as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Select Committee on Pensions.

Report to be printed and considered.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Select Committee on Pensions.

Report to be printed and considered.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In this Bill provision is made for three specific matters, viz. firstly, the establishment of a council for the co-ordination of the affairs of local authorities; secondly, the establishment of municipal development boards; and, thirdly, the authorization to make regulations concerning interim measures to improve communication between Coloured and Indian committees and White local authorities.

†On the recommendation of the President’s Council—recommendation No. 22—the Government decided to establish a coordinating council for local government to advise central government on matters of importance to local government.

In view of the urgency thereof, the fact that no legislation existed, and the Government’s constitutional guidelines that local authorities shall play an increasingly important role, it was decided to make use of the National Interim Liaison Committee as an interim measure until such time as the co-ordinating council has formally been established.

To ensure the effective co-ordination between central, provincial and local government it was decided to entrust the function of co-ordination to the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning and it logically follows that the chairmanship of the co-ordinating council will vest in the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning.

On the co-ordinating council will be represented the Provincial Administrators and the members of the Provincial Executive Committees responsible for local government, and also representatives of the national associations of White, Coloured and Indian local government institutions.

The United Municipal Executive will still be recognized as the mouthpiece of White local authorities in this country. When matters only affecting White local authorities—matters of own concern—are to be discussed, the United Municipal Executive will remain the mouthpiece of White local authorities and as such this body would be entitled to discuss such matters with the relevant Ministers. The same principle applies to the Coloured and Indian associations. Matters of own concern to the particular groups can be raised directly with whichever Minister or State department is involved. When matters of general concern are to be discussed which do not only affect one group, they will be referred to the co-ordinating council where all interested parties will be represented. The Government’s fundamental principles underlying the new constitutional dispensation will therefore also find application in the self-determination of own affairs at this level of government and the acceptance of co-responsibility in matters of common interest to all the groups. I would like to stress that the council is purely an advisory body and has no executive powers. It can investigate and advise the Government in connection with those affairs which are of general importance to local authorities as well as those affairs of local authorities which should in the national interest, be co-ordinated.

*The co-ordinating council is an advisory body with no executive powers which advises the Government by liaising with the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. The advisory function of the council is qualified in that it must be of general interest to the local authorities; in other words, ad hoc cases that are of interest to only one specific town, city or local authority are not discussed. They must confine themselves to matters of general interest to local authorities. The fact that the Government is being advised indicates that such advice may also concern matters that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning and the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning, such as housing, civil defence, transport and health aspects which may be of general interest to local authorities.

The various functions of the co-ordinating council, as contained in clause 4, are as follows:

1. (a) Recommendations may be made with regard to those matters requiring coordination that should receive priority.
2. (b) Recommendations may be made concerning the co-ordination of functional activities such as fire-fighting or civil defence programmes of local authorities.
3. (c) Recommendations may be made concerning the creation of metropolitan and/or regional bodies performing activities similar to those performed by local authorities but only on a metro-or regional level. The nature of such bodies, their functions and powers are matters concerning which the co-ordinating council may furnish advice.
4. (d) Recommendations on the standardization of the performance of activities such as the drawing up of standard regulations or standard procedures in order to assist local authorities.
5. (e) Recommendations as to which functions should be transferred to local authorities in terms of the principle of devolution and which may, perhaps, be transferred to the private sector, may be made.
6. (f) Recommendations concerning legislation affecting local authorities may be made.
7. (g) It is not only council members and municipal officials that have to be prepared for greater responsibilities in our new constitutional dispensation. The electorate, too, must be educated and prepared to accept the responsibility which the exercising of the right to vote at the local level entails. In this regard recommendations may be made as to what ought to be done to cultivate a better understanding of local government among the public.
8. (h) As agreed with the Minister of Finance, the recommendations of the Cabinet Financial Liaison Committee will also be submitted to the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, and the co-ordinating council may be consulted in this regard to obtain their inputs concerning financial aspects. By way of cross-representation an interaction between the financial and the functional activities as such will be achieved, since an officer of the Department of Finance will serve on the co-ordinating council in terms of clause 3(2)(f).
9. (i) Investigations affecting local authorities may be initiated with the Minister’s approval.
10. (j) Although the present series of investigations envisaged by the Government were not initiated by the co-ordinating council, the council may serve as a forum for negotiation after the investigations have been completed. If success is achieved in obtaining consensus regarding the recommendations to the Government, it will be so much easier, because all interested parties are represented on the council.
11. (k) The council may receive representations concerning local government affairs, but any person or body that wishes to submit such representations must first submit a memorandum to the council. This means that such representations will have to be well-ordered and in writing, and affords the envisaged co-ordinating council an opportunity to consider the representations before deciding whether an interview should be granted and the person or body heard.
12. (l) The council is authorized to consult other persons or bodies on their activities. Therefore they may consult with other bodies both in the private and in the public sector and obtain information and advice.

The principal object of the co-ordinating council is, therefore, to bring about direct contact—around a table, if you will—among the representatives of the Whites, Coloured and Indian population groups, so that they may deliberate with one another concerning local government affairs of common interest, and on that basis advise the Government.

The contribution which these opportunities to discuss matters could make towards creating better race relations are not, in my opinion, to be under-estimated. Therefore the council creates a direct line of communication on two dimensions—

This line of communication is essential for success.

As regards the local management bodies for Black peoples, the position is that fundamentally these fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Co-operation and Development, and are therefore the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister of Co-operation and Development.

The Government is fully aware that there will be overlapping interests among Black communities and adjacent local authorities of the other population which ought to be tackled in a judicious and co-ordinated manner.

A special Cabinet Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, which is investigating the situation of the Black peoples outside the national and independent States, will consider this aspect as well, in order to determine how the overlapping interests may be meaningfully co-ordinated.

The introduction of Municipal Development Boards

It is the aim of the Government that at the local authority level, every population group should, as far as is practicable, have its own institutions of local government so that self-determination may be realized to the maximum extent at the local level as well.

The Government is aware that in order to achieve this objective it will be necessary to eliminate several obstacles in the economic, social, physical and constitutional spheres, but intends to take the necessary steps to surmount these obstacles.

In order to establish local government institutions of their own for the various groups it will be necessary to make use of the specialized knowledge and experience in various spheres such as experienced council members, town clerks, engineers, treasurers, town planners, health officials, staff officers as well as experts in all the other spheres of activity of local authorities.

In accordance with the recommendation of the President’s Council—page 67, paragraph 8.9—the Bill provides for the introduction of municipal development boards to provide local authorities with development aid and advice so as to make those authorities as self-sufficient as possible, as soon as possible.

A municipal development board will in fact be a municipal think tank within the region in which it has been established, and will consist of the best available authorities from the ranks of municipal, provincial and central Government. It is therefore the intention to make use of the knowledge and experience in municipal and other ranks—such as academic institutions—and with the aid of these experts, to do what is necessary to—

From an organizational point of view these development boards will be linked to the regional offices of the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Pietermaritzburg, Nelspruit, Pietersburg and Pretoria, and the department will perform the administrative work arising from the board’s activities.

Co-operation will have to be the watchword if we are to make a success of the new dispensation, and the introduction of these development boards is an example of co-operation between officials and council members at the level of local and provincial authorities and a central Government department with a view to achieving a common goal: The strenthening and improvement of institutions and systems of local government.

Implementation of Interim Measures at the Local Authority Level

Part of the Government’s constitutional guidelines comprises the endorsement of the recommendation of the President’s Council that all local government bodies give earnest attention to the improvement of the intergroup relations and communication between White councils and Coloured and Indian management committees.

The following findings of the President’s Council are relevant in this regard—

1. (a) The generally poor financial basis of management committees due to the preponderance of sub-economic housing, general poverty and, therefore, the absence of sufficient taxable resources to ensure that these communities will have adequate revenue to place them in a position to guarantee at least minimum standards of services and facilities in their respective areas, and not simply be burdened with heavily subsidized dormitory towns which do not have commercial, industrial, mining and agricultural areas. (Further attention will be given to these problems in Chapter 9);
2. (b) The absence of any share in joint decision-making. The fact that the management committees are actually advisory bodies only, which as such are not satisfied with their delegated powers, and that very often their representations do not receive sympathetic attention, also appears to be a valid complaint in many cases;
3. (c) The insufficiency of suitable staff and training facilities was a recurring grievance;
4. (d) The lack of interest (frequently for understandable reasons) on the part of many of the competent persons which prevented them from coming forward and taking the lead in local affairs, was an acknowledged fact;
5. (e) Insufficient land and room for expansion, with the consequent limitation of home-ownership opportunities for the well-to-do classes, was a cause for concern. The same factor limited the provision of housing generally;
6. (f) The fact that the management committee system had been introduced without proper consultation with and general agreement by the population groups involved; and
7. (g) Wide-spread general opposition to the Group Areas Act, 1966 (Act No. 36 of 1966), as amended, and the principle of enforced separation. This contributes to the rejection of the management committee system.

The President’s Council made two recommendations in this regard which read as follows—

The Government has taken cognizance of the President’s Council proposals in this particular regard and has already taken steps at the central, regional and local levels to improve inter-community relations. At the central level, an interim national liaison committee has been established, and at the regional level, seven regional liaison committees have been established. At the local level the Government has identified a series of possible interim measures which, if they were to be implemented, would improve the communication between White councils and Indian and Coloured committees and would, in addition, improve inter-group relations.

Clause 18(1) embodies the basic fundamental principles underlying the Government’s constitutional guidelines at the level of local government, viz:

• —Self-determination within “own” community context by “own” local government bodies. The existing subordinate committees of Coloureds and Indians must therefore be converted into full-fledged self-governing local government bodies in their own right.
• —Co-responsibility for matters of common concern in institutions dealing with matters of common interest for the various groups.

This objective of the Government at the local level, the objective contained in clause 18(1), can, however, only be achieved if the communication between the White councils and the Coloured and Indian committees is sound. Specifically with a view to improving this communication, provision is being made for the making of regulations by the Minister in consultation with a Provincial Administrator that will apply to the local authorities within the area of jurisdiction of the province in question.

The measures to be promulgated in terms of clause 18(2) will still, therefore, have to be in line with the Government’s basic points of departure of self-determination and joint responsibility, and any regulations promulgated in terms of the legislation will accordingly also have to be in line with these points of departure.

There are certain city councils that are dragging their feet and hiding behind existing legislation and putting forward the excuse that they are not permitted by the legislation to implement the interim measures. Not only will it now be possible to sweep aside this excuse to do nothing; city councils can, where necessary, be compelled by an Administrator to take certain steps. One trusts that this will not be necessary, but if people do not wish to co-operate, it will be necessary to assume the power to take action in such cases. In this regard I appeal to White councils and to Coloured and Indian committees to achieve positive co-operation. This is an absolute prerequisite for the successful implementation of any system.

