The government’s decision to tighten access to vehicle registration records meets with criticism from a slightly unexpected source: a member of the all-patriots legislature.
Today’s lawmakers are a bit of a haze – a few pro-Beijing stalwarts plus a bunch of people you’ve never heard of. Mostly pretty silent. So – behold Doreen Kong. A lawyer with positions on an odd mish-mash of issues such as domestic helpers making food on the street (anti), building temporary housing (anti), and higher betting taxes (anti). She does seem to be pro-leather jackets.
The SCMP reporter describes the official response…
Journalists will need permission from Hong Kong’s transport commissioner to access the personal information of vehicle owners, while applications might be rejected on national security grounds or due to a lack of public interest.
Vested Interests of the Week Awards:
The boss of Centaline real estate agency wants MPF funds and investor-visa applicants’ cash diverted into the property market ‘to help maintain Hong Kong as a financial centre’.
And the Liberal Party – home to big commercial landlords – suggests a departure tax on permanent residents, so they stop going to Shenzhen and spending money there – or ‘boost government revenues’.
Nothing says “we are winning the war at home” quite like taxing people who live here for leaving over the border to go do some weekend shopping.
Specifically the Shenzhen tax came from Tommy Cheung … of the catering sector. No skin in the game there!
Re the Liberal Party’s idea, I thought the Basic Law guaranteed freedom of movement?
All communist regimes feature exit visas. It’s just a matter of time.
“…applications might be rejected on national security grounds or due to a lack of public interest.”
And of course the gatekeeper on that lack of public interest will use all his accumulated knowledge on the topic, years of research, media contacts, studies and public opinion surveys as well as even secretly reading the acquaintance suggested “Transit Jam” or personally being affected by selfish, arrogant road behavior on a daily basis due to not being at a level where he gets a government issued and driven private vehicle. Yet.
I thought we were supposed to ‘understand China better’ and integrate with GBA….but now it’s a problem that people are going there and spending money.
Which is it? Should I stay or should I go?
I suggest that the Hong Kong bar, restaurant and catering industry relocates to the GBA (across the border) to serve their Hong Kong clientele. Of course, they will have to provide a minimum level of service (without sneers or black faces) and they won’t be able to charge $ 80 for a pint of piss-beer or $ 135 for a shot of vodka, but that is where the future is.
I am willing to organize a farewell party for all of them in Sheung Shui. It’s going to be BYOB.
The Lady Doreen looks a lot like one of those Japanese ‘companion’ robots. Very nice. If they can be programmed to come with her personality, I’ll take four.
@Liberal artist – since Tommy Cheung is notorious for his fierce opposition to anything that might improve the lot of the ordinary worker in Hong Kong, such as minimum wage increases or improved maternity leave, his proposal certainly isn’t intended to benefit the dishwashers and service staff who make up the bulk of the “sector” he supposedly represents. His Functional Constituency should be renamed “Restaurant Owners” instead of “Catering” unless those folk also get a vote in it.
I’m not surprised that rectum#4 needs four rubbery Doreens. I’ve seen his wife. It explains everything.
The Capital Works Fund (Protection) Exit Tax suggestion calls into question Hong Wrong’s ability to ever integrate with the GBA thanks to what might have actually been a deliberate poison pill… sure to turn into what it’s become – and more importantly, to screw the SOE’s who get all the white elephant contracts. You can’t pay ’em if you don’t sell any land, Bernadette.
And it’ll piss off Ms MeKnowEverything. She’s always off to Shamchun.
As for Doreen, she has gone seriously off-message. Expect a purging soon.
And RatShit #4: 51 people were killed in the 1967 riots, including a senior copper trying to keep people away from a bomb, an Army EOD chap trying to make safe another one – and two children who picked up yet another on left in a street somewhere. People were BBQed in cars set alight. And a good mate of mine got to wade in the blood of his colleagues your commie buddies shot in Sha Tau Kok.
As Mr Bradley rightly noted previously, by comparison the extradition bill protests were pedestrian – and in reaction to a clear indication that 1C2S=BS… rather than yet another cack-handed CCP political campaign like killing the sparrows or melting down your only wok into useless pot metal slag…
Either bog off to the glorious motherland (from which all my significant others’ ancestors fled from for bloody good reason, just like just about everyone’s parent or grandparent here) – or drop dead. We’ll make sure nobody takes your body away.
They’re baaaaaack…. (to join MeKnowNothing’s last paragraph and pile on)
And this time it’s not by boat from Fujian.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/americas/the-walking-route-how-an-underground-industry-is-helping-migrants-flee-china-for-the-us/index.html