A Systematic, Top-Down Policy Formulation Process Model in Macau1Chan Chan U * 1.Introduction The development of policy-making in Macau was developed onto a higher level after the decision made by the Chief Executive, Mr. Ho Hau Wah, to expand the functions of the former Center for the Studies of Quality of Life (CEQV) and renamed it the Strategic Research Center for Sustainable Development (Centro de Estudos Estratégicos para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, CEEDS). Whilst the prime function of CEQV was to establish conceptions of quality of life (QOL), the methodologies for assessment, as well as to select the subjective and objective indicators for QOL, CEEDS has the responsibilities to provide vital information to the Government for reference in drafting its annual Policy Address, to analyse and study on questions concerning sustainable development in Macau, particularly the effects on population, economy, education, as well as to establish a mid- to long-term planning model for Macau's sustainable development. The most recognised definition for "sustainable development" is that of the World Commission on Environment and Development (now the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development under the Department of Economic and Social Affairs). Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Under this concept, eight issues were identified, and were compiled to a report entitled Our Common Future, including population and human resources, industry, food security, species and ecosystems, urbanisation, the management of common resources, energy, the management of conflict and environmental degradation. During the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which aimed to discuss these issues, a global action plan was agreed among national leaders, or the famous Agenda 21. Under the plan, national advisory councils were set up to promote dialogue to stimulate sustainable development, and sustainable development indicators were established to monitor the progresses within the respective countries. Locally, nearly 2000 towns and cities around the world created their own Local Agenda 21 plans, all of which aimed at achieving sustainable development at the local level.2The outcome of strategic research will be strategic planning, which eventually will influence the formulation of government policies. Strategic research is therefore a strategic planning exercise, which, for organisational management, aims to produce fundamental decisions and actions that will define the nature, the mission of an organisation, and why the organisation carries out such mission. Strategic planning then carries four basic features, including a clear statement of the organisation's mission, the external factors affecting the organisation's purposes and operations, the definition of the organisation's strategic goals and objectives into multi-year plans, and the development of strategies to achieve these goals and objectives3. The same applies to governments, where strategic planning * Master of Science in Public Policy and Management at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 2006. 10
A Systematic, Top-Down Policy Formulation Process Model in Macau assists them in defining what they should do and what they should not do. Strategic planning also helps governments to define multi-year plans which contain details the objectives to resolve particular political, social and economic issues, and strategies to achieve these resolutions are translated into concrete policies. As far as the functions of the CEEDS is concerned, it can be established that not only studied and scientific bases are required for policy-making, but the timely response to political, social and economic developments is also important. It is necessary to point out that, whilst social indicators should be able provide studied and scientific bases for policy-making, other tools and means are required to allow the Government to make timely responses to political, social and economic developments, and also any contingent developments. This is fully reflected in the intended functions of the new CEEDS, which included the use of methods to analyse the present situation, perspective forecasts, and development of an elaboration model for Macau's sustainable development planning. In other words, means of social indicators, as required by the former CEQV to develop, no longer was the only important means to assist the Government in policy-making process. A variety of methods are to be applied instead so that the Government are able to give timely responses to problems raised in the course of political, social and economic development. Two questions can be raised in terms of the Government's decision to re-adjust the functions of what is regarded as its "think tank". One is the context of this re-adjustment, or why the former CEQV is reorganised. The other is what the reorganisation of the CEQV into CEEDS implies for policy-making process model in Macau. This essay attempts to answer these two questions. 2. The Contexts for the Establishments of CEQV and CEEDS The CEQV was established on 1 March 2005, under the initiative of the Chief Executive to improve the quality of life of the population to be his overall policy target for his second term in office. In his Policy Address at that time, he pointed out that the fundamental purpose for economic development is to incrementally elevate the quality of life of the population and to stimulate their all-round development. The elevation of the quality of life of the population implies that the economic development should co-ordinate with the development of the society, and that both the economy and the society should ensure sustainable development of Macau.4 At that time, Macau's economy has just been recovered after years of weak performance and recessions, mainly due to the liberalisation of the gaming sector, and the introduction of Individual Travel Scheme which attracted an influx of visitors from mainland China to spend in Macau. The relevant figures can be summarised in Table 1. What can be observed from the table in terms of public finance is that the total revenue in public accounts had actually been on decline between 1999 and 2002, owing to the unstable economic performance during that period, but it was recovered since then. On the other hand,however, the surplus in public finance has been on increase since the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR),providing a more favourable condition for the Government to commission infrastructure and other social engineering projects for the future. On one hand,these projects should aim to improve the living conditions of the population;and on the other hand,they should also echo the forthcoming surges of economic development as a result of the liberalisation of the gaming sector.This is publicly acknowledged by the Chief Executive when delivering his Policy Address for the fiscal year 2005,when he told members of the Legislative Assembly that: "The Government expects its revenue to continue increasing; and provided we adhere to the principle of balancing our income and expenditure, we will be able to allocate sufficient resources to implement all our policies. We will continue to develop and improve our services to the public, create better conditions for the business community, and participate in more high-level,technologically advanced and forward-looking development projects,to sustain the development of Macau."5 The prospects of good economic performance and better public finance,lower unemployment rate,popular support to the Government,a population who yearned for a better future of Macau and their standards of living and
quality of life, as well as their desire for better Government performance, were the factors and motivation that stimulated the proposal to elevate the quality of life of the population as the overall policy target of the second SAR Government. This proposal is then reflected by the establishment of the CEQV, which served as the executive body to assist the Government in achieving this policy target. Economic developments also brought to the surface a number of social problems, which became campaign agenda during the Legislative Assembly Election in 2005. In reality, even there was no election at that year, all these social problems which came to the surface almost simultaneously within that same year might still be worth the Government paying attention to. It is obvious, as the table above suggests that the proportion of total Government revenue gained from the gaming sector has become overwhelming - from just under 30% in 1999, to over three quarters in 2005. The entire economy of Macau is now relying heavily on the gaming sector, somewhat against the initial desire of the Administration to place the gaming and tourism sectors as the leading industries of Macau, whereas other sectors can be developed in balance as a result of such emphasis. It is commonly acknowledged that the over-reliance of the gaming and tourism sectors will potentially bring harm to the sustainable development of Macau, which was fully reflected by the significant decrease of visitors to Macau during the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in her neighbouring regions in the first half of 2003. It is worth noted that state leaders had repeatedly reminded the Macau SAR Government to consider ways to diversify of Macau's overly-uniform economy. The rapid economic development that began from the latter half of 2003, as a result of the introduction of the Individual Travel Scheme which brought an influx of visitors from mainland China as well as the investment projects by foreign capital thanks to the liberalisation of the gaming sector, whilst on one hand elevated the standards of living of not a few residents as a result of increases in income levels, on the other hand it caused stresses to the existing infrastructure in Macau. New infrastructure projects were proposed by the Government, such as the construction of a light rapid transit system and large-scale reclamation projects which will eventually increase the total area of the Macau SAR by a third, in addition to a number of traffic improvement projects, including the refinement of existing traffic infrastructures and construction of underground car parks to cope with the increasing car ownership. Meanwhile, private investment projects for casinos, hotels and resorts entered the stage of intense construction. Whereas these projects will relieve road congestion and potentially create employment opportunities for the population, it also exposed the consequences of the lack of, or disorganised, city planning in Macau for a long period of time. The increase in traffic volume and new private investment projects not only brings stresses to the environmental quality, but also to the long-term capacity of existing energy and environmental amelioration infrastructures, namely water and power supplies, waste water treatment and refuse treatment.Table 1 Some Economic and Public Finance Figures in Macau (1999-2005)6
