announced that a casual vacancy had occurred in the representation in this House in the seat of a member elected in terms of section 40(l)(c) of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961, owing to the resignation with effect from 28 March 1983 of Dr. Georg Marais.

Mr. Chairman, when this House adjourned on Friday afternoon we were considering the amendment of the hon. member Prof. Olivier on the proposed new section 72G, which deals with regulations relating to community service.

I am sorry to say that I doubt whether this side of the House will be able to support the amendment of the hon. member Prof. Olivier. This is of course because the ordinary rules and regulations of the respective establishments where the persons concerned will have to work, cannot be made applicable to them. As far as salaries are concerned, they must be in accordance with the ordinary salaries of national servicemen, which means of course that the persons concerned must not be better or worse off than other national servicemen. That is why the penal provisions are not an issue here, but how these people must be accommodated.

After all, the religious objectors concerned are going to perform service at various establishments, for example the central Government, the provincial administrations or the local authorities. A religious objector in the third category will therefore, in certain respects, have fewer rights than the ordinary official, and for various reasons. In the first place he is not voluntarily in service. In the second place he cannot resign whenever he wishes. In the third place he cannot be remunerated in accordance with ordinary salary scales. In certain respects, however, he will also have more rights than the ordinary official because in most cases special provision will have to be made, for example for his transport, accommodation, clothing, food, etc. If, for example, the person comes from the platteland, his salary will have to be supplemented in order to make it possible for him to work in a city like Pretoria, for example. The usual situation of masters and servants is therefore not applicable to these people.

The hon. member Prof. Olivier said that by placing these people in the third category, the House was in fact accepting that their religious objections were genuine. That is quite correct, Mr. Chairman. That is so. Yet in terms of our national service system this is not necessarily justified. Therefore special provision has to be made for them. After all, they are first and foremost still national servicemen. That is why special regulations have to be drawn up, as set out in the proposed new section 72G.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to associate myself with the remarks the hon. member for Humansdorp has just made with regard to the proposed amendments of the hon. member Prof. Olivier. After the many amendments which were accepted by the hon. the Minister on Friday, I find it rather incomprehensible that the hon. member Prof. Olivier should continue with this amendment of his almost as though no other amendments were accepted by the hon. the Minister. The fact that he is continuing with it is, in my opinion, also contrary to the spirit which the official spokesman of his party displayed towards the legislation under discussion.

I think what is necessary is for the hon. member Prof. Olivier to draw up for himself a proper balance sheet of what is at issue, a balance sheet comparing the obligations of a national serviceman with those of a community serviceman.

As a result of two amendments moved by the hon. member for Pretoria West and accepted by the hon. the Minister, two things have happened. In the first place, the period of community services has been reduced by two years to six years, and in the second place the other amendment of the hon. member for Pretoria West will mean that the regulations which the State President may make with regard to the remuneration, conditions of service, increases and promotion of the relevant persons, will only apply to the first two years of his community service. When one takes this into consideration, as well as the principle on which all parties in this House agree, namely that a community serviceman must compensate for the fact that he is not exposing himself to emergency situations, dangerous situations and the like, it is after all true that during the first two years they are now in a similar position. The national serviceman does his two years of military service continuously on a private’s pay. The community serviceman now does his first two years of community service for a private’s pay. After the national serviceman has done his first two years of continuous service, he may seek work from any employer, and for that work he receives the ordinary salary and annual increments as well as increases where necessary. After the first two years of community service the community serviceman is now in a similar position. He remains in the same post, but he may now receive salary increases, increments and the like. He is therefore again in the same position as a national serviceman as far as conditions of service, etc., are concerned. The only difference is, therefore, that he must do his service continuously and that he must do two years compensatory service owing to the fact that he is not exposing himself to dangerous situations. This being the case, I feel that it is open to debate whether this person is really worse off or better off than the national serviceman, for after he has done his six years of service his community service obligation has been discharged, whereas the normal national serviceman, after he has done his two years of continuous service, must do a further two years spread over a 12-year period. In one year he does three months, in the next year a month, then three months, etc., and under these circumstances he could even be worse off financially because it is unfortunately the case that not all employers will pay him in full for his camp period of three months. They only pay part of his salary or nothing at all, whereas the community serviceman is performing his service for a full salary. I feel those hon. members also had the wrong perception in this case with regard to the other aspects of the proposed section 72G which the hon. member Prof. Olivier wants substituted. These regulations with regard to his transport, his accommodation and his maintenance are to accommodate him, because when the ordinary serviceman does his two years of continuous service, he receives a wage which is totally insufficient to pay for accommodation, food and transport. The Defence Force provides him with those services. It is also the case that if this community serviceman is not living with his parents and has to live elsewhere, the private’s pay he receives for the first two years will be insufficient for him to be able to pay for his own food, accommodation, rent, transport, etc. The pay is simply too low during the first two years. To enable him to do his community service and subsist, the same situation applies to him as to the national serviceman. I therefore feel that the hon. member was really arguing from the wrong standpoint, if he sees these aspects as a punishment instead of a practical accommodation placing this person, practically speaking, in the same position as the national serviceman. I also said that the service of the national serviceman extends over a period of 12 years, but in terms of the amendment made to the Defence Act lasty year on the recommendation of the Select Committee, the position is that virtually every able-bodied male is at present liable to service in some or other way in some or other reserve until he is 55 years old, whereas a religious objector in category 3 who has done his six years of community service is exempted for the rest of his life. Consequently I do not think that he is being prejudiced in any way, and I think it is really open to debate whether he is worse off than the ordinary national serviceman in any way. In some cases one is entitled to argue that he is better off, and I can therefore see no reason why we should consider the amendment of the hon. member Prof. Olivier. If we were to consider it, it would be most unfair to national servicemen who have to expose themselves to dangerous situations.

Mr. Chairman, I listened very attentively to the hon. members for Humansdorp and Benoni. Because I must assume that the hon. members would not have adopted the standpoints they did adopt without there being a certain amount of support for their standpoints, I want to express my disappointment in the attitude they adopted in this connection. I therefore want to call on the hon. the Minister of Defence to give consideration to my pleas in this connection in spite of what they said.

The hon. member for Benoni cannot say on the one hand that the matter is open to debate while at the same time adopting the positive standpoint that these things are in fact more beneficial for the person concerned than for the national serviceman. [Interjections.] I say it is open to debate, and if this is so surely it means that there is more than one side to the matter. If the hon. member for Benoni is comparing the normal obligations of a national serviceman, namely two years plus a period of 720 days which could be three months a year or one month a year, to a continuous period of six years, it simply does not make sense. These things cannot be compared. It surprises me that a logical person like the hon. member for Benoni can dream of comparing these two aspects. Surely there is no comparison between them.

I want to go into a point raised by the hon. member for Benoni. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister of Defence whether my interpretatation is incorrect, given the hon. the Minister’s acceptance of certain of the amendments on Friday, because I got the impression that one of the amendments he accepted referred to the proposed section 72E(6)(c), namely the matter of the two years. I also got the impression—I should like the hon. the Minister to correct me if I am wrong—that the amendment that was accepted only affected those persons who are already in service. If it is paragraph (c) which is applicable, then it applies only to persons who at that stage are already employed by Government departments and does not apply to young national servicemen who are not yet in the employ of a Government department. If my interpretation is correct, the essence of the argument of the hon. member for Benoni falls away as far as this point is concerned as well.

What are we dealing with here? Let us have no illusions about this, and that is why I have said repeatedly that what we are dealing with here is a continuous period of six years. We are concerned with a person who, owing to conscientious objections, does not feel that he can participate in military activities. We are therefore dealing with a person who has in fact been accepted by the board itself as being a person with a justifiable and acceptable religious objection.

What do the regulations make provision for? The other day I started off by saying that in the first place in terms of the regulations it may be determined for whom he must work on the basis of those two categories; viz. with a Government department on the one hand or a provincial administration or local authority on the other. In the second place it may be determined in terms of the regulations to which post he shall be appointed. It may be determined what kind of training he will be allowed to undergo during that period. The entire matter of his transfer may also be determined. During a period of six years of his life—not two years, because he is not a serviceman who is part of the Defence Force—he may be transferred at will. For six years he is subject to the possibility of arbitrary transfer by the authorities at any time, irrespective of whether he is married or unmarried. Both his progress in his position and his hours of service are determined by the regulations. When one is in the Army, when one is in the Permanent Force, when one is serving on the border, it is understandable that one’s hours of service can be determined, but in this case the person is in a civilian position, in the service of the State or of a municipality or whatever, and we say we have the right to determine his hours of service. We also say we have the right to determine his leave for six years. Theoretically he can be told that he may not take leave. [Interjections.] I am referring to possibilities. It is no argument to say that the hon. the Minister will show the necessary clemencey and will act reasonably in this connection. That is not the point. I am discussing the impression which is created by this legislation.

We are giving the hon. the Minister—or the State President through the hon. the Minister—the right to determine for six years what a person’s conditions of leave will be. We are therefore giving the State the right for six years to determine what salaries and allowances such a person will receive. However, we go even further. For six years we also decide to whom those salaries and allowances may be paid. In theory we are doing this, without his having a choice. At least a national serviceman—if I understand the matter correctly—has the right to indicate to whom the wages that he does not draw on the border should be paid, or into which account they should be paid. Here we are giving ourselves the right to determine to which dependants his salary may be paid. We have this right for six years of his life.

The regulations provide that his accommodation and his meals may be determined. The regulations may determine what steps have to be taken if he wishes to register with some professional association or other for which he may qualify. The regulations may determine what clothes he may wear, and all this for six years! They may also determine his behaviour and actions. Can hon. members imagine a situation where for six years the State has the right, no the power …

I have been able to do so for 35 years now.

Continuously?

Continuously, as long as he is in the Permanent Force.

Yes, while he is in the Permanent Force. The hon. the Minister must not get excited now … [Interjections.] This man is not in the Permanent Force. He is doing civilian work in the Public Service or for a local authority. However, for six years we have the power to determine his behaviour and actions. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister can tell me I must not be ridiculous, because he will ensure that those regulations will be reasonable. However, that is not what is at issue. What is at issue is the power we are arrogating to ourselves to prescribe the behaviour and actions of a person for six years. For six years we may prescribe his participation in political activities. For six years this prohibition on publications of a political nature will apply. If we look at the general penal provisions in the proposed section 72G(l)(k) we see that it is possible to do virtually anything. I am quoting—

Let us just consider the last part of this paragraph. It may be prescribed by regulation that another person has the authority to amend at will the regulations to which this person is subject—they may be improved, or they may be made more severe.

This kind of control over the life of a person, his comings and goings, his activities, his work, his clothing and his behaviour—I venture to say—is totally irreconcilable with a State that alleges it adheres to the principles of Western civilization and democracy.

Mr. Chairman, I should also like to refer to the religious objector to whom the hon. member Prof. Olivier referred on Friday. We must also take the attitude of the religious objector into consideration. The Opposition has kicked up a fuss as though a penal colony is going to be established for religious objectors. What is in actual fact the attitude of the religious objector. Has an objective test been drawn up for this? I cannot imagine that the religious objector would not be led by his sincere religous convictions also to play his part and to do his duty out of the love he ought to have for his country.

The argument was raised that the State would be able to control a person’s life for six years. However, what is the situation with the ordinary national serviceman. He must also do two years of military service and after that there is still a further obligation resting on him for 12 consecutive years. I am now referring to the cycle of 120 days every two years. On Friday it was already argued that the years up to the age of 24, 26 or 28 are the formative years for a young man. These are the years in which he wants to start a family and establish himself in an occupation. This also applies to the national servicemen. Reference was also made to the fact that the religious objector may be placed in the category he prefers. However, the hon. the Minister of Manpower is going to allot a specific task to him. I refuse to believe that a dentist will be told to keep the books for a municipality. Trained manpower is absolutely essential to this country. The young man who has not yet qualified in some field or other, will first be able to study at a tertiary level, for example at a university, and then report for military service. This applies not only to the national serviceman, but also to the religious objector. Those persons who have not yet undergone training may after all address representations with regard to the field in which they wish to study. They may undergo training for six years in a specific field. When they are finished, they are also trained. They may also undergo further training because provision is made for this as well in the regulations. However the ordinary national serviceman is subject to national service up to the age of 55 years and may be called up at any time and during the 120 days in a cycle of two years he may be exposed to extremely difficult circumstance and dangers. He runs the risk of being killed. He also has a wife and children at home whom he will not see for three months. Surely this is also a disruption of his personal life. This goes on for twelve years. The person who first undergoes tertiary training and is then 23 or 24, will by that time be 35 or 36 years old and will already have made far more progress, as far as his family circumstances are concerned than the person who is only 24, 25 or 26. It is more difficult for him and just as much of an adjustment when he has to do border duty for three months and leave his family behind, worrying that he may never return.

