Pro-democracy politician Albert Ho was snapped flipping through multiple photos of bikini-clad ladies while finance minister John Tsang delivered a one-and-a-half-hour long budget speech yesterday.
"It just so happened that at that time, I casually saw the photos," said Ho, who failed in a bid to become the semi-autonomous city's leader in 2012.
"I have learnt a lesson, I should not commit such a mistake again," he told reporters yesterday, adding that he had apologised for the incident.
The South China Morning Post reported that the lawmaker, who was for a time the chairman of the city's largest pro-democracy party, browsed through the photos for 10 minutes.
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Ho is not the first lawmaker to be left red-faced after being distracted during parliamentary business.
In 2011 an Indonesia lawmaker from a conservative Islamic party resigned after he was photographed looking at pornography on his tablet computer in parliament.