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Feisty Hong Kong leader defends Omicron handling, lays out details for revamped bureaus and Northern Metropolis in testy opening session of overhauled legislature

  • Chief Executive Carrie Lam opens meeting with ambitious speech laying out vision for new government structure and massive border town
  • But she is also forced to defend her handling of the emerging fifth pandemic wave to lawmakers, who question if the government’s approach is lacking

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam attends the Legco question and answer session on Wednesday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Hong Kong’s leader opened the new legislative term on Wednesday with a speech that resembled a policy address in ambition and scope, as she mounted a stout defence of her handling of the Omicron outbreak and announced details of a plan to restructure government bureaus.

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In exchanges with lawmakers over two hours that turned testy at times, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also refused to apologise over the government’s policy of granting quarantine exemptions to cargo aircrew members. A handful of Cathay Pacific employees sparked the emerging fifth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic after they broke home isolation rules.

The quarantine violations along with a scandal that erupted when about a dozen of her senior officials attended a birthday party with hundreds of guests amid the widening outbreak have created a political crisis for the chief executive, who has not said whether she will seek a second term in March.

Lawmakers meet in the Legislative Council chamber in Admiralty on Wednesday. Photo: Sam Tsang
Lawmakers meet in the Legislative Council chamber in Admiralty on Wednesday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Lam told lawmakers that the official monitoring system had been working well but individuals were now breaking the rules.

“You can’t blindly criticise anti-epidemic officials for not performing their job just because of violation of rules by one individual,” Lam told Roundtable lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun at the first meeting of the revamped Legislative Council following Beijing’s “patriots-only” electoral overhaul.

In a break from past practice, the first session began with a 90-minute question and answer session with the chief executive, rather than lawmakers taking their oaths, a ceremony which Lam presided over last week.

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While most legislators focused their questions on the pandemic, Chan Hoi-yan, of the new Election Committee constituency, lambasted Lam for the government’s preventive measures, which she said was plagued by loopholes.

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