A Systematic, Top-Down Pol icy Formulat ion Process Model in Macau In other aspects, the "Historic Centre of Macau" was successfully inscribed as UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage, and regeneration of old neighbourhoods was launched by the institution of the Consultative Council on Regeneration of Old Neighbourhoods of Macau and preliminary projects under way at the lao Hon and Mong Ha neighbourhoods. With the economy being more reliable on the gaming and tourism sectors and the heart of the economic activities gradually relocated to the new neighbourhoods and districts, such as the NAPE-ZAPE areas and Cotai, small businesses in old neighbourhoods, which largely overlap with the "Historic Centre of Macau" were facing challenges in transforming themselves to not only become functional to residents within these neighbourhoods, but also to become a supporting force in maintaining the neighbourhood economy, whilst taking into account the effects of increasing internationalisation of the overall economy of Macau. For residents within these old neighbourhoods, on one hand they were facing the challenges of uncertainties on whether the regeneration projects will be successful, and on the other hand, desiring for an improvement to their deteriorating living conditions. The successful inscription of the "Historic Centre of Macau" to UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage list also means that strict legislations are required to control the tangible and intangible developments around the listed historic monuments, as well as the buffer zone that covers the centre. Politically, the third Legislative Assembly Election is marked by record numbers of registered voters, nomination groups and candidates, and a record rate of turnout, since direct election mechanism was introduced to Macau in 1975. A variety of incidents related to the election emerged, such as publicity "gimmicks", alleged counts of vote-buying, and even some isolated reports of violence during the campaign and on the election day. They all contributed to adding new elements to the experience in implementing the political principle of "Macau People Governing Macau", thereby posing new challenges to the governance of a highly autonomous Macau. Considering this in a more positive way, the record numbers of voters, nomination groups and candidates reflected the increasing desire of the population to participate in social and political affairs, as well as the determination of the Government to safeguard and reinforce its dominating role in Macau's political ecology. Rapid economic development in recent years, however, failed to make the entire population being able to share the fruits. Average pay levels for local unskilled workers were far from the median value for the entire workforce, and almost remained the same between 2001 and 2005 if inflation is taken into account.7 The number of non-resident workers increased from 25,925 by the end of 2001 to 47,876 by March 2006.8 In addition to the demand by families who wish to have their adult sons and daughters to "reunite" with them in Macau, these social issues became political once they were captured by those who saw them as means to garner support from the population, who are potential voters, before, during and after the election campaign. A number of demonstrations of relatively large scale were organised during the years 2005 and 2006, focusing mainly on so-called "family reunions" and prevalence of illegal workers in Macau. The May Day demonstration in 2006 unfortunately resulted in clashes between the protestors and the police, which can be regarded as a warning signal to the Government, who has the duty to ensure Macau's political and social stability, on the issue of social justice in Macau. Externally, the visibility of Macau in the global village was elevated with the successful inscription of the "Historic Centre of Macau" to UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage list in July and the host of the 4th East Asian Games between the end of October and early November in 2005. Macau' s role as a hub between China and Portuguese- speaking countries is becoming increasingly apparent, with the institution of the Economic and Trade Co-operation Forum between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries now in regular operation, and development projects have been launched, via Macau, in various Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa. Trade promotion institutions planned to set up representative bodies in Macau by these countries as well as by Portugal and Brazil. In a regional sense, the economy of Macau follows the trend of integration to the Pan-Pearl River Delta region, which comprises nine
mainland Chinese provinces, in addition to Macau and Hong Kong, taking the advantage of the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with mainland China. Since the signing of the regional co-operation framework agreement among member provinces and special administrative regions in June 2004, a variety of co-operation agreements were signed and regular mechanisms established in the fields of infrastructure, industries and investments, commerce and trade, tourism, agriculture, human resources, education, science and culture, information, environment, and health and quarantine. At the end of 2005, members of the Pan-Pearl River Delta region proposed to develop Hengqin Island, immediately opposite to Coloane Island in Macau, as an economic co-operation zone between them. According to the information available, more than 30 projects are filed for development9 once the Hengqin Economic Co-operation Zone was approved by the state council, including a large convention and exhibition centre to be developed by Las Vegas Sands, a gaming concessionaire in Macau, covering an area of 526.5 acres - some 17 times bigger than its Cotai Strip development.10 In the meantime, opinions also arose locally on requesting the Central Government to cede or lease Hengqin Island to Macau. Whether Hengqin Island will be under the administration of the Macau SAR or not, and whether the attempt to develop the island into a economic co-operation zone would be successful, it is for sure that the future direction of the island, with its advantage to be so close to Macau, will provide opportunities for Macau to diversify its economy, and ultimately to ensure its sustainable development. The increase in international contacts, in addition to the increase in the number of casinos, also mean that reform to Macau's legal regime to effectively prevent irregularities and illegal activities on the international scale is much needed. Whereas regulations on money-laundering and terrorism funding preventions were passed and are in force in the latter half of 2006, and was affirmed internationally11, the run on Banco Delta Asia in September 2005 was not a matter that was as simple as dealing with allegations from the US Treasury Department. It also was related to the contingency management of Macau's Government in incidents which might potentially topple the social and economic stability. It is welcoming to see that immediate measures had been taken by the Government to directly administer the Bank once the crisis emerged, but incidents that require the Government's immediate and correct response will only emerge more frequently with increasing interactions within different interests in the local society (as the May Day demonstration shows), and with the outside world. It can be seen from these developments that Macau is facing particular challenges in problems of population and human resources, economic development, urban development, the management of common resources, and the environment, all of which echoes the eight key sustainable development issues as identified in the United Nations' Our Common Future report. All of these developments require the Government to institute a body in assisting its policy-making exercises. This body must be equipped with an all-round understanding of Macau's local situation, particularly the public opinion over policy, economic and social issues. This body must also be equipped with an all-round understanding on how Macau interacts with the outside world, particularly the Pan-Pearl River Delta region and Portuguese-speaking countries. This body should assist the Government in being capable to respond not only to problems that gradually arose as a result of incremental developments, but also to any contingent events. Finally, this body must be equipped to assist the Government in planning future policies. All these new requirements are aimed to enable the Government to elaborate initiative and control in the governance of Macau. With such context, the original functions of the CEQV clearly were not able to meet these new requirements. The expansion of them to cover as well issues concerning the sustainable development of Macau, and to bring into consideration the factors of regional co-operation in the ensuring the sustainable development and elevating the quality of life of the population, can be regarded as inevitable with the development of Macau has proceeded with a speed that has been exceeded what many would expect. In other words, the expansion of the functions of the CEQV to become CEEDS is not as simple as
A Systematic, Top-Down Policy Formulation Process Model in Macau a matter of convenient choice, but also it is a choice that will happen sooner or later - it only happens "sooner" instead of happening "later". 3. A Systematic, Top-down Policy Formulation Process Model in Macau The inclusion of the element of strategic planning into the official "think tank" at the leadership level demonstrates the determination of the Government to succeed in strategic planning. It also shows that Macau is developing a systematic, top-down policy formulation model which carries its own unique characteristics. Through a survey by eight governmental units in Minnesota, the United States, Bryson and Roering concluded that a number of elements are required for any initiatives of strategic planning by governments to succeed. They included a powerful backing to the process, an effective leadership during the process, an effective strategic planning team, expectations of disruptions and delays, flexibility in the constitution of strategic plans, the inclusion of actual or potential events as conceptions of time, the technical rationality, political acceptability and moral, ethical and legal defensibility of the proposed missions, strategic issues and strategies, and the adoption of the process to the situation.12On the other hand, the US academic Dye proposed a top-down policy-making model. He pointed out that public policy formulation reflects the values and preferences of the governing elite, and even for democratic societies where leaders are selected by regular elections, power can still be unequally distributed. Power is inevitably concentrated in the hands of a few,and the existence of decision- making elite is a fact of political life. Hence, top-down policy making is a process in which the values, interests and preferences of elites are transformed into public policies. There are four major processes under this model: the policy formulation process, the interest group process, the candidate selection process and opinion-making process. The main actors in the policy formulation process are all kinds of foundations, think tanks, commissions and task forces, and those in the interest group process are organised groups, lobbyists and "policy action committees". The main actors and factors in the candidate selection process include political parties, political campaigns, wealthy businessmen, politicians or civil servants, and funding. For the opinion-making process, mass media as well as advertising and public relations firms play an important role. The outcomes of these four major processes are then transmitted to the legitimisation and implementation processes conducted by the government machinery to become policies. Policies are evaluated by the public, whose process is bottom-up.13 The model can be summarised in Figure 1. Figure 1 Top-down Policy-making Model14The policy formulation process is focused here. Dye pointed out that the first step in policy formulation is agenda setting. Domhoff indicated that elites set agenda informally through searching for "issues" for resolution. Before such issues are submitted to the government for formal policy formulation, a process of "sharpening the issues and weighing the alternatives" is to be conducted by "a complex network of people and institutions", which include foundations, policy planning organisations (including "think tanks") and the media. Dye deemed that foundations provide funds to support the identification of social issues, and establish what issues should be given priority for the government to resolve, while also provide funds to support new policy researches.
