Robert Chung makes an open response to media enquiries concerning Central Policy Unit's opinion surveysBack

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, the Director of Public Opinion Programme (POP), after publishing an article yesterday entitled "Does Tsang's Government respect Opinion Surveys?", has obtained through some reporters a three-page Chinese document issued by the government, captioned "Methodology Adopted by Opinion Polls of Central Policy Unit". Per the reporters' request, Robert Chung now makes a brief response as follows.

1)

Robert Chung (i.e. myself) demands the Government to comply with international standards of opinion research in disclosing necessary details when citing opinion surveys in future, because he hopes the Government would correct its bad practices, and lead the society to respect opinion research and make good use of opinion surveys.

2)

The Government yesterday released further information of some Central Policy Unit opinion surveys in response to the public demand. This deserves appreciation.

3)

However, the supplementary information released yesterday still fell short of international standards, as the Government has still not disclosed the name of the research organization, the definition of responsibility in designing the questionnaire, as well as the full text of the questionnaire. The Government may have some unspeakable reasons, like policy inflexibility and unfamiliarity with the international standards. This is forgivable, once but not for another time.

4)

It is the usual practice of Robert Chung and POP that, unless absolutely necessary, not to criticize other research organizations or their specific questionnaire design, in order to avoid any conflicts of interest. However, we welcome comments from other academics and experts, including those on the work of Robert Chung himself, in order to upgrade the quality of opinion research on the whole.

5)

Regarding the CPU surveys at stake, Robert Chung did not find any serious faults. He prefers to let other academics and experts comment on their deficiencies.

Note: Nothing in this open statement represents the stand of the University of Hong Kong, and Robert Chung is not prepared to make any further comment on this topic.