I repeat: The attitude is not that we want to stuff these objectors into a penal colony. We displayed goodwill and I want to accept that the religious objector is just as willing as any other right-minded resident of this country to do his duty and to make his contribution for this country and its people. I have the feeling that we are actually doing these people a disservice by asking for them to be accommodated in this way, although they have not requested it themselves, as if they were not prepared to play their part for the country.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to begin by thanking the hon. member for Humansdorp for his contribution. I think that he, the hon. member for Benoni and the hon. member for Beaufort West have between them furnished adequate replies to the remarks made by the hon. member Prof. Olivier. I am only going to single out a few basic facets again.

What the hon. member for Benoni tried to emphasize was the question of equal treatment, i.e. that the one should not be placed in a more favourable position than the other. I am referring to the religious objector on the one hand and the ordinary national serviceman on the other. We cannot create a situation which would place the religious objector in a more favourable position than the serviceman.

The hon. member for Beaufort West pointed out very clearly, in respect of these two categories, that we should take into consideration the sacrifices that have to be made by the serviceman, whether he be an ordinary national serviceman, a member of the Citizen Force or a commando member. These sacrifices are associated with hardships and dangerous situations. He may even sacrifice his life. The religious objector does not find himself in a similar situation. This is the point of departure to which I shall come back later.

The hon. member asked me a question about the matter of the first two years, as contained in the Bill. The hon. member is quite right in saying that it applies to the person who is a member of the Public Service and who joins the system of military service as a religious objector. In that case the first two years are not going to count for promotion. The same applies to the young man who was not employed by the Public Service or the public sector and who is accepted.

The hon. member mentioned a few other aspects as well. His argument was basically concerned with the regulations. He does not want the clause concerned, the proposed section 72G, to appear in this legislation. He wants the regulations of the various departments to apply. This is actually a difficult matter but it is better to keep it the way it is in the legislation. The first aspect one has to take into account with regard to the Public Service is that each department has its own regulations. Such regulations are all approved by the State President. The staff of every Government department apply their own regulations according to the circumstances applicable to them. I am sure the hon. member will agree that what is applicable to one department is not necessarily applicable to every other Government department. In this way, for example, the circumstances prevailing in the S.A. Police differ from those in the S.A. Defence Force or those in the Department of Foreign Affairs, for example. Likewise, there are regulations in the S.A. Defence Force today which are applicable to national servicemen, members of the Citizen Force, commandos and members of the Permanent Force. The hon. member objects to the fact that the regulations will remain in force for six years. When we speak of regulations we are speaking of regulations for the duration of one’s term of service in an organization. This one has to accept. Whether the regulations are applicable to a Permanent Force member over a period of 35 years or whether they are applicable to a national serviceman, who subsequently becomes a member of the Citizen Force, for the duration of his period of service, does not matter.

When we come to the case of the religious objector, there are no regulations for dealing with religious objectors in the other departments. Since the SADF has more experience of this, perhaps, this is a much better point of departure for laying down uniform regulations. The regulations are reasonable under the circumstances. From our debating during the Second Reading and during the Committee Stage up till now, the one thing that has been clearly evident is the fact that religious objectors have been discussed in a reasonable atmosphere. That is why I said that this was positive regulation. If no regulations exist we have to make regulations and provision is made for this in the proposed new section 72G.

However, there is something else which the hon. member should bear in mind. The category 3 religious objector, the man who is not prepared to perform any task in the Defence Force, has an alternative. He can go to gaol. Now we give him a choice: Does he want the prison regulations to apply or would he prefer this type of regulation? I want to say in all sincerity that in my experience, and the hon. member’s experience, of the S.A. Defence Force, these regulations are reasonable.

I should like to furnish some other reasons why the hon. member’s amendment is unfortunately not acceptable to me. I have already referred to the fact that different departments have different requirements that have to be met and that no department has had to provide for a category 3 religious objector in the past. Let us examine the first aspect, and hon. members must bear in mind that when we speak of these category 3 religious objectors who are going to render community service, they are going to be deprived of certain rights. Surely that forms part of this Bill. The first thing we have to take into consideration is the fact that he is not joining the Public Service voluntarily. In other words, the normal Public Service regulations are not applicable. The second aspect is that he cannot resign from the Public Service. For the six years during which he finds himself in this situation he cannot resign. There are no regulations which provide for such a circumstance. A third aspect is that he does not draw a normal salary. His salary is linked to the S.A. Defence Force pay. This is another aspect which is not covered by the ordinary regulations. It is very important that I demonstrate the reasonableness of this to hon. members. There are certain rights that have to be added. Provision has to be made for that as well. When I speak of rights, I am thinking, for example, of a religious objector who comes from Greytown, for example, and who has to go and serve in Durban. There is no provision for transport etc. and this is the type of situation for which we have to make provision, in respect of a man who comes from a rural area, for example, and who now finds himself in an urban situation, in a department where no provision has been made for his circumstances. If we have to assign a large number of religious objectors to various departments, it will be much better to have centralized control measures, as is being proposed in the Bill. Therefore I cannot support the hon. member’s amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the hon. the Minister for the reasoned and calm manner in which he replied to the points I had raised. I should like to reply in the same spirit to some of the points that have been raised by the hon. the Minister. If the hon. the Minister would examine the amendment I moved he would see that the amendment does not stop at the point where it says that the person employed by the Public Service or by a local authority should be subject only to the regulations and rules applicable to the ordinary employees of those organizations. I deliberately added the proviso that as in the case of the other provisions in schedule 2 to the Defence Act, special regulations can be made in these cases. The last three points which the hon. the Minister mentioned, i.e. that he does not join voluntarily, cannot resign and does not draw a normal salary, are covered by the second part of my amendment. I refer the hon. the Minister to the debate which took place in this House in 1980 about certain amendments to schedule 1. It would appear to me, therefore, that if the hon. the Minister had given proper consideration to the second part of my amendment, some of the objections he raised would have fallen away. I want to go further.

The hon. the Minister pointed out that a national serviceman was exposed to dangers in the normal course of events. Generally speaking, this is correct. However, I have one problem in this connection. The Minister knows as well as I do that although, in theory, national servicemen are exposed to dangers, in actual fact many of them never find themselves in a dangerous situation. I am thinking here of servicemen who work in the offices or in hospitals and similar places. Therefore I submit that it is not a valid argument to allege that servicemen are exposed to danger and that these religious objectors would therefore enjoy an advantage over them. I believe a national serviceman said last night that for every serviceman who participates in military operations, there are 15 others who have to render supplementary services. [Interjections.] That is probably an exaggeration, but still I take it that it is a question of six or seven. Although it is correct to say, therefore, that a serviceman may be exposed to danger in the normal course of events, in actual fact there are many servicemen who do not run that risk.

I was glad to hear the hon. the Minister’s explanation in connection with the two years. I need not dwell on that, therefore.

It is a little surprising, though, that the hon. the Minister should use the period of service of 35 years in the Permanent Force as an example. The man in the Permanent Force is there of his own free will, because he has chosen the Permanent Force as his profession. He has joined the Permanent Force of his own free will. Every profession has its own discipline, whether it be the medical profession or any other profession, and one has to subject oneself to the discipline which applies in that profession. In my opinion, that situation cannot be compared with the regulations which are made applicable to these people who have to render community service for a continuous period of six years. These two categories are by no means the same.

In the third place, the hon. the Minister emphasized the need for uniform regulations. In the light of the diversity of the services which may be rendered by a national serviceman in the Defence Force, the same regulations obviously cannot apply to all. The conditions applicable to a person who works in an office in Pretoria cannot be the same, for example, as those applicable to persons who are taking part in military activities in the operational area. In the light of this, we have not placed undue emphasis on the question of uniformity.

We are concerned here with a point of departure, the values which we uphold as a community. The question is now what impression is created by all these regulations which are being made with regard to people who have been found to be religious objectors. What impression is being created in this way of our Defence Force, of our country and of the hon. the Minister? To me this is just as important as the details. I accept it when the Minister says that these regulations will be enforced in a reasonable manner. However, that is not the point. People look at the provisions of the legislation, and the hon. the Minister will concede to me that the way they are formulated here, those regulations and powers can only be described as draconian to the highest degree. This is not the image I would like people to have of us as a State, of our Defence Force or of the hon. the Minister. Therefore I ask the hon. the Minister to reconsider my amendment, because it covers the objections raised by the hon. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, what the hon. member Prof. Olivier is asking me to accept would mean, in practice, that these procedures or these regulations would have to be grouped into different categories and that those categories applicable to religious objectors in various departments would have to be incorporated into those departments. It would make no difference to the image he referred to. However, it would be a question of fragmenting the system in accordance with the various departments.

I want to put it to the hon. member like this. If the regulations were not applied in the way that is being proposed at the moment, it would mean that all the regulations of all the Government departments, as well as those of the provincial administrations and local authorities, would have to be amended accordingly. That in itself necessitated a cautious approach to the matter. The authority which is actually involved in this is the Commission for Administration. We approached the Commission for Administration with regard to the matter and asked them, in the light of the fact that it was being applied in this way, how they felt about it. At the recommendation of the Commission for Administration, therefore, we now prefer such a uniform set of regulations. In view of the fact that the Commission for Administration has been involved with the administration of these public bodies for so many years, I believe I should accept their advice.

However, the hon. member Prof. Olivier went further and said that he accepted the fact that these people never found themselves in dangerous situations, but that the same applied to a large number of national servicemen. That argument advanced by the hon. member is quite correct. There are situations in which people have to be used to provide back-up services for others. However, the important aspect is the attitude of the individual who is prepared to do national service. Is he prepared to wear a uniform, and is he prepared to bear arms in defence of his cause? Whether he is going to be fortunate enough to serve in the operational area, or whether he is going to be unfortunate enough not to be sent there, is a different matter altogether. However, the religious objector comes from a completely different milieu. I am referring in particular to the religious objector in the third category. This is a person who refuses, in the first place, to defend his country, a person who refuses to stand to attention when his country’s flag is raised. That is his approach. Am I expected, therefore, to place him on a par with a serviceman in this specific situation?

I want to take the matter even further. The hon. member referred to the regulations of the Permanent Force. He said, quite rightly, that these were people who had chosen to go in a certain direction. But what about the commando and Citizen Force members? I could point out commando and Citizen Force men to the hon. member who have been serving for much more than 35 years. Unfortunately, the hon. member is part of the decision-making process in terms of which the system of national service was expanded last year. It was done at my recommendation. It was because I said that we needed that manpower. So that man is also subject to the regulations, with regard to the longer period of service as well. There were not so many objections then. Now, all of a sudden, we are worried about the religious objector.

I want to put it like this: If we take cognizance of the spirit in which we are passing this legislation, the spirit in which we are making provision, our positive attitude towards the religious objector, I am absolutely unable to accept this amendment of the hon. member Prof. Olivier at this stage.

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment—

For the information of all hon. members, Mr. Chairman, I want to point out that this amendment of mine is similar to an amendment which appears on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Constantia. Unfortunately, there is a printing error in the amendment of the hon. member for Constantia, as published. The word “not” has been omitted. The amendment, as printed, reads as follows—

I propose, therefore, that it be amended to read—

I also move the second amendment printed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Constantia, as follows—

As hon. members will know, these amendments are in connection with the political activities and control over the political activitites of religious objectors. The effect of my first amendment would be to place such a religious objector on an equal footing with an ordinary serviceman with regard to the political activities in which he may or may not participate. It is well known that restrictions are indeed imposed on the nature of the political activities in which a serviceman may participate. We believe that for this reason, there is justification for imposing restrictions on the position of a religious objector as well, but that these should not be any more severe than the restrictions to which ordinary servicemen are subject. Why should any distinction be drawn? Why should the restriction to which such an objector is subject be any more severe than in the case of a national serviceman? The only argument that could be advanced in this connection, in my opinion, is that the political standpoints of such an objector could be harmful to the composition of the Defence Force—that his standpoints might be such as to discourage co-operation with the Defence Force. I want to say at once, however, that I do not think that argument would be a valid one. I think that danger could very easily be removed by means of the restriction which already exists in the case of ordinary servicemen and that it would hardly be possible for such a person to make use of political activities to state his standpoint with regard to the Defence Force to such an extent that it could harm the defence strategy of the country.

Furthermore, I find it rather curious, in view of the fact that the hon. the Minister is so adamant that only religious objectors should qualify as objectors, that it should be necessary to impose a more severe restriction on political activities in respect of these objectors than is imposed on an ordinary serviceman. Therefore I want to urge the hon. the Minister to reconsider that matter and to consider accepting this amendment.

Generally speaking, this is always somewhat of a dilemma for a country such as South Africa, where a large percentage of our population is involved in the Citizen Force in some way or other. In this sense it is also comparable with the fact that a large percentage of our population is involved in the Public Service. If one severely restricts the political capacity of persons involved in these institutions, one is naturally creating somewhat of a problem for democracy and democratic activities in that country. I suppose that in other countries this is not necessarily the case. Perhaps, in those countries, the percentage of the population that is involved in this way is not so large. In South Africa, however, I think it is a determining factor, and therefore I should say that in South Africa, one should be even more careful not to impose any unnecessary restrictions on such persons. Naturally, there have to be certain restrictions, but these restrictions should always be kept to a minimum, because such a large percentage of the population is involved.

