HKU POP SITE releases findings on people's instant reactions towards the Policy AddressBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the preliminary findings of an instant survey on people's reactions towards CE Tung Chee-hwa's Sixth Policy Address, including the latest rating of the CE, and people's satisfaction with his policy direction. POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly. According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be January 14, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

In the past many years, POP has conducted instant polls on the first one or two days after the head of the government delivered his Policy Address, or after the Financial Secretary delivered his Budget Speech. Such instant polls, which measure people's instant reaction to the policies, would be followed weeks later by our follow-up surveys, which measure people's more matured reaction. We believe this is the correct way to study public opinion on these issues.

Last night, we successfully interviewed 830 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above, we will continue our fieldwork today. Our preliminary findings show that the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa was 48.2 marks, representing a significant increase of 1.6 marks from the historic low of 46.6 marks registered in early January (January 2-7), before he announced his Policy Address. The figure has recovered to the level registered in early December last year, but has still not reached the benchmark of 50.

Besides, after excluding those respondents who said they had not heard of the Policy Address, 22% of the respondents said they were satisfied with the Policy Address, 27% were dissatisfied, 29% said "half-half", while 22% did not give a definite answer. Compared to the results of the last instant poll conducted in 2001, the satisfaction figure has dropped by a significant 7 percentage points. As for people's satisfaction rating of the Policy Address, after excluding those respondents who said they had not heard of it, an average rating of 51.6 marks was registered this year, a significant decrease of 5.1 marks from that of 2001. Again excluding those who had not heard of the Policy Address, 25% of the respondents said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong had increased after CE delivered his Address, 22% said their confidence had dropped, 40% said "no change", while 14% did not give a definite answer. Since many of the respondents said they had not heard of the Policy Address in the first day of our instant poll, the valid sub-samples of the three items mentioned above were around half of those for other questions. The sampling errors for these questions have increased accordingly.

Regarding people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, the latest figures indicated that 16% of the respondents were satisfied, 33% were dissatisfied, 25% said "half-half", while 26% did not give a definite answer. Compared to the figures registered in mid-December last year, no significant difference was observed for the satisfaction figure, but a shift of around 10 percentage points is observed from the dissatisfaction figure to the "don't know" figure.

Regarding the theme of this year's Policy Address "Capitalizing on Our Advantages: Revitalizing our Economy", 62% of the respondents considered it to be in line with the current needs of society, 16% said it did not, 7% said "half-half", while 15% did not give a definite answer. However, 30% of the respondents believed that CE's policies could not revitalize the economy of Hong Kong, 14% said it could, 8% said "half-half", while 48% did not give a definite answer.

As for CE's analysis of Hong Kong's economy, 35% of the respondents agreed with him that the past successes of Hong Kong were attributable largely to the incompetitiveness of the Mainland economy, 41% disagreed, 9% said "half-half", while 15% did not give a definite answer. Meanwhile, 50% of the respondents agreed to CE's point that the development of Hong Kong's economy has to be "backed by the Mainland", 32% did not agree, 9% said "half-half", while 8% did not give a definite answer.

Finally, 62% of the respondents were satisfied with the decision to take a 10% pay cut by CE and more than 10 Principal Officials starting from 1 April, 2003, 27% were dissatisfied, while 6% said "half-half" and another 6% did not give a definite answer.

Summing up people's reaction to the Policy Address in the first day, Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "CE's Policy Address has a stabilizing effect on CE's popularity at its lower end, quite some respondents who were dissatisfied with his policy direction in the past have changed to a wait-and-see position. People's confidence in Hong Kong's future has remained practically unchanged, whereas only 1 in 7 people believed that CE's policies could revitalize the local economy. People tend to disagree with CE's analysis that Hong Kong's past successes were attributed mostly to the Mainland factor. However, regarding future development, people tend to agree with the CE that Hong Kong needs the backing of the Mainland".

The instant poll released in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is 830 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling errors of the rating of CE and his sixth policy address are plus/minus 1.6 and 2.6 marks respectively, that of most other percentages is less than plus/minus 4 percentage points, while that of percentages relating to people's satisfaction with the policy address and confidence in Hong Kong's future is less than plus/minus 5 percentage points. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not give further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.