Policy planning organisations play a central role in suggesting which policies should be adopted and what research projects should be supported, while they also confirm in detail the issues identified by elites. They also attempt to help elite groups, the media, interest groups, government officials and political leaders to reach a consensus over their policy recommendations. The policy recommendations are usually disseminated via reports and press releases, or via reports and interpersonal communications, that reach to the government for public policy formulation. Dye deemed that these elite institutions of policy formulation is a loose network by nature, and "there is no central direction to this network, no imposed unity of viewpoints, no all-powerful hidden conspiracy" but only "a variety of deliberate efforts at elite consensus-building and coordination of policy formulation" through a variety of groups and forces.15 Dye's top-down policy formulation process can be summarised in the following schematic diagram (Figure 2) Figure 2 Top-down Policy Formulation Process16 The systematic, top-down policy formulation process that is under formation in Macau carries the concept of that proposed by Dye, but with Macau's own characteristics. This is apparently related to Macau's specific political and social situation. Under Dye's process of top-down policy formulation, "elite" refers to those in the private domain, who make use of foundations and policy planning organisations that are independent from the government to create opinions on policy preference, which in turn will be transmitted to the government for policy formulation. Elites in Macau, however, do not need to express their policy preferences in this way, as they are absorbed into formal consultative bodies, where they can participate in influencing the Government in policy formulation. Meanwhile, the election system of Macau is also different, where universal and direct suffrage does not exist. Not all of the politicians are selected via elections, but via a variety of mechanisms, not only via direct and indirect elections for entry to the Legislative Assembly, but also be appointed by the Government. The Executive Council, provided by the Basic Law, is the organ which assists the Chief Executive in policy-making. The members are appointed by the Chief Executive, and they could be principal officials, members of the Legislative Assembly and social figures. Elites absorbed by the Government through this way are effectively accountable to the Government. On the other hand, many private foundations in Macau are only in small quantities, and their functions are more inclined to fund social assistance projects rather than policy research. Private policy research bodies, including research departments of the major associations, are again of small quantities, and the model of operations of these bodies are quite similar to social associations. The research projects conducted by these bodies are largely irregular, and sometimes the objectivity and the correctness in the application of research methods is even questionable, which in the end affects the qualities of the researches. Most importantly, they generally rely on sponsorships and grants from the Government in order to commission their activities. They, therefore, are also accountable to the Government. Opened fund-raising exercises targeted at private enterprises are rare in Macau, and even if they exist, they are also more inclined to fund social assistance projects or projects that would improve the operation environment or service to the community rather
A Systematic, Top-Down Policy Formulation Process Model in Macau than policy researches. The relations between the elites and the Government, and the practical functions of private foundations in Macau, are therefore not completely the same as what Dye suggested. Since elites have channels to express their policy preferences via formal consultative bodies and organs, they can also be regarded as being members of the public domain, depending on their roles and positions within the Government machinery. The weakness and the lack of professionalism of private policy research bodies mean that making use of private policy planning organisations by elites to voice their preferences and policy recommendations are not necessarily the best and the most effective ways to influence the Government in policy formulation. As elites are absorbed by the Government and they do play active roles in influencing the Government in policy formulation within government institutions, the feasibility of the "issues" identified by them will have to be accessed before formal public policies can be made. The "policy planning organisation" concerned is then the CEEDS. It should be noted that the CEEDS are accountable to the Chief Executive, and its nature is established by the Chief Executive's Despatch as a project team. The research findings by the CEEDS on issues identified by elites within the Administration are then fed back directly to the Chief Executive, rather than through indirect means of press releases or testimonies as suggested by Dye in order to allow them reach the Government. The means of press releases of testimonies are mainly targeted at the general population only. It should be pointed out, however, that interpersonal communications are still needed so that the greatest degree of consensus and objectiveness can be reached before the research findings and conclusions are presented to the Government for further, formal consideration. Another point that is also worth noted is that, whereas the former CEQV was directly funded by the Chief Executive's Office, the CEEDS is now funded by the Macao Foundation, the largest and the wealthiest public funding body in Macau. This source of funding does not affect the relations of accountability between the CEEDS and the Chief Executive, as the Macao Foundation is also under the Chief Executive's direct jurisdiction, who also chair as the Guardian of the Foundation. However, with the funding of the CEEDS coming directly from the Macao Foundation, it now has better conditions in terms of financial resources to commission necessary and timely research projects. In other words, the commissioning of research activities of the CEEDS no longer have to be constrained by the limited budget of the Chief Executive's Office, but is made more flexible due to improved financial resources, so that it can provide feedback to the Administration more effectively for the Government to respond in political, social and economic issues a timely manner. Thus the top-down policy formulation process model of Macau can be modified as follows. It can be seen that, instead of elites who are independent of the Administration seeking for financial support to confirm the details of issues, they are absorbed within the Government machinery and issues are identified within the Government. Funding is then provided by the Macao Foundation to sponsor the CEEDS in commissioning research projects to confirm the details of the issues identified. Another difference is that the CEEDS, which act as the policy planning organisation, feeds back its research outcomes directly to the Government for further processes of policy formulation, which include the legitimisation and implementation processes to be executed by different parts of Government machinery. The policy outcomes are then evaluated by the general public, and potentially by the concerned government agencies as well. 4. Conclusion Rapid economic development in Macau brings about social transformation in a speed that is faster than the population of Macau would expect. Although the Government instituted the Center for the Studies of Quality of Life (CEQV) which was under the direction of the Chief Executive, its functions were not sufficient to respond to the rapid political and social developments that emerged since its institution. Some of these domestic, regional and even international developments have posed challenges to ensure the sustainable development of Macau, as well as for the
second SAR Government to achieve its policy target to elevate the quality of life of the population. The reorganisation of the former CEQV to become the Strategic Research Center for Sustainable Development (CEEDS), or in effect the development of a systematic, top-down policy formulation process in Macau, can be regarded as a matter of time, and it happened earlier than expected because of the rapid development. With powerful political and financial backing, effective leadership, the intention to include actual or potential events as areas of research, as well as adoption to local situation in terms of organisation, the institution of the CEEDS marks the birth of a systematic, top-down policy formulation process for Macau. The absorption of elites into political and governance institutions, and the dominance of the Government in commanding financial resources to commission policy researches, make this model carries a strong trait of Macau's local characteristics, and, from another angle, reflects the governance mechanism of Macau at work, still with corporatism as its basis. Notes: 1 This essay is a sequel to Quality of Life and Social Indicators, published in Issue 28 of the Journal of Macau Studies, Macao Foundation 2005. The opinions expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not represent the opinions of other people an entities. 2 UNESCO: Webpage on the World Summit on Sustainable Development, http:/ /portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php- URL_ID=3994&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html, (18th May 2006). 3 Berry F., "Innovation in Public Management - the Adoption of Strategic Planning", in Public Administration Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (July-August 1994), pp. 322-330. Figure 3 Top-down Policy Formulation Process Model in Macau4 Ho H.W., Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2005 of the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (English version, http://www.gov.mo/ e g i / P M C / C o n t e n t M g m t S e r v i c e / r e s o u r c e s ? i d=c373e90316de6e828f6a21bde921cc1f) (2004), p. 7. 5 Ho H.W., Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2005 of the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (English version, http://www.gov.mo/ e g i / P M C / C o n t e n t M g m t S e r v i c e / r e s o u r c e s ? i d=c373e90316de6e828f6a21bde921cc1f) (2004), p. 18. 6 Direcção dos Serviços de Estatísticos e Censos: Year Book of Statistics (2000-2004); Principal Statistical Indicators (2005). 7 Jornal Va Kio, 19th May 2006. 8 Direcção dos Serviços de Assuntos Laborais: http://www. dsal.gov.mo/pdf/work/eng/10_lmpWkNation(Eng).pdf, (19th May 2006). 9 Pan-Pearl River Delta Co-operation Information Website: http:/ /www.pprd.org.cn/zhuanti/hengqin/dongtai/200603080008.htm, (20th May 2006). 10 Macao Daily News, 16th October 2005. 11 See, for example, remarks made by the US Consul General in Hong Kong and Macau, Mr. James B. Cunningham at the Macau Monetary Authority, 26th April 2006. 12 Bryson J.M. & Roering W.D., "Initiation of Strategic Planning by Governments", in Public Administration Review, Vol. 48, No. 6 (November-December 1988), pp. 995-1004. 13 See Dye T.R., Top Down Policymaking (New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2001), pp. 1-15. 14 Ibid., p. 5. 15 Ibid., pp. 39-64. 16 ibid., p. 40.
"Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies So Hang Tai* 1. Introduction Before the legalization of football betting, the routine gambling policy of the Hong Kong government is to restrict commercial gambling activities at a minimal level, which means the government does not encourage any forms of gambling, but limited gambling outlets are allowed to meet the public demand, so that gambling opportunities would not become excessive and impose huge sum of social costs to the community. However, after the world cup in 1998, government notices that football betting becomes more popular and widespread, both in terms of the number of participants and money involved in it, so the government publishes a consultation paper to seek the public opinion about the feasibility of the legalization of soccer betting in 20011 and the bill is passed by the legislative council with a little margin in 2003. Starting from August in the same year, the Jockey Club is permitted to carry out more forms of wagering and promotions for soccer betting, as a way to combat or compete with illegal bookmakers. The government argues that legalization is the stone that could kill two birds, on the one way that is to reduce citizens' money draining out to illegal gambling operators and on the other way that brings government revenue from the tax collected from the betters. As a result, "legalization reduces capital outflow to illegal gambling operators" and "legalization opens a new financial channel which would not be opposed by the taxpayers for the government" are probably the two arguments that have been most often brought up by government and even the gambling proponents. Concerning about the tobacco issue, the government strongly believes that smoking can cause serious health hazards and is the largest single preventable cause of death and disease. To protect the health of the community, the government's tobacco policy, same as the rationale of gambling policy, is to discourage smoking, educate the public about the risk factors caused by smoking and avoid non-smokers from second-hand smoke in indoor areas2, so the government now proposes a smoking ban in all indoor catering and entertainment outlets.3The question left to be answered is both industries would definitely cause the health and other social problems and undoubtedly bring lucrative returns to the government, but the government obviously pays more attention to the side effects imposed to the public by tobacco industry, while tangible rewards contributing to the government by gambling industry, so what makes the difference? The focus of this paper is to compare the similarities and differences of the development of both gambling and tobacco industries, as a way to use two moral concepts "Ethics of Sacrifice" and "Ethics of Tolerance" to assess the ideology of the government over these two public policy issues. Thus, suggestions can be made for the government to rectify its policies. 2. Government Ethics and Public Policy Before the concepts of Sacrifice and Tolerance are
elaborated, we should first deliberately think of a question why government ethics is an issue that should be discussed. Along with the liberalization process, more and more people, including some government officials and party leaders, agree that the stance of the government over different public policy areas should be neutral, it is largely because it is impossible to find a common standard which can accommodate every person, so liberal advocates argue that the legitimacy of the government can only be upheld when its policies rely on values and beliefs that could not be reasonably refuted by individuals under its jurisdiction.4However this argument is sometimes contradictory and ambiguous, because coming up with a common consensus among individuals is not only a time consuming and costly task, but also infeasible, since people are not robot, they have their own free will, if the legitimacy can only be upheld when both implicit and explicit values and beliefs of the government's policies are not rejected by any individuals, it implies that government is no longer a prerequisite institution for the continuity of the community or even a country. Instead government ethics should be treated as an accountability system which people can judge and assess the public policies of the government. Thompson argues against to the paradox that priority should not be given to government ethics, since there are plenty of missions that the government should accomplish, like striving for prosperous economy, national defense and even the victory of next general election.5 Thompson points out that "Ethics is not a primary goal of government in the way that, say, national defense, economic prosperity, or public welfare are. These and other public policy goals are intrinsic to government: they are part of the reason that government is established and maintained. Ethics is mainly instrumental to government: its main purpose is to contribute to the other, intrinsic value. Honest government is a good in itself, valuable independently of any good policies that government may make. The value of ethics, however, is still a by-product of government, not a good at which government directly aims." The central component of Thompson's argument is that government ethics is the prerequisite for the making of good public policy, because the consistency of all policies depend on it. The more the people understand the ethics of the government is, the less likely people challenge the motives and rationale of government's policies is and the much time for the government to concentrate on policy implementation is. Thompson's viewpoint supports why a standard form of government ethics is crucial for public polices, as it provides a framework for the public to testify the consistency and even implies the ruling ideology of the government. 3. Ethics of Sacrifice and Tolerance Sometimes government ethics may conflict with personal ethics, it is because personal ethics emphasizes on face-to-face relations among individuals, it aims to guide people to perform better morally. Government ethics has a noble aim, which set standards for impersonal relations among people who may not know each other, but live in a same community and most importantly is to push public officials more accountable.6Gambling is a behaviour that may contradict with personal ethics but is almost ignored in government ethics, however, smoking is a behaviour which is publicly recognised as a violation of personal ethics is highly emphasized in government ethics, so what makes the difference? When assessing government's public policies from moral point of view, two concepts are usually adopted, they are "Ethics of Sacrifice" and "Ethics of Tolerance", before comparing government's gambling and tobacco polices, these two concepts must be clearly explained. According to McGowan, when "Sacrifice" is used as a moral concept to emphasize the advantages of a particular public policy issue, the government must be able to persuade the public that the general masses must abandon certain "rights", so as to achieve the common social goods.7 On the contrary, "Tolerance" emphasizes that people do not need to sacrifice anything (including rights or freedoms), as a way to achieve some goals of public welfare or preserve some institutions. The first concept stresses on the initiative by the government to restrict the masses in
"Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies particular policy issue, the later one stresses the action taken by the government to restrict the masses in particular policy area, which means to remove all unnecessary barriers, so individuals can make their own choice without any restriction, even it may bring externalities to the society. 4. Determination for Comprehensive Smoke Free Policy The government first enacts a law which restricts the use, sale and promotion of tobacco products in 1982, because of the changes of international trend and knowledge over the nature and side effects of tobacco products, the government proposes a bill in 1997, in order to further restrict tobacco advertisement and extend the scope of designated no smoking areas.8 The existing legislation regarding the tobacco products consists of the followings9: ①prohibits smoking on public transport and in cinemas, theatres, concert halls, banks, supermarkets, lifts, department stores and shopping malls; ②prohibits tobacco advertisements on ratio, television, film and the internet; ③prohibits tobacco advertisements in printed publications; ④ prohibits the display of tobacco advertisements (with some exemptions); ⑤requires packages of tobacco products to carry health warnings and the quantitative amounts of tar and nicotine yield, if applicable; ⑥prohibits the sale of cigarettes with a tar content of more than 17 milligrams; ⑦prohibits the sale of cigarettes through vending machines; ⑧requires large restaurants (over 200 seats) to designate at least one-third of their total area as no smoking areas; and requires all restaurants to display a sign to indicate whether a no-smoking area is provided in the restaurant premises; ⑨empowers managers of designated no smoking areas to enforce no-smoking requirements; ⑩prohibits the sale of tobacco products to minors under the age of 18 and requires retailers to display a sign to the same effect; and (11)prohibits the giving of tobacco products to any person for the purpose of promotion. In order to enhance the public to create a smoke-free culture and facilitate the public to comply with the existing legislation, the government proposes to set up the Tobacco Control