HKU POP SITE releases findings of an instant poll on Policy AddressBack


Press Release on October 13, 2005
 

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 findings of an instant survey on people's reactions towards the Policy Address, including the latest rating of the CE, and people's satisfaction with his policy direction. As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population obtained from the 2001 Population Census. In the past many years, POP has conducted instant polls 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 a better way to study public opinion on these issues. With respect to people's instant reactions towards the contents of Donald Tsang's maiden Policy Address, findings are summarized below:

 

Date of survey 12/10/05
Sample base 914
Overall response rate 66.1%
Sampling error of percentages (at 95% confidence level)* +/- 3%
This year, the theme of CE's Policy Address is "Strong Governance for the People". Do you think this theme concurs with the current needs of the society?
Yes 72% Half-half 10% No 8% Don't know / Hard to say 10% Total 100%
CE said the most pressing public demand is to pursue excellence in governance. He will authorise the Chief Secretary for Administration and the Financial Secretary to co-ordinate policies, with all Secretaries of Bureaux reporting to them. He will also expand the Executive Council and the Commission on Strategic Development, and to rejuvenate the membership of advisory boards, etc. Do you think CE can achieve his goal of pursuing excellence in governance in the coming year?#
Yes 46% Half-half 18% No 24% Don't know / Hard to say 11% Total 100%
CE said the second theme of his policy direction is to create a harmonious community. He said the government will establish partnership relations with different sectors and bodies in the society so as to foster a harmonious community. Do you think CE can achieve his goal of creating a harmonious community in the coming year?#
Yes 38% Half-half 19% No 32% Don't know / Hard to say 11% Total 100%
CE said the third theme of his policy direction is to help the economy to power ahead, to consolidate Hong Kong's position as an Asia's world city and a key international financial, trading, transportation and information hub of China. Do you think CE can achieve this goal in the coming year?#
Yes 39% Half-half 19% No 28% Don't know / Hard to say 14% Total 100%
Among the three policy aspects mentioned by Donald Tsang, i.e. political, economic and livelihood, which area do you predict will become most successful in the coming year?#
Economic 32% Political 27% Livelihood 24%
Successful in all three aspects 3% Unsuccessful in all three aspects 2% Don't know/Hard to say 12%

* "95% confidence level" means 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.
# The sub-sample size of these questions is 666, sampling errors increase to +/- 4% accordingly.

 

The instant survey suggested that 72% of the respondents perceived the theme of this year's Policy Address "Strong Governance for the People" to be in line with the current needs of society, 8% thought the opposite. With regard to the three themes mentioned by CE Donald Tsang in his Policy Address, namely pursuing excellence in the government, fostering harmony in the community and helping the economy power ahead, a respective of 46%, 38% and 39% of the respondents thought Donald Tsang could achieve these goals in the coming year, while 24%, 32% and 28% respectively said no. In terms of broad policy areas, 32% predicted that Tsang would be most successful in the economic area, while 27% and 24% named political and livelihood areas correspondingly. With respect to people's overall rating of the Policy Address, as well as the change of their confidence towards Hong Kong's future, the figures are summarized below:

 

 Date ofsurvey Sub-sample base# Overall response rate Sampling error of rating* Sampling error of %* Appraisal of Policy Address: Satisfaction rate** Appraisal of Policy Address: Half-half Appraisal ofPolicy Address: Dissatisfaction rate** Satisfaction rating of Policy Address
 12/10/05 377 66.1% +/- 1.9 +/- 5% 48% 33% 9% 66.4
 12/1/05 391 66.5% +/- 2.4 +/- 5% 38% 30% 20% 56.3
 7/1/04 381 67.5% +/- 2.4 +/- 5% 25% 26% 33% 49.3
 8/1/03^ 377 67.3% +/- 2.6 +/- 5% 22% 29% 27% 51.6
 10/10/01 433 66.0% +/- 2.2 +/- 5% 29% 33% 27% 56.7
 11/10/00 262 69.7% +/- 2.8 +/- 6% 25% 28% 31% 55.2
 6/10/99 236 54.5% +/- 2.8 +/- 6% 31% 30% 25% 57.3
 7/10/98 508 56.5% -- +/- 4% 22% 35% 35% --
 8/10/97 534 62.9% -- +/- 4% 45% 30% 14% --
 

