42 Facts About Lau Wong-fat

Lau Wong-fat, GBM, GBS, OBE, JP was a Hong Kong businessman and politician.

Lau Wong-fat had been the long-time chairman of the Rural Council, the most powerful organ representing the interests of the New Territories indigenous inhabitants from 1980 to 2015.

Lau Wong-fat was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 2016.

Lau Wong-fat had served as the member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Regional Council and the Tuen Mun District Council.

Lau Wong-fat began to involve in New Territories rural politics as a village representative in the Tuen Mun Rural Committee and climbed to the head of the villagers as the chairman of Heung Yee Kuk in 1980, where he kept the position for 35 years until he passed it on to his son, Kenneth Lau.

Lau Wong-fat was appointed member of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee and played an instrumental role in ensuring rural interests in the drafting of the Basic Law of Hong Kong.

Lau Wong-fat was first indirectly elected to the Legislative Council through the Regional Council functional constituency in 1986 and he held his seat through Heung Yee Kuk constituency from 1991 to 2004 and from 2008 until 2016 when he was replaced by his son.

Lau Wong-fat was the chairman of the Tuen Mun District Council from 1985 to 2011 and the chairman of the Regional Council from 1995 to 1999.

At the age of 22, Lau Wong-fat was selected by local villagers at the Lung Kwu Tan Village to be a representative of Tuen Mun, the youngest ever village leader.

Lau Wong-fat became chairman of the Tuen Mun Rural Committee in 1970 under the tutelage of chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk Chan Yat-sen, 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.

Lau Wong-fat briefly lost this position in April 2011 with his ousting from leadership of the rural committee by another pro-Beijing politician Junius Ho.

Lau Wong-fat held the chairmanship of the Tuen Mun District Council again from 2015 to 2016 until he retired from the rural committee.

In 1980 Lau Wong-fat became the chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk, which represented established interests of all inhabitants in the New Territories.

Lau Wong-fat held the position for 35 years and was elected for nine terms.

The Melhado Investment Ltd in which Lau Wong-fat was a major shareholder sued the government in the early 1980s for its non-agricultural use of land in the New Territories.

Lau Wong-fat was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1993 to 2003.

Lau Wong-fat was appointed Hong Kong Affairs Advisors and Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by Beijing ahead of the handover of Hong Kong.

In 1986 Lau Wong-fat became a member of the Regional Council where he became the chairman of the council from 1995 to 1997 and the chairman of the Provisional Regional Council from 1997 to 1999 until the Regional Council and the Urban Council were abolished in 2000.

Lau Wong-fat first became a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong in 1985 after the creation of the newly created functional constituency Regional Council where he was elected by the members of the council.

Lau Wong-fat did not stand for the 1988 re-election but was appointed by Governor David Wilson instead.

Lau Wong-fat was uncontestedly elected six times with a brief interruption from 2004 and 2008 where he stood in the District Council functional constituency as the incumbent pro-Beijing legislator Ip Kwok-him of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong lost his District Council seat and therefore ineligible to run.

Lau Wong-fat was the founding member of the Co-operative Resources Centre, a conservative political group led by Senior Unofficial Member Allen Lee in 1991 to counter the liberal emergence of the United Democrats of Hong Kong in the Legislative Council after the 1991 direct election.

The group later transformed itself into the Liberal Party where Lau Wong-fat was a member until he quit the party in 2008.

The split members later formed the Economic Synergy in 2009 which later merged with the Professional Forum into the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong where Lau Wong-fat was the honorary chairman.

In January 2009, Lau Wong-fat was appointed to the Executive Council of Hong Kong by Chief Executive Donald Tsang, where he held the position until 2012.

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

In 2014, Lau Wong-fat was awarded top position in the no-show charts in his participation of the Legislative Council.

Lau Wong-fat was at the centre of the declaration-of-interest scandal in 2010.

Lau Wong-fat was at the centre of the controversy in the pro-Beijing walkout ahead of the voting on the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive in 2017 and for Forming the LegCo in 2016 as the pro-Beijing legislators launched walkout was an impromptu attempt to delay the division so that Lau, who was delayed, could cast his vote in favour of the Beijing-backed reforms.

In October 2010, Lau Wong-fat 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.

Lau Wong-fat's 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.

Lau Wong-fat's 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.

Lau Wong-fat merely stated that the litigation had been passed to his lawyers for their further handling.

Amid deteriorating health condition, Lau Wong-fat did not seek re-election as the chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk in May 2015, and was succeeded by his son Kenneth Lau Wong-fat.

Lau Wong-fat had already been absent from the Legislative Council occasionally before he gave up standing in the 2016 re-election.

Lau Wong-fat's self-declared educational record was that he attended Ling Shan College but the identity of this institution is not clear.

Lau Wong-fat was married to Ng Mui-chu, and had five children including Kenneth Lau.

Lau Wong-fat's sister married Kingsley Sit, a rural leader and former member of the Legislative Council.

Lau Wong-fat died on 23 July 2017 at the age of 80 after a long illness.

Lau Wong-fat was an honorary court member of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Lau Wong-fat received an honorary doctoral degree from the China University of Political Science and Law in 2012.

Lau Wong-fat was made Justice of the Peace in 1973.