Those, Mr. Speaker, are the three matters embodied in the Bill. I am convinced that they will be conducive to the maximum realization of the self-determination of every ethnic group at the local level and will also make provision for co-operation in regard to matters concerning which there must necessarily be co-operation in the interests of all.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the explanation given by the hon. the Minister in his introduction of this Bill. However, what was absent was an explanation of the strange procedure that we are following because in about two hours’ time we will be commencing a two-day debate on the hon. the Minister’s Vote. Suddenly, however, this Bill has been leapfrogged ahead on the Order Paper, ahead of other Bills standing in the hon. the Minister’s name. The Bill is being introduced and will be followed by a two-hour debate. Thereafter the debate is going to be adjourned while we carry on with other business. This is a very, very strange and unusual procedure. I believe the hon. the Minister should have given us some explanation right at the outset as to why the Bill is being introduced now without us having the opportunity to complete the debate and why we could not have proceeded with the Order Paper in the proper routine way. We are puzzled and, frankly, disturbed. I would like the hon. the Minister to give us an explanation. I would have thought that he would have told us, where we are dealing with a measure that I believe vitually affects local and provincial government, that local and provincial government bodies around the country have had adequate time to discuss and consider this measure and that there has been in-depth negotiation on the terms of the Bill. But here we have a situation where this Bill is suddenly promoted while the Provincial Council of the Cape and of the Transvaal are in session. We want to know whether the Government’s intention has been communicated to these authorities and whether adequate negotiation has taken place with the Exco’s and the provincial councils which are going to be affected by this measure. And what about the larger local authorities? Have there been in-depth discussions or some measure of agreement with these larger local authorities, especially in the metropolitan areas? We suspect not.

We understand this legislation is based partly on the recommendations of the President’s Council. But in a situation where we still have in South Africa three tiers of government we would have thought that the Government would have shown some respect for the other tiers of government. I had hoped that the hon. the Minister would not once again to show his complete lack of sensitivity towards other people, towards other bodies and towards other institutions. I must say that we are disappointed that he didn’t start this debate by at least telling us that he took these people into his confidence and that this measure is the result of negotiation and agreement.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he is suggesting that there has been no negotiation with organized local authority and with the provinces?

Mr. Speaker, I made myself quite clear. I said I expected the hon. the Minister to tell the House what steps have been taken. However, the hon. the Minister did not. What he decides is going to be the law. This is a reflection on the other two tiers of government; it is a reflection also on hon. members of this House. The hon. the Minister’s question actually reinforces his arrogant style.

The hon. the Minister indicated that this Bill fell into three sections. The first section relates to the establishment of a new statutory body, to be called the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs, consisting of some 40 plus people. The real key body of course will be the small action committee of nine. While these two bodies are statutory bodies, the Minister in fact is the boss. He is the man who can appoint all the members of the action committee and most of the members of the co-ordinating council. Even in the case of those appointed by other bodies, the Minister is entitled to dismiss them if in his opinion there is good reason for not having them serving on this body. So, while creating a new statutory council with important advisory functions, it is in fact a creature of the hon. the Minister and will fall directly under his control.

Secondly there will be regional municipal development boards. While the co-ordinating council has a measure of independence from the hon. the Minister, these regional boards will entirely function at his behest. In fact, I have never seen a Bill before this House in which a Minister is mentioned as many times as in this one. The Minister is referred to almost in every clause. This reflects the style not only of the Minister but also of the Government. The Minister must become the most important person in the constitutional development of this country instead of the people of South Africa being the most important element!

Thirdly the hon. the Minister referred to what were the general provisions of the Bill. One to which he referred at length was the fact that he, the Minister, was entitled to make regulations to compel White local authorities to enter into certain forms of communication with representatives of Coloured and Indian management committees. Mr. Speaker, this compulsion once again reflects an attitude. The Government is using the big stick by taking the power to compel local authorities to do something which may be against their will. We even have the position where regulations issued by the Minister in terms of this legislation will have precedence over provincial ordinances. Where there is a conflict between a provincial ordinance passed by a democratic fully elected group of provincial councillors and the regulations, the regulations will supersede the validity of the ordinance. Another most unusual provision is that the Minister may deem any individual to be an organ of local Government and thereafter appoint him to the co-ordinating council.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend dwelling at any length on some of the strange, almost bizarre, provisions of the Bill. Some of my colleagues will deal with some of them. I want to put to the hon. the Minister the five major objections which the PFP has to this Bill. The first objection is a procedural one. The Minister is adopting a procedure towards constitutional development which we believe is potentially dangerous and disruptive of good second and third-tier government. The hon. the Minister is creating new statutory bodies which are going to affect second and third-tier government vitally and he does this without having reached overall national consensus on the concept and the form in which second and third-tier government is going to be established. He wants to establish a new and important statutory body without having come to terms first with or having explained to or having reached consensus with second and third-tier government in respect of the new concept which the Government may have in mind. By creating this body the hon. Minister is putting the cart before the horse. The character, the composition and the functions of these statutory bodies as proposed in the Bill now before the House are going to point second and third-tier government in a certain direction. The character of this Bill, we must presume, reflects something of the character of second and third-tier government as envisaged by the hon. the Minister and by the Government. What will happen, however, is that once this particular statutory body or bodies are created South Africa is going to be locked into a certain direction of development in the field of local government. We believe that second and third-tier government are in a sense as important as first-tier government, and that there should be overall agreement on the conceptual plan for the three tiers of government in South Africa before this Government, almost by sleight of hand, commits the society to move in a particular direction. We believe that this hon. Minister should have obtained the agreement of, and should have reached consensus with, political parties and various institutions in South Africa in respect of a new concept of government in South Africa before leading us onto a new path by way of these statutory bodies. That is our first objection; a procedural objection, which, we believe, is going to have very negative effects on the effectiveness and on the ability of second and third-tier government in South Africa.

The second major objection that we have to this Bill is that although the hon. the Minister has not spelt it out, this Bill sounds the death knell of the provincial system of government in South Africa, indeed of any significant representative form of government at provincial or at regional level. This is the danger of this Bill. This Bill is not explicit. It is implicit. One has to read the Government’s guidelines, the hon. the Minister’s speech and the provisions contained in the Bill in order to realize that this measure indeed sounds the death knell of provincial government in South Africa in favour of some kind of nominated authority at regional level. [Interjections.] Yes, Mr. Speaker, what we are going to have will be some kind of nominated authority in regional areas, nominated by X, Y and Z. [Interjections.]

Nominated by Chris! [Interjections.]

There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, even if one looks at the Bill and at the status of the administrators, the provincial executive committees and the provincial councils, that they are already down-graded in terms of this Bill. These people are now lesser people in their own field of responsibility. They are to be subjects of the hon. the Minister. We have a new situation developing in which Administrators, executive committees and provincial councils are being down-graded while this hon. Minister is being elevated ever higher and higher in his personal and statutory authority.

What is quite clear, Mr. Speaker, is that this Bill and this advisory committee will have no meaning unless the hon. the Minister is going to be the focal point for the control of local government in South Africa in the future.

That is exactly what he would like to be.

Why should he get all this advice? Why should he have a statutory body of 40 paid people to advise him? They are not going to advise the Administrators. They are going to advise the hon. the Minister. Why should this be the case if it is not the intention of the government that the central Government and the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning should become the controlling power in the field of local government in South Africa? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, one only has to look at the character of this measure in order to realize that the hon. the Minister will control all the appointments as well as the salaries and dismissals of all these appointed people. He is not bound by any commitments or by any recommendations. He can hire and fire at will, and he is the chairman, not only of the council but also of the action committee. He is in fact the big boss operating this whole system. [Interjections.]

It reflects an attitude on the part of the Government which is disturbing. We want to stress that this type of government, this concept that one can down-grade provincial and local authorities while allowing more and more power to move to the central Government and to this hon. Minister will inevitably undermine good government because good government in South Africa involves a devolution of power and not a concentration of power in the hands of a single Cabinet Minister. [Interjections.] So, Mr. Speaker, our second objection to this Bill is that it sounds the death knell of provincial government and indeed of any form of effective representative government at the second-tier level in South Africa.

Our third objection is that this paves the way for greater centralization of power under the Minister and not for greater devolution of power in favour of local authorities. I have indicated that the concept of this Bill is that more and more power must flow towards the centre. This is in direct conflict with the recommendations of the President’s Council. The hon. the Minister points to recommendation No. 22 of the President’s Council in which it advocates setting up a coordinating council. But that is a co-ordinating council of autonomous local authorities in terms of a new constitution. It is not a toy for the Minister. The President’s Council goes to great lengths to say that in fact autonomy for local government must be written into the constitution as a cornerstone of the constitution. However, here we have a Minister not entrenching the autonomy of local government in the constitution of South Africa. In fact, the constitution of South Africa is hardly referred to. Here we have the Minister establishing this council without entrenching the authority of the local councils. We say that if one wants healthy government in South Africa, the first step one must take is to entrench the autonomy of local government in the constitution. Having entrenched that authority, it is clearly necessary to have a co-ordinating council, but to have a co-ordinating council appointed by the Minister and responsible to the Minister before one has local government established in terms of the constitution is, we feel, desperately dangerous for good government in South Africa. So we object to this Bill because it is part of the process of authority flowing towards central government instead of its being devolved upon local authority.

Our fourth objection to the Bill is that it makes it quite clear that the Government intends that local government in the future under the new constitutional dispensation must be structured on apartheid. That is the essence of this Bill. It must be structured on apartheid, because it creates a co-ordinating council between bodies set up under apartheid. The whole essence of this Bill—and in clause 18 the Minister refers to the development of local authorities around separate Indian and Coloured management committees—is in fact that apartheid must be the foundation of local government in South Africa. We believe that this is implicit in the whole concept of development boards, because if one is in fact going to graft Coloured and Indian voters onto the larger local authorities in South Africa, the question of development boards will not be a critical matter. However, if one is going to try to create local authorities out of areas in which people have not developed the expertise of self-management, it does become necessary to have development boards in that sense. The hon. the Minister says quite explicitly in this Bill that it is the intention to establish local authorities using the Coloured and Indian management committees as the embryos of those new local authorities. He is confirming our worst fears, namely that local government in South Africa, instead of being on an area basis, on the basis of an area of common interest, will be based on the Population Registration Act. We object to this. We believe that it is bad and stupid.

The hon. the Minister has also made it clear that the Indian and Coloured management committees are going to play a critical part as the embryonic local governments of the future. One can argue about those bodies, but the hon. the Minister is aware that in certain parts of the country and particularly in the Western Cape there is a tremendous tension within the Coloured community about the existence of these bodies. These bodies, rightly or wrongly, are seen to be the products of apartheid as they were recreated when the Coloured people were taken off the municipal voters’ roll. The hon. the Minister is also aware of the fact that in the report of the President’s Council it draws attention to the fact that many people object to these management committees because they are seen to be part of a system of discrimination. Because of that, we believe that it is unwise to start a new constitutional dispensation at local government level on the basis of bodies which are discredited, despised and disliked by many people whom they are intended to serve. I say this not out of any disrespect for individuals. I know that many people are trying to work hard on those councils. The fact is, however, that those bodies are seen to be an extension of the apartheid process. When we came to setting up Black local authorities we sat in a Select Committee under the hon. the Minister who has introduced this Bill and there we decided not to build the Black local authorities on the backs of the Black community councils but to start with a clean slate, to start afresh with new local authorities. In the same way we believe the Minister is unwise to try to graft the Coloured local authorities of the future onto the discredited and disliked management committees of today. We object to the apartheid concept underlying this legislation.