Office in 2000, with the main duties to educate managerial and supporting staff of the restaurants and other public premises to enforce the ordinance, censor illegal tobacco advertisement and conduct anti-smoking activities and health education in general public.10Later on, the government estimates that smoking claims 5500 lives in Hong Kong every year and around 800 millions Hong Kong dollars in public health expenditure is directly caused by smoking in 1997, significantly higher than the previous year by 170 millions and another additional 157 million Hong Kong dollars is caused by second hand smoke, as a way to lease the financial burden of the government and protect citizens from being harmed by smoking, the government proposes an amendment bill to expand the smoking ban areas to all indoor workplace, catering and entertainment premises, prohibit smoking in all indoor and outdoor areas in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and outdoor areas in all tertiary institutions and universities.11The government also plans to revoke the exemption for registered hawker stalls and retails shops employing less than 2 staffs for displaying tobacco advertisement; nevertheless, the proposal suggests prohibiting all kinds of titled sponsorship in all public activities, so that no more public advertisement can be shown in the public. Finally, health warning with pictorial and graphic content should be shown on cigarette pack at a restricted size (50%), so that smokers can be better informed by the negative consequences caused by smoking.12The harsh proposal by the government would definitely welcome the series oppositions from different rent seekers or stakeholders, namely the catering and entertainment industries, hawker stalls and small retails shops, tobacco companies. The Hong Kong Catering Industry Association commissions KPMG to conduct a study, it shows the
revenue of the industry would fall 10.6% by government proposal, which equals to 7.9 billions dollars or 0.6% GDP and finally lost 21,500 working positions.13Since the coalition uses economic reason to persuade the legislative council members to turn down the government proposal, the government commissions the Hong Kong University to conduct separate studies on impacts of Hong Kong tourists industry for government proposals14 and rebuttal of KPMG report by the Hong Kong Catering Industry Association.15 The first study shows that two-third visitors would not change their visiting rate to Hong Kong, and one-third visitors would come more often. For mainland visitors, only 4% visitors would deter their visit to Hong Kong, while another 27% claims that they would come more often. The study estimates that the government proposal would bring 5% increase in total expenditure for Taiwan visitors and 31% increase for visitors from other regions (South Asia, South East Asia and Asia Pacific Region). The second study attempts to challenge the methodology used by KPMG, as a way to overthrow all the findings drawn from the report. After series of negotiations and public consultation, the government proposes another administration paper on the proposed amendments to Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance in January 2005, to be concise, the content inside the paper is almost the same as the one proposed in 2001, except suggestion on transitional period for the new measures after legislation. The government claims that, through the public hearings, consultation and surveys conducted by different institutions and parties, the proposal gets the overwhelming support from the general public.16 In order to make the proposal more convincing, the government also studies overseas experience, as a way to prove that a comprehensive smoking ban legislation in all indoor areas is a global and inevitable trend.17Because of the success of the government to convince the public by using both public health and financial reasons, and also different in-depth studies regarding the socioeconomic benefits of the government proposals,it is expected that the proposal would be sooner or later passed by the legislative council unanimously. It deduces smoking would be banned in all public areas and any means of advertisement, including titled sponsorship or souvenir promotion, would be strictly prohibited, and the community is on the way to the road for smoke-free society. 5. Dedication for Gambling Liberalization The long-established government's gambling policy is not to encourage people participating in gambling, while allow certain forms of wagering to be run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, namely horse-racing and mark six. Before the amendment of Gambling Ordinance (Chapter 148), overseas bookmakers can publicly invite local residents to place bets; the most obvious example is the Macau Jockey Club, which set up 6 services centres in Hong Kong. In order to combat those unauthorised gambling channels publicly operated in Hong Kong, the government proposes an amendment in 2000, which outlaws any means of public operation for all unauthorized bookmakers.18However the financial crisis taken in late 1990's completely changes the mindset of the government, the government shifts her focus on gambling from social issue to the economic issue, and the government is more concerned the potential additional revenue from the legalization of football betting. In order to understand the actual situation more thoroughly, the government commissions the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to conduct a comprehensive study on Hong Kong people's participation in gambling activities in 2001. The study clearly shows the participation of local people participate in illegal football betting is strictly limited in terms of numbers and amount of bets, as the estimated number of people participating in football betting was around 120,000 people (2.4%, including local and offshore bookmakers) comparing with horse racing(64.2%) and mark six(30.4%), and more than 70% bettors spent less than $1,000 per month and the median monthly betting money the bettors spent on the whole in football betting was $300 for local bookmakers and $750 for offshore bookmakers.19Although the study conducted by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University shows that participation of football betting is not that common, while the government denies
"Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies the figures found in the study. The government later on publishes a consultation paper to explain to the public the urgent need for legalization of football betting. The main arguments of the government are the popularity of illegal football betting and the continuous decline of government's betting duty tax and Jockey Club's turnover.20Government strongly believes that the penetration of the illegal football betting activities is spread over every corner in Hong Kong, the government not only denies the figure found in the study conducted by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, but also insists over 120,000 people participating in illegal football betting, the number would be increasing to 340,000 few years later. Thus the estimated amount of bets is more than 20 billions dollars, it shows a huge discrepancy with the one conducted by Hong Kong Polytechnic University.21Another major argument of the government is that the continuous decline in horse racing turnover of the Jockey Club would definitely affect the revenue of the government, and the main reason for the continuous decline of the Jockey Club's turnover is illegal football betting, so legalization of football betting would definitely improve the operations of the club. The public consultation attracts heated debates among different individuals and social groups, especially those in education, social welfare and religious sectors. The government recognizes that almost submissions (87% submissions and 96% signatures) are against the legalization of football betting, while wonders those submissions are provoked by those anti-gambling or pro-ethnics social groups and may not fully represent the opinion of the general masses.22Just 8 months after the consultation report is published, the government firmly agreed that there are sufficiently large and persistent demand of football betting in the society, so she first officially declares her intention to authorize football betting in late 2002 and concretely listed out the details of future operations, including the scrutiny, betting duty and license issuance system.23In order to pacify the large opposition force in the general public, the government issues an arrangement regarding the authorization and regulation concepts of football betting in January 2003, which composed of the followings:24① provide a legal football betting channel to combat illegal gambling activities; ②Hong Kong Jockey Club would be licensed to operate; ③license would be granted for initial 5 years and renewable after expiration (it was later changed to 3 years); ④set up an independent gaming affairs committee, which composed of mainly non-official members, to scrutinize the operations of lottery and football betting (an advisory body called Football Betting and Lottery Affairs Committee was set up in July 2003); ⑤tax at a fixed rate with reference to the gross profit (the rate was finalized at 50%); and set up a fund for the preventive education programmes and counselling services for pathological and problem gamblers (Ping Wo Fund was set up in September 2003, the source of funding was solely contributed by the Jockey Club). Finally, the bill proposed by the government in March 2003 is passed in Legislative Council with little margin in July of the same year. Bad news to those anti-gambling groups, the government passes the bill before the issuance of the code of practices for the conduct of football betting and lotteries. The content of this code of practices is ambiguous and not binding to the Jockey club, also, it does not clearly define "major tournaments and popular league", as a result, the Jockey Club can openly accept bets of different matches over the world, which is different at the very beginning that government plans to set a ceiling.25Recently, the government seeks the support from the legislative council to accept her new proposal for changing the horse racing betting duty system from "take out/ gross margin" to profit tax, as a way to allow more rooms of the Jockey Club to provide more attractive odds to bettors. The government firmly states that the previous decline in horse racing turnover is due to illegal horse racing, the Jockey Club estimated that the turnover of illegal horse racing is around 50-60 billion dollars, and the government is confident that the change of betting duty system would retrench the decline in horse racing turnover of Jockey