As regards the second amendment in the name of the hon. member for Constantia, this also relates to political restrictions which have been taken somewhat further. Specific reference is made to the drawing up of a document. These restrictions, too, seem rather strange to me and almost create the impression that a deep fear exists that any document which could be drawn up by such an objector could be harmful to the country and perhaps more specifically to the defence strategy of the country. This reveals a certain lack of self-confidence or a lack of confidence in the willingness of the average citizen to participate in the defence strategy and in the defence of the country in general. I do not think such a standpoint is warranted, because I believe there is every reason to be confident in this regard. Specific reference is made to the drawing up of a document while such a person is rendering compulsory community service. There is one particular case which seems curious to me, and that is the restriction on the publication of any document drawn up by such a person before the commencement of this service. In this connection, one could quote the example of certain persons who publish certain documents in the course of their work. Let us suppose it is a young clergyman, a young student or a young academic who finds himself in the position that he often publishes things in the course of his work. To extend the restriction on publication to publications drawn up before that period is completely unjustified in his case, I believe. I do not think it merits our support, and therefore I want to urge the hon. the Minister once again to reconsider it.

The final point concerns the proposed subsection (3). What we are dealing with here is the onus of proof in certain cases where a charge is brought against such a person for a contravention of one of the subsections concerned. This, too, amounts to drastic interference with the normal principles of our criminal procedure, and as you, Sir, and the hon. the Minister will know very well, this is something which we are normally very wary of and which we object to. Of course, there are cases in which there is some justification for arguing that the onus of proof should be on the accused, because there are certain situations in which it could be very difficult for the prosecution to furnish certain proof, while at the same time it would be very easy for the accused to discharge the onus. I believe that in this case, that principle does not apply at all. I believe that the placing of the onus on the accused in the three different cases provided for in the proposed subsection could very possibly lead to an abuse of justice, more particularly if such a person does not have the necessary legal representation.

I believe that the two amendments I have moved can only help to improve the position. I believe that the acceptance of the two amendments would not create any problem at all with regard to the position of religious objectors. I ask the hon. the Minister and the Committee to give serious consideration to them.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for Green Point for his explanation of the amendments. I think the basic difference between the amendments and the existing provisions lies in the fact that a category 3 religious objector cannot accept nomination as a member of the House of Assembly, of a provincial council, or of the Executive Council, unless the regulations provide for this. Those regulations may provide for aspects of political activities in which they are allowed to participate. Therefore it is not necessary to provide for this in the legislation itself.

It is important that with two exceptions, namely voting in an election and voting in a referendum, as laid down in the subsection, the category 3 religious objector will not participate in politics while he is rendering community service. In my opinion, this is the very important essence of the matter, as I have explained it in this House. The political activities of such a religious objector must be confined to voting in a general election or in a referendum. Therefore I cannot accept the first amendment.

I come now to the second amendment, which seeks to do away with the offences that are being created in respect of category 3 religious objectors who want to engage in political activities and related matters during their period of community service. We are dealing here with a person who has been identified as a category 3 religious objector, who wishes, while being part of the system, to participate in or initiate political activities. I am afraid that if this amendment were accepted, it would enable such people to engage in politics during their period of community service, and this cannot be allowed. I am sure the Committee will agree with me when I say this. Therefore I cannot accept the second amendment either.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to come back to this question of the terms relating to the proposed new section 72G which the hon. member Prof. Olivier argued about. I think that the hon. the Minister will accept that these are fairly far-reaching terms or conditions in the South African context, and I think we could actually overcome a lot of the problems that we on this side of the House have with this if the actual regulations were tabled. I think this is the problem or part of the problem, because not only are the regulations very far-reaching, but one feels that they should also be tabled from time to time so that one could have an opportunity of seeing what the regulations actually are. I therefore move as an amendment—

I think this particular amendment would not only be good government, but would also, in actual fact, be in the interests of the Defence Force itself. I think the hon. the Minister would accept that these are actually very far-reaching regulations. I can, however, accept why the hon. the Minister wants them, but I think that if people could actually see what the regulations were, if they were brought out into the open, it would actually remove many of the doubts and concern that members of the general public have.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout began by saying that since the norms and certain aspects of the regulations were so comprehensive, he would like the approval of the Minister to be required for them. I said that I thought he was quite right, but that they should in fact not be approved by a Minister, but rather by the State President. So the State President, and not I, approves the regulations. The regulations are also published in the Gazette. Hon. members can examine them, therefore. They will always be able to examine them in this way. They can examine them, and if they feel that there is something wrong with the regulations, we can discuss the matter and perhaps adapt them. However, this is simply the procedure. Hon. members can always examine the regulations in future—there may be many regulations which have already been made and which hon. members have not seen yet—and they may discuss them with me, and if it is necessary to amend them, this can be done.

Amendments (1) and (2) moved by Mr. P. H. P. Gastrow negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. M. D. Maree agreed to.

Amendment (3) moved by Mr. P. H. P. Gastrow negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. M. D. Maree agreed to.

Amendment (4) moved by Mr. P. H. P. Gastrow negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart agreed to and amendment (1) moved by Mr. J. H. B. Ungerer dropped.

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (3) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart negatived and amendment (4) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart dropped (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (5) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart agreed to.

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. W. V. Raw agreed to.

Amendments (6) and (7) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart agreed to.

Amendment (8) moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendments (2) to (4) moved by Mr. J. H. B. Ungerer agreed to.

Amendments (1) to (3) moved by Maj. R. Sive negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendments (1) and (2) moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to and amendment (4) moved by Maj. R. Sive dropped.

Amendment (5) moved by Maj. R. Sive negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment moved by Mr. D. W. Watterson negatived (New Republic Party dissenting).

Amendment (3) moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to and amendment (1) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page and amendment (6) moved by Maj. R. Sive dropped.

Amendment (4) moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to and amendment (7) moved by Maj. R. Sive dropped.

Amendment (5) moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to and amendment (1) moved by Mr. P. A. Myburgh dropped.

Amendment (6) moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to.

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. P. A. Myburgh agreed to.

Amendment (3) moved by Mr. P. A. Myburgh negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. G. B. D. McIntosh negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. W. V. Raw agreed to and amendment (2) moved by Mr. G. B. D. McIntosh dropped.

Amendments (2) and (3) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to and amendment (3) moved by Mr. G. B. D. McIntosh dropped.

Amendment (4) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to and amendment (4) moved by Mr. G. B. D. McIntosh dropped.

Amendment (5) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to.

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. J. H. van der Merwe agreed to.

Amendment moved by Mr. P. C. Cronjé negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. J. H. van der Merwe agreed to.

Amendment (6) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to.

Amendment (7) moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to.

Amendment moved by Prof. N. J. J. Olivier negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment moved by Mr. B. B. Goodall negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendments (1) and (2) moved by Mr. S. S. van der Merwe negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (7) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to.

Amendment (1) moved by Dr. A. L. Boraine negatived and amendments (3) and (5) moved by Dr. A. L. Boraine dropped (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (8) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to and amendment (2) moved by Dr. A. L. Boraine dropped.

Amendment (9) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (10) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to.

Amendment (11) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to and amendment (4) moved by Dr. A. L. Boraine dropped.

Amendment (12) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to.

Amendment (6) moved by Dr. A. L. Boraine negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendment (13) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to.

Amendment (14) moved by Mr. B. W. B. Page agreed to and amendment (7) moved by Dr. A. L. Boraine dropped.

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 30, in line 10, to omit “religious”;
2. (2) on page 30, in lines 12 to 14, to omit paragraph (rC);
3. (3) on page 30, in lines 15 to 17, to omit paragraph (rD).

Order! I regret that I am unable to accept amendment (1) moved by the hon. member, as it is in conflict with a principle of the Bill as read a Second Time.

I accept that, Mr. Chairman. As far as amendment No. (2) is concerned, the Minister accepted an amendment at an earlier stage of the proceedings on this Bill, to the effect that no one would have the right to buy himself out of his duty to render service. In the light of that, this amendment of mine must be accepted.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Since the scale of fees referred to in paragraph (rC) has been withdrawn, I should like to substitute the words contained in my amendment. I also have an amendment on the Order Paper which seeks to delete paragraph (rD), but since the hon. member for Wynberg has moved the same amendment, I shall not move mine.

Mr. Chairman, I accept the deletion of paragraphs (rC) and (rD) as proposed by the hon. member for Wynberg. It is a consequential amendment. In addition, I accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pretoria West.

Amendment moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to and amendment (2) moved by Mr. P. A. Myburgh dropped.

Amendment (3) moved by Mr. P. A. Myburgh agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 15:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 30, in line 46, to omit all the words after “(a)” up to and including “who” in line 49;
2. (2) on page 30, in line 54, to omit “member” and to substitute “person”;
3. (3) on page 32, in lines 13 to 20, to omit subsection (3).

Mr. Chairman, I move these amendments against the background in Southern Africa of mercenary action which has created tremendous hardships in the region and which has led in some instances to South Africa finding itself in a most embarrassing situation. My party does not believe that any mercenary action whatsoever should be allowed as far as this country is concerned. We do not believe that mercenaries should be allowed to operate either within the SADF or outside the SADF. In other words, we do not believe that anybody in South Africa should be allowed to recruit mercenaries, whether they are members of the SADF or not. We recently had the experience where because of mercenary action and the events which happened in the Seychelles, of which some were aware and others were not, South Africa found itself internationally in a most embarrassing position because it created the impression that the South African Government had not taken the necessary action to prevent the destabilization of neighbouring States. I believe, Sir, that everything possible must be done to prevent that type of thing from recurring.

As the Bill stands now nobody is to be allowed to recruit members of the SADF for mercenary activities. I find it impossible to understand why any such recruitment is to be illegal only in so far as members of the SADF are concerned. Why cannot we extend it to any person? The allegation has been made that the SADF itself is making use of and has made use of mercenaries to operate beyond our borders. Consequently I think this is the ideal opportunity for the hon. the Minister to make a clear statement on this clause before us so that we may know where we stand.

I have moved my amendment with the absolute confidence that the hon. the Minister will accept it because in doing so what he will be saying in this House is that all of us underwrite the desire that all mercenary action in South Africa as far as South Africa’s contribution is concerned should be illegal.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that we on this side of the House agree with the general sentiment expressed by the hon. member for Wynberg, that mercenary activities are to be discouraged. At Second Reading I quoted the hon. the Prime Minister’s remarks which he made in 1974 when he was Minister of Defence, words which he repeated during the no-confidence debate this year. The hon. the Prime Minister made it quite clear that the Government viewed the involvement of South Africans of any description, whether they are in the Defence Force or not, in mercenary activities, particularly in other countries, with great displeasure because South Africa did not want South Africans to involve themselves in the affairs of other countries because we in turn did not want those countries to involve themselves in our affairs. The point is, however, that in view of the amendments brought about to the Defence Act last year, the clause as it stands now in effect affects practically everybody from the age of 17 to 55 years. So it rules out every able-bodied South African citizen between those ages. Therefore I do not believe we should be too worried about doddering ancients, children, women and foreigners. I also think, however, that this covers practically everybody, and within the ambit of the Defence Act, I believe, this is all one can do.

I think there are other Acts that could be amended in order to deal with foreigners, as well as with women and children. The Immigration Act, for instance, should deal with the question of foreigners recruiting or being recruited as mercenaries, and I believe it is only sensible that the Defence Act should now not exceed its limits by trying to legislate in respect of people who would normally fall outside its ambit.

Mr. Chairman, I requested the hon. the Minister during the Second Reading debate to consider saying a few words about the definition of a mercenary. I then referred to the question of whether anyone who undertakes a certain assignment for any reason other than pecuniary gain can necessarily be termed a mercenary. We come back now to the definition. The question is whether anyone who renders service for the S.A. Defence Force in any capacity whatsoever can be called a mercenary. When the S.A. Defence Force recruits people for the Permanent Force in the normal way, they become members of the Permanent Force. When the Defence Force trains national servicemen, they are also members of the Defence Force.

However, if the Defence Force were on occasion to make use of interpreters, people who speak foreign languages, could they then be classified as mercenaries? If the Defence Force assigned special tasks to other people, would they be mercenaries?

From out point of view, it is very difficult to imagine any one rendering service for the Defence Force being called a mercenary. We regard them all as members of the Defence Force, unless there is some other definition of a mercenary. This is all I want to say, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the situation in terms of the Defence Act is that anybody who is employed by the Defence Force, in terms of the Defence Act, is a legal soldier in South Africa. The whole concept of the mercenary does not apply in any respect inside South Africa in respect of any person who is employed by the Defence Force, even if he comes from any other country in the world. A mercenary is a person who is recruited in South Africa to serve in some foreign part of the world.