Finally, as the hon. the Minister indicated in his speech, the Government deliberately excludes Blacks and Black local authorities from the co-ordinating council and its activities. Local authorities are described in the definition as local authorities in terms of section 84 of the Constitution Act, a section which only includes White local authorities. The Bill does not permit the inclusion of representatives of Black local authorities. Every logical argument is in favour of Black local authorities being included in this council. It is only the race ideology of the NP that makes it possible for them to exclude Black people. Even the President’s Council in its report says it is absolutely essential in metropolitan areas and on a regional basis to include Blacks together with Whites and Indians as far as the provision of services, the planning of townships and the finding of finance are concerned. Quite clearly, whether the hon. the Minister likes it or not, whatever happens in the independent Black States and in the national Black States in respect of the areas of South Africa which are outside these independent States and national States, it is quite obvious that Black local authorities have to be linked together with White, Coloured and Indian local authorities who operate in the same area and share many of the same services. Here the Government is deliberately going out of its way to set up the first co-ordinating council and to say by law that it cannot include Blacks. I cannot think of anything more short-sighted than this. The hon. the Minister must not say that of course there can still be co-ordination. It is an insult to the Black local authorities, who after all were established by this Parliament. Black local authorities are not the creatures of the Blacks. Black local authorities are the creatures of us Whites. But having created those local authorities, we are saying now that we are not going to include them in a co-ordinating council for the future.

What should therefore happen to this Bill? We believe there is a case for formal co-ordination once local authorities have been established and once their autonomy has been entrenched. But there is no way in which the PFP can support this Bill in its present form. We believe that the correct procedure would be the procedure that was followed in respect of Black local government and in respect of Black development boards, namely that this Bill should go to the Select Committee on the Constitution. It should go to that Select Committee, where not just the details but the whole concept, the whole model, for the future development of second and third-tier government could be considered before these statutory authorities are set up. We believe that before the House supports a rotten principle such as is contained in this Bill, the Bill should be referred to the Select Committee so that there can be the same kind of mature consideration which took place in respect of the Blacks. Why can it not be in respect of the other groups? People should be able to make representation directly to the legislature in respect of their interests at provincial and municipal levels.

For all these reasons I wish to move as an amendment—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sea Point really surprises me. Firstly, it is all of a sudden unusual to advance the position of a Bill on the Order Paper. It happens every day in this House. It depends on the importance of the legislation concerned. I think this legislation is so important, that we should discuss it, and at least dispose of the Second Reading, before discussing the Vote.

However, the hon. member went further. He said that this Bill was being piloted through Parliament without consensus on local authorities having been reached. I do not think the hon. member is completely unaware of what is going on in this country. The hon. the Minister has been negotiating with local authorities for the past two years, and that includes the management committees. Now this hon. member is saying that this Bill is being rushed through Parliament. All the steps envisaged by this Bill have not only been discussed with the local authorities. This Bill is really the product of the President’s Council and the Croeser Working Group. Local authorities had a say in the Croeser Working Group, and this was one of the issues raised—the co-ordination of knowledge to transfer more powers to local authorities.

The hon. member went even further. He said that the hon. the Minister had now made himself the boss of this council. If one wishes to call the chairman of a council a boss, then I suppose one can do so. However, the initiatives for this co-ordinating council emanate from the central Government, and that is why the central Government has to take the lead in this whole affair. That is why the hon. the Minister is the chairman of that council. I find absolutely nothing wrong with that. The hon. member also referred to the municipal development boards and said that these boards were dominated completely by the hon. the Minister. That is not true, however. These municipal development boards appoint their own chairmen and deputy chairmen and they submit recommendations to the co-ordinating council. I do not see where domination comes into the picture.

Then the hon. member came forward with the most peculiar thing I have ever heard in this House. When he saw that he was not getting away with his argument as regards municipal authorities, he said that the Minister should at least have obtained consensus among the various political parties. If any other person from any other political party in this House had raised this matter, I would have said that was all very well, but when the mouthpiece of the official Opposition in this House rises and tells us that as far as the constitutional dispensation for South Africa is concerned, we should have obtained consensus among the various political parties, when that party boycotted this whole affair, one is rendered speechless. If the PFP were in earnest about constitutional development, they would have acted differently. We have disposed of the Second Reading of the Constitution Bill and if they had felt so inclined, hon. members of the PFP could have supported that legislation. What happened, however? Those hon. members left the Chamber when that Bill was introduced. Now, when we are trying to create an instrument for the development of local authorities, the hon. member comes and tells us that we should at least have obtained consensus among the various political parties. [Interjections.] I just want to tell the hon. member for Sea Point that he must not tell untruths in this House.

The hon. member said that this legislation would sound the death knell for the provincial councils. I have read the legislation, and I want to ask the hon. member to tell me where that is stated in this legislation. I maintain that the hon. member for Sea Point has told an untruth in this House today. Nowhere in this Bill is it stated that the death knell is being sounded for the provincial councils. Hon. members are entitled to put forward their arguments, but I just want to ask the hon. member not to come and tell untruths in this house. [Interjections.]

The hon. member also said that instead of decentralizing, we now wanted to centralize all the power in first-tier government. Surely the hon. member has read the Government’s guidelines. Surely he has studied them. The very purpose of this co-ordinating council is to decentralize power. The purpose is that there should be devolution of power.

What is the biggest problem today? It is that the local authorities are chained to second-tier government by legislation. The very purpose of this Bill is to detach that level of government from that legislation so that they can make decisions as an independent level of government.

The hon. member went on to say that the autonomy of local authorities was being affected by this. Surely that is not true. It is this very legislation, this co-ordinating council, that will serve as an instrument to grant the local authorities more autonomy.

The hon. member told us that this Bill was now going to compel White authorities to negotiate and communicate with Coloured and Indian management committees. I wish to say at the outset that I agree wholeheartedly with that. The independent local authorities the Government has in mind, did not come about yesterday. What some people contend—that they are half-baked and have no foundation—is untrue.

This concept originated in 1965 when the Government instructed the provincial administrations at that time to amend their or dinances so that provision could be made for the establishment of management committees for the Coloureds and Indians. What was the purpose of this? Firstly, the purpose was to bring about communication between Coloured and Indian management committees on the one hand, and White city councils on the other, and to train and uplift these people.

What has happened during the 18 years since 1965? There are city councils that have done wonderful work. They have trained these people. There is communication so that today they are able to speak about affairs of local government at the same level. Unfortunately, there are many city councils that have ignored this. It is odd that the people who objected to this legislation are the very people who serve on the city councils in which certain political parties are represented. Hon members must pardon me when I say that it is the PFP in particular. [Interjections.]

Objections to this legislation were such that a chairman of one of these management committees in one of our five large cities had to confess to me the other day that as chairman, he had no office in which to do his work. What did he tell me? He has to use the boot of his motorcar as an office. This is what is happening in the Cape Town City Council. To the other city councils not politics but the training and uplifting of people was the issue. Those city councils were prepared to make committee rooms and council chambers available to these people and to assist and uplift them so that today they can participate in discussions about the problems of local government.

Why do you not allow them to serve in the local authorities? [Interjections.]

The hon. member also said that independent local authorities for Coloureds and Indians were based on apartheid. He said that those people did not accept these institutions because they, too, saw them as apartheid institutions. With respect, I do not think the hon. member is aware of what is going on in South Africa. Since the establishment of these management committees in the Coloured and Indian communities, we have made tremendous progress. I wish to point out of the hon. member that these management committees accept this. If they are situated in Cape Town, however, they do not want to accept this. Another reason for their not wanting to accept this in certain cases, is that they do not have the co-operation of city councils. However, when they do have the co-operation of city councils, these people are prepared to accept this immediately, if the necessary financial arrangements can be made. Now the hon. member must not say that they are not accepted at all, and that they are regarded as an instrument of apartheid.

Mr. Speaker, I did not get around to the speech I had actually intended to make, but I am of the opinion that, with the legislation before this House at present, we are in the process of creating a fine instrument for the further development of our whole constitutional system in South Africa. I only hope that city councils throughout the country will co-operate with these co-ordinating councils and municipal development boards, since the issue here is not politics, but upliftment of an communication among people. This instrument will make it possible for us to communicate and get on with one another.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Algoa said that he was unfortunately unable to get to his speech, and therefore I cannot comment on it. The only thing I could perhaps say a few words about is his commentary on the speech by the hon. member for Sea Point, because that was all he did.

The hon. member for Algoa said that the hon. member for Sea Point had misinterpreted this Bill entirely because the hon. member for Sea Point had said that in fact, the hon. the Minister was building an empire for himself, and that as far as local Government affairs were concerned, the hon. the Minister would stand at the head. The hon. member states that is by no means true. I want to ask the hon. member to go and look at the composition of that co-ordinating council and at that of the municipal development board. As far as the latter board is concerned he should read clause 9(3) and (4) in particular. In terms of clause 9 the Minister appoints the members of a municipal development board. If he pleases, he may remove those members from office. All those members can do is elect a chairman, but if the Minister does not like that chairman he can remove him from office too, and appoint a different chairman.

The objection of the hon. member for Sea Point is that there is still going to be apartheid at the level of local government. However, I want to reassure the hon. member. As we have come to know the history of the level of central government it is a fact that where there are advisory boards or mixed advisory boards—in this case a development board which will be mixed—it will not take very long before those local authorities are also mixed.

The hon. member for Algoa also said that it was not true that the provincial councils were being phased out and that their function was being taken over by the department of this hon. Minister. However, clause 18(4) provides very clearly that in the event a conflict between a regulation in terms of this Bill and an ordinance of a provincial council, the former will prevail, not the provincial ordinance. Who, then, really regulates provincial matters, the province or this hon. Minister? Surely it goes without saying that it will be the Minister.

We must consider this legislation against the background of the decisions of the federal congress of the National Party in June 1982, when local authorities were also discussed, among other things. Through the hon. the Prime Minister the NP intimated its intention to extend the principle of mixed government and power-sharing to the level of local government as well. We cannot get away from that. The hon. the Minister says that he has consulted many people and many bodies, including the provinces. In the part of his Second Reading speech in which he dealt with the constitution, the hon. the Minister said the following on 18 May 1983 (Hansard, col. 7382)—

I now want to ask the hon. the Minister: On how many occasions has he discussed the constitution with White representatives who represent Whites in this House? Hon. members sitting opposite will have to agree with me that on no occasion which I know of has the hon. the Minister spoken to or consulted with White representatives about the new constitution or dispensation. [Interjections.] In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister referred to the recommendations as set out by the hon. the Prime Minister, and I wish to quote from that speech as reported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Information. On page 16 the hon. the Prime Minister states that the Government—

Therefore this legislation is part of this, but there is no question here of interim steps, as the hon. the Minister also intimated in his speech. These are real statutory bodies which are now being established. In other words, this legislation is already going a step further than was envisaged by the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. the Prime Minister then goes on to say—

These are those of the Coloureds and the Indians—

In other words, the Government has therefore, in essence, accepted recommendation 20, viz. by way of the possibility of a say, giving these people the right to sit and to vote in White management committees. Therefore the Government has accepted this. There is no doubt about it. The hon. the Prime Minister then goes on to say that one of the possible interim steps is—

I now want to ask the hon. the Minister: What are the common interests about which these development bodies for municipalities will decide. Will it be a golf course that will not be easy to duplicate? Will there be municipal squash courts? Will it perhaps be a category B small theatre that cannot be duplicated and that will be built for the joint population in that vicinity, namely Whites, Coloureds and Indians? Will it be a library? What about the development of parks in those areas? Unfortunately the hon. member for Pretoria Central is not present at the moment, but one encounters an untenable situation such as the one about which the hon. member for Bryanston asked the hon. member for Pretoria Central at the ASB congress; he asked him how this would work, particularly after the Pretoria decision in connection with their parks. If White, Coloured and Indian Ministers come out of the Union Building and walk through a park, does that mean that the Whites can walk through the park but the others have to walk around? Up to the present the hon. member for Pretoria Central has never given that hon. member a reply. However, that is the kind of absurdity one gets if one does not keep to the policy of separate development. The hon. the Prime Minister went on to say—