Club.26Under the proposed betting duty system, the Jockey Club needs to pay at least 8 billion dollars per year to the government in first three successive years, and the government, in return, would release the restriction for operation in horse racing. According to the data provided by the government, it highlights the trend for the decline in horse racing, but hides the powerful upward trend in football betting and only emphasizes on how illegal horse racing betting affects the Jockey Club, but never mentions the threat by the new gambling channel (football betting).27Table 1 supports the argument that legalization of football betting has greatly improved the operation of the Jockey Club, as its total turnover has been increased from 88 billion dollars in year 1999/00 to 96 billion dollars in year 2004/05. However, the legalization of football betting intensifies the decline in turnover of horsing racing. What is the most important is both government and Jockey Club never disclose the calculation or methodology for getting the figures that 50-60 billion dollars turnover of illegal horse racing, it seems the government tries to mislead the public through the manipulation of incomplete data. Table 1 Jockey Club's Turnover from year 1999/00 to 2004/05 Source: Jockey Club's Annual Report, various issues Unlike government's tobacco policy, she relies on researches conducted by academics and expertises to show how smoking ban can bring both social and economic benefits to the society, while her approach in gambling policy is different, which positions those "invisible and immeasurable" illegal bookmakers as society common enemy. Although the study conducted by Hong Kong Polytechnic University shows that the degree of participation in illegal football betting is not that serious, but the government still firmly believes the result under estimates the actual situation without any scientific evidences. It is obvious that the "Ethics of Sacrifice" triumphs over "Ethics of Tolerance" in government's tobacco policy and vice versa, does the government really rely on expertise to determine her stance in different public or social policies? Surely not! Otherwise, the government would not initiate the legalization of football betting after looking at the study by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. So the question attempts to be answered is what makes the government taking different moral values in different policy areas. 6. Different Policies, Different Angles? Gambling and Tobacco products together with pornographic and alcoholic beverage industries are traditionally classified as sin business28, because all these products may cause harm not only to the individuals, but also society as well. However, along with the liberalization process, the common acceptance towards these industries becomes greater and greater, but is the government using a consistent viewpoint in all these policy areas? Thanks to the public health education programme offered by the government, generally speaking, every individual, including smokers, should be conscious how smoking can cause panic to their bodies. Regular cigar use causes cancer of the lung, oral cavity, larynx, and espphagus.29 Moreover, heavy cigar smokers and those who inhale deeply face elevated risks of coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.30 On the contrary, no smoking not only extends the life expectancy, but also enjoys longer disability-free life span too. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. It causes serious illness of 8.6 million patients; it costs $1.3 trillion Hong Kong dollars in public health expenditure every year, and kills approximately 438,000 people each year.31 Worldwide, smoking kills nearly 5 million people annually. If the trend has not been retrenched, the number will be double in 2030, and smoking will kill more than 1 billion people in next 100 years.32The disease caused by smoking not only harms to individuals, but also increases the financial burden of the government. According to the figures provided by the 2006. 10
"Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies government, smoking costs 5500 lives every year, and 800 million and 157 million Hong Kong dollars public health expenditure are spent because of the direct and second hand smoking in 199733, so Hong Kong government, same as other jurisdictions in the world, has strong intention to initiate smoke free campaign. In 1986, the World Health Assembly set nine components of comprehensive tobacco policy34: 1. protecting non-smokers from environmental tobacco smoke; 2. promoting abstention from tobacco use; 3. promoting tobacco free health care; 4. elimination of socioeconomic and behavioural incentives to smoke; 5. posting prominent health warnings; 6. implementation of public education and smoking cessation programmes; 7. surveillance of tobacco use and disease trends; 8. developing alternatives to tobacco production, trade, and taxation; and 9. establishing a national "focal point" to coordinate tobacco control activities. The components set by the World Health Assembly become the guiding principle for regions and countries to carry out smoke free campaign domestically. Hong Kong government's tobacco policy can simply be divided into three areas: Economic, Legislation and Education. Same as other governments, Hong Kong government imposes high tax rate in tobacco products, which contributes 2.2 billion Hong Kong dollars revenue to the government.35 Regarding the legislation, it mainly consists of youth access restriction, no-smoking areas, advertising restriction, marketing and other enforcement measures. The main efforts of the government in education are mainly educating the public about the harms of tobacco products, commissioning institutes to conduct researches, shifting the attention to public health, smoking cessation programmes (especially in schools) and most importantly counter-advertising. If the government treats tobacco taxes as a primary source of income, it is not the major concern for the government to initiate other non-economic policies, such as legislation, because it would directly affect the revenue of the government. However, if the government is not necessarily concerned with the tax revenue from tobacco tax, other regulations and educations can easily be implemented. So tax can be treated as a "two-edged sword", on the one hand, it may be a good method to discourage smoking, on the other hand, it may also provide incentive for the government to promote, instead, restrict smoking. Also, when comparing 957 million Hong Kong dollars public health expenditure with 2.2 billion Hong Kong dollars revenue from tobacco tax, the government still does not have economic reason to enforce a smoke free legislation, does the government solely give up these 2.2 billion Hong Kong dollars revenue for only lowering around 1 billion dollars expenditure in public health? Some argues that tobacco not only raises tax revenue to the government, but also creates jobs and contributes to Gross Domestic Product of the nations, however, the World Bank analyzes the net economic effect of tobacco, it finds that the money not spent on tobacco products would be shifted to other goods and services that in turn would generate more jobs and economic activities to outweigh the losses from tobacco industry.36 In United States, there is a research to estimate that complete prohibition of all tobacco products would have net 130,000 jobs increase37 , and in South Africa, a study conducted in 1995 shows that if people completely stop purchasing cigarettes, between 9000 and 34,000 jobs would be created, if people completely stop purchasing cigarettes and the money they spend in cigarettes before flows to other goods and services, another 50,000 jobs would be created, and if current rate of decline in cigarette consumption doubled, 3500 jobs are immediately created.38According to Nobel Prize winner in Economics in 1970, Paul Samuelson, states that "Gambling involves simply sterile transfers of money or goods between individuals, creating no new money or goods. Although it creates no output, gambling does nevertheless absorb time and resources. When pursued beyond the limits of recreation, here the main purpose after all is to "kill" time, gambling