If the S.A. Defence Force sends people who have been recruited in another country, outside South Africa, they do not go as mercenaries but as soldiers who belong to the S.A. Defence Force. We do have a problem in South Africa, whether the hon. the Ministers wants to accept it or not. We have people in South Africa who are not South Africans, people who have come from countries which they had to leave for political and other reasons. It is the possibility of people causing destabilization in their own original particular areas that we have to guard against. It is not clear to me why the American State Department saw fit to issue the particular document regarding destabilization in Southern Africa. It might be that this happened not because of the actions of the S.A. Defence Force but because foreigners living in South Africa were actually guilty of causing destabilization themselves. The purpose of this particular amendment is to prevent anybody carrying out any recruitment of mercenaries whether they be members of the S.A. Defence Force or South African nationals or foreigners living in South Africa. We seek to prevent any recruitment whatsoever of mercenaries taking place for any purpose.

Mr. Chairman, I rise simply to place on record the fact that this party is sympathetically disposed to the view that mercanaries should not be recruited in South Africa for use on our soil, using our country as a base or even simply using our country as a recruiting field. I cannot support the amendment that has been moved because I do not believe that the recruitment of mercenaries form the ranks of people who are not subject to the Defence Act is appropriate in respect of this particular legislation. The Act that we are amending deals with the S.A. Defence Force and those falling under its jurisdiction. The only people outside of the S.A. Defence Force who are affected by it are those who are guilty of impersonation or otherwise commit offences in regard to South Africa’s defence efforts or defence activity. I do not think it is appropriate to make provision in terms of this legislation for those people who are not under the control or command or jurisdiction of the S.A. Defence Force either directly or indirectly. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he raises with his Cabinet colleagues the question of amending other legislation in order to cover the question of the recruitment of mercenaries completely. However, as I say, I do not think that we should use the Defence Act for this purpose. I feel that once we start using its provisions for a purpose which falls outside the jurisdiction of the S.A. Defence Force then we can continue to use it for other general purposes as well. I would prefer to see such prohibition incorporated in other legislation and the Defence Act being amended, as is being done here, to deal purely with those persons falling under the jurisdiction of the S.A. Defence Force.

We in this party are totally opposed to the recruitment of mercenaries in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot see that the hon. member for Durban Point should really have a problem in this regard if he agrees with the general principle laid down by the hon. member for Wynberg. The hon. member for Durban Point has already said that he is totally opposed to the recruitment of mercenaries in South Africa.

I do not think the hon. member for Durban Point should have any problem either in regard to the question of the persons falling under the jurisdiction of the Defence Act because all the provisions of the Defence Act cover South Africans. It prescribes the way in which such persons shall do military service from the age of 18 years. We are dealing here, therefore, with the public of South Africa generally and therefore the Act has jurisdiction over the public generally whether they are South African citizens or not and whether they are liable or whether they are not liable for military service. From a legal point of view, therefore, there is no problem in regard to the inclusion of this particular provision in this legislation.

The hon. member should read the long title of the Defence Act to find out what its objects are.

The Defence Act applies to South Africans and deals with the recruitment of South Africans into the S.A. Defence Force. [Interjections.] Therefore the Act has jurisdiction over everybody in South Africa. I say therefore that we are quite within our legal limits in including the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Wynberg. There should be no difficulty in that regard. As far as mercenaries themselves are concerned, we have already placed on record and I want to repeat it that it was this side of the House which initially asked for a provision to be included in the principal Act to control the recruitment of mercenaries. Therefore we are not against the general idea of mercenaries, but against the idea of extending the position on this basis.

I think the hon. member for Jeppe may have a point with regard to mercenaries. We are looking at the definition of “mercenaries”. We are really looking at mercenaries as being professional soldiers of some kind who are paid for their services and who are prepared to serve in virtually any army. They are serving in an army because of the pay and not because of the cause. I think that is the general concept of a mercenary as we see it. I trust therefore that the hon. the Minister will see fit to accede to the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Wynberg.

Mr. Chairman, if I have to analyse the contributions that have been made by various hon. members this afternoon, I think the hon. member for Hillbrow was right when he said that we had identified a problem area and we now wished to resolve it. That is why the proposed section has to be embodied in the legislation.

All that remains to be done is to consider the amendments moved by the hon. member for Wynberg. He made a few interesting statements. I shall have to deal with them. The first facet to which he referred was the instability in Southern Africa. When one finds oneself in a subcontinent such as ours, it is actually very important that one’s security forces should be sufficiently alert to carry out any operations which may be necessary. Such a milieu is at variance with the concept of mercenaries, for a mercenary is after all a person whom one pays and orders to go and perform a certain task without accepting any responsibility for it oneself. I do not think that any of us believes that this is the position in South Africa.

We should be prepared. When I say “we”, I am referring to the SADF. The Defence Force must be prepared, and that is why I requested Parliament last year to approve the new legislation. All the new legislation does is to give us manpower to be able to perform the task if it is necessary. This actually militates against the concept of a mercenary type of Defence Force, apart from the milieu, which also militates against it. That is why I have frequently said—I want to repeat it once again—that we have the best Defence Force in Africa. When one has the best Defence Force in Africa and the best equipment, one does not want to play games with this cloak and dagger kind of thing and with mercenaries, because one does not need these things. One can perform one’s task without them.

Why does Col. Hoare get guns, then?

I really thought the hon. member could make a better contribution than that. [Interjections.]

The Government is not and has never been in favour of mercenaries because the Government is always prepared to say what its objective is and that it wishes to achieve it. The Government is prepared to use the Defence Force which the hon. members know just as well as I do. So there is no need for mercenaries.

I think the hon. member for Jeppe raised a very important point. He asked what the definition was for this. Actually, he began by giving the answer, and then he asked what the definition was. We have discussed the regulations at some length today, and when we look at the regulations, we will notice that no provision is made in them for the S.A. Defence Force to employ mercenaries or mercenary troops because there are certain specifications which regulate the employment of people by the Defence Force.

When we come to the definition, our dilemma is that the UN’s convention on mercenaries is seeking to define the concept of mercenary. They actually want to say what they interpret it to mean. At the moment there is no definition, and therefore I suggest that we wait and see to what extent they manage to produce a definition. Therefore I have also said that we should not define it in the Bill; we should leave it to the courts. If such a case came the court, the court could interpret the concept of “mercenary”. That is why it is not being written into the Bill, but I believe, nevertheless, that the hon. member has a valid point.

Coming to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I must point out that there are regulations and so on which have to be complied with when we employ people. The S.A. Defence Force cannot simply employ people; it must do so in accordance with the regulations. In terms of regulations it is impossible for the S.A. Defence Force to employ mercenaries.

I think the hon. member for Durban Point for his contribution. I think that in referring to the UN, which is dealing with this matter, I covered the aspect which he highlighted. If these things go any further, I shall pass the matter on to the relevant departments, because I fully agree with the hon. member. The hon. member does not want to get the Defence Act all mixed up with a lot of extraneous amendments that are applicable to people who do not serve in the S.A. Defence Force, and that is the only reason why these amendments are not acceptable to me. There is no other reason. It is simply because they do not belong in this legislation, as the hon. member for Durban Point said. We must see to it that this legislation stays within the framework of the long title, and the long title of the legislation reads as follows—

Therefore it is not advisable to create a general offence in this legislation which would be applicable to non-members of the S.A. Defence Force or to persons not directly involved in the S.A. Defence Force.

That is why I cannot accept the amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I listened attentively to what the hon. the Minister had to say. In consequence of his words, as well as those of other hon. members, it is clear that no one wants to give or create the impression that South Africa is involved in activities—or even in the recruiting of mercenaries—which could have a destabilizing effect on our neighbouring States. I really thought the hon. the Minister would take this opportunity to clear South Africa’s name completely in this regard. I can see that the hon. the Minister has a problem with the Defence Act and—in his own words—does not want to mess up the Act by adding all manner of minor things I can accept this. In this case, however, we are not discussing minor matters. The whole world—whether we agree with this or not—is accusing South Africa of doing things that have a destabilizing effect.

Do not go along with what they say then.

I did not hear that. The entire world says that people are congregating in South Africa, people who came from African States where a war was waged and that these people have been driven out politically—or even militarily—from the places where they lived. It is then said that these people are seeking revenge and that they take revenge by recruiting people and using them in a private army against our neighbouring States, or that the groups to which I referred are assisting groups in our neighbouring States to overthrow the Governments of those States—whether we like those Governments or not. Today, however, there is an opportunity for this House to rise as one man and say that we are not going to allow the recruiting of anyone in South Africa for use as mercenaries. [Interjections.] If the hon. the Minister were to say next year that he has held discussions with his colleagues and that in terms of an amendment to another Act—I do not know which Act it would be—provision will be made for the restriction to be incorporated in that legislation, we could immediately add my amendment to the Defence Act. Then we could repeal the decision we are taking today because it will then be possible for the principle we have stated—on which the entire Parliament would seem to be agreed—to be embodied in the new legislation. For that reason the hon. the Minister must not allow this opportunity to pass him by. Even if things are a little mixed up, even if the legislation is not quite satisfactory, and even if the people who helped to draft the legislation are not quite satisfied with it, let it go through anyway. Next year we can deal with things more neatly, but in the interim, for the next eight or nine months, we shall at least have made it quite clear to everyone in South Africa and everyone outside South Africa that we in South Africa will not give assitance to, will oppose, and will if necessary gaol people making attempts to recruit the kind of troops referred to.

Mr. Chairman, I really do not know whether it is necessary for us to jettison the principle, or at least the premise, of orderly legislation merely in order to incorporate a declaration of intent in the subsection of a piece of legislation that has nothing to do with a certain problem. The fact of the matter is that as far as the attitude of the Government and the Opposition parties towards the recruitment of mercenaries is concerned, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind. What would the effect be if we were to accept the proposed amendment? We must remember that here we have an act performed outside the Defence Force by people who have nothing to do with the Defence Force and who may be foreigners who just happen to be in South Africa, and that the effect of the act planned by those people has nothing to do with the Defence Force or the activities of the Defence Force. In other words, none of the parties concerned and no part of action has anything whatsoever to do with the Defence Force. However, the official Opposition now wants us to make provision to prohibit this in terms of a section in the Defence Act. I admit that this can be done. However, we are not being threatened by a crisis of some kind which has resulted in our having to seize the first opportunity we get to do this. We might as well incorporate such a clause in the next Bill: It would be equally inappropriate. I honestly cannot see why we should jettison the principle of good legal drafting merely to incorporate a declaration of intent in the legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I listened with great attention to both the hon. member for Helderkruin and the hon. the Minister on this matter. Let us take the example of what happened as regards the Seychelles. Because our law was as it was, a man like Col. Hoare could prostitute the name of South Africa and go around getting people to join him to go across to the Seychelles to stage a coup. I do not want to go into the details of that, because it has been done before, but we still have the position in South Africa that anybody who so wishes can try to build a private army of mercenaries in South Africa to take with him elsewhere. If that happens again, whether we like it or not and whether we had anything to do with it or not, South Africa will be blamed for destabilizing others. I do not care whether it concerns Timbuctoo, the Seychelles or a neighbouring State, the point at issue is the question of allowing mercenaries to be recruited in South Africa. Although this Bill may have this provision of preventing recruiting as far as the S.A. Defence Force is concerned, the question remains whether foreigners should be allowed to recruit foreign mercenaries living in South Africa, people who may have come here because this is one of the few countries into which they could be admitted. We must stop this under all circumstances and I appeal once again to the hon. the Minister to allow this amendment to go through. It is absolutely legal to do this in this manner. This applies to any law passed in the House. One does not have to introduce another specific Bill to cover this. If it is covered in this Bill, it will be covered and can have the same effect. Let us not have mercenaries being recruited in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Helderkruin raised a very valid point. This is also the crux of the entire matter and I think that the hon. members of certain Opposition parties realize this. What is at issue is that orderly legislation should be jettisoned. I find it so strange when I listen to the arguments of the official Opposition, particularly those of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. The hon. member visualizes that if we were to jettison this legislation, destabilization would come to an end in Africa. But this has nothing to do with destablization.

I did not say that.

We are venturing into a sphere about which even international bodies are uncertain. Even the UN is uncertain and is undertaking an in-depth investigation to define the matter. Why cannot we take a leaf from the UN’s book? Why should we rush off and make amendments to this piece of orderly legislation which could destroy it?

The issue on which we differ is the question of the cause of destabilization in Southern Africa. It is not mercenaries or legislation that cause destabilization. Destabilization in this continent is caused in the first place by the dumping of weapons in the area, and here I am thinking of Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. It is the communists who are dumping weapons. Annually they dump larger quantities of weapons in this area than the S.A. Defence Force spends on purchasing or producing weapons for its own forces. This is the situation. This is partly the cause of destabilization. I am certain hon. members on that side of the House cannot mention a country where destabilization did not take place after communism had moved in.