We on this side of the House have long discovered that joint responsibility also means joint decision-making—

However, no choice is being left local authorities in the legislation. None at all. Here a situation is being imposed by the central government. The hon. the Minister and his department are themselves simply taking the statutory steps whereby to establish these boards and this council. If we look at clause 18 we see in subsection (1) that—

In subsection (2) the Bill states—

The Minister can go even further. If a specific municipality were to drag its feet and were to be unwilling to land itself in such a situation, the Administrator may himself implement the measures, even against the will of that local authority. This autocracy goes even further, in that it is provided that the costs such a step might involve may be recovered from the local authority concerned. In subsection (4) it is provided that the Minister’s regulations prevail as against provincial ordinances. Sir, that is totally unacceptable to the municipalities of the Transvaal, and I shall be quoting in a moment from the memorandum submitted to the President’s Council by the Transvaal Municipal Association. It is unacceptable to the CP, too. To us these boards that are to be established sound too much like President’s Councils in miniature, at the level of local government. They are advisory bodies; we concede that. But what has become of the advisory situation of the President’s Council? Very soon it assumed a decision-making function. This kind of thing assails the principle of democracy. A situation is here being imposed on a community from above, instead of the people governing through its representatives, i.e. authority being imposed from below on those above. In any event, that is our standpoint. The Transvaal Municipal Association stated the following as their point of departure in their memorandum to the President’s Council, dated August 1981—

We go along with that. For that reason we regard this legislation as part of the constitutional changes envisaged for South Africa. After the Transvaal Municipal Association had dealt with the principle of democracy, it turned to important standpoints based on principle, inter alia, the following—

We on this side of the House are in full agreement with that. I now ask the hon. the Minister: Where does the basic decision-making authority in the country lie in terms of the new dispensation? Does it lie with the people, or with the governing élite? When we look at the position of the President, the position of the President’s Council and the position of some of the Ministers, we see that not one of them is elected by the people. Therefore this country is going to be governed by a governing élite. The people of Waterberg have already perceived this, as was evident in the recent by-election, in spite of the fact that approximately 16 Ministers and 55 MPs and MPCs descended on that poor constituency. Despite that, they saw through this thing and saw that a governing élite was here being imposed on them.

Sir, the situation as expounded here in clause 18, in terms of which communication may be imposed and the costs recovered from local authorities, is totally unacceptable to us. As far as provincial councils are concerned, the Transvaal Municipal Association has put it clearly that it has never been opposed to the abolition of those functions of provincial councils affecting local authorities.

If we take a general look at this legislation, it becomes clear that one of the most important functions of the provinces is being phased out here. We do not see this in any other way. What is the standpoint of the Transvaal Municipal Association in regard to any form of regional development? The association states that a regional institution that ought to be purely a service organization should not be seen as a Government institution that will exercise power over primary local authorities or over the members of the primary local authorities. Therefore the association’s submission states expressly that the line of authority should extend from below to above and not, as proposed in this legislation, from above to below. Therefore representatives of the primary local authorities are, in their participation in the proceedings of regional institutions, bound to the instructions of their primary local authorities. That is the association’s submission to the President’s Council.

What section of the legislation are you dealing with now? Surely you are talking nonsense now.

I am now referring to the fact that the authority is going to be taken over by the Department of constitutional Development and institutions are going to be created that will be appointed from above, and not from below by the people. Surely that is in conflict with the principle of democracy. The Transvaal Municipal Association then proceeds as follows—

The association then reaches this very important conclusion—

The association goes on to say—

Sir, here we now have the standpoint of the Transvaal Municipal Association. It is also the standpoint of the CP. The CP is not opposed to the meaningful co-ordination of functions and powers of small local authorities that are adjacent or close to one another. Indeed, a great deal of unnecessary money and manpower can be saved in this way when it comes to the duplication of services, e.g. civic services and fire fighting services. Nor are we opposed to an organization for regional interests, but then it must be purely for the sake of organizational service and not a further Government institution which, moreover, will be appointed on a mixed basis as envisaged in this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Sir.

In the final instance the policy of separate development must continue to apply.

Therefore, however, one looks at the legislation before us, it remains part and parcel of the Government’s movement in the direction of a fully integrated Government institution; in this case at the level of local authorities. The Transvaal Municipal Association concludes its memorandum to the President’s Council with a very clear statement that it is opposed to mixed institutions and that its opposition applies to all three of these levels of Government. That is the standpoint of the CP, too. It is also the standpoint of the CP that when our political institutions become a storm centre for a diversity of peoples in their efforts to gain political power, our future will be one of conflict and struggle; conflict and struggle in which all the representatives of the voters of this House today will never be able to triumph because they will always be a minority group in South Africa. That we see from the history around us. We saw it in Mozambique and in Zimbabwe. That same history is repeating itself in South West Africa.

The devolution of power from the central Government down to the regional or local Government level which, after all, as the hon. the Minister put it in his Second Reading speech, will be the policy in the new dispensation, will in future inevitably entail that political decisions will have to be taken at the lower levels of Government. Therefore it goes without saying that party politics will necessarily have to be conducted at the local government level. That we cannot escape. Nor is it the CP that has caused this. This is part and parcel of the new constitutional dispensation. It is simply a logical consequence of the envisaged new dispensation, and it is also clear that the majority of our municipalities and city councils already fully realize this and are already preparing to conduct the next municipal elections on a party-political basis.

Have you yourself never done that?

No, we have never done that before. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I wish to state clearly that there are already city councils that are openly siding with the CP and supporting the ideals which this party cherishes for a White people with its own freedoms and its own self-determination. [Interjections.]

What dit you do in Pietersburg, Willie?

The CP took over there itself, without there even being an election. [Interjections.]

Indeed, what do the Coloureds say about the situation, Mr. Speaker? I read in today’s Citizen that the Transvaal Association of Management Committees was established yesterday, a body which is an amalgamation of the Coloured and Indian Associations. I quote from that report in the Citizen as follows—

It is this point of view with which those people are approaching the new dispensation. Hon. members of the NP and their voters must realize this clearly. Those people are not going to be satisfied with anything else. Accordingly I say in conclusion that we reject every step that leads in the direction of political integration at the level of local government. I say this because we must necessarily judge this legislation against the background of the new dispensation. Therefore the CP will have to oppose it, and accordingly I move as a further amendment—

Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting to listen to the reaction of the Opposition parties to this legislation this afternoon. In the first place, we heard from the hon. member for Sea Point that this was apartheid legislation and that they were therefore unable to support it. Just after that, the hon. member for Pietersburg contended that this measure would result in political integration at the level of local government. [Interjections.] Of course, it is simply impossible that those two hon. members can both be correct.

That is the silliest argument I have heard in my entire life. [Interjections.]

I want to put it like this: I think that someone was telling a lie or making an incorrect supposition as regards what is really envisaged with this legislation.

As far as the official Opposition is concerned, I want to say that I feel quite reassured when they oppose legislation. The five objections advanced by the hon. member for Sea Point are without substance as far as I am concerned. I think that if one takes them together, one sees in them that party’s old refrain of a national convention: Everyone is to be consulted from A to Z to hear what their opinion is. However, they do not tell us what one has to do if consensus is not achieved. In any event, I cannot spend much time on them because they are, after all, a negative lot, as has already been said here.

I now want to refer briefly to the standpoint adopted by the hon. member for Pietersburg. He spoke about an empire and said that the elite now wanted to take over, whether they were Ministers or anyone else. Recently it has become the modus operandi of the CP to cast suspicion on the Ministers. [Interjections.] Many of the members who will serve on the boards in question, will, however, be there ex officio and will not really be people appointed by the Minister. The hon. member went on to speak about a mixed advisory body and about the abolition of provincial councils and autonomous local government. For almost three decades I have been fairly intimately concerned with local government and I have the greatest appreciation for the valuable services being rendered to our towns and cities, and I can say that I do not read what the hon. member was referring to, in this legislation. Moreover, the hon. member surely knows—because this has always been the case—that central government legislation takes precedence over all ordinances and other provisions deriving from the second and third tiers of government.

I cannot devote too much time to everything he said because in that case I would not make my own contribution. However, he added that the hon. the Minister had not spoken to other bodies, and he also made the statement that the Minister was afraid tó take responsibility and left no choice to local government. I just want to say to him that local government, as it stands at present, is not being changed. No change whatsoever is being effected to the way in which members of a city council are elected, or how they are to implement their task. Surely there is nothing in this legislation that changes that in any way.

What about the compulsory action in terms of clause 18?

Reference is being made to unwilling co-operation, but I want to say to the hon. member for Pietersburg that I think it is high time that we in this country realize that we cannot afford the luxury of every local group utilizing funds and scarce manpower for its own purposes and sometimes wasting them in the process. There must be co-operation. We cannot afford to have everyone running his own petty empire. It is in the national interest that there should be due co-ordination and cooperation among these bodies.

The hon. member referred to democracy. Nowhere in this legislation do I read that the democratic character of the system of local government in this country is being assailed in any way, except that in certain instances, compulsory co-operation, which is absolutely essential, will take place.

At the third tier of government people are directly affected in their daily lives. That, too, is why this is the most sensitive sphere in which to bring about change. This is true at the constitutional level as well. I accept that as a proposition. Traditionally the politics of local or municipal authorities are conducted on a non-party-political basis. However, this has been done by way of exception on a party-political basis in larger cities. The hon. member for Pietersburg said this afternoon that the CP was now entering this sphere and was going to play politics at the municipal level. They are very eager to do so. All the hon. member omitted to say was that they now wanted to drag politics into the cultural sphere, and into all the spheres of society. They are the people who want to create disunity within the ranks of the Afrikaner. The hon. member is quite right when he says they want to play politics in all spheres. However, they must beware; they are going to bum their fingers.

This Bill can definitely be described as the most meaningful step in the promotion of local authority in South Africa over the past 70 years. I am convinced of that. It can therefore be described as a red letter day for the towns and cities of this country. The boards and committees that are to be established by this measure constitute a breakthrough towards meaningful statutory provision for formal, reciprocal liaison among local governments and for formal liaison between the local government and the central government, an area in respect of which insufficient provision has been made up to the present. Moreover, this may now result in meaningful co-operation among towns of the various population groups on an ongoing basis.

In recent years, various commissions and committees have been appointed to investigate certain bottlenecks that have existed in local government. Six such commissions and committees have been appointed. There were the Slater, Yeld, Slatter, Brown, Fouché and Schlebusch commissions or committees, as well as the Croeser Working Group. All these groups have done good work. However, it is a shortcoming that nobody has been established to perform this work on an ongoing basis, the four provincial municipal associations, as well as the United Municipal Executive, have also done good work as the organized mouthpieces for local government. They have served a very useful purpose. However, they have no statutory authority.

The development board for which provision is made in this legislation can contribute a great deal towards making towns more self-sufficient. The co-ordinating council, which will consist of 41 members, will bring together in one body the necessary skills, experience and even expertise. The better coordination and co-operation of towns and cities will be greatly to the benefit of the residents. Capital can be used to greater advantage, and the scarce skilled manpower can be more effectively utilized. I trust that this council will be appointed without delay in order to perform its important task.

