The Pulse：Third Runway, discussion with Michael Mo and Sin Chung-kai, Government bypasss Legco by

The most recent example of the bypassing of Legco. On Tuesday, the Executive Council gave the green light to building a third runway at Chek Lap Kok airport. The project will cost over HK$141billion and has been described as Hong Kong’s third white elephant, along with the high-speed rail link and the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge. Legislative councilors had no say in whether the project got the go-ahead. With us in the studio are Michael Mo, Spokesperson of the Airport Development Concern Network, and Sin Chung-kai of the Democratic Party.
In part one, we looked at government’s strategies to avoid Legco having a say in the construction of the airport’s third runway. It’s not the only such attempt. Earlier this week, the Finance Committee discussed the way that the government has withdrawn 25 items, costing an estimated HK$3.1 billion, from its consideration –they did this by putting these items directly in the budget, with the intention of getting it passed as a package with minimal scrutiny of individual items. Critics say this shows, yet again, the desire of the Chief Executive and his administration to ride roughshod over Legco rules and procedures.
Hot items for parallel traders include infant milk powder, baby’s nappies, or – as the Americans would say – diapers, pharmaceuticals, cookies and chocolates. But there are some people who cross the border with more literary interests in mind: buying books the mainland government doesn’t want them to read. Meanwhile even Hongkongers are sometimes finding it hard to get hold of some of those contentious titles, particularly from the large mainland-backed book chains.