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A telephone survey was conducted from 28 to 30 December 2014 by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to study the popularity of the HKSAR Government for the month of December 2014 and the expectations on the 2015 Policy Address.  744 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 43.4%.  The sampling error is + or – 3.59% at a confidence level of 95%. 

Major findings are summarized as follows: 

Satisfaction towards the HKSAR Government.  According to the survey, while 44.6% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction towards the HKSAR Government, 22.8% said they were satisfied.  31.9% of 744 respondents answered ‘in-between’.  The corresponding figures in November 2014 were 43.0%, 18.9%, and 37.5%.  Results of December 2014 were significantly different from those of the past month statistically.  There were increases in both positive and negative responses. 

Rating of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.  The current survey showed that the performance rating of Chief Executive (with a point scale ranging from 0 to 100 while 50 as a passing mark) stood at 43.1 in average and it was 42.7 last month, but the difference between November and December 2014 was found to have no statistical significance. 

Ratings of Three Secretaries.  The ratings of Chief Secretary for Administration (Carrie Lam), Financial Secretary (John Tsang), and Secretary for Justice (Rimsky Yuen) in December 2014 were 56.2, 57.9, and 50.0 respectively.  The corresponding figures in November 2014 were 58.2, 59.5, and 52.8.  Only the increase in the rating of Rimsky Yuen was found to be statistically significant between November and December 2014, while no statistically significant differences were observed in the ratings of Carrie Lam and John Tsang. 

Overall Rating of the HKSAR Governing Team (including politically-appointed officials).  The overall rating of the HKSAR governing team was 46.6 in December and 47.9 in November 2014.  This could be interpreted as a stable rating as statistically the rating of December 2014 was not significantly different from that of November 2014. 

Trust in the HKSAR and the Central Governments.  In December 2014, 29.2% of respondents showed trust in the HKSAR government and 37.8% expressed distrust; 32.7% answered ‘in-between’.  The results of November 2014 were 24.8%, 34.1%, and 40.2% respectively.  Concerning the level of trust in the Central Government in December 2014, while 28.0% said they trusted the Central Government, 40.1% answered the opposite; 28.8% said ‘in-between’.  The respective figures in the previous month were 23.7%, 37.2%, and 37.6%.  While there were statistically significant increase in distrust towards the HKSAR and the Central Governments between November and December 2014, there were also increase in trust towards the HKSAR Government. 

Expectations on the 2015 Policy Address.  In the current survey, respondents were also asked to choose which policy areas they believed should be prioritized in the forthcoming Policy Address.  A larger proportion (28.2%) of respondents would like to see the forthcoming Policy Address dealing with the housing and planning one first.  20.0% voted for constitutional development and governance, 15.1% chose people’s livelihood and welfare, 12.2% opted for economic development, 10.5% said medical and health care, 7.7% considered education, and 2.3% cited environmental protection as the top areas of priority in the 2015 Policy Address.  When our respondents were asked about their level of expectation on the forthcoming Policy Address, 6.9% of them claimed to have a high expectation. 47.2% reported that they had no expectation and 42.6% said that they had some.