The increasing rate of urbanization in the country will make greater demands on the local authorities. The improvement of the quality of life of urban dwellers can contribute significantly towards peaceful co-existence in the country. Thus far most of the towns of the Coloured population groups have for the most part been satellites of the White cities and are sometimes described as dormitory towns. However, this development pattern will have to change to make them more self-sufficient. It cannot be expected that the local governments of White cities should continue to perform this paternalistic role. The leaders and officials of other population groups must to an increasing extent serve their own people at this level. Have the hon. members for Pietersburg and Rissik any objection to that approach?

The hon. the Minister and the Government deserve our thanks and appreciation for this level-headed step in the right direction. I take pleasure in supporting the legislation in the firm conviction that it will bring about a better dispensation for the local authorities in the country. I think that everyone with any experience of local government in this country will confirm that over the years there has been a definite deficiency as regards ongoing and effective liaison between the local government and the central government. There was a department that was responsible for that, but the mechanisms to streamline the process and ensure that ongoing liaison took place, were lacking.

As I have already said, co-operation among the various towns is, quite simply, essential. There are common services that must be utilized. There are abattoirs and bulk services such as water supply and drainage, markets, transport and various other matters which can be far more effectively utilized when there is proper liaison and cooperation. We cannot afford to have every town providing its own services, because that would entail unnecessary duplication and overlapping. I therefore believe that the legislation has practical value. Let us forget about our ideological stories and refrain from bedevilling this matter by seeing in it all kinds of ill omens.

Do you no longer have an ideology?

I have an ideology and I have certain principles—I want to say that to the hon. member—but when it is a matter of practical implementation so that we may have better administrative arrangements, we must be level-headed about matters and should refrain from calling “wolf”, as the hon. member is doing. That is unnecessary. The hon. member sees in the legislation dangers that do not exist; he sees them merely because he approaches the Bill from the point of view of political expediency and sees it through political glasses. He hopes to make progress by doing so. However, in the long term that is not good enough; it will not work.

Mr. Speaker, I knew the hon. member for Welkom for very many years in the days when he was a member of the Executive Committee in the Orange Free State. In those days he seemed to have a lot of independence of thought. In fact, he and I as MECs for the two smaller provinces were frequently on the same side fighting against the Transvaal and the Cape. It was a question of the smaller provinces against the big provinces. It would seem to me, however, that today the hon. member for Welkom is on the side of the big battalions and not on the side of what I consider to be right. Often in the past, because he was on the side of Natal, he was on the right side.

The hon. member raised a few points on which I should like to comment before I make my own speech. He spoke about laws taking precedence over ordinances. That is perfectly true. However, it is not normal for the whims of a Minister to take precedence over ordinances, and that is what is implied in this Bill. The hon. member said that everybody wanted his own kingdom in local government and that they had to be co-ordinated. That is quite correct. There is a tendency on the part of certain people to try to develop their own empires, let alone kingdoms. At the same time, however, that is what provincial councils and executive committees are for—to ensure that these people keep their activities within reasonable bounds and do not build up their empires to too great an extent. Therefore, as far as the provinces and the local authorities within those provinces are concerned, they ensure that local authorities act reasonably as well as ensuring at the same time that local authorities have the maximum autonomy possible. That is part of our democratic system.

The hon. member also mentioned a list of the functions that will be put into effect as a consequence of this Bill being passed. With all due respect to the hon. member, not one of the points he raised is not in fact already being put into practice in an enlightened province. I cannot answer for certain other provinces. All the points mentioned by the hon. member are in fact being handled and controlled by the Natal Provincial Council, and very adequately as well.

This Bill presents hon. members in these benches with a number of problems that are of such magnitude that I am afraid we will not be able to support the Second Reading. I want to mention this fact right at the outset so that everyone will know exactly where we stand. The hon. members of the PFP usually want to know what our attitude is even before I am halfway through my speech so I want to tell them right now that we will not be supporting this Bill. In our opinion the Bill has a number of defects that indicate an attitude of arrogance unusual even in South African politics. However, what is far worse—and this is the fact that worries us—it shows a complete disregard for words given and promises made. The main principle of this Bill, that is, the establishment of a local government co-ordinating council could, I believe, under the right circumstances and with the right motives, be acceptable as, in these changing times and with a new constitution in the offing, some such body will probably be necessary. In any case, local government systems do need to be updated and co-ordinated especially in fields relating to staff, standards, service and interracial affairs. However, this Bill, as presented, comes as something of a shock in that it would seem to indicate that the assurances of both the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning are entirely worthless. These are hard words and I would much prefer not to have to utter them. Regrettably, however, I must.

At an NP congress in Bloemfontein last year, in respect of guidelines relating to the future of provincial councils, the hon. the Prime Minister gave certain assurances, and I want to quote a repeat of those assurances given by the hon. member for Umlazi on 16 May 1983 in his Second Reading speech during the constitutional debate. In col. 7162 of Hansard the hon. member for Umlazi stated that the hon. the Prime Minister had said—

This is a quote from the hon. member for Umlazi’s speech and states what the hon. the Prime Minister said in respect of the lower tiers of government. I look upon this as a positive assurance from the hon. the Prime Minister that provincial councils would not have their functions materially altered without proper consultation. Alas, also on 16 May 1983, the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning gave certain assurances (Hansard, col. 7063), as follows—

This is another clear indication. We believe that in this Bill those assurances are being abrogated. The effect of this Bill will clearly be to diminish the powers of provincial councils and is a clear portent of their demise. We believe that the effect of this Bill is to remove by stealth one of their most important functions, namely that of control of local government, and upon investigation, doing it without there having been proper consultation. I have made inquiries whether there has been proper consultation in this regard. I cannot give a hoot what people tell me, but there has been no proper consultation. The hon. the Minister cannot say that there has been proper consultation.

According to you.

No, Sir, according to the people who were supposed to have been consulted, namely the executive committees.

I wish to read a further quote from Hansard (col. 7111), this time from the speech of the hon. the Leader of the NRP, as follows—

Note the words “any future move”, because this is a future move.

We in this party gave our support to the Second Reading of the Constitution Bill in spite of its many defects. As far as we were concerned, assurances were given about provincial councils, about serious attention being given to finding a method of bringing non-homeland Blacks into the mainstream of South African politics, and that a Select Committee would honestly seek solutions to other differences between the Opposition parties and the Government. We had faith in the integrity of the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister. Very sadly indeed, however, we are beginning to query whether that faith was justified. We put our reputation as a party on the line, and have had people resign from our party as a consequence of our action in this regard, but we were prepared to accept it. We gave the passing of the Bill a certain credibility which it might not have had otherwise.

[Inaudible.]

Already we have been shocked by the brutal programme arranged for the Select Committee and indications are that it is to be rushed along without taking evidence from outside parties. We now have this Bill, which clearly is seen to undermine provincial councils without consultation, and I repeat, without consultation, contrary to promises that have been made. How much faith can we now be expected to place in a Cabinet Committee to resolve the political problems of the non-homeland Blacks?

It looks as if Nigel Wood was right after all.

Why do you not dry up, funny face? We still support the Republic of South Africa Constitution Bill as we still see it as a step in the right direction. But it can be ruined if faith is lost in its administration. As far as this Bill is concerned, it is peculiar in that it creates a body without administrative or executive functions. At the same time it gives the Minister the right to make regulations and override provincial ordinances and the wishes or regulations of any executive committee. The real work of the co-ordinating council will in fact be done by an action committee which clearly excludes members of Exco and provincial directors of local government, thus by-passing the provincial councils almost entirely. The Minister may make any area he chooses a local authority and, furthermore, he may make any person or institution a local authority, all without any approval of our provincial authorities. In terms of clause 8, the Minister may establish municipal development boards to give aid and advice to any local authority, work that is presently being done by provincial councils in the provinces. In respect of members who are not ex officio, the Minister can hire and fire as he pleases and decide with the Minister of Finance what pay they should get. What a marvellous position to be in to ensure having a committee that will do exactly what the Minister wants them to do!

In so far as the new local authorities that the Minister may set up are concerned, there is no indication whether they will be subject to the existing provincial ordinances or will be answerable to the Minister direct. I believe this to be a most unsatisfactory situation. It may well be that it is the primary intention of the hon. the Minister to set up a large number of non-White local authorities by ministerial edict. If this is so, then this again usurps the functions and procedures of the provinces. Furthermore, it is likely to be a very, very costly exercise indeed and it will be doomed to failure without the wholehearted co-operation of the people affected. At the best I believe we shall have a proliferation of supplicant local authorities, a bottomless financial pit and, at the worst, a series of running sores of discontentment that will guarantee the destruction of the new constitution.

As hon. members well know, Natal is the only province with practical experience of non-White local authorities. Each was created after careful research and full consultation and agreement. They were not imposed, but were willingly accepted. What is more, they are fully economic and have the same rights, responsibilities and privileges as their White counterpart. Yet, in spite of all this, we have had quite a few problems with them all, problems largely created as a consequence of personality clashes and, of course, lack of experience. The province resolved all these problems because after approximately 70 years the provinces have a close and intimate experience of local government. Further, close, simple and rapid communication and help were always available and both officials and provincial politicians kept in close personal touch with the local authority councils and officials. Today these local authorities are strong and, I believe, successful. I can, however, assure the hon. the Minister that they would have died in infancy without the personal touch of the provinces, which can never be emulated by control from Pretoria.

I might add in passing that had the Government accepted the Natal local government plan of 1978 we would have had several new non-White local authorities in the pipeline. Naturally the agreements we made with the Indian and Coloured leaders—which incidentally they signed at that time—were part of a package deal. As the hon. the Minister knows, however, that was not assented to by the State President, and the rest fell away.

Clause 18 seems to me to be the key to the whole Bill. In terms of this clause the hon. the Minister may instruct the administrators, without the agreements by the provinces, the parent local authorities or the LAC management committees, henceforth to become local authorities. The hon. the Minister may set the conditions in respect of excisions of land, of finance and of everything else, quite outside the terms of the local authorities’ ordinances.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, we in these benches, because of the lack of faith in presenting this Bill without the agreement by the provinces, and also because of the contents of the Bill itself, cannot support this measure. The hon. member for Pietersburg moved that the Bill be read this day six months, and had he not done so we would have done exactly that, because we think this is a pernicious Bill, meant to under ride totally the affairs of the provinces contrary to the assurances given by the hon. the Prime Minister and by the hon. the Minister himself.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Umbilo has made a great fuss about consultation. I can recollect, however, what happened a few years ago in Natal when the Natal Municipal Association did not give its approval and support to certain amendments the provincial council wanted to introduce. Now I just wonder what the hon. member for Umbilo, who was serving in another capacity at the time, had to say at the time about the so-called consultation. As I understand it, the legislation under discussion involves the promotion of local government affairs. The hon. member, however, made a great fuss here about consultation at the second tier of government, i. e. the provincial authorities. I just wonder whether he did not go a little further and try to determine what local authorities thought about this.

Since I am putting this question to the hon. member for Umbilo—I see that the hon. member for Pietersburg is not in the House at the moment—let me simply ask another hon. member of the CP to try to give me an answer about what the formal standpoint of that local authorities themselves is when it comes to the Bill we are discussing at the moment.

