is we should assess the impact of this matter. Timothy Tony is not just any official he was the head of ICAC, a public person representing ICAC when he was in the office. Under such circumstance I personally do not think that an established internal investigative process would be sufficient to rescue what is left of ICAC after two weeks of intensive negative press.

This whole saga makes me really think about how serious is the current Hong Kong Government when it comes to fighting corruption in the territory. Or is it that now Hong Kong is part of China the new Chief Executive just thinks that Hong Kong should “blend in”? It pains me to see that while the press is following this matter intensively, the Hong Kong Government just sits there and waits it out. If that is the attitude of Leung Chun Ying about this matter, what is left for doing “clean business” in Hong Kong? Hong Kong spent decades to build up a clean business image to achieve it success today, does Leung Chun Ying still care about it or is he just happy to have the position of Chief Executive of Hong Kong on his CV and cares about nothing else? That is the question I have.

Culturally Challenged? The Future Cultural Policy of Sydney

Went to a forum held by the Belvoir Street Theatre the other night. It is an open discussion of what the future cultural policy of Sydney should be like. At the forum Rachel Healy, the Executive Cultural Manager was there to understand the concerns and to answer some questions. The current discussion paper was to develop a more cultural Sydney, and in order to develop a more cultural Sydney the voice of the artists must be heard. I am glad that Belvoir Street Theatre held this forum, as I think nothing is better for the officials to hear the voice directly from the artists.

I kicked off the forum with my own questions. I queried about how does the City of Sydney define the culture of Sydney? What is the culture of Sydney made up of? I pointed out that Sydney is a truly multicultural city but was that reflected in the culture of Sydney? Cultural activities for ethnic groups are more compartmentalised and despite they were seen, they could hardly be considered as being part of the culture of Sydney. They look exotic as flavours of the month but did Sydney take advantage of its cultural diversity and integrate this unique element into the greater culture of Sydney? I pointed out that non-Anglo performers especially actors are having hard times looking for work and the situation has not improved with some of the major players in the field. Is the greater Sydney culture ready to recognise multiculturalism as part of it, or multiculturalism is still going to be restricted as individual events on the calendar? If we could have fusion food, why the culture of Sydney cannot be a “fusion culture” that integrates elements of all cultures that built up the city?

Another point I raised was the fact that bureaucracy is working against developing a culturally rich Sydney. While we understand that even as artists we need to be responsible, but when you spent three weeks putting together a grant proposal and only after three months you were informed that you did not get it because it was given to a more experienced applicant, the first thing you would have in mind is, so how could I improve and what did I learn from this experience? I raised that currently there is no mechanism to guide and help new artists and applicants about how to approach the behemoth of that application proposal and if feedback was not given, people won’t be able to learn from the experience and would feel frustrated after all the time and efforts that were put in. There needs to be bigger transparency and assistance for artists to apply for funding so that they could truly help to build a more cultured Sydney. In response to that there were other artists in the room that raised similar concerns and issues. The general understanding was it is too hard to acquire funding and as most artists are not well off, that discourages artists to put out work and continue to develop.  There were recommendations such as doing fund matching when a project could kick off the ground through social fund raising platforms such as Pozible and Kick Start, providing low cost space for artists to get together to develop their art forms, and fully utilise long term deserted space through policy making etc.

For me, I personally think that in order to have a viable cultural policy for Sydney, the most important thing is to have a culturally educated or open-minded bureaucracy. As it was pointed out during the forum, the State Government is willing to invest a lot of money into sports but when it comes to cultural events or performing arts, they became the unwanted kids. There will be little bit of funding to keep them alive so they could not be condemned of child abuse, but then whether it is enough for them to develop healthily that is another question. I am not saying that sport is not part of Sydney’s culture but the truth is that there are more to it. A culturally educated bureaucracy could provide a stronger understanding and support from the artists’ point of view through understanding their concerns better.  Then when it comes to funding decisions and policy making, these concerns are thoroughly considered in an informed manner. Crafting a cultural policy is more than just holding individual events during the year. A culture is a deep-rooted ideology that materialised through the efforts of the people who built it. You may not be aware of it in daily life but then when it was mentioned, everyone notices and agrees with it.  At the moment, if the officials at the City of Sydney could not even understand the cultural significance of the rainbow crossing on Oxford Street, I personally think that there is still a long way to go for Sydney to build its own unique flavour of culture that people would identify to.

I will have another thorough read of the discussion paper and put in my response further in writing. In the mean time if you want to have your say on this subject too go to: http://sydneyyoursay.com.au/, have a read of the discussion paper and respond to it.

June 4 Incident, History and Education

Just read from today’s Hong Kong newspaper that in this year’s public university entry examination, for the first time, the June 4 Incident came up as a subject for discussion in the general education paper. Some students were worried that how they answer the question would affect their scores and thus their chances of entering the university. There were anxieties about whether they should put their views forward honestly or avoid using words such as “suppression” or “massacre” that might not deem to be appropriate by the marking authorities.

Since the raising of these concerns, representatives of the Examination Authority have come out and asked students not to worry about how they argue the question as long as they could support their arguments with facts they think appropriate. They also asked students not to apply any sense of self-censorship because that is not the intention of the question. The purpose of the question was to encourage students’ critical thinking about current affairs that matters, and under the current “One Country Two Systems” governing model, there is no reason for students to feel pressured about aligning themselves with any authority to score higher marks.

I personally applaud the Examination Authority’s response to the matter. I also feel very comforted that individual thinking is still being promoted in the Hong Kong education system. A few years ago, some people were worrying about the Chinese government trying to brainwash the new generation Hong Kong students to achieve a “real unification”. The outlook was particularly dire a few years ago when the Government tried push forward a “national studies” curriculum that seemed to be nothing but sucking up to the mainland authorities. At that time a lot of people and educators were up in arms. Eventually the policy was scrapped, well kind of scrapped, because instead of making the “national education” subject compulsory, it became optional with a huge flexibility in what individual schools want to teach. At that time, the person behind this said it was about “helping students to understand their country and national identity better”. But for me and a lot of the people the subliminal messages behind this were otherwise.