 Date of survey Sub-sample base# Overall response rate Sampling error of %* Effect of the Policy Address on one's confidence in HK's future
Increased Unchanged Decreased
 12/10/05 476 66.1% +/- 5% 54% 33% 5%
 12/1/05 658 66.5% +/- 4% 34% 41% 12%
 7/1/04 602 67.5% +/- 4% 32% 40% 16%
 8/1/03^ 513 67.3% +/- 4% 25% 40% 22%
 10/10/01 591 66.0% +/- 4% 22% 50% 21%
 11/10/00 292 69.7% +/- 6% 22% 40% 15%
 6/10/99 233 54.5% +/- 6% 40% 36% 16%
 7/10/98 505 56.5% +/- 4% 21% 52% 22%

* "95% confidence level" means 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.
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale.
# Excluding respondents who said they would not answer because they had not heard of or did not know the content of the policy address. Because of the smaller sample size, the sampling error has increased accordingly.
^ The 2003 Policy Address instant poll was conducted for two days. Only figures registered in the first day of fieldwork are listed in this table for direct comparison and analysis. Aggregate results are available in our "HKU POP SITE".

 

Results showed that, among sub-sample of respondents who had heard of the Policy Address, 48% were satisfied with it, 33% opted for "half-half" and 9% were dissatisfied, while the average rating registered for the Policy Address was 66.4 marks. Besides, excluding those who said they would not answer because they did not know the content of the policy address, 54% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong had increased, 33% opted for "no change", whilst 5% said their confidence had dropped.

 

Recent figures on Donald Tsang's popularity are summarized as follows:

 
 Date of survey 22-25/8 1-7/9 26-29/9 3-6/10 12/10 Latest change
 Sample base 1,004 1,007 1,027 1,010 914 --
 Overall response rate 63.5% 62.0% 61.2% 64.2% 66.1% --
 Sampling error of ratings(at 95% confidence level)* +/-1.2 +/-1.0 +/-1.0 +/-1.0 +/-1.1 --
 Sampling error of percentages(at 95% confidence level)* +/-3% +/-3% +/-3% +/-3% +/-3% --
 Rating of CE Donald Tsang 64.8 66.7 69.5 68.0 67.4 -0.6
 Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang 68% 75% 79% 77% 74% -3%
 Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang 12% 8% 8% 8% 9% +1%
 Satisfaction rate of Tsang's policy direction** 48% -- -- -- 52% +4%^
 Dissatisfaction rate of Tsang's policy direction** 6% -- -- -- 4% -2%^

* "95% confidence level" means 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.
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale.
^ The polling cycles for these items are different from the rest. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same cycle.

 

The install poll conducted last night showed that, after CE Donald Tsang announced his Policy Address, his latest rating registered was 67.4 marks, and 74% supported him as the Chief Executive. Meanwhile, 52% were satisfied with his policy direction, whereas 4% were dissatisfied.

 

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Both rating and satisfaction level of Donald Tsang's maiden Policy Address are higher than those for the other 8 policy addresses in the history of the HKSAR, and that 54% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong have increased due to yesterday's Policy Address is also a record high. Tsang has apparently made a good start, but whether and how opinion would change after public debates is something yet to be seen. Regarding the three major themes mentioned by Tsang, namely, pursuing excellence in the government, fostering harmony in the community and helping the economy power ahead, people are most confident in Tsang accomplishing the first one. Tsang's image of strong governance seems to be taking shape. On the other hand, our track record across the years shows that CE's popularity normally goes up after delivering a policy address, but not this year. Both Tsang's popularity rating and support rate have slightly dropped since the end of last month. It seems that the effect due to policy address was not as big as that due to Tsang's bringing all legislators to Mainland China."

 

Other than Donald Tsang giving his maiden Policy Address, yesterday was also the lift-off day of Shenzhou VI. POP took this opportunity to measure people's relative concern for these two events. Our findings showed that 59% of the respondents said they paid more attention to the Policy Address, while 23% said they paid more attention to news on Shenzhou VI, 15% said they paid equal attention to both. Detailed figures have been uploaded onto our POP SITE.

 

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 October 18, 2005, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest figures on the popularity of Principal Officials under the accountability system and non-official members of the Executive Council will be released.

 

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 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