You are ducking the issue. Did you not consult with the Natal Executive Committee?

I did. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I think that in due course the hon. the Minister will deal with the question of second-tier government. Hon. members of the CP, however, have also been making a big fuss. We listened for a long time to the hon. member for Pietersburg quoting from evidence submitted by the Transvaal Municipal Association to the President’s Council. I should therefore now like to know from hon. members of the CP—and I notice that the hon. member for Pietersburg is back in his seat again—what the Transvaal Municipal Association’s standpoint is concerning the Bill now before the House. [Interjections.] I should like to know whether the Transvaal Municipal Association supports this Bill or not. Hon. members of the CP merely have to say yes or no.

You should have listened to what I quoted here. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I therefore deduce that hon. members of the CP are not sure whether the Transvaal Municipal Association supports this Bill or not. Here I have a telex message from the secretary of the United Municipal Executive. I inquired about this from the United Municipal Executive. The telex message, which carries today’s date, reads as follows—

So what do those hon. members say now, Mr. Speaker? [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I believe, of course, that is exactly what happens when there are hon. members in this House who speak about matters they know nothing about. [Interjections.] Local authorities welcome this legislation. For quite a number of years now local authorities have been advocating such a co-ordinating body. I should like to refer, amongst other things, to the inquiry into the finances of local authorities by the Browne Committee. As far back as 12 March 1980 that committee made certain recommendations, one of which, recommendation 13.4.5, reads as follows—

A second recommendation of the Browne Committee, recommendation 13.4.7, reads as follows—

The Croeser working group, which brought out a further report in connection with the recommendations of the Browne Committee, pointed out, amongst other things, that in considering the recommendations of the Browne Committee, representatives of the UME made representations for the establishment of a central point involving all levels of Government. It was also pointed out that the establishment of the working group had, for the first time, created a liaison point chiefly allowing the UME an opportunity to discuss matters of financial interest to local authorities with representatives of the central government and the provinces. The UME saw this as essential and said that it would welcome it if, after having completed its task, the working group could be converted into a permanent liaison committee. It also recommended, however, that a permanent liaison committee between the central and provincial governments and organized local government bodies be established in the Department of Finance to consider, if and when the need arises, financial and other administrative questions involving local authorities and to make recommendations about that to the central government.

Recommendation number 22 of the President’s Council accordingly makes provision for the establishment of a Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs. According to the President’s Council, the aforementioned council is seen as a council designed to serve as a link between the Government and local authorities and to fulfil a co-ordinating functions as far as the authorities are concerned. It is also said that apart from the handling of practical problems, such consultations could also play a role in formulating policy and reaching consensus. The establishment of a Council for the Coordination of Local Government Affairs, as defined in clause 2, therefore makes provision for all the aforementioned recommendations.

Over and above the fact that the council will be appointed in as representative a manner as possible, a further important aspect is the fact that the UME is now being recognized as the mouthpiece for the White local authorities in South Africa. On the occasion of the jubilee celebration meeting of the UME of South Africa on 29 February 1981 in Cape Town, the hon. the Prime Minister made the following statement—

That is the Croeser working group—

This important announcement—and we find confirmation of this in the legislation—is most strikingly described in the presidential address of the president of the UME, Mr. Gert Meiring, on 17 March 1982. This is how he put it—

This Bill confirms the fact that the Government is in earnest about local authorities being destined, in future, to play a much more important role than is the case at present. It also confirms the principle, which the Government has accepted, that it is necessary to establish, at local Government level, a liaison point to assume overall responsibility for the planning, co-ordination, development and control of local authorities. By acting as an advisory body on matters of general interest to the respective population groups, it would make an important contribution to the maximum devolution of powers and decentralization of administration at local authority level.

The proposed municipal development boards will help to establish autonomous local authority institutions for the respective population groups. This confirms the fundamental point of departure of the Government, i.e. of ensuring self-determination, at the local level, within the community context. Seen as a whole, this Bill confirms our country’s strength. I cannot express it more eloquently than in the words of Dr. Anton Rupert, and I quote—

It is a privilege for me to support this Bill on behalf of this side of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear to me from the annual report of the department that this department has various branches and performs various very important functions. I must say that having read the report carefully, I can understand that the hon. the Minister must be a very busy man. I think the hon. the Minister will understand if I concentrate for the most part on one branch of the report, viz. constitutional planning. When I speak about constitutional planning, I do not wish to discuss the content of the Government’s Bill in this regard. I think we have already discussed that during the Second Reading of that Bill, and a great deal more will be said about it in the Select Committee. What I wish to discuss is the method of constitutional reform which the Government adopts.

Before coming to that, and before drawing a comparison between the standpoint of the NP and the standpoint of the PFP concerning the method of constitutional reform, I just want to dispose of a matter which arose during the hon. the Minister’s reply to the Second Reading of the Constitution Bill. I refer here to the hon. the Minister’s reaction to my challenge to appear on a television debate. In his reply the hon. the Minister made use of playground terminology, as he called it. He said that I wanted to play marbles, whereas I had no marbles to play with, and he went on to say the following (Hansard, 18 May 1983, col. 7367)—

He went on to say—

I want to say that is not true. I want to deny it categorically. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, the constitutional proposals and constitutional plan of the PFP was placed in the postbox of every member of Parliament. I think the hon. the Minister received one too. If he did not, then I shall give him another copy with pleasure, and then, perhaps, we could fruitfully read it together and see what appears in it.

As regards the whole issue of, specifically, negotiable and non-negotiable constitutional principles, it is very clearly stated—and I marked the places in question very clearly to the hon. the Minister—that there are negotiable and non-negotiable principles in this constitution. We also spelt out what these negotiable principles were and how we would negotiate on them. Unfortunately I do not have a great deal of time, but I shall quote what is stated there—

1. 1. A new constitution for the Republic, drawn up, negotiated and agreed upon by representatives of all sections of our people. Such a constitution must make provision for:
2. 2. Full and equal citizen rights for all South Africans without discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, religion or sex.
3. 3. The sharing of political rights by all citizens without the domination of one group by another.
4. 4. An open society free from statutory apartheid.
5. 5. The right of all our people to maintain and develop their religious, language and cultural heritages.
6. 6. Equality of opportunity for all citizens in the economy.
7. 7 The right of every individual to the protection of his life, liberty and property and access to the judiciary in defence of his rights.

We go further by saying that these are non-negotiable principles. The hon. the Minister may not agree with these principles; he may differ with them, but there is no doubt that they exist, that we have stated them and that we are prepared to debate them.

I want to say to the hon. the Minister once again that I find it fantastic that a Minister occupying the post that hon. Minister occupies, reacts to such a challenge by calling it a gimmick. I cannot think of any Western country where a responsible debate on television concerning a new constitutional dispensation for the country, conducted by the various parties, is regarded as a gimmick. Indeed, the public regards it as its right to be informed about this matter. If the hon. the Minister wants to use playground analogies, then as far as this television debate is concerned, his point will be that of the bully on the playground who asks his friends to hold his opponent down so that he can box his ears for him, instead of wishing to fight him in a decent way. All I ask is that he simply appears on television so that we can discuss the matter calmly. I can put forward my policy, my proposals and the proposals of my party, and the hon. the Minister his. We can analyse them critically and consider in what respects we differ. The public will then be able to understand what the real differences are. But I say this merely per se.

What I really want to deal with is where the PFP and the National Party differ as to the process or the method of constitutional reform, because it is clear that there is confusion between the hon. the Minister and myself in this regard. On page 19 of the report of the department of the hon. the Minister the following is said in paragraph 116 under the title “Negotiation”—

In the programme of principles and policy of the PFP and the constitutional framework we have put forward, we state precisely the same principle. We say that it must take place by way of negotiation and that these negotiations must lead to consensus, which is the result of negotiation among all the various population groups. Therefore I want to begin by saying that it seems to be that both the NP and the PFP agree that negotiation is the most important method because it is the most important process in accordance with which constitutional reform must take place. Where, then, does the difference lie? If both say that there must be negotiation, where does the difference lie? I think that we can investigate this difference by referring briefly to the historic course of the process of constitutional reform as it has occurred up to the present. I do not want to dwell on this at length, because I do not have much time, but we see that the present Bill is the result of a process which began as a result of the Erika Theron Report. The hon. the Minister himself referred to that in his Second Reading speech. The Erika Theron Report appeared. It was a socio-economic investigation into the position of the Coloureds, but ultimately it came forward with recommendations on the political position of the Coloureds. In recommendation 178 they stated very clearly that a committee of experts had to be appointed to investigate direct representation of Coloureds at all levels of government—central, provincial and local. The Government reacted to this with an interim report. For the sake of interest I just want to say here in passing that Erika Theron Report contains minority recommendations, too, which appear on pages 525 and 526. These minority recommendations were made by the Coloureds who were members of the Erika Theron Commission, viz. Prof. Van der Ross, Mr. Arendse, Jac Rabie and others, in which they said they wanted Coloureds, too, to be represented on that committee of experts. That the Government also turned down. They also said that they accepted under protest that there should be a separate register and that they therefore put up with the recommendation.

When we read the interim memorandum of the Government we see that the Government made it clear that they did not accept the principle of direct representation, and they summarily reject it. They then came up with their White Paper, and in that White Paper they said that they were going to appoint a Cabinet Committee to investigate the constitutional situation of the Coloureds, and that this Cabinet Committee would—

This Cabinet Committee came forward with its proposals in 1977, and, moreover, those proposals were those that formed one of the most important platforms in the 1977 election. For example, we can read in Pro Nat what was said about these proposals. Among other things, the following is said—

Remember, this plan had already been formulated. They go on to say—

That is what was said in Pro Nat during that election campaign. Another pamphlet was issued, entitled “South Africa’s new constitutional plan” in which the same questions arise. On page 10 they say—

The plan has already been drawn up, and we can now discuss it as a basis for further negotiation. The Government obtained an enormous mandate for those 1977 proposals. It is one of the biggest majorities the NP ever obtained, but it did not help them much. That plan was submitted in the form of a Bill, after it had become perfectly clear that the Opposition at least, and all the various Coloured and Indian parties and spokesmen, rejected it. It was then referred to the Schlebusch Commission, which began its activities as a Select Committee. This was done on the recommendation of the then Minister of the Interior on 30 March 1979. That Select Committee sat, and we served on it. One of the recommendations was that a President’s Council should be established. From that time on the history of this matter is well known to all of us.

In passing, I may just point out that the first recommendation of the President’s Council was ignored by the Government. Indeed, I think that the hon. the Minister himself regarded that first recommendation concerning the first level of government, as an embarrassment.

Then the NP came forward with its own guidelines. Subsequently these guidelines were seized on by the President’s Council and they put a little meat on the skeleton that had been created. The real point I am making is that the President’s Council acted on the direct instructions of the Government, and not otherwise, by advising it.

In any event, the fact is that in all these phases to which I have referred, the Government spoke to, held discussions with and consulted various Coloureds and Indians and so on. I do not deny that.

†If that is so, what are the major differences between the PFP and the NP concerning the process of negotiation? We both agree that this is the only way in which one can bring about constitutional reform. I want to state seven differences very briefly and succinctly. The first one: For the NP there is no difference between negotiation and consultation, talking, having meetings, discussions and so forth. For them those are all the same thing. For the PFP negotiation means to search for a mutually agreed upon compromise between different interest groups. We had a recent example of this from the NP with the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs when he called the different political party leaders together and asked whether we could find some workable solution for a Select Committee to investigate changes in the Immorality Act and the legislation concerning mixed marriages. We then reached a compromise. That was negotiation. It was not unilateral discussion and then unilateral action on the part of the Government.