subtracts from national income."39 It implies that gambling is just a zero sum game, which produces no product and wealth, so it makes no genuine contribution to economic development; it is just a wealth redistribution process from one's pocket to another's one, so called "cannibalization effect" or "crowding out effect", as it just extracts money from other productive business sectors, so the higher the degree of participation in gambling is, the higher the negative multiplier effect towards the economy is. On the one hand, gambling can not guarantee the emergence of economic prosperity, on the other hand, excessive gambling participation in the society may cause panic and impose a huge sum of social costs to the society as well. In United States, the medical and social costs associated with treating and remedying the negatives, including the treatment to gamblers, counselling services to their family and other social welfare services, encountered by the problem and pathological gamblers ranging between $100,000 and $400,000 Hong Kong dollars.40 The most conservative estimation for the medical and social costs for problem and pathological gamblers also attains $78,000 Hong Kong dollars.41 Hong Kong has approximately around 4% problem (200,000 people) and 1.85% pathological gamblers (90,000 people), the numbers is expected to be increased tremendously, because the survey was conducted before the legalization of football betting42, since the treatment and other social services provided to problem and pathological gamblers are still on the developing stage, so I take the most conservative estimation $78,000. It finds that the most conservative estimation of social cost for addicted gambling is around 22.6 billion Hong Kong dollars. Excessive gambling not only imposes a huge sum of social cost to the society, but also brings intangible disturbance to their family members and friends. According to study conducted by Leiseur, one problem gambler can bring different degrees of influence to 10-17 people spiritually and monetarily.43 So people may argue that 290,000 problem or pathological gamblers only occupy a small fraction of the total population, but if we take this number into consideration, it tells us over one-third of the population is suffered from addicted gambling. "We think the number of people being affected would be even higher, because the closed connection in Chinese Society, so the counselling services provided by the Rehabilitation Centre for Problem Gamblers run by the Industrial Evangelistic Fellowship, should include their family members." said by Director Y. C. Poon. As same as tobacco policy, the government claims that the long-established gambling policy is not to encourage people gambling. In tobacco policy, the government adopts three strategies to discourage smoking in the community comprehensively, namely education, legislation and economic action, but can these strategies also be applied in gambling policy? The government relies on Ping Wo Fund, with funding provided by the Jockey Club, for carrying out public education, which almost money goes to operating capital for two publicly funded counselling centres, and some are spent for counter-advertising campaign in the media. Also, the government sets up a webpage44, which mainly targets at teenagers and organizes various activities to preach the negative consequences of gambling.45On the contrary to government's determination in smoke free legislation, the government not only does nothing, but also dedicates to liberalize gambling instead. The government sets up a regulatory body which is solely responsible for scrutinizing the Jockey Club's operation, however, it is just an advisory body and its decisions are not binding to the Club, also the code of practice does not include the concrete measures to regulate the Club, just lists out the general guiding principles, as a result, the Club has plenty of flexibility to run its gambling business. Unlike government's tobacco policy, which never attempts to restrict all kinds of promotion and titled sponsorship of the Jockey Club, but the government, rather, allows all kinds of gambling information and promotions to be published and broadcasted in the media, as a result, the counter-advertising efforts put by Ping Wo Fund are completely crowded out by the ever-lasting efforts of the Club. Mr. H.L. Wong, the convener of Hong Kong Gambling Watch, comments that the most influential effort by the Jockey
"Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies Club is its "soft promotion". During the past decade, the government keeps cutting the welfare expenditure; it pushes the social welfare sector more reliable on the titled sponsorship offered by the Club, which functions as rooting a positive and charitable image in minds of teenagers and society as well. Heavy tax is treated as one of the most important measure to discourage sin business, but recently, the government not only increases the betting duty, instead, releases the tax burden of the Jockey Club in horse racing, under the proposed system, the new horse racing betting duty will be changed from "take-out/ gross profit" to profit tax. The government insists that removing restriction for Jockey Club to run gambling business is the most effective measure to combat the illegal bookmakers. Professor David Miers agrees that the main purpose of legalization is to provide sufficient gambling channels to meet the public needs in gambling, otherwise, those unsatisfied needs will go to the illegal channels.46 However, his core idea is that before gambling is legalized, the government should take necessary actions to suppress the excess demand and supply of gambling in the society, like impose a harsh punishment for those placing bets through illegal bookmakers, as a way to divert the bets to legal channels. Also, both government and market can not fully combat black market through various measures, because wherever there is a market failure or demand for particular product, there is people who are willing to take the risk for higher return47, so the responsibility of the government is to avoid the existence of market failure or black market, instead of allowing the Jockey Club to compete with illegal bookmakers, as it would stimulate the demand for both legal and illegal gambling market. According to Onkvisit and Shaw, every product should face four discrete stages: introduction, growth, maturation and decline, which is called the product life cycle.48 Technically, a cycle implies that the demand of product will diminish after the maturation stage. In Hong Kong, there is a century history of horse racing, as one of the gambling product, which experiences many ups and downs before, with the introduction of football betting in 2003, the continuous decline in horse racing turnover seems inevitable and expected. (Table 2) Table 2 Changes of Turnover in Horse Racing (1992-2004) Source: Jockey Club's annual report, various issues As one of the consumer goods, the "sales" performance of horse racing would be definitely affected by the economic conditions. If we compare the horse racing turnover with other economic figures, it proves that the decline in turnover strongly correlates with the changes of economic conditions. The coefficient correlation between the turnover and inflation/ deflation rate is 0.769 (p<0.05), it means the turnover would be higher during the inflationary period and vice versa. Table 3 shows interweaving relationship between the consumer price index (I) and the turnover of horse racing, as horse racing is relatively more popular in lower income class, and consumer price index (I) reflects the purchasing power of this class, so it is a very useful figure to understand the decline of horse racing turnover. The correlation coefficient between these two variables is 0.812 (p<0.01), shows how these two variables are closely related. Furthermore, the changes of horse racing turnover is negatively correlated with the unemployment rate (correlation coefficient -0.922, p<0.001), means the higher the unemployment rate is, the lower the horse racing turnover is (Table 4). Even working class can avoid the destiny of unemployment, most working
class are also suffered from wage cut, it shows that the correlation coefficient between horse racing turnover and wage cut is 0.812 (p<0.01), which means people would reduce their bets during wage cut (Table 5). Table 5 Changes of Horse Racing Turnover and Wages 1993-2004Table 4 Changes of Horse Racing Turnover and Unemployment Rate (1993-2004) From the above analysis, both gambling and tobacco industry may impose a huge social cost and bring lucrative economic benefits to the society, theoretically, the government should have strong intention to carry out anti-smoking and gambling policies, however, the policy stance of the government is completely opposite, so what makes the difference? Unlike gambling, government is the largest victim by tobacco industry in terms of financial burden, the government collects 2.2 billion dollars betting duty in 2004, but needs to pay around 1 billion dollars in public health expenditure, excluding other implicit and intangible costs. However, the government is the biggest winner in gambling. In year 2004/05, betting tax contributes 11.6 billion dollars49, equals to 10% for government's internal revenue, which is the double of the Jockey Club's profit: 6.6 billion dollars.50However the money spent on remedying gambling related problems by the government is nothing, the Jockey Club is the major financial source of Ping Wo Fund, it means the Club is almost the sole supporter for the operations of the two counselling services centres, also all expenses regarding the public education are paid by the fund, the government pays nearly nothing in this issue. Although the social cost of addicted gambling is tremendous, different from tobacco, those costs are not directly borne by the government, because most counselling services are offered by voluntary organizations, debts are borne by the social networks of those pathological gamblers, even they go bankrupt; the biggest victim is their creditors. As a result, the government has no economic intention to support gambling free policy; rather, it is a strong reason to explain why the government liberalizes gambling. 7. Conclusion: Moral Values as Noble Cause for Utilitarianism As mentioned before, government ethics is the prerequisite for the making of good public policy. The more Table 3 Changes of Horse racing Turnover and Consumer Price Index (I) (1993-2004)
"Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies the people understand the ethics of the government is, the less likely people challenge the motives and rationale of the government is and much time for the government to concentrate on policy implementation is, so government ethics provides a framework for the public to gauge the ruling philosophy of the government. Traditionally, tobacco, gambling, pornography and alcoholic beverage are classified as "sin business". This paper chooses to compare gambling and tobacco, because government recently tables two separate bills to the legislative council, with the first one for relaxation of duty system, and the later one for restricting the operation of tobacco industry. It seems there is a great discrepancy over different policy areas, so the main purpose of this paper attempts to use moral values to justify whether the government has a consistent ruling philosophy in different policy areas. Theoretically, both industries can cause social problems, and bring lucrative returns to the government and society. Smoking can cause tremendous physical damage to individuals' bodies, and gambling can cause panic to gamblers and their families both spiritually and monetarily. The only difference is the costs are borne by the government for tobacco, but individuals for gambling. This makes the government concerns the social issue in tobacco, while economic issue in gambling. In fact, different scholars conclude that both tobacco and gambling industry may lead to crowding out effect or cannibalization effect to other business sectors. The reality is the government determines in smoking free policy, as a way to release the huge burden of the public health expenditure, however the government dedicates in gambling liberalization to release the burden and restriction of the Jockey Club, so as to boost up the tax revenue of the government. To conclude, the government does not have central and consistent moral values, the only ruling ideology she has is utilitarianism, and the main purpose of the government is financial stability through the increase in revenue and decrease in expenditure. That's why the government insists the long-established policy is not to encourage smoking and gambling, while measures taken by the government are contradictory. The government understands that solely economic reason is not effective in persuading legislative council members to pass the bills, so some moral concepts are sometimes borrowed to convince the members, like pubic health has been emphasized in government's tobacco proposal (ethics of sacrifice), respect individuals' choice and combating illegal bookmakers are highlighted in government's gambling proposal (ethics of tolerance), as a result, those moral values are just the noble cause for utilitarianism, instead of a guiding philosophy of the government. The utilitarian eye of the government in public policy may cause series criticisms from the public, because it reflects the inconsistency of government's ideology, which is a loophole or crisis for governance; along with the liberalization, more and more challenges or judicial reviews towards the existing long-established polices, like pornography, drugs, housing, can be foreseen. If the government can not formulate a standard guiding philosophy or ethics, she would loss grounds in public debates and finally hurt her legitimacy. Notes: 1 HKSAR Home Affairs Bureau, Gambling Review: A Consultation Paper, (2001). 2 Legislative Council Panel on Health Services, Progress on Setting up Tobacco Control Office, (2001). http://www.legco. gov.hk/yrOO-01/english/panels/hs/papers/b412e05.pdf 3 Legislative Council Panel on Health Services, The Administration's Paper on Proposed Amendments to Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance, (2005). http://www.legco.gov.hk/ yr04-05/english/panels/hs/papers/hs0110cb2-535-3e.pdf 4 Lund, William R., "Egalitarian Liberalization and Social Pathology: A Defense of Public Neutrality," Social Theory and Practice, Vol.23, lss.3 (1997), pp. 449-478. 5 Thompson, Dennis F., "Paradoxes of Government Ethics," Public Administration Review, Vol.52, lss.3 (1992), pp. 254-259. 6 Ibid. 7 McGowan, Richard A., "From Gambling to Gaming: What's in a Name", Government and the Transformation of the Gaming Industry (UK: Edward Elgar, 2001), pp.21-23. 8 Bilingual Laws Information System Chapter 371, http://www. legislation.gov.hk/chi/home.htm 9 Extracted from Environment Resources Management, (2001).
Regulatory Impact Assessment: Proposed Amendments to the Existing Smoking Legislation. p.2. 10 Legislative Council Panel on Health Services, Progress on Setting up Tobacco Control Office (2001), http://www.legco. gov.hk/yrOO-01/english/panels/hs/papers/b412e05.pdf 11 Legislative Council Panel on Health Services, Administration's Discussion paper on "Proposed Amendments to the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance (Cap.371), (2001). http://legco.gov. hk/yrOO-01/english/panels/hs/papers/b1459e03.pdf 12 Ibid. 13 Hong Kong Catering Industry Association, Proposed Smoking Ban: Impacts on Hong Kong Hospitality Businesses, (2001). 14 The Department of Community Medicine of the Hong Kong University, Final Report on the Studies of Air, Ferry and Rail Travellers to Hong Kong (2002). 15 The Department of Community Medicine of the Hong Kong University, A Critical Appraisal and Rebuttal of the KPMG Hong Kong Report Produced for the Hong Kong Catering Industry Association (2002). 16 Legislative Council Panel for Health Services, The Administration's Paper on the Proposed Amendments to Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance, (2005). http://legco.gov. hk/yr04-05/english/panels/hs/papers/hs0110cb2-535-3e.pdf 17 Legislative Council Panel for Health Services, Smoke-free Workplace Legislation: Overseas Experience (2005). http:/ /legco.gov.hk/yr04-05/english/panels/hs/papers/hs0225cb2-839- 3e.pdf; Legislative Council Panel for Health Services, Summary of Studies Assessing the Economic impact of Smoke-free Policies in the Hospitality Industry (2005). http:/ /Iegco.gov.hk/yr04-05/english/panels/hs/papers/hs0225cb2- 1074-1e.pdf 18 Legislative Council Panel on Home Affairs, Proposed Amendment for Gambling Ordinance (Chapter 148) to Outlaw Gambling with Extraterritorial Elements (2000). http://legco. gov.hk/yr99-00/english/panels/ha/papers/535e.pdf 19 Centre for Social Policy Studies of The Department of Applied Social Sciences and General Education Centre of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Report on a Study of Hong Kong People's Participation in Gambling Activities, (2001), pp. 24-32. 20 HKSAR Home Affairs Bureau, Gambling Review: A Consultation Paper (2001). 21 Ibid., p.11. 22 Leg is la t ive Counc i l Pane l on Home Af fa i rs , Consu l t a t ion repor t o n "G a m b l i n g R e v i e w : A C o ns u l t a t i o n P a p e r " , ( 2 0 0 2 ) . h t t p : / /Iegco.gov.hk/yr01 -02/english/panels/ha/papers/ha0412cb2- 1437-1e.pdf 23 Legislative Council Panel on Home Affairs, Authorization of Soccer Betting : The Way Forward (2002), http://legco.gov. hk/yr02-03/english/panels/ha/papers/hab_cr_1 _17_109_e.pdf 24 Legislative Council Panel on Home Affairs, Administration's paper on "Proposed arrangements for the authorisation and regulation of soccer betting", (2003), http://legco.gov.hk/yr02- 03/english/panels/ha/papers/ha0110cb2-815-1e.pdf 25 Legislative Council Panel on Home Affairs, Codes of Practice for the Conduct of Football Betting and Lotteries (2004). http://legco.gov.hk/yr03-04/english/panels/ha/papers/ha0213cb2- 1263-02e.pdf 26 Leg is la t i ve Counc i l Pane l on Home A f fa i r s , P roposed Re fo rms t o Be t t i ng Du t y Sys t em on Ho rs e Rac e Be t t i ng , ( 200 5 ) . h t t p : / /Iegco.gov.hk/yr04-05/english/panels/ha/papers/ha0513cb2-1520-2e.pdf 27 L e g i s l a t i ve C o u n c i l P a n e l o n H o m e A f fa i r s , S u p p l e m e n t a r y Information Provided by the Administration on Proposed Reforms to the Betting Duty System of Horse Race Betting, (2005). http://legco.gov.hk/yr04-05/english/panels/ha/papers/ ha0513cb2-1880-1e.pdf 28 Davidson, D. 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of Commercial Gambling" in Jan McMillen (eds.), Gambling Culture: Studies in History and Interpretation (Australia: Rou t ledge , 1996) , pp .288 -311 . 47 Butterworth, John, "Production and Control", The Theory of Price Co n t r o l an d B l a c k M ar k e ts (Avebu ry , 1994 ) , pp .4 6 -62 . 48 Onkvisit, S., Shaw, J., Product Life Cycles and Product Management (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989). 49 HKSAR the Treasury, http://www.try.gov.hk/cinternet/ pdc_srahead04.pdf 50 Hong Kong Jockey Club, Annual Report (2005), p. 106. "Ethics of Sacrifice" versus "Ethics of Tolerance": A Critical Review of Hong Kong Government's Tobacco and Gambling Policies