The Pulse：Land supply for housing discussion with Stanley Wong & Paul Zimmerman

One thing that’s not going to go disappear from Hong Kong any time soon is poverty. According to a government report released in November one in five people are now living below the poverty line. The number of elderly poor people has increased by almost 4%, to 478,000. So it came as little surprise that there was wall to wall criticism when Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that she is raising the age limit for elderly welfare payments from 60 to 65 from next month. Saying that she herself was over 60 and still working at least ten hours a day, Ms Lam insisted there was nothing inhumane about the adjustment, it just reflected social circumstances. On Thursday, she told legislators that she was “shocked” by their criticism as the adjustment was approved in last year’s budget vote, a vote supported by pro-government legislators.
And that wasn’t the only awkward moment she had that day, when asked whether she would implement the recently released report from the Task Force on Land Supply, Ms Lam said it would be “irresponsible” for her to fully accept its suggestions. With me to talk about the issue are Stanley Wong, Chairman of the Task Force on Land Supply and Paul Zimmerman, CEO of Designing Hong Kong.