The second difference: For the NP the outcome of negotiations is simply a clear statement of what its own plan is going to be whether others agree with it or not. For the PFP the outcome of negotiations must be, if it is successful, a consensus between parties on a mutually agreed upon compromise.

The third difference: For the NP constitutional negotiation starts with a detailed plan already formulated. For the PFP constitutional negotiation starts with a declaration of intent which serves as a mandate to entering into negotiations. This was one of the difficulties in which the Government found itself. The Government was bound from the start by its congress and by its federal congress to the detailed plan. Therefore the hon. the Minister found himself in an almost impossible position because the Coloureds always asked him what they could take back …

That is not correct.

It is absolutely true. They can still not explain how they are going to change the Group Areas Act or any of the discriminatory laws. All they can say is, as the hon. the Minister has said, that we must come in and help them so that they can see what they can do. That is the situation, and I have newspaper reports to prove that. I am not trying to mislead the hon. the Minister or the Commitee; I am relying on what is obvious common knowledge.

The fourth difference: For the NP its plan is a precondition for consensus; “first accept it and then seek consensus”, is their approach. For the PFP consensus is a precondition for the plan, “search for consensus in order to arrive at such a plan”, is our approach.

The fifth difference: For the NP the absence of consensus is not an obstacle to proceeding with constitutional change. They carry on in any case; it does not matter whether there is consensus or not. For the PFP, on the other hand, it is pointless to proceed with constitutional change if there is not a workable consensus.

The sixth difference: For the NP it is sufficient to find persons to make its own plan operate or work even if such persons openly stated that their sole intention is to wreck the plan. For the NP that is sufficient; they can carry on. For the PFP persons who negotiate must be representative leaders of political movements who come into a plan in order to make it work and to promote consensus.

The seventh difference: In short the NP says: “Take it or leave it” if no agreement can be reached. That is their whole approach to the situation. It is a question of take it or leave it if no consensus can be reached. As for the PFP, if there is no agreement, we say: Let us try again. This is very clearly demonstrated in the memorandum issued by the NP during the 1977 general election, explaining their attitude towards constitutional change. In the pamphlet the following question is asked: “What would be the position be if the Coloureds or the Indians were to withhold their co-operation in the implementation of the plan?” The answer is: “Then they will be in exactly the same position as the homelands which are rejecting independence. They then remain where they are. We lay the table and those refusing to sit down, shall do without.” That is their approach and this is the fundamental difference between the PFP and the NP on the whole question of negotiation.

*The word “negotiation” is central to the PFP’s approach to constitutional development. The NP states that it supports the PFP’s policy of negotiation, but that the PFP is the same as the CP in spirit and in method when it comes to the practical implementation of the process of negotiation. They say that is where the fundamental difference between us lies. [Interjections.] No, the CP states openly that the Whites will decide for the other groups what the programme is and that they will have to put up with it, because they see South Africa as White man’s land. The Government states that there must be negotiation, but basically they have their concealed agenda and they do exactly the same.

To the PFP, the whole purpose of constitutional reform by way of negotiation is that there should be a greater degree of consensus, greater loyalty and greater co-operation towards a new constitution. There is no point in our shouting one another down. If it cannot be achieved, the process of negotiation has failed. I now want to say to the hon. the Minister that if it cannot be achieved, if we do not have greater co-operation, greater loyalty and a greater preparedness to make the new constitution work, we are going to tear this country apart, and will create a greater degree of unrest and hostility. We would polarize this country. That is why I am concerned that there is this difference between the hon. the Minister and myself, and between ourselves and the Government, concerning the whole process of negotiation.

I want to conclude on a personal note. While the hon. the Minister was replying to the Second Reading debate on the new constitution, he made certain statements with reference to me. For example, he said that my word could not be trusted; that I suffered from an obsessive exhibitionism; that if I wanted to use my knowledge I would see that I was lying in this House, and that it was not the first time that my word could not be trusted. I refuse to enter into a debate with the hon. the Minister on that level. I call upon the hon. the Minister to avoid that. We must not call one another’s bona fides into question. I tried to state here, point by point, how we differed from one another. I tried to say what our standpoint was and what the Government’s standpoint was. I may be wrong in my view of the Government’s standpoint, but then I ask the hon. the Minister to point out to me where I am wrong; I would accept what he said. I may perhaps make mistakes in my interpretation of the facts, and if the hon. the Minister draws my attention to such mistakes, I shall accept it. However, we cannot conduct a debate at the level at which we call one another liars, at which we say to one another that we cannot accept one another’s word as members of Parliament, and we cannot conduct a debate at the level at which we say that we are incapable of associating with the truth. No party or movement that claims to act on the basis of negotiation can adopt such a standpoint and hope to achieve success.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition pointed to the basic difference between the attitude of the official Opposition and that of the Government. If we were to examine the difference in that respect, I would say that in the first instance, he made a mistake by saying that the standpoint of the NP, the Government or the Minister was that the congresses should first decide before consultations are held with other population groups; i.e. the Indians and the Coloureds. Surely the hon. the Minister has stated very clearly and unequivocally that the process of consulation commenced a long time ago and that he had held many talks with the leaders of the various political groups among the Coloureds and the Indians long before the Cabinet decided on the guidelines. Another fundamental difference, as has become apparent once again from the standpoint of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, is that his premise is that when one launches negotiations, it should be done without any preconceived plan whatsoever,

That is not what I said in this case.

That is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has just intimated. The standpoint of the NP is that there are certain basic points of departure that are important to us, and we should see them in the fight of the overall history of the evolution and shaping of the South African constitutional, political, social and economic community. The role of the Whites on the whole development process has been and still is a fundamental one, and every person who disregards the fundamental role of the Whites, is not contributing to finding attainable solutions. The NP, which celebrates its 70th anniversary next year, is based on the standpoint “South Africa First.” The protection of the future interests of the Whites in South Africa is fundamental to its policy, but not to the exclusion of the other population groups in South Africa; indeed it takes due account of the fair and reasonable interests of all the inhabitants of South Africa. The NP has governed uninterruptedly for 35 years, and many will recall that 30 to 35 years ago violent objections were raised from the ranks of the Opposition to the effect that the language rights of the English-speaking people would supposedly tampered with.

The franchise of the Coloureds.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition may possibly recall how, the Torch Commando with their flamming torches, went about stirring up emotions throughout the country, until Mr. Douglas Mitchell destroyed the Torch Commando.

They would have been banned under the Riotous Assemblies Act in any event.

All these fears were totally unfounded, since the NP is not a negative party, but a positive party. Even today the NP steadfastly stands for the protection of the future interests of the Whites in South Africa, not by adopting a negative attitude towards the Coloureds or Asians, or even towards the Black peoples of South Africa, but by adopting a positive attitude towards all the population groups in South Africa.

By establishing the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning the Government recognized the necessity to create constitutional structures whereby to enable all the inhabitants—I emphasize “all the inhabitants”—having the necessary goodwill and the right attitude, to share in a responsible way essential in decision-making processes concerning their future and their interests. However, these structures are not based on the formula of PFP policy, which seeks a solution in a system of “one man, one vote” in a geographic federation. This is a system which is doomed to failure in a multi-national community in which the various groups are inherently different in their level of development and way of life. The majority of Whites, Afrikaans-speaking as well as English-speaking, do not support that premise, and without the support and co-operation of the Whites, it is completely unattainable. That is why our standpoint is that the attitude to these structures of co-operation must take the protection of the future interests of the Whites into account. Nor, however, are these structures we envisage now based on unrealistic and unattainable dreams such as independent homeland for the Coloureds or for the Indians, since, indeed, the Coloureds and the Indians are not prepared to accept anything of that nature. The Black peoples, however, have accepted the system of self-government. They have accepted it of their own accord; it has not been forced upon a single Black population group in South Africa. Four of the previously self-governing independent States have even been granted independence at their own request. The system the NP is trying to promote, is a system based on self-determination, with a devolution of power. We are engaged in broadening a process of democratization in South Africa by making it possible for all population groups to have greater participation in practical and responsible decision-making.

The Government does not accept the framework as it has developed from the Westminster system over the centuries. In the process which the PFP proposes, as well as in that which the CP proposes, the Westminster system is inherently extended to a federal system, or to a total homeland concept. The Government, on the other hand, brings a fresh approach to these matters, and advocates a system of structures of government in which there can be a responsible joint say without the identity of a single population group being prejudiced or restricted in any way. We are in the process of establishing institutionalized structures of cooperation, for the Whites, the Coloureds and the Asians, as well as for the Black peoples in South Africa. I wish to state very clearly that the Black peoples are not being excluded from the processes of democratic decision-making in Southern Africa. The structures that have already been created, as well as those we are still working on at the moment, and in which the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning participated on Monday by holding discussions with the leaders of the Black peoples, are only a part of the process of extending decision-making structures in which the Blacks will have a responsible say as well. Our attitude must therefore be one of frankness, honesty and basic goodwill. Indeed, this, as the NP envisages it, is the foundation of the future of this country. We must be able to speak frankly and honestly to the various population groups in South Africa. We are not intent on suppressing them or denying them their development, but at the same time we will not allow the future interests of the Whites to be undermined in a manner which is all too familiar in the rest of Africa. That is why we have come forward with this system, a system which clearly ensures a secure future for the Whites. It is, however, based on goodwill in Southern Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, essentially the hon. member for Klip River has not replied to the questions put by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I do believe, however, that it would be a good thing if the hon. the Minister himself would react to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

I want to give the hon. the Leader of the Opposition the assurance that I understand the seven points he has put forward. In taking a deeper look at the political situation in South Africa, however, I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would possibly agree with me that an in-depth analysis of the governing party would reveal that party actually consists of a hotch-potch of thoughts, ideas and principles. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition mentioned seven points of difference with the NP. I believe they were basically seven methodological principles. I agree with them. One could possibly add to them or detract from them. I also believe that there could be possible differences in principle amongst certain factions of the present governing party. Even there, however, there are people with whom I would agree in principle. The one principle—that which gave rise to the split between ourselves and the rest of the NP—was the principle of power-sharing. Although the governing party does not accept power-sharing as far as the Black people are concerned, they do at least accept it as far as the Brown people and the Indians are concerned. The problem that arises is, of course, that in its standpoint on the Black people, the leftwing of the NP is ad idem with the official Opposition.

Who constitutes the left-wing?

That hon. member is one of them. Another problem—this is the problem the hon. member for Klip River had—is that on the one hand they are clinging to the old principles of the NP, and the Nationalists who have remained in their ranks are told as much, whilst on the other hand the left-wing is moving in the direction of the PFP, though they are too ashamed to let the people know about this. I shall be elaborating on that in a moment.

Mr. Chairman, whilst I am speaking in this vein, let me just ask for the privilege of the second half-hour.

I want to begin by congratulating the hon. the Minister on his exceptional appointment. Knowing the hon. the Minister as I do, I must say that he is a Minister who works very hard. I think he is the pivot around which the whole new constitutional dispensation revolves. He has also put his standpoint with great courage and conviction, and that is something I respect.