Growing up as a colonial kid I received a very different education as compared to my cousins in the mainland. This is particularly true when I went to a British school where most of my teachers were expatriates or educators returned from overseas. I was trained thoroughly in independent and critical thinking. I do not know what is being taught in Hong Kong schools right now since I have moved overseas for a long period of time, but from this matter, I am glad to see that individual thinking is still being promoted. Does that make a person less patriotic when for example, one comments on sensitive issues such as the “June 4 Incident” and commands a different view from the authorities? Certainly not! For me the purpose of studying history, which the “June 4 Incident” is now a historical event, is to understand what was done correctly and learn from the past. If independent thinking is not encouraged when studying history, there is no point of even covering the subject. History is not just about the facts but how we understand the facts and then learn to appreciate or debate these historical issues.  

The “June 4 Incident” had happened and it will never go away because it is part the modern Chinese history now. So I do agree with the Examination Authority’s move to include this as a subject of discussion in the exam papers because avoiding the subject would do nobody good. It is an unfortunate and massive event, so there bound to be different views on this issue – should it be seen as a suppression or just a clearance operation, there are still many years for everyone to decide and there would never be a unanimous answer. However I believe the only way to understand this better is to continue to investigate and discuss about this, which I think is what the Examination Authority is trying to do.

The late Deng Xioaping promised the late Margaret Thatcher that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for at least 50 years under the newly crafted “One Country Two Systems” governing model. So I am glad that within certain context this is still happening and I look forward to see this Pearl of the Orient continues to shine through this unique freedom established by two the major political players of the time.

To Build or Not to Build? The NBN Debate in Australia

The National Broadband Network (NBN) has been a hot topic of debate for many years now. Under the Labor Government, the gears are finally working and implementation has been underway slowly. So slowly that now it is already nearly 9 months behind schedule. The reason for this delay was according to the responsible party a lengthy negotiation period with Telstra to use their current infrastructure to lay the fibre optics network. Nonetheless, it seems that Kiama, a small town120km south of Sydney, finally tastes the first fruit from this ambitious project. The first trial of this network was very promising as the Internet connection speed is proved to be much higher than the current ADSL network that most Australians are using.

There is no doubt that there is a cost blow out here. This is just kind of typical with most Australian infrastructure projects even after considering the inflation costs. It is at this point that the Liberal Coalition comes out with a “better solution” to deal with the situation. According to the Coalition plan, instead of wiring the whole network with fibre optics to 93% of households in Australia, they would create fibre optics nodes and then through these nodes deliver higher speed connection to households using existing copper wires. With this change, they could save up to $10 billion and also have the infrastructure completed much earlier than the Labor Government’s current plan.

This kind of proposal was jarring indeed. First of all, Australia is already quite behind from other parts of the world in terms of Internet connection speed and Internet services. I have personally tried the fibre optics network when I visited my parents in Hong Kong earlier this year. The experience was exceptionally smooth, fast and stable. This is what fibre optics could offer and this is exactly what Australia needs if we want to stay relevant in this more and more tech savvy business world. The Coalition’s proposal of using nodes, while still feasible would still be determined by how much data copper wires could transmit and at the same time how many people are connecting to the nodes using the Internet at the same time. The end result could still be dropping out and much slower Internet connection. The situation would be like they built a great bullet train network to get people home quickly from the CBD but there is a catch – the bullet trains only serves suburbs within 10km from the CBD and people who want to go further will need to change over to lower capacity buses that comes at irregular intervals depending on the road traffic. There is still a timetable but buses may not come on time because the traffic is busy. And of course nobody would be responsible for this slow down because one can never predict traffic situation precisely. In other words, the whole “bullet train bringing people home quicker” is just an empty promise with nobody responsible for the end results because “traffic is never predictable”.

I personally do not know how much does the Coalition care about the future of Australia. They claimed to be the future of Australia but all I could see is they are living in the past. If Australia wants to stay competitive a much-needed improvement in Internet connection is required. The world will not wait around for Australia to one day wake up and found out they are at the ass of the world – both geographically and technologically. The Coalition’s “vision” for me is a very short term, inconsiderate and extremely selfish. Certainly Tony Abbott wants to be the Prime Minister direly. There is no doubt about that. But putting Australia’s future on the line while painting a fake picture that he does not need to be responsible for in the future to achieve this goal for me shows how selfish he is even as a politician. This is what I feel most disgusted about. Not the lack of vision and understanding in this plan, but the guts he has to propose this at the expense of Australia’s future to gamble for his Prime Ministership.

The Coalition plan might fix things in a short-term manner – lower cost and earlier completion, but then in the long run how could Australia compete when the Internet requires greater and great amount of data transfer within a shorter period of time just to operate normally? The Internet will only be more data demanding and developers would not be waiting for Australia to be able to do so to further enhance their web pages, analytical tools and transfer of information. What is left for Australia when those good old copper wires could no longer handle such a data-demanding monster called the Internet? Probably Tony Abbott does not care because probably by that time he might have had his taste of Prime Ministership and have this job as an item on his CV. At the end of the day, it would be again the general Australians who suffered – and that includes both the private and business sectors.

So the question now is – should we continue to wait for the slow pace implementation of the NBN or should we buy the Coalition’s new proposal for short-term and quick fix? For me I would still opt for the first choice knowing the pain of Labor’s usual snail pace implementation history for most projects. As a responsible Australian I do care about Australia’s future and this is what I believe in.