Lau Wong-fat

Lau Wong-fat, GBM, JP (Chinese: 劉皇發, born 15 October 1936 in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong) is a former member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, representing the Heung Yee Kuk constituency. He was a member of Hong Kong Executive Council and chairman of the powerful Heung Yee Kuk, which represents the interests of the New Territories establishment. He was also the chairman of Tuen Mun District Council.
This political strength in rural Hong Kong has been morphed into power centrally and with the Beijing government. He earned his prestige by fighting for the New Territories indigenous interests by insert an article in the Hong Kong Basic Law to ensure their privileges remained protected after Hong Kong's handover to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 when he was a member of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee. For this, together with his extensive ownership of land and property, he is known as the "King of the New Territories" (新界王) or the "Land Emperor of the New Territories" (新界土皇帝). Billionaire Lau is politically identified as part of the pro-Beijing camp. He is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and has a close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.

At the age of 22, Lau was selected by local villagers to be a representative of Tuen Mun, the youngest ever village leader. He became chairman of the Tuen Mun Rural Committee in 1970, a position he held for 41 years, until in April 2011 the committee amended its constitution to limit any chairman to no more than two four-year terms. However, he was re-elected as chairman of the rural committee in 2015.

His longstanding membership of the Rural Committee is as village representative for Lung Kwu Tan. For many years unopposed, in January 2011, he faced the village's approximately 600 voters, after a challenge following the controversy of his failure to disclose some of his property holdings. He and his ally won comfortably, with even the defeated young candidates claiming "I just want to learn things from Fat Shuk [Uncle Fat]."

As the rural committee chairman, Lau was automatically an ex-officio member of Tuen Mun District Council, and became its chairman in 1982. He briefly lost this position in April 2011 with his ousting from leadership of the Rural Committee. After failing to win a seat in the November 2011 District Council elections, and against protests by Rural Committee members and local villagers, he was directly appointed back to the council by Chief Executive Donald Tsang, and on 4 January 2012 was elected by District Councillors back into the post of council chairman.

In 1980 Lau became the chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk, which represented established interests of all inhabitants in the New Territories, and had been elected to his ninth term in June 2011. This position is the core of his power. In May 2015, he stepped down as chairman and was succeeded by his son, Kenneth Lau Ip-keung.

In 1985, he was appointed to the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee, which was respoinsible for drafting the mini-constitution of Hong Kong in 1997. A key contribution of him was his fight to insert an article in the Basic Law to ensure indigenous interests remained protected after Hong Kong’s handover to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

In 1985 Lau became a member of the Regional Council and member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong through the Rural functional constituency and held the seat (including as a member of the Provisional Legislative Council, 1997–98) until 2004.

In the 2004 Legislative Council elections, he stood in the District Council functional constituency and won, with the help of mainland and pro-government forces. The reason for the move was to ensure that the seat vacated by Ip Kwok-him, a member of the DAB (then called the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong), was taken by a pro-government member. Another rural leader Daniel Lam took the kuk seat. A year later, Lau was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal, the highest honour the government can bestow on a member of the community.

There was then a further twist. So that Ip could run in the 2008 election in his former constituency (District Council), Lau stood for and of course re-won the Heung Yee Kuk seat. It was shortly afterwards, in January 2009, that Lau was appointed to Executive Council of Hong Kong by Chief Executive Donald Tsang, a predicted move that was seen as a reward for his co-operation.

Thus he was a member of the Legco, as well chairman of the Tuen Mun District Council, among his various other positions.

Lau's performance in Legco is considered one of the worst as he had not initiated a motion since 1998. His first motion was on 4 December 2013 against the incorporation of Tai Long Sai Wan into Country Park but was defeated.

Political record

In 2009 and 2010, Lau supported the disputed HK$66.9 billion funding of Express Rail, and advocated the controversial reform of methods for selecting the CE and LegCo.

He was at the centre of the declaration-of-interest scandal in 2010. However, Legco ultimately refrained from investigating Lau, for reasons that were never made public. This has caused some people believe that there was collusion between Lau and the government for mutual gain.

In 2014, Lau was awarded top position in the no-show charts in his participation of the Legislative Council. His attendance rate at work has stirred up concern that he was actually deceased given his age. When finally on the rare occasions where he attended work and proven still to be alive, his response to his lack of appearance was very typical of his arrogant persona stating, "It's not a sin, is it?"

Lau is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Quitting the Liberal Party

In September 2008, Selina Chow, the former chairwoman of Liberal Party, complained that Lau Wong Fat had been canvassing for the DAB's Cheung Hok-ming, her main competitor, and this led to her defeat in the Hong Kong legislative election, 2008. The Liberal Party's acting chairwoman, Miriam Lau, later confirmed that Lau Wong Fat had left the party.

Property disclosure incident

In October 2010, Lau was publicly criticised for his purchase of 19 properties in Yuen Long through companies linked to him after he failed to disclose at least some of the acquisitions to the council within the required 14 days. In a span of 10 days he revised his declared total ownership of land three times, bringing further criticism from leading figures such as Legco House Committee chairwoman Miriam Lau and deputy chairwoman of Legco's Committee on Members' Interests Emily Lau. His portfolio was later revealed to contain a large amount of land in Hong Kong with 724 plots of land and he was described as "a huge landlord" by Miriam Lau. He owns partly or in full the following:

Together with his family and through various companies, he owns 40 commercial and residential properties including houses and flats. Prior to October 2010 he registered only 337 plots of land. He failed to declare the purchases of three houses in Yuen Long in April and 16 flats in Yoho Midtown through Carofaith Investment, in which he holds 40% stake. Another company controlled by his son Kenneth Lau Ip-keung and Lau's daughter-in-law also bought eight flats in Yoho. His son sold three of them making a profit of HK$800,000 at a time when the government was trying to cool real estate property prices in 2010.

Litigation

In June 2012, the Hong Kong press reported that an indigenous inhabitant (原居民) of the indigenous village known as "San Tin Village (新田村)" in Yuen Long of the New Territories of Hong Kong by the name of Man Yuk Moon (文玉滿) had commenced civil proceedings (HCA 1012 / 2012) against Mr Lau Wong Fat at the High Court of Hong Kong, claiming HK$5,870,000. According to the local press, Mr. Lau Wong Fat refused to comment on the issue when asked. He merely stated that the litigation had been passed to his lawyers for their further handling. The current status of this lawsuit is unclear.

Lau's self-declared educational record is that he attended Ling Shan College (靈山中學) (possibly written 'Ling Saan High School') but the identity of this institution is not clear.

He is married to Ng Mui-chu, and has five children including Kenneth Lau Ip-keung, who is also a member of Tuen Mun District Council.

His business holdings are centred on his chairmanship of Wing Tung Yick (Holdings) Ltd.

In 1977, a new school was named after him: Lau Wong-fat secondary school in Kowloon.

Wong Chu Road, a major thoroughfare in Tuen Mun New Town linking Tuen Mun Road and the western part of the town, is named after him and his wife, Lau Ng Mui-chu. Tsing Shan Estate, the first public housing estate in Tuen Mun, was renamed San Fat Estate after him and Chan Yat-sen, another prominent figure in the Kuk.

He is an honorary court member of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In 1983, he succeeded Tang Yuek Fan as chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk Yuen Long District Secondary School.

Since 2004 he has represented Hong Kong to perform the Lunar New year kau cim ceremony, succeeding Patrick Ho in the role.

In 2005 he received the Grand Bauhinia Medal, Hong Kong's highest honour.