A second cause of destabilization is the inability of leaders of certain countries to rise above this tumult, financially and economically. That is another reason for destabilization, and it has nothing to do with mercenaries or legislation. We must remember that when this Government gives orders for action to be taken against the enemies of South Africa—I am referring here to communist supporters who are taking action against South Africa within South Africa—it will admit this. If the State decides that a certain place must be attacked, it is not going to shy away from this, but is going to use its best security forces. It will give them the task and accept responsibility for this because it is a responsible Government.

During the Second Reading I tried to indicate very clearly that the official Opposition has partially contributed to our having to intercept this aspect. Last year during the discussion on the new national service system, the PFP agreed that everyone up to the age of 55 years would have a military obligation to the S.A. Defence Force. This system which is now being implemented, and as this happens all South Africans, whether they are part of the Permanent Force, the commandos or the Citizen Force, will become a part of this and the Act will apply to them. We have therefore made provision for the vast majority in any case.

Mr. Chairman, I think it would be inappropriate to have a general debate on destabilization, but I must say I am very disappointed. I have not taken part in this debate so far, but I had hoped for a much more categorical statement by the hon. the Minister as far as the Government’s attitude to the recruitment of mercenaries is concerned. I listened carefully.

The hon. the Minister has given two reasons why he cannot accept the amendments. The first reason is that he says that there is a problem about the definition of “mercenary”. If in fact there is a problem about the definition of “mercenary”, why does he include the word “mercenary” in this amending clause? Why the phrase “renders service as a mercenary”? If our courts can interpret it in respect of South African serviceman who is recruited, then surely they should be able to interpret it in respect of any person who is recruited. I do not really think the fact that the UN is working on a definition of “mercenary” should be any reason why we should or should not include “mercenary” in this particular clause. “Mercenary” has been included, and from now onwards it is going to have a legal meaning. All we are asking is that that legal meaning should also be applied to people who are not members of the Defence Force.

The second point is that the hon. the Minister said it would be untidy to include it in this particular provision. It may be so, but I think the hon. the Minister must accept that whether mercenaries are recruited from the SADF or whether they are recruited from outside the SADF, the mere fact that they will go across our borders as paid soldiers to other countries, has a very negative impact on the whole image of the SADF. That is a fact. Let us take the Seychelles operation as an example. People are not arguing about how many of the people involved there were actually in the service of the SADF. What they are saying is that soldiers, in the general sense of the word, people trained in combat, people trained in the use of lethal weapons and the ability to kill, were recruited in South Africa and that for pay they went to another country. I want to put it that we are jealous of the reputation of the SADF and we do not want that reputation tainted by the fact that this Government is not active enough in stopping this type of thing. I want to put it to the hon. the Minister quite clearly. He says in general he does not like the recruitment of mercenaries even from outside the SADF. However, he does have an illustration that this already did take place. The courts have found that this took place last year and the year before. I therefore want to put it to the hon. the Minister so that we can decide how far to press this particular amendment: Is the Government going to introduce legislation to stop the recruitment of mercenaries whether they are in the SADF or not? The hon. the Minister is the man who is the custodian of much of the image of the SADF. We ask him now: Can he give us the assurance that as a consequence of what happened in the Seychelles and as a consequence of what is rumoured to be happening elsewhere he on behalf of the Government will give this side of the House an undertaking that the Government will introduce legislation that will prevent the recruitment of mercenaries whether in the SADF or not? We put this question because we believe it reflects the mood of the country, yet for some strange reason or other the hon. the Minister is not prepared to give us this undertaking. We ask him this very seriously, so that it won’t be necessary for us to press this amendment further.

Mr. Chairman, I do not again want to debate the points which the hon. member for Sea Point has now raised. What I do, however, consider to be very important is that the legislation we are now discussing, is legislation that has a direct bearing on the S.A. Defence Force. From the point of view of orderliness, this legislation is being made applicable exclusively to persons in the Defence Force and I stand by my decision that I cannot accept the amendments.

However, the hon. member for Sea Point asked me something else and it coincides to a great extent with what the hon. member for Durban Point said. The hon. member for Durban Point wanted to know, if it becomes necessary to include other categories, whether, I would be prepared to refer this to other departments so that it may be incorporated in other legislation. I am quite prepared to do this. All I want to say about this aspect is that we must not proceed with it too hastily, precipitately, this year. Let us first take cognizance of the investigation which will hopefully be completed before the next parliamentary session. Then I shall refer it to the other departments.

You do not sound very enthusiastic, I must say.

Mr. Chairman, if you were in my position and had to look at the hon. member for Groote Schuur all day long, you would realize that one cannot be enthusiastic.

Mr. Chairman, the crunch question here is that we in these benches believe that there must be control over the activities of non-South Africans who use South Africa as a base. Somebody must exercise that control. The message that we must give to the world in this respect is very clear. We must let them know that we are going to control those people because if somebody who is a non-South African creates nonsense over the border, it is not he who suffers but we South Africans. This is the message we want the hon. the Minister to give out very clearly. I think it is also the message that the hon. member for Durban Point wants to go out. It must be stated either in this legislation or in some other legislation that under no circumstances will South Africa allow non-South Africans to use South africa as a base for their own interests or to go attacking other countries.

Amendments put and the Committee divided:

Mr. Chairman, I rise to move amendments Nos. (1), (2) and (3) to this clause printed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Houghton, namely—

1. (1) On page 32, in line 33, to omit all the words after “to” up to and including “longer” in line 38 and to substitute:
   render community service for a period of service not exceeding one-and-a-half times as long as the aggregate of all the periods of service which would otherwise have been applicable to him in terms of section 22 or 44, as the case may be, or—
   1. (i) imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years in the case of a refusal to render service in terms of section 22(3)(a); or
   2. (ii) imprisonment for a period not exceeding a period equal to the unexpired portion of service due to be rendered by him in terms of section 22(3)(b) or of section 44(3)(b)(i), as the case may be, or not exceeding six months, whichever is the longer, in the case of a refusal to render service in terms of section 22(3)(b) or of section 44(3)(b)(i), as the case may be;
2. (2) on page 34, in line 18, to omit “of” and to substitute “not exceeding”;
3. (3) on page 34, in line 57, after “imprisonment” to insert “or community service”.

The hon. member for Houghton has asked me to apologize to the House for the fact that she is unable to be present here today.

This new clause substitutes the existing section 126 of the Act and deals with penalties prescribed for those people who refuse to do service in terms of section 22 of the Act which deals with the Citizen Force, and section 44 which deals with the Commandos. One realizes that once Parliament has decided on the principle of conscription for national service, in order to make that principle work there must of necessity be some penalty for those people who refuse to do the service which in terms of the law they are required to do. It is on that basis that we approach this particular provision. The question that really arises is: What should the nature of the penalty be for the person who refuses to serve? That is the question that we have to decide in respect of this clause. First of all, it is obvious that the penalty in respect of the citizen who refuses to serve should not put him in a position of advantage over the person who agrees to serve; in other words, the man who does not wish to serve should not be advantaged, as a result of the penalty, over that person who renders his service. In the second instance, the nature of the penalty, namely its duration and its severity, should bear some relation to the duty he would have had to perform. Therefore, what we must look at is the service he would have been doing and relate the penalty to that, and secondly, the fact that the man who does not serve should not be placed in a better position than the man who does serve. The third point is whether the penalty should be mandatory on the courts. In finding a man guilty, should the sentence be mandatory or not? Should the court not only have to decide whether a person is guilty but also have a measure of discretion in deciding on the severity of the punishment that should be meted out to that individual? In general terms we in these benches believe that good legal procedure provides that as a general rule it should be left to the court to apply in their discretion, taking the circumstances of each case into account, the penalty. Therefore, one could provide for a maximum penalty not in excess of something or other but as a general rule we would also say that in our process of law it would be better for the courts to have a discretionary power than not to have that power. In this particular case we believe that there is every good reason why the courts should have a discretion. We say this because as the law stands as a result of the rejection of our proposed amendments, the only people who will have a valid reason not to serve their normal period of service are people who are recognized as religious objectors. All other people who refuse to do normal service will in fact be guilty in terms of the law. The question is: Who will these people be? Let us say they will be the ordinary draft-dodgers, the layabouts who just do not want to serve. There will also be people who have some fundamental objection to a particular service and there will also be those people who have moral and ethical objections to participating in any form of warfare, those people whom we in these benches have been fighting for over the past while. Because the Government has decided to lump all these three different forms of refusers together—the draftdodgers, the political won’t-fights and the people with real moral and ethical qualms in respect of any kind of service, because all of these will be found guilty—we think it becomes especially necessary in those circumstances to allow the courts some measure of discretion as to how they apply that sentence. They should take those circumstances into account.

One of the reasons the hon. the Minister gave for not including moral and ethical considerations was the problem of defining them. It may well be that in terms of a statute it is difficult to give formal expression to “moral and ethical”, but I believe the courts can very well take into account the person’s background, his circumstances, his genuineness and then actually evaluate whether moral or ethical has any value as far as he is concerned. While on the one hand the hon. the Minister may be correct that it may be difficult to define it in law, likewise I do believe that a sensitive judge in weighing up not the guilt or not, because the guilt will be proven, but the extent to which that person should be punished, can take that into account.

We shall concede that it may be difficult to define this, but the hon. the Minister should also make the concession to us that often religious and moral and ethical concepts are intertwined. While morality and ethical motives do not necessarily have a religious base, likewise religious motives which do not have an ethical or moral base really do not form much ground for being let off military service. [Interjections.] We say while morality and ethics may not necessarily always have a religious base, a religious base to argue the case for not serving which does not have a moral or ethical content is really a very flimsy ground indeed.

These concepts are interrelated, and while the law is now going to say that these people are guilty, we just say that the courts should be allowed to take the individual’s circumstances and the impacts which the type of punishment meted out will have on him into account.

For these reasons the amendments which I have moved make provision for alternative forms of punishment. One of them would be community service. In fact, community service is not something which a person has a right to claim to do, but it is a form of sentence, a form of punishment which can be imposed by the court on the individual. We believe that there must well be circumstances when sensitive individuals with high moral and ethical principles around the concept of war, and not on a selective basis, should be considered sensitively by a court—that is all we say—and therefore that type of punishment may well be meted out to them. So we suggest community service of no more aggravated form than the six years for which provision is made in the Bill.

When one refuses to serve one’s two years or one’s subsequent periods averaging 60 days per year because of other circumstances, we believe that sentence or the punishment should not be greater than one-and-a-half times the service that one is required to do.

We say that because sending a man to a civilian prison is not only very severe, but it also carries with it, in terms of the White South African society, a very severe stigma. Make no mistake about it, if one goes to prison, it is not only the experience of being in prison; it is also a fact that as far as the rest of society is concerned, one is seen as a prisoner and in that sense one is seen as a criminal. So we believe that the rule of one-and-a-half times, both for prison service and for community service, is a reasonable one. While the court has no discretion in deciding who is guilty—it is a fact that if a man is not serving, he will be found guilty—we maintain that the court should have the discretion at least to decide whether to impose six years of community service or, under the other circumstances, three years or one-and-a-half times the other services.

But you are now trying to come in through the back door.

We believe that in terms of this Bill nobody will be entitled to demand, via the law, community service, but just as very often in the courts sentences of varying natures are imposed, depending not only on the circumstances of the individual, but also on the discretion and the sensitivity of the judge, we believe that in those circumstances and within these parameters the courts themselves should be able to decide on the severity of the sentence. In these circumstances I just hope that the hon. the Minister will accept the amendments.

Mr. Chairman, this important clause 16 deals with refusal to render service, as well as failure to report for service in the S.A. Defence Force. To me it is very clear that the hon. member for Sea Point is once again making a plea for people who have political objections. Such a person is a criminal in this country and deserves the punishment meted out to him. Such persons are guilty of an offence, and this clause deals with the penalties imposed under different circumstances. With this clause the Government is once again proving that it recognizes and accepts its responsibility for order and discipline in this country. The hon. member for Sea Point should know that no country can allow its citizens to decide subjectively for themselves whether or not they wish to obey the laws of this country. These people will have to ask themselves whether one can still be a loyal citizen of one’s country if one adopts this standpoint. They will also have to give serious consideration to the consequences of their actions. The person who reserves for himself the right to decide for himself which laws of this country he will obey, cannot be permitted to enjoy the same general freedom as other loyal citizens.

Today we are engaged in a greater struggle in South Africa than we had during the First and Second World Wars. At present our participation is greater than our participation was in those two wars. This is a struggle we in South Africa have to win, and that is why discipline and order is necessary in the S.A. Defence Force. It is important that the spirit of the Defence Force should always be positive. Since we have a national defence force, the nation should also be motivated, its spirit should also be positive. That is why it is important that compulsory military service should be accepted in the right spirit and attitude. Compulsory military service is not merely a statutory obligation. It is also a moral obligation which everyone has to his country.