Secondly, I just briefly want to refer to the report we received. I am very grateful for it, and I am also grateful to the officials who worked on it. Last Friday I had the privilege of listening to one of the Minister’s officials at Stellenbosch. I am referring to Dr. G. S. Cloete. As an official he put his standpoint very well, even though officials are sometimes placed in the difficult situation of having to explain political problems to an academic audience. I want to tell the hon. the Minister, however, that I think he has good officials.

The hon. the Minister has worked hard, but what is making his work absolutely impossible, and will be making it impossible in the days to come—I do not want to detract from his enthusiasm—is that within the NP he has the job of getting the NP, and the Afrikaner in particular, to the point of rejecting the principles of separate development, which are ingrained in the NP, and going over to an admixture, even if only in a specific sense. That is the task the hon. the Minister has, and I think it is an impossible task. On the one hand there is already a party in the country, the CP, advocating that the principle of separateness should consistently be adhered to regardless of whether one likes it or not or whether it is regarded as being practical or not. On the other hand there is the PFP that advocates the principle spelt out by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I must say that I agree that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does have a policy and relevant principles. Any student of politics must have known about that for years. If one sits in this House debating issues with another party, it is a pity if one does know what that party’s policy and principles are.

There are a few other matters I want to raise. There are three reports I have read in the past year or so which have given me a slight inkling of the governing party’s planning in South Africa. The NP has, in actual fact, begun to show signs of a slavish subservience to people who are not well-disposed to the survival of the Whites in Southern Africa. On the one hand I want to refer to the Crocker report which appeared in 1980. It appears in volume 89, No. 2 of 1980, of the report of the Council on Foreign Relations Inc, USA. In that report Chester Crocker wrote about “South Africa: Strategy for Change”. I want to quote a few statements from this report.

Have you seen the report?

Let me tell the hon. member that I have not only seen it, but have also read it and studied it. In the interests of American foreign relations—we must not ignore America’s importance in this whole game—it is essential to bring South Africa into line with American policy. Crocker said the following—

This necessitates that South Africa’s policy of separate freedoms for separate population groups must change in the direction of an “open” or “non-racial” system. He also says—

According to Dr. Crocker, Mr. P. W. Botha has successfully been converted to carrying out this wish of the Americans. Dr. Crocker says—

According to Crocker, Mr. Botha is carrying out this coup d’état by assembling a group of underlings around him and getting rid of all conservative opposition in his party, for example Dr. Connie Mulder, Mr. John Vorster, Dr. Andries Treurnicht and the small group of us sitting here. [Interjections.] The biggest stumbling-block to complete surrender to America is, however, the democratic Westminster system, because under this system the people still have a democratic say. Dr. Crocker says—

This explains very clearly why South Africa suddenly has to have a new State system, a so-called consociational democracy, because a consociational democracy opens the door to autocratic powers.

I just want to mention here, in passing, that my colleague, the hon. member for Brakpan, and I are often told that we also put our signatures to this. I want to say, however, that whilst I was in the NP I, as part of a team, had confidence in my leaders. I had confidence in them in the sense that we all believed in the same set of principles. That is why, at the time, I signed the well-known Schlebusch Commission report. I just want to say—hon. members know this, too—that at the time there were, after all, internal discussions about the Schlebusch Commission. The hon. the Minister is aware of the fact that at the very last meeting I lodged a very strong objection and said—I remember my words very well—that I was signing the report in the full knowledge that I would not budge one millimetre on the question of Whites having power and authority over themselves. The hon. the Minister is shaking his head. Surely he was there too.

I shall reply to you later.

I want to tell the hon. the Minister—I am now giving my version after an interlude of two years—that I knew very well what I was signing. In my political life I have said very clearly what I stand for and what I do not stand for. Mr. Chairman, let me leave it at that, however.

Introducing this political enslavement into South Africa, on the other hand, is the only way of hijacking the existing National Party and the State machinery and using them as “agents of change”. Let me again quote Dr. Crocker—

A few nights ago on television the hon. the Prime Minister very clearly stated that he had not been very enamoured of certain of Dr. Verwoerd’s standpoints. [Interjections.] It is general knowledge that at a certain stage the hon. the Prime Minister was not prepared to serve in Dr. Verwoerd’s Cabinet. He had doubts about serving in that Cabinet. It is very clear that the left wing of the NP was of the opinion that Dr. Verwoerd was in a cul-de-sac and that the policy had to be changed. Dr. Crocker goes on to say—

The above quotations, indicate, in broad terms, the way in which Dr. Chester Crocker and his pawn here, the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information, have tried to lead the naive hon. Prime Minister—I do not always know whether he is all that naive—up the garden path.

A recipe must also be provided for a system with which to implement America’s directives. For that purpose the President’s Council has been established. I quote further—

That President’s Council then gets the blueprint for its proposals from none other than another American liberalist, i.e. Arend Lijphart. In the second report of the Constitutional Committee of the President’s Council Arend Lijphart’s personal directives for the Government’s constitutional plan are quoted at length, for example on page 10 and also on quite a few other pages. In fact, on the same pages there are the names of hordes of American liberalists and also a handful of South African liberalists. The President’s Council has therefore swallowed the American bait hook, line and sinker, offering this as “wonderful new initiatives” for progress. It is informative to have a look at the names. There is Dr. Dennis Worrall, who was formerly a very active member of Sprocas. There is also the name of another senior member, Dr. De Crespigny, who fled the country because of his ANC connections.

The Government must, however, now find a strategy by which to apply this stranglehold on the people, and for this it looks to the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. Once again they dance to America’s tune. This time Prof. Samuel Huntington of Harvard is imported into South Africa to advise them on the methods of change. If we read Huntington’s “The Reform and Stability in a Modernizing Ethnic Society” …

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question to the hon. member?

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately I do not have much time. The hon. the Minister knows this too. In Politikon, Volume 8, No. 2, of December 1981, reference is made to Huntington’s lecture. At this conference the hon. the Minister, Dr. Worrall, S. S. Brand, Van der Ross and other speakers shared the platform with Huntington. Huntington’s lecture specifically dealt with the strategy and tactics of reform. Firstly he pertinently mentions the fact that consociational democracy is in no way democratic. He says—

He then goes on to spell out the tactics the “reformer” must employ. The motives must initially be hidden motives, known only to a few confidants—i.e. the handful of people round the hon. the Prime Minister—until the plan is implemented. Then they must suddenly strike. The President’s Council must come along and NP congresses must be steamrollered. Huntington goes on to say—

That is scandalous!

The hon. the Minister must not say it is scandalous. Let him rather open up his mind and learn. The hon. the Minister does not know where it is they are taking him. Because the people must be led into the trap of relinquishing their survival, the reformer’s true motives may not be revealed. I quote—

There are examples. Initially the NP energetically denied that the new proposals amounted to a sharing of power, alleging as they did that what they amounted to was a division of power. That is an ambiguity. They try to placate the people with the promise of a say in their own affairs and the entrenchment of minority rights, in spite of the fact that they know that this will quickly disappear in the new dispensation, as was the case in Rhodesia. That is “concealment”. The eventual objective, i.e. that of a “open society”, is denied and suppressed. That is “deception concerning its goals”. Huntington suggests that in certain respects lip service should be paid to the old ways in order to conceal the actual radical objective. Huntington says—

These aspects would, however, gradually disappear to make way for the new system. The reform process must unfold so gradually, and be so hidden, that the people are gradually conditioned to accept it. Huntington goes on to say—

Huntington gives a few more hints for the realization of the above-mentioned goal. He says—

The Government’s present conduct confirms the fact that they did indeed listen very attentively to Huntington.

To sum up, let me put the case in the following terms: Chester Crocker lays down the conditions, with a view to exerting pressure on the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information as the pawn. Lijphart delineates the structure of the President’s Council. Huntington spells out the tactics for the present Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and the NP caucus members dance like marionettes. The whole action is orchestrated by the manipulation of individuals, with the newspapers co-operating very nicely indeed. Whoever would have expected the South African Government, the NP, eventually to be the chief instrument in launching the total onslaught, in all its ferocity, against this country? The biggest question I want to ask myself—and let me say that I myself am in the process of giving a positive answer—is: Will the Whites, and more specifically the Afrikaners, allow themselves to be misled by all this? The answer to that is definitely no. The signs in the few recent by-elections are a very clear indication of that.

In conclusion I want to say that these constitutional proposals of the hon. the Minister put me in mind of the history of Pandora, the woman conceived by Hephaestus, and like Prometheus the CP is issuing a warning to our brothers sitting over there. We warn Epimetheus not to accept the gift from Hermes. She is carrying a flask, but if that flask is opened, all manner of calamities will rain down on our country. For that reason the CP will be working, will be fighting, to oppose these constitutional proposals. As an alternative we not only postulate the sovereignty of Whites over Whites, but are also prepared to have every other nation in South Africa given sovereignty over its own specific territory.

Mr. Chairman, I am not taking very much notice of the hon. member for Rissik, because I know him to be a schemer (“knoeier”). I know him as a man who holds secret meetings. He was the ringleader who never ever, after the election of a leader in 1978, fell in with the NP again. In fact, he undermined the NP. He held secret meetings at his home in Pretoria.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: May the hon. member imply that the hon. member for Rissik is a “knoeier”? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member Mr. Van Staden must withdraw the word “knoeier”.

I withdraw it, Sir. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member Mr. Theunissen must also withdraw the word “knoeier”.

I withdraw it, Sir.

Mr. Chairman, what I am saying is that all the secret meetings were held at his home and at the office of the hon. member for Waterberg. And what does the hon. member come to light with today? He continues his gossipcampaign and quotes from a scandal-sheet. I think that many of the things he wrote there were written by S. E. D. Brown. Those passages he quoted remind me very much of him. They began with character assassination. I think I heard the words “character assassination” for the first time in 1969. I think it was coined by Oom Ben Schoeman. He used the words in connection with the HNP. They took over where the HNP’s character assassination ended. That is where they took over. Let me tell them now that they are engaged in a witch-hunt. They are trying to discredit people because they have no policy. The hon. member, in referring to the hon. the Prime Minister, doubted his Afrikaner-hood. He then quoted that nonsense to us. Let me tell him I have known the hon. the Prime Minister for many years now, and as far as his Afrikanerhood and Nationalism are concerned, I would vouch for it with my life. I know him; he is a Nationalist and an Afrikaner. [Interjections.]

For me this has actually been a memorable debate. Throughout my political career—it extends over a long period—I have devoted myself to solving the problem which, in those years, when those hon. members were still in nappies, we called the Coloured problem. Throughout my political life I struggled with that problem, struggled earnestly too. For me it is therefore a memorable day on which we can come along with a solution which it seems to me is also going to be accepted by the Coloureds.

And you are leaving the Afrikaner in the lurch.

I shall not be leaving the Afrikaner in the lurch. I just want to tell the hon. member for Meyerton that whereas I have been reading in the newspapers that the CP will be hounding the NP from Dan to Beersheba, we have already begun. They must remember that they have one member less in the House. We have begun hounding the CP; we shall be hounding them from Dan, right past Beersheba into Gad, where they belong. [Interjections.]

There is something which is troubling me and which I am really not going to take. In the Second Reading debate on the Constitution Bill, the hon. member for Waterberg said the NP had betrayed nationalism.

Of course.

I want to point out to him that the NP has been responsible for everything that has been brought into being in South Africa. It is still the same NP. The NP did all those things at a time when the hon. members of the CP were not even there yet. I do not know them; they just joined up along the way. The NP planned