A Catholic monitor group has called on legislator Lau Wong-fat to step down, saying the 79-year-old has made few contributions to the Legislative Council in the 24 years he has been a member of the body.
Other than one motion he moved on behalf of a committee last year, Lau has never tabled any motion on his own nor raised any amendment to any bill since 1991, the Catholic Monitors on Legislative Councillors said in a report on Tuesday.
Lau, who represents New Territories indigenous interests, often skipped meetings, rarely spoke when he did attend them, and generally failed to regularly participate in voting, the group said.
The group’s spokesperson told Apple Daily that Lau should stop occupying the seat and “let someone else take the stage.”
Lau’s office told HKFP on Wednesday afternoon that the spokesperson was not available for comment.
The pro-Beijing lawmaker, dubbed the “King of the New Territories”, has reportedly been plagued by poor health recently. Local Chinese-language media reports have suggested that Lau underwent surgery for brain cancer last month.
In June, Lau was famously late for a LegCo vote on the government’s political reform package, resulting in the bill’s rejection by a far larger margin than expected. Pro-Beijing lawmakers, who later said they wanted to wait for Lau, walked out of the chamber in a failed bid to delay the vote.
Although the bill’s rejection had been anticipated, the dramatic episode caused huge embarrassment for the pro-Beijing camp.
Besides Lau, ten other legislators did not table any motion or amendments this year, the report found.
These included pro-establishment politicians Chan Han-pan and Tam Yiu-chung of the DAB; Cheung Wah-Fung of the Business and Professionals Alliance; Wong Kwok-kin of the Federation of Trade Unions; James Tien Pei-Chun, Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, and Felix Chung Kwok-pan of the Liberal Party; and independent lawmaker Lam Tai-fai.
In the pan-democrat camp, James To Kun-sun and Albert Ho Chun-yan of the Democratic Party also did not table any motions or amendments in 2015.
Catholic Monitors on Legislative Councillors also found that directly elected lawmakers were more active in LegCo discussions than their counterparts in the functional constituencies, and pan-democrats participated more pro-establishment legislators.