I should now like to move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Its purpose is to restipulate the precise circumstances under which this provision should apply. In imposing a sentence in terms of this provision—a sentence in terms of which imprisonment or detention is imposed and has to be served—the commission of an officer is being cancelled and a warrant officer or a non-commissioned officer is being reduced to the ranks. We cannot allow a person with an officer’s rank to be imprisoned. I think this also applies to hon. members of this House. How would it look if an hon. member of this House should be sentenced to prison, and yet be allowed to be a representative of this country. People may argue that the penalties imposed by this legislation are extremely severe penalties, but it is not necessary for anyone to be subjected to these penalties if he obeys the laws of this country.

This amendment of mine is logical and necessary.

Mr. Chairman, we support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umfolozi. It does, I believe, improve the provision. I think it is a fair and reasonable attitude to adopt in regard to sentences which have been suspended or a fine that has been paid.

I should now like to move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 32, in line 34, to omit “twice” and to substitute “one-and-a-half times”;
2. (2) on page 32, in line 37, to omit “24” and to substitute “18”;
3. (3) on page 32, in line 43, to omit “two years” and to substitute “eighteen months”;
4. (4) on page 34, in line 18, to omit “24” and to substitute “18”;
5. (5) on page 34, in line 22, to omit “two years” and to substitute “eighteen months”.

I am not going to delay the House by debating these. They are consequential on the fundamental amendment accepted by the hon. the Minister to reduce the period from twice to one-and-a-half times normal service, for which I should like to express appreciation. I did not stand up and try to claim credit for it as a victory for sanity. The hon. the Minister was good enough to extend an invitation to discuss problems, and we did so. My amendments are purely consequential. They bring the penalties in line with the new period.

I also want to refer to the amendments which was moved by the hon. member for Sea Point and which stands in the name of the hon. member for Houghton. Butter would not melt in the mouth of the hon. member for Sea Point as he talked so innocently about a choice, and so on and so forth. It is of course quite obvious that this is simply a back door to achieve what the official Opposition failed to achieve by the front door. This clause provides for the punishment for refusing—not failing but refusing—to render service and, because the official Opposition was unable to get accommodation for people with political motives …

That is absolute rubbish.

… instead of arguing it openly, they come with this through the back door so that a man who refuses or who is not a conscientious objector on religious grounds need not now be sentenced to imprisonment but will be subject to the same conditions which apply to religious objectors. In other words, a person who refuses or who is not a religious objector can in terms of this amendment be sentenced to community service for the same period as a religious objector. This is neither more nor less than opening a back door in order to achieve exactly the same objective.

The alternative punishments are given, but this enables the court to sentence a nonreligious objector. We have had that debate. We have discussed this matter under clause 9 and also during the Second Reading debate. We supported the rejection of non-religious objection to service. We also had the same thing when we discussed earlier this afternoon the regulations under clause 9: On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that was labelled as slave-labour and I do not know what else, but today the matter was argued quietly without any reference to slave-labour. In the same way we now have this amendment being talked about in honeyed terms: It is a simple, innocent little amendment for community service to be imposed as a court sentence …

At the discretion of the courts.

… for refusing to do service.

Double standards!

We are not prepared to open back-doors …

You just want to shoot them. [Interjections.]

He said so. They want to shoot them. [Interjections.]

Nonsense. [Interjections.] I said that, when I listened to some of the rubbish and sickening tripe those hon. members talk, I would like to put them up against the wall. [Interjections.] They are very sensitive now, Sir. Because they have been caught out; they are cross with me. They are cross with me because I have exposed them. Sir, let us not play games. Let us treat this seriously.

Mr. Chairman, we support this amendment as moved by the hon. member for Umfolozi, but we do not see our way clear to supporting the amendments of the hon. member for Sea Point.

All one sees here, once again, is how the champions of the people who wish to evade their military service on moral and ethical grounds, are furtively slinking in through the back door. Since so much has been said about morality and ethics, we wish to pay special tribute on this occasion to the high morality and ethical norms of those who do their military service scrupulously.

Mr. Chairman…

Tell us what is on your heart.

What is on my heart is that it is quite clear that both the NP and the NRP through their attitude are expressing a vote of no confidence in the ability of the judiciary to deal with matters on their merits when it comes to sentencing. [Interjections.] They know that when it comes to sentencing and punishment, it is normally the primitive legal system which provides a standard, prescribed form of punishment, irrespective of the merits of the individual case. They know that the normal rule in punishment, when it comes to sentencing, is that it must fit the individual, the criminal, and that it must fit in with the demands of society.

We all probably read the article in the week-end newspapers about the farmer in South West Africa/Namibia who was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for culpable homicide, and the unbelievable treatment which he meted out to one of his farm workers. He got six years for that, for culpable homicide. The hon. member for Durban Point and the hon. the Minister will know that there are often cases of culpable homicide where the accused gets a suspended sentence. In such particular cases personal and other factors would have been taken into account by the judge resulting in sentences of, less than six years imprisonment. I cannot see any reason whatsoever why we should suddenly now tell a judge that we do not have confidence in him when looking after the interests of society, that we believe—as the hon. member for Durban North has said—that he will allow political shirkers to get off scot-free with community service. The hon. member for Durban North says that he does not trust judges when it comes to this sort of punishment. [Interjections.] He says that it is necessary for Parliament to tell the judge what he should do; that he is not sufficiently balanced and does not take the interests of South African society as a whole into account. The hon. member for Durban North wants Parliament to instruct him exactly what he must do. That is an unsound basis in dealing with this matter. It is really a weak argument to suggest that we are now trying to amend this clause because we want a back door for political shirkers.

If there is one party in this debate which has come out the worst of the lot, it is the NRP. [Interjections.] They have not been able to put forward any particular standpoints and some of the amendments which were moved by the NRP were moved after creepy-crawly discussions with the hon. the Minister of Defence. [Interjections.] Even today the creeping attitude which the NRP displays towards the governing side, is painful to observe. I am therefore not surprised to hear the allegation of a back door attitude from that party. In fact, we will not be surprised at any strange allegation from that side. I cannot see any valid reason why there would be prejudice to the Defence Force or to anyone else if a judge decides on the merits of the case what the sentence should be. I support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban Central has come up with a very interesting but very strange argument. As a lawyer he should understand the degrees of culpability. One can understand that there may be aggravating circumstances in a normal criminal trial. The hon. member for Sea Point pleaded in mitigation for these people who would be found guilty of not having rendered service when required to do so.

Refusing to do so.

Yes, refusing, as my hon. leader says. That is prima facie. I should like to tell the hon. member for Sea Point and the hon. member for Durban Central that to say that this party has no trust and confidence in the judiciary is to talk absolute tripe. I should like to know from where the hon. member got his information to make that kind of accusation. These are people who refuse by a voluntary and personal decision not to render service when there are alternatives available to them. What discretion is left to the judiciary if a man gets up and pleads guilty and says that he is guilty of having made a decision not to serve his country? That is black and white. Where are the shades of grey in that kind of decision? If the man is not rendering service he is not rendering service. One cannot have a man with a foot in each camp half rendering service and half not. It is an impossibility.

Your party does it.

Your party has been doing it for months.

Therefore there must be a mandatory sentence for a man who clearly and obviously says that he will not serve his country when required to do so.

With reference to the brief speech made by the hon. member for Sea Point here this afternoon I should like to ask him what standards he can quote to us against which we must measure the credentials of a man who objects on moral and ethical grounds. What standards must one judge against? The hon. member for Sea Point suggested the possibility that we could take the man’s track record into account and that benchmarks will be found in his history to prove the sincerity of his belief. I challenge the PFP to give us these benchmarks and standards against which the judiciary must operate. If there are no standards, what does one measure against? A feeling in one’s bones, by testing the wind with one’s finger or purely on the personal opinion of people such as the hon. member for Sea Point and the hon. member for Durban Central? If one cannot set standards then how does one measure a man’s performance, his distance from that particular standard? However, we can appreciate the PFP’s problem. They do not have a fixed policy. They do not understand what standards are. That is the problem. They come with these wishy-washy theories that the lamb and the lion will lie down and live together provided that there is a national convention. What naivety in politics! Their naivety in the administration of laws in the defence of this country is very apparent as well.

I want to say to the hon. member for Durban Central that he is down in Hansard—he owes this House an answer and he said he would give us an answer—as having said that he would tell us whether he believes that the S.A. Defence Force is fighting a just war or not.

You want a couple of miserable votes somewhere; that is all you want.

No, we have got a lot of votes. We do not have to worry about the hon. member’s dilemma on that side. We now come back to the question of the just and the unjust criteria. When one speaks about an ethical standard or a moral standard, then the convers of that is immoral or unethical. This means that in the minds of the persons concerned and the group judging him there must be a determination whether the action is just or unjust. Immoral can be equated with unjust. Therefore the one leads us to the other and the only conclusion that one can come to is that the PFP are not prepared to be man enough to stand up and say that the S.A. Defence Force is fighting an unjust war. Why all this camouflage? Come out with it. Be bold and say what you believe in. If the PFP cannot do that there is no standard against which we can judge them.

Did you not hear the hon. member for Yeoville? What did he say? Are you deaf?

The hon. member for Yeoville said that we are fighting a just war. The hon. member for Pinelands said that he believed that all wars were unjust. Therefore by logic, of course the South African war is also an unjust war. But no other hon. member of that party was prepared to get up and tell us what he believed.

I should now like to come back to the argument on the moral and ethical criteria and to ask the hon. member for Sea Point—he still has a turn to speak—to please give us the standards by which to judge moral and ethical abstention from military service. Once the PFP can tell us that, we can judge on merit the case that they are trying to plead. We do not believe that there is merit in it and the onus is on the PFP to explain their stance.

Mr. Chairman, there is a real sense in which this clause is in fact the crux of the whole Bill, particularly if we look at what it is amending.

First of all, however, Mr. Chairman, I should like to deal with the hon. member for Durban North. The issue in this party is not the question of whether South Africa is waging a just or unjust war. As I have said before, this party is committed to constitutional change in this country. We are therefore essentially committed to maintaining law and order in South Africa; and not only that, but also to resisting forces of evil and to promoting forces of good. Therefore, to ask us as a party representing in this House 20% of the White voters of South Africa, people who have relatives, sons, uncles, cousins, fathers, who fight in the Defence Force—that sort of question, I submit, is stupid. [Interjections ]

However, Mr. Chairman, what we are concerned with in this party is the reputation of the S.A. Defence Force. [Interjections.] We believe that the purpose of this kind of legislation …

Some people may even believe you!

… ought to be to prevent the S.A. Defence Force from coming into conflict in high profile trials with people with whom we may not agree—and, in almost all cases, disagree—who now come along and make an issue of these things with the S.A. Defence Force. From our point of view there are many things in this Bill with which we are very pleased. I think it is important for us to list the things on which all of us in this House actually agree so far. We all agree with the principle of doing national service if one is a citizen. We all agree with the fact that the national service system should be administered by the S.A. Defence Force. We all agree that there should be alternatives for objectors; religious objectors. We are all agreed on the fact that there must be penalties to be paid by people who refuse to do national service. We are all agreed on those things.

What we disagree on, Mr. Chairman, are the grounds for objection, which we on this side of the House want broadened. We disagree as has been pointed out, with the question of punishment. Then there is another point on which we disagree. This is actually the whole nub of the issue. We really believe that 99,5% of South African youths are prepared to do their military service; to do their national service through the military. We do not have this great fear, which the hon. the Minister seems to have, and which hon. members of the NP and of the NRP in fact display, that there are thousands upon thousands of South African youths who are going to be swept up politically and who are going to resist national service. We do not believe that. [Interjections.] We actually have faith in the young people of this country. [Interjections.]

What is actually happening is that this tiny percentage is holding the S.A. Defence Force to ransom because it uses the high profile trials. As one would say in Afrikaans, as we see it: Die agb. Minister behoort die angel uit te trek. What does he do, however? Let us look at this Bill to see. When we refer to category 3 objectors, let us rather call them what they actually are. Everybody has been talking about them without calling them by their real name. They are being referred to as some religious group. They are Jehovah’s Witnesses. The hon. the Minister of Defence has leant over backwards to meet the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We do not object to that. We believe that they were very shabbily treated previously. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, do not even accept the existence of the State, and to meet them we have had to come along with this legislation, using a ruse; they have to be sentenced and then put on parole because otherwise the Jehovah’s Witnesses will not accept it. Military service is not acceptable to them in terms of their religious convictions.

What we are actually doing is that we are giving recognition, in category 3, to a religious group, a group of people who completely refuse to accept the existence of the State. As far as they are concerned the State is an evil institution, and they do not recognize it at all. We are not prepared, however, to grant people who have certain moral and ethical beliefs, people who co-operate with the State, who are prepared to do service, any recognition at all. These people are just not prepared to do military national service. They are prepared, however, to do alternative service. These are the people the Minister wants to send to gaol for eight years. In terms of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban Point this term of imprisonment will now be six years. People are sent to a civilian gaol for six years. In many cases a tiny percentage of the population, who are highly motivated, highly educated people, are being sent to gaol. I do not believe that it is wise legislation to come from this House. I do not believe it is wise government in the circumstances. What we are doing is that we are actually persecuting a tiny group of people We on this side of the House do not believe that they are anything more than that. If one could remove those people, if one could, as it were, remove the leverage which they will still have in terms of this legislation, I believe we will have the opportunity to show that we mean what we say. We shall be saying to these people: If you do not want to do national service you are going to be punished heavily. If you want to do alternative service to military national service, you will also be punished because it cannot be any better than doing your national service on a military basis. We shall immediately have defused the whole issue. I believe the winner in this regard will be the SADF because we do not want the SADF to become involved in these constant struggles.

