MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese): Deputy President, I speak in support of Mr Christopher CHEUNG's motion on adjournment of the Council. Mr Christopher CHEUNG proposed adjournment of the Council seeking to pool collective wisdom, so that the Government may adopt effective countermeasures to restore social order and stability, enabling Hong Kong to start anew.

Deputy President, insofar as the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance ("FOO") is concerned, the Government's explanation is inadequate, the 20-day consultation period is too short and the responses are too technical. I have taken part in the discussions held at the Panel on Security several times. More often than not, I did not understand the responses given by the Secretary for Justice and the Secretary for Security. They quoted a lot of reference to explain how certain provisions should be interpreted according to specific ordinances, which is really puzzling. I asked them why they explained the case in this approach. Their reply was that since they came from the Department of Justice and the Security Bureau respectively, they had to explain the provisions according to the conditions stated in the respective ordinances and should not make casual interpretations. For this reason, the public do not know which provisions in the legislative amendment are in the interest of the public and which areas will merely be affected slightly. This is one of the factors causing the many problems subsequently.

As for promotion, the Government has not used the publicity machine to explain the essence of the legislative amendment. The Government dares not issue a "For Dummies" version, fearing it will be too simple and fails to explain the content of the legislative amendment. As a result, the public remains in doubts. The opponents in the community consider this a great opportunity. They take advantage of the inadequate explanation of the Government to issue all kinds of messages. Since they do not have to bear any responsibility, they can mislead the people of Hong Kong and the young people in different aspects.

Why did so many people take to the streets this time around? Precisely because many people really do not understand that the majority public will not be affected by the amendment, and that mainly a tiny minority who has committed crimes will be liable to extradition. This lack of understanding has caused the incident to escalate.

Members may look at the legislative amendment. At present, only 37 items of offences are involved, whereas the threshold for surrender has been increased to seven years of imprisonment by the Government. Moreover, the punishment adopted in the place for extradition should be the same as that in Hong Kong. For instance, since there is no offence of a political character in Hong Kong, if a fugitive in Hong Kong has committed political offences in other places, the fugitive would not be surrendered. Regarding the various scenarios, had the public listened carefully and understood the Bill thoroughly, they would have known that the problems would not occur and the many misunderstandings would have been avoided. Regrettable, due to presumption, the public do not listen to the explanation given by the Government now and only think that the Government is cheating them. Against this background, a number of large-scale assemblies have broken out since early June, developing into radical protests, and the atmosphere in various strata of society, including the meetings of the Legislative Council, has become highly charged.

In retrospect, the introduction of the legislative amendment by the Government this time around mainly seeks to handle the Taiwan homicide case involving CHAN Tong-kai and plug loopholes in existing laws. Yet, after the discussion at the relevant Panel of the Legislative Council, misgivings of the public were not alleviated. Moreover, a bills committee could have been established to follow up on the Bill, but due to the various conflicts in the Legislative Council, Members did not have the opportunity to discuss the legislative amendment in detail. I think these scenarios were created by the opposition camp deliberately, so that the Bill cannot but be submitted to the Council direct for Second and Third Readings. This practice is definitely undesirable. Yet, the lack of understanding of the overall situation has resulted in large-scale demonstrations.

On 12 June, we noticed that the protesters were relatively peaceful at the earlier stage. By 3:00 pm, some of the maniacs charged at the cordon line of the Police and the Legislative Council Complex to try to gain entry. At that time, I was watching the television, and I saw on screen that many rioters were attempting to storm into the Legislative Council Complex, where police officers who did not expect the sudden move had to back off. I was scared stiff at that time, for there were eight Members and many staff members, as well as a lot of police officers, inside the Legislative Council Complex. Had the situation gone out of control at that time, those rioters would have broken the glass panels and stormed into the Legislative Council Complex. Come to imagine what could have happened. How many people could have been hurt? What could have happened to the Police, staff members and even Members of the Legislative Council, or protesters who had stormed into the Legislative Council Complex? Come to imagine how dangerous the situation could have become. Hence, the Police took immediate action to enforce the law at the time and deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds. I think they were forced to take such actions. Yet, the Police are now accused of launching unreasonable attacks. Such remarks are totally irresponsible. Certain senior government officials even said that they had not seen any attack started by those maniacs. I really cannot understand why some people could speak against their conscience. It is evident that people are growing irrational.

On 21 June, the Police Headquarters was surrounded from noon till midnight. Some protesters went to the Revenue Tower and the Immigration Tower to try to paralyse the operation of and exert pressure on the Government. Members should have noticed that these attempts at paralysing the operation in these buildings did not occur once but twice, where many people going there to pay tax or process immigration matters were obstructed. Do we want to see these scenarios?

