I thank you all sincerely for the thoughtful comments and enthusiastic response to my survey. I apologize for not being able to write to you individually in reply as I have been in LegCo meetings day and night for the past few days. However, I feel that an open consolidated response to some common queries may be helpful.

Sample Size & Privacy Policy

The sample size of the survey should be 100 percent of all HKSA members. Thanks to HKSA, I have their approval to use the membership data base last Friday and the email survey went out in the same afternoon. I understand that hard copies also went out this Monday. Student members and other accountancy bodies (which could make duplication of votes from dual memberships impossible to eliminate) are not included.

I started discussion with HKSA to access the membership data base since middle of May, over a month ago. Without the email address list of the HKSA, I simply have no means to know your email addresses and hence, impossible to contact you except through very slow and expensive hard copies. It is also because of the membership data privacy that the discussion took so long. The HKSA should have replied to you by now that the privacy of your votes will be secured. I would not even see the individual votes unless you choose to write to me. For those who have written to me, I would also follow HKSA privacy policy in the handling of the survey communications.

Release of Results and My Vote

I intend to vote with the majority view and the vote count is done independently by the HKSA. I would not be directly involved. The closing time will be noon 9th July. As the debate will go on for days, it will not be too late. As it stands, members will have about 10 days to respond to a deliberately simple survey.

I shall release the vote count on my website when counting has finished. I have also agreed with HKSA that they will do the same independently. It should be sometime in the afternoon of the 9th July well before the voting takes place. I shall of course announce the vote count, as I have done so many times before, in my speech during the actual LegCo debate. Since my vote is, as the media has widely reported, a critical factor in the legislative process, I am sure that the media will somehow make a report of it in the next day.

Yes/No instead of For/Against

I regret the confusion caused to members with the inadvertent choice of words used. In LegCo, the votes taken are normally counted as Yes/No instead of the more commonly understood terms of For/Against. I am so used to it and have applied it automatically in a hurry without much thinking. The draft was looked at by quite a few capable accountant friends before going out. The great majority of members voted without any problem.

Nonetheless, on detecting the possible misinterpretation, the survey form has been immediately amended to make clear of my intentions. My office should have also clarified this query with each member individually by email.

Timing of the Survey

Some of you complained that the survey has come too late. As I have explained, it went out the same day as approval was given by the HKSA. In any case, I have already explained to some of you that the Bill is a moving target of change and that the right timing to conduct a survey is crucial. One or two of you cited that another LegCo member has surveyed (only very informally in fact) earlier. Now the record should show that all these LegCo members have to completely redo their surveys again because the previous ones which had all shown a conclusion to ‘support the bill’ before are considered unreliable.

Design of a simple Survey

Those surveyed before would know that simple surveys encourage high returns particularly from busy accountants. Bearing in mind the huge 22,000 ‘sample’ used, it would allow the results to be collated easily within a very tight time frame and that the same can be interpreted definitively. A complex survey design will have all the opposite effects. In any case, there is an option field for comments and a hyper-link to write to me direct.

Counting of Votes

Some members just wrote to me and hope that their votes will be counted. I shall try my best to pass same to HKSA and to see if they can be included in the count. In principle, I will only take the independent count from the HKSA and they would normally take only an e-vote with their pin for security reasons or the returned hard copies from those who are not on the email address list. If you have any difficulty registering your vote, I am sure that the technical team in HKSA will be happy to help.

Democratic Spirit

Please rest assures that I have read each and every mail personally and that I would receive your comments objectively and professionally. In a modern liberal society, diversity of opinion is natural. From the response I have received, accountants have generally displayed high intellect, independent thinking, wonderful courtesy and a true aspiration for a just and democratic society. However, this precious democratic spirit fails when a very few amongst us claimed to be democrats but have chosen to treat me and others mentioned with great disrespect and poor civilities. I hope that they too will reflect.