I therefore wish to support the amendments moved by the hon. member for Sea Point.

Mr. Chairman, these pious words we have been listening to for the past few minutes, are quite untenable. This is another clear example of the smokescreen those hon. members are hiding behind because they have other motives. [Interjections.] I shall tell hon. members what those motives are. The PFP are not very fond of people who simply refuse on religious grounds. Their problem concerns the kind of person who is going to refuse now. This is the person who refuses summarily, and that includes the political objector. [Interjections.] They are those who attend their congresses. Perhaps it is time for us to speak openly with one another about these matters. The hon. the Minister has bent over backwards to accommodate these people. I do not know how he was able to do so. We are dealing here with people who absolutely refuse to do military service, and what does the official Opposition say to us? They say: Do not be too harsh on the poor little things. Let them do a little community service, let them have a soft job. [Interjections.] That is the motion before this House at present. That is the implication of the amendment before this Committee. [Interjections.] They want to place those people in a hospital somewhere and let them have a soft job even though they are political objectors. They think that possibly they will need those people. Those hon. members must not come forward with those stories. These are people who deserve punishment in terms of this legislation because they have broken the law. They refuse to perform national service. Now we must accommodate them as well, just as we have accommodated the religious objectors. We cannot do so. The amendment goes even further, for example, if these people do not wish to perform community service for five or six years, a fine or imprisonment not exceeding three years is being proposed. This means that if such a person has served one year in prison and he is then released, he walks out exempt from military service for the rest of his life. We cannot accept that amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I shall not speak at length, since we are once again dealing here with one of the principles of this legislation which has already been discussed, during the Second Reading debate. However, it became very clear that the hon. member for Durban Point is an old hand at this kind of legislation, since he definitely caught the official Opposition out when they wanted to slink in through the back door. [Interjections.]

I wish to make one aspect very clear, and that is that when we speak about the SADF, no party is ingratiating itself with the Government. I think any party will always have to fight for the interest of the SADF and try and do its best for the SADF. I think it is extremely negative to reproach an opposition party which moves amendments and to say: You are ingratiating yourselves with the Government. We are not dealing with an ingratiatory situation. We are trying to create the best situation. [Interjections.]

I wish to tell the hon. member for Durban Point straight away that I shall accept the consequential amendments he moved. [Interjections.]

I now come to the official Opposition. Here they are advocating that these amendments ought to be made applicable to anyone, regardless of the reason, who does not wish to do service, provided he is not a religious objector. I am not saying that they are pleading for people with political convictions, but the question of political convictions is, in fact, included here by implication. Ethical and moral grounds are also included here. I am afraid that we cannot accept this. Then, however, they went even further. They did not want equal treatment for the religious objector and the objector in terms of these reasons; they want the latter to have a lesser offence. Therefore they want the group which, for any reason, falls into the ethical, moral and political category, to have a lesser offence than the religious objector who comes forward and says that he cannot do so in view of his religious convictions. I am sorry, but I cannot accept these amendments, for that reason. In this particular case a penalty of one-and-a-half times is being proposed, and we discussed that principle when we were considering clause 9. It amounts to more or less 6 years. In my opinion, that is the difference between this side of the House and the other two opposition parties on the one hand, and the official Opposition on the other.

I come now to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umfolozi. This rectifies the matter in respect of members of the S.A. Defence Force who have to serve a sentence of detention and/or imprisonment in terms of the proposed section 126A. In terms of this amendment they will only lose their ranks if they have to effectively serve such a detention sentence. I think it is extremely important that this should only happen if the sentence is effectively served. I therefore accept the amendment.

Amendments moved by Mr. C. W. Eglin put and the Committee divided:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 36, in line 51, to omit “conclusive” and substitute “prima facie”
2. (2) on page 36, in lines 59 to 63, to omit subsection (4).

The clause relates to the right of recourse which the Government may have as a result of injuries to members of the Defence Force. The first portion of the clause deals with the situation relating to a member or his estate that would otherwise have a claim against another person and gives the Government the right of recourse in regard to that person for expenditure incurred or payments made that could have been claimed by the member or his estate. It then goes on to state—

The requirement that it shall be conclusive proof is very far-reaching indeed and that is why I have moved as an amendment that it should be prima facie proof that that expenditure has been incurred. That at least will give the affected person the right of rebuttal. As the clause is worded at present, it is much too far-reaching in that the mere production of the certificate shall be conclusive proof that that expenditure has been incurred. I believe my amendment is perfectly reasonable and in line with what one would normally find in a statute of this kind. That is why I suggest it should be prima facie proof.

As regards my second amendment, viz. to have subsection (4) deleted, I want to say that the provision in that subsection seems to me to be unreasonable. I can see no reason why in circumstances like this a claim of the State should have priority over other non-preferent creditors in the case of the insolvency of the person concerned. I believe there is no reason why ordinary creditors should be prejudiced in this manner by the State in the circumstances having a preferent claim over other claimants.

I believe that my two amendments are entirely reasonable and will make this legislation more equitable.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

It has become customary to speak about the “Chief’ of the S.A. Defence Force. The term “General Officer Commanding” has become an obsolete term. This is the basic motivation for my amendment.

I should like to conclude our contribution to the Committee Stage—if you will permit me, Sir—to convey a word of thanks on behalf of the CP to Col. De Klerk for the guidance he gave us and the exceptional patience with which he briefed us on this Bill.

Mr. Chairman, I shall first deal with the amendments of the hon. member for Berea. The first concerns the evidential value of the certificate of the Chief of the S.A. Defence Force and proposes that it should be prima facie proof and not “conclusive” proof. This brings it into line with the normal practice in the courts, and I am therefore prepared to accept this amendment. I am also quite prepared to accept the second amendment of the hon. member.

The amendment of the hon. member for Jeppe amounts to a technical adjustment and it would be acceptable to me provided that the hon. member is prepared to amend his motion by omitting “Chief” and inserting “Chief of the”. This would then bring it into line with the concept as it appears in other provisions of the Act, for example, section 83A, 92bis, 119(2), 145A and B, etc. I am sure the hon. member will have no objection to this.

Mr. Chairman, I have no objections. With leave of the Committee I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment with leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Chairman, I now move the following amendment—

Amendment moved by Mr. J. H. van der Merwe agreed to.

Amendments moved by Mr. R. A. F. Swart agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill, as amended, reported.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, we come now to the Third Reading of this Bill after an extremely interesting and illuminating debate. We listened attentively to the replies the hon. the Minister gave to the questions which have been asked so far and to the points raised by hon. members of the CP and hon. members of the governing party itself. In fact, there are a number of aspects arising from the replies the hon. the Minister gave to which we shall have to give attention, particularly his replies to the questions put to him by the CP.

In view of the fact that we are about to enter a new dispensation, I cannot take it amiss of the hon. the Minister if he cannot set out with resolution and in detail how the new scheme is going to work.

But he is a member of the Cabinet!

There are a few aspects of the replies of the hon. the Minister which we are concerned about and I should like to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to these. It has never been, and still is not, clear to us how, within the scope of the establishment of separate cultural councils and separate regional committees, this new promotion of culture is going to progress. On certain aspects, in regard to which we have serious misgivings, one could say that we were throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. One need only look at what the department has achieved thus far in respect of this task and at the variety of the activities the department has undertaken. I have already indicated that in view of the multiplicity of cultures, there is certainly room for emphasize on the distinctive, the specific, of the culture of every group. I also indicated that in respect of the Coloured population I see very little room for the implementation of that concept since, in general, the culture of the Coloured is no different in essence from the culture of the majority of hon. members in this House. Those misgivings remain. Of course, in the implementation of this measure, we shall be keeping a watchful eye on the extent to which arbitrary and unjustifiable separation takes place merely for the sake of separation, and not for the sake of the real fostering of the culture of the people of South Africa. I am saying this, because some of the replies which the hon. the Minister gave have given rise to a certain measure of doubt in our minds as to how this legislation is going to be implemented in practice. As it stands here, I am convinced that when it comes to engaging in cultural activities, in terms of the new legislation, the possibility of establishing differentiated institutions in the form of separate cultural councils and regional councils will be limited in respect of the Coloured population. I shall leave it at that. The hon. the Minister is aware of what our fundamental premise is. What this party would prefer, is that logically we should continue to maintain the same system which we have today, viz. that we have one Minister in charge of the promotion of culture in general, i.e. the Minister of National Education, and that that Minister should control such activities in all their facets via the institutions which fall under him—and I include the various regional councils and the important work they are doing—in respect of both the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking people, despite the fact that in many respects we are dealing with two separate cultural groups. We can see no reason why that basic pattern cannot also be implemented in respect of a larger diversity of cultures in South Africa. I have no objection to it being regarded as useful to create separate institutions in respect of certain local and other activities, as well as in respect of certain activities of a general nature, and once again I exclude the Coloureds. However, we simply feel that this could take place under the auspices of one Minister, the present Minister of National Education. If we look at the annual report of the department, and we take note of the many activities undertaken by the department and the regional councils, I wish to reiterate that I think that the possibilities for differentiation are going to be extremely limited in quite a number of respects. For example, one thinks of Capab and PACT. We cannot establish a separate Capab for the Coloureds, for the Indians and for every Black population group. We cannot have separate cultural councils where everyone wants their own Capab. That just would not work. It cannot work. In respect of these matters, we are dealing with that self-same common pursuit of culture and cultural heritage which the hon. the Minister mentioned.

I simply wish to say that we wish the hon. the Minister and his department everything of the best, since in my opinion, the way is indeed being paved for the fertile extension and implementation of culture, for other population groups to be included in a positive way in the cultural efforts of the Government and the department. I hope that in terms of this legislation proper provision will be made for all the population groups in such a way that the diversity of cultures in South Africa will be emphasized and that the hon. the Minister will concern himself as little as possible with the question of colour or race in those activities. I just wish to say that we are keeping to our original decision to support this Bill

Mr. Speaker, we have already considered the purpose of this legislation, as debated in detail during the Second Reading. We are dealing here with a sound measure, a measure that is concerned with the promotion of culture. The original Act was meant to regulate the promotion of the culture of the Whites. Provision is now being made in this new measure for the statutory regulation of the promotion of the cultures of all population groups. By the way, I looked up the definition of culture in the Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal. In it the word “culture” is defined as follows—

When one considers the multiplicity of traditional Black cultures, as embodied in the customs of each of the various Black peoples, one is grateful that purposeful efforts are going to be made to foster and to protect the various cultures in an orderely way.

It is my contention that the Western onslaught on the Black cultures has already taken its toll. That is why it has become necessary to try to affirm the way in which the individual cultures of the various peoples in South Africa are realized. The traditional cultural patterns, as established among the various peoples, is something precious, something beautiful which should not simply be absorbed into a cosmopolitan jumble in which it can no longer be identified. A cultural heritage is not inferior because it is indigenous. Every people has a unique culture, which should be afforded the opportunity of growing, of developing, of being protected and of coming fully into its own. The various Black peoples are under tremendous pressure as far as their way of life and their pursuit of culture are concerned. They are being forced into a straitjacket as it were, in that their way of life is being westernized to the extent that traditional customs have suffered.

However, it is important to remember that in this pursuit of culture, as well as in the preservation of culture, a continual interaction is taking place which has an effect on the various cultural activities of the different peoples.

The Ministers responsible are now being granted certain powers by way of this measure to bring about the fostering of the cultures of the various groups and peoples. The establishment of regional councils will play an important role here. Therefore the cultural patterns which can be perceived in the various regions, even among a particular population group, can be protected in this way.

In conclusion I should just like to refer to certain remarks made during the Second Reading stage by hon. members of the CP in this connection. It is my contention that their claim that they have the sole right to protect the culture of the Afrikaner, forces one to examine the motives behind it. I wish to state clearly that the Afrikaner, on this side of the House as well, is just as proud of our own Afrikaner cultural heritage and of its protection and preservation, as hon. members of the CP should possibly like to do. We are not going to allow them, in their apparent sanctimonious hypocrisy to claim the sole right to Afrikanership. This obsession they are displaying, is also causing them to …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: May the hon. member for Gezina say that the CP is hypocritical?

Mr. Speaker, I was speaking about the apparent sanctimoniousness of the CP.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, this obsession the CP is displaying, is causing them to form a laager as soon as something which affects other population groups comes into the picture. That is when they like to pass judgement and when they raise their objections, as was the case during the Second Reading of this Bill.

We support the present legislation wholeheartedly and we wish to regard this fine legislation as a measure which will set the tone for ordering the various cultures of the different peoples in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by referring to the hon. the Minister’s reply to the debate on the Second Reading and mention a few points in that regard.