Last night, a group of protesters besieged the Police Headquarters again. They even refused to give way to a policeman going to work and treated him rudely. Some people also smeared the police officer and accused him of provoking the protesters. All of these are most skillful fabrications. I wonder why people would believe that. I think the Government should review in future why this kind of problem would occur. As for people who have heard such incidents, should they not think over why such incidents would occur? Even for incidents occurring before the camera, they can fabricate their own stories. Yet, why would people believe them?

The Chief Executive, the Secretary for Justice and the Secretary for Security tendered apologies in person respectively some time ago. Yet, the incident shows no signs of calming down, and all levels of government officials are frustrated. We notice that the meeting of the Executive Council has been suspended twice. I also notice that the incident has started to affect the daily lives of the public, given such incidents as the spasmodic blockage of roads by protesters, as well as the blockage of government buildings affecting staff working there and users as I mentioned just now. Dissension has started to emerge in society. Family members, colleagues and friends may really get into quarrels when they talk about the Bill. Why should dissension be caused in society? These days, when we chat with friends or family members, we will avoid talking about the incident and switch to other topics. Why do we have to come to this pass?

Hostility towards the Police keeps growing, where innocent family members of police officers are also affected. Members may step into others' shoes. What would they think if their family members are affected because of what they have done in discharging their work duties? Why do certain people not sympathize with the Police but people launching the attacks instead? I do not understand why it would be so. Why would police officers undertaking law enforcement duties at hospitals be insulted by health care workers and be called dogs? How can they do so? What wrong did the police officer do? Why would dissension in society become so serious? I implore Members to think about this: Shall we allow such dissension in society to continue?

If conflicts in society cannot be abated, it will profoundly affect people's livelihood and the economy. In the past few months, under the shadow of the China-United States trade war, we notice that retail sales in Hong Kong have been dropping for several months in a row. As for the tourism sector, it seems that it has remained unscathed in the past few months, yet it is mainly the effect of the two major infrastructure projects, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link. Yet, since the outbreak of demonstrations in June, many members in the tourism industry have started receiving enquires from overseas and Mainland counterparts about safety in Hong Kong. Since hotels and flights bookings for trips in June have been made in advance, trips departed as scheduled. Yet, if the situation continues, I am worried about the situation in July and August.

As for business travellers, I notice that some travellers have stopped coming to Hong Kong. They consider it unnecessary to come to Hong Kong for business meetings when the situation is not safe. They would rather reduce their frequency of visits and their length of stay, and those who stay in Hong Kong for several days in the past will only stay for one or two days now. The industry does not want to see these situations.

As for visitors under the Individual Visit Scheme, we notice that the number of visitors staying in hotels in June has started to decrease, with a drop of 5% in occupancy rate and a decrease of 10% in overall income. This may indicate that the economy has been affected by the incident. As we approach the peak season of tourism in July and August, the trade forecasts that if the situation continues, the social atmosphere remains tense and radical protests continue, it will definitely affect the tourism, retail, catering and associated industries. Sometimes, not only hotels and travel agencies of the tourism trade will be affected, but other trades like logistics, transport and entertainment sectors, as well as tourist spots, will also be affected because of the ripple effect. I recall that in the year 2015-2016, the number of visitors dropped because of the "anti-locust" campaign. At that time, the unemployment rate rose by 0.1%, whereas the total retail sales of Hong Kong had dropped for 20-odd months in a row. The tourism industry is closely related to the community of Hong Kong.

In my view, the Legislative Council is a focused platform for discussion on politics, issues and legislation, and if irrational behaviour continues in the legislature, the Council can hardly process the various businesses. At present, we see that the legislature as a whole has started to take things personal instead of staying objective, and this is not conducive to solving the problems in society. Yesterday, we saw Mr Dennis KWOK quarrel with Dr Priscilla LEUNG. I think Members have become emotional, and the legislature can no longer serve as a platform for political debates and discussions. If that is the case, will it be conducive to people's livelihood and the economy of Hong Kong to continue to discuss the issue in the legislature? Given the instability of society of Hong Kong presently, should we continue such irrational discussions? If we allow the incident to run its course, will it be helpful to attracting inward investments and conducive to the overall economy of Hong Kong―not to mention attracting foreign capital for there may be an outflow of it?

Hence, I think it is meaningless for us to make a vigorous attempt to continue with the meeting, for this will merely bring Members into confrontations. Certain Members may even use this as a platform to express their political aspirations before the eyes of their supporters. In fact, they do not truly want to have a political debate and solve the problems. Against this background, I agree that Members should calm down and think over the issue. We should face the future proactively and stop the various confrontations in the legislature as these will undermine the integrity of the legislature and project a poor impression.

Deputy President, I so submit.