In answer to my two colleagues, the hon. member for Germiston District and the hon. member for Koedoespoort, the hon. the Minister made certain remarks. In the first instance, the hon. the Minister once again—as has happened so often over the past year—said that both Dr. Treurnicht and the hon. member for Lichtenburg supported certain measures while they were in the Cabinet and have now turned a somersault and no longer do so. I again want to say to the hon. member, as we have often said in the past, that while the members of the CP were still members of the old NP—Prof. Sampie Terblanche is now speaking about a new NP—we had a certain definite interpretation of the policy of the old NP. Based on those principles, not only our then members of the Cabinet, but also we who were members of the caucus, supported the steps taken by the ruling party. I now wish to say to the hon. the Minister that over the past year it has become very clear to us—and that is what the debate between the governing party and ourselves has been about over the past year—that there is a significant difference in the interpretation of the principles of the old NP and the new NP. I also wish to say to the hon. the Minister that my colleagues who are now no longer members of the Cabinet, are not bound by the secrecy of the Cabinet and the Cabinet committees from revealing what has been discussed in the Cabinet. The hon. the Minister and his colleagues persist in quoting what happened in the Cabinet and in Cabinet committees at the time. I just want to say to the hon. the Minister that the members of this party who were members of the Cabinet will abide by the rules and regulations and legal principles which they were subject to. [Interjections.] The line of argument that we were supposedly there and supposedly agreed to everything, leaves us cold. I shall let that pass.

I also wish to say to the hon. the Minister that he should look to his terminology. He said that this side of the House provided yet another illustration of the almost cynical indifference with which the CP turned away from its previous standpoint and performed a kind of somersault so that today its face is pointing in the same direction as its rear-end used to point.

Hear, hear!

I had expected hon. members to say “hear, hear”. In this regard I shall not make use of that kind of terminology to address the hon. the Minister because the terminology used by the hon. the Minister is typical of the style of his leader. I shall leave the hon. the Minister at that, in spite of the sanctimonious way in which the people who give him instructions, the members of Nasionale Pers, made a fuss about the calm and logical way in which that hon. Minister expresses himself. They spoke about his elegant style in contrast to our so-called stupid style. There are other things, too, that have been said about this side of the House.

Do not be a “bitterbek", man.

Yes, Sir, the hon. the Minister of Law and Order is always going around with his “bitterbek” stories. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister is unable to argue by setting standpoint against standpoint. I shall leave the hon. the Minister at that. As I said, that is typical of the style of his leader.

I want to say to the hon. the Minister of National Education that if there is anyone who has performed a somersault with regard to principle and standpoint in South Africa, then he is the last hon. Minister to be in a position to throw stones at anyone else in that regard. In the debates about the concepts “culture”, “nation”, “people” and so on that are to come, we shall show who the man is who performed a somersault and who the people are who stuck to their principles.

In his reply to the Second Reading debate the hon. the Minister also referred to our standpoint on South West Africa. Why this was dragged into these discussions I do not know. Later in the session we shall deal with the vote of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs; at that stage we shall put forword our standpoint. The hon. the Minister also said that we had performed a somersault with regard to manpower as well. In this regard too my colleague who is our chief spokesman in this regard, will discuss the matter in the discussion of the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Manpower.

He described the somersault well.

If we are to discuss somersaults, the debates that are to take place will stand out very clearly in the politics of South Africa.

It sounds as if we are going to have a circus.

Well, there may be a circus, but we shall know where the clowns are sitting.

We oppose the Bill in the Third Reading as well. As far as we are concerned, the Bill does not concern the promotion of culture in South Africa in the sense in which we see the survival of culture and the diversity of culture, and the culture of my nation.

Which nation?

That is a question that hon. members had better ask themselves: I have no difficulties in that regard.

On the basis of the principles as put forward by the hon. the Minister in the course of the Second Reading debate there is indeed promotion of culture, but in the first place there is no certainty as regards the survival of the culture of the Afrikaner nation, the survival of the culture which the Caucasian and Westerner brought to this country, in the dispensation based on the standpoints of the hon. the Minister. It is true that culture will continue to exist in the country, because there will be people here, irrespective of what those people will look like and who they will be, because people live within a cultural context. In that regard I can say to the hon. the Minister that culture will survive in South Africa. It will survive as long as there are people here. Our point of dispute is simply that the principles which the hon. the Minister wants to put into practice will entail the destruction of the culture which the old NP championed over the years.

My problem with the hon. the Minister is that although he did not describe culture in the clause in which the definitions are contained—I understand that it is very difficult to define the expression “culture” in legislation—he also failed to give us an explanation of how he sees the cultural diversity in South Africa. Nor did he tell us what falls under the so-called group-specific classification and what under the universal classification. This is our dilemma with the hon. the Minister. The problem is not just that the hon. the Minister did not want to define it, but also that the hon. the Minister omitted to tell us what the standpoint of the new NP, the governing party, was with regard to the concept “nation” and “people”, because culture is also very closely linked to the concepts “people” and “nation”. The hon. the Minister knows that the debate which is in progress in South Africa can very easily be concealed behind the concept of “culture”, but when one has to define “nation” and “people”, that is a horse of a different colour, because then one has to state one’s standpoints far more clearly.

When speaking about culture in South Africa, the hon. the Minister must tell us what his views are in respect of the concepts “nation” and “people”, because I must point out to the hon. the Minister that the chairman of the board of directors of the specific newspaper group that attacked him about ten years ago with regard to a specific standpoint he adopted then with regard to “nation” and “culture”, said the following at the Afrikaanse Skrywersgilde—

I quote these things because they are important. Mr. D. P. de Villiers is the Managing Director of Nasionale Pers and I want to contend categorically that Nasionale Pers thinks for the hon. the Minister and his party. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister may laugh about that, but the hon. the Minister must beware of what he laughs at nowadays. In any event, it looked like a very embarrassed smile. We are certainly looking at who is performing somersaults. The debate specifically concerns culture, and if the hon. the Minister holds the same view as regards the concepts “culture” and “nation” as Mr. D. P. de Villiers, then the hon. the Minister must tell us that today, and if the hon. the Minister differs from the managing director of the Nasionale Pers group as far as these matters are concerned, then the hon. the Minister must tell us that as well. However, it is not only Mr. D. P. de Villiers who is involved here. The leader of the New National Party—the governing party—has also adopted a standpoint in this regard.

Daan, there is only one National Party.

In reply to a question, the hon. the Prime Minister said in a debate that he saw the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians in South Africa as relatively one nation. [Interjections.] The hon. the Prime Minister of South Africa said that the Brown people, the Indians and the Whites in South Africa formed relatively one nation. [Interjections.] What is the Minister’s approach to culture—responsibilities of Ministers, universal interests, groupspecific matters which belong to one group only? The hon. the Minister must also tell us what his standpoint is with regard to the hon. the Prime Minister’s “relatively one nation” concept for Whites, Coloureds and Indians. These are answers we want from the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.] If the hon. member wants to know what I want, then he must go and read my debates of 1968 when this cultural legislation was introduced in this Parliament for the first time. [Interjections.] He must go and read what the standpoint of the NP was then. He must read my definition and see what my sources with respect to culture were. [Interjections.] At the time there was no one on that side of the House who differed with me … [Interjections.] … except the hon. the Deputy Minister of Environment Affairs and Fisheries. At the time he differed with me concerning my view of culture. However. I want to ask the hon. the Minister where he stands as far as this particular aspect is concerned. Can this hon. Minister, who is so fond of speaking about somersaults, recall what he said 10 years ago? [Interjections.] Ten years in the life of a people, in the life of a nation in its struggle to survive, is a very short period. Even for a man like the hon. the Minister, at his age, it is not very long ago. [Interjections.] On that particular occasion the hon. the Minister expressed himself about this standpoint in very strong terms. When he spoke about the identity of the Coloureds, he quoted Mr. Vorster. That is another wonderful aspect of the governing party: Whoever is the Prime Minister of the day, they fall in behind him, and if he is out tomorrow, they fall in behind another man. It is not a question of a standpoint based on principle, but purely a question of what the leader of the day has to say. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister quoted what Mr. John Vorster said. The man whom I am now going to quote is the hon. the Minister who accuses this side of the House of performing somersaults, and at the same time he was, as the newspaper said, a learned man, a clever man. [Interjections.] I quote—

The Coloureds are people in their own right, and they have the right to be treated as such.

He continues—

That, then, is the Minister who accuses this side of the House of performing somersaults. The other day I told him that for the sake of the debate he should tell us when he became a member of the NP. I hope the hon. the Minister will reply to that question of mine. The hon. the Minister went on to say—

He does not simply accept it for ordinary reasons, but “beslis”—

That is Mr. John Vorster—

Is that still true?

It is still true.

I read further—

That is what the hon. the Minister said 10 years ago when he stood by Mr. Vorster’s standpoint, viz. that the Brown people, the Coloureds, were a separate nation-in-the-making in South Africa. [Interjections.] Now I want to say to the hon. the Minister …

You have not made a point yet.

I want to remind the hon. member for Geduld of the days when he handed Mr. S. E. D. Brown a medal, a present.

It was still as a Nationalist.

Let us, then, not speak of performing somersaults. I want to tell the hon. the Minister when he began to perform his somersault. He began performing a somersault with regard to his view of nation, people and culture after he spoke at Robertson about 10 years ago and Nasionale Pers got hold of him. When on one occasion he wrote an introduction for a mutual friend of ours who had translated a work on George Pompidou, viz. Om ’n knoop deur te hak, the hon. the Minister wrote the following, and this is extremely interesting …

How Daan is enjoying himself now!

The hon. the Minister says that it is pleasant. It is pleasant to stand by fixed principles and to stick to them. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that it is no pleasure to spend years as part of a team that then performs a somersault. Now they are accusing us of performing a somersault. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of the time when Die Burger and Mr. Piet Cillié got hold of him. The hon. the Minister then wrote—

Those were the years when that hon. Minister began to perform a somersault and began to rationalize the process. At that time he eventually began to speak about the ideal and the reality. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that one should not repudiate and reject one’s ideal and then take refuge behind a certain reality in an effort to make it meaningful and praiseworthy for one. One must also beware of denying reality to such an extent that no ideal remains for oneself and one’s people.

He speaks well, does he not?

He speaks well, yes, but what is he saying? [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister is accusing us of performing somersaults. He is described as a clever politician whereas we are the stupid politicians. I want to say to him that I would prefer to be stupid and honest than the other way around. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order …

Order! The hon. member is putting it in such a way that he means the opposite. The opposite of “honest” is “dishonest”. The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir. I shall let what I said, suffice: I may be stupid, but I am trying to be honest. Since the hon. the Minister says that he wants to promote culture in South Africa, the question occurs to one—and this is the crux of politics in South Africa today—as to how he sees the diversity of cultures in Southern Africa and how he seeks to make provision for that diversity in the politics of the day in the constitutional sphere. That is the question which the hon. the Minister must answer for us.

The party of the hon. the Minister held a meeting of its workers at which the workers were told that they had to make the people of the country feel disheartened. When one wants to promote culture one must not destroy the people who are the bearers of that culture. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that the cultural wealth of that group who came here from Europe three centuries ago to establish themselves here and who, over the past decades, have had to fight a struggle for survival in Africa, is being destroyed by the principles put forward by the hon. the Minister during the Second Reading. That is one of the reasons why we are going to vote against this legislation. Another very important question remains. The hon. the Minister says inter alia that as far as these things are concerned one must bring the voter round to agreeing with Kissinger’s advice. What was Kissinger’s advice to the Whites, the Caucasians, the Westerners, with regard to the survival of his culture in South Africa? What was Dr. Kissinger’s advice? I should like the hon. the Minister to spell those things out for me.

I want to conclude by saying to the hon. the Minister that his leader, the hon. the Prime Minister, says that his party works and pleads in South Africa for the survival of a Western Christian civilization. The hon. the Minister must tell us what place the Indian assumes in this relatively one nation and one culture. This is a question that the hon. the Minister must answer for us. This legislation concerns the promotion of culture, but the leader of the hon. the Minister says outside this House that we are fighting for a specific civilization. I think that the hon. the Minister owes it to this House to give an indication of his view of culture and of civilization. Are there certain cultural groups in South Africa that are uncivilized? The hon. the Minister must tell us that. The hon. the Minister must give us these answers. The hon. the Minister says that we are performing somersaults.

Sir, I hasten to say that we shall vote against the Third Reading of this Bill. It is not because we do not wish to promote culture that we are doing so. The Whites of this country have over the years been notable for the way in which they as a group have preserved and protected the cultural wealth—not only material cultural wealth but also spiritual cultural wealth—of the indigenous population groups. This is the contrast between we who established the Western culture in South Africa and the people who established the Western culture in America and elsewhere. There they destroyed the indigenous cultural groups, and I want to say to the hon. the Minister that we do not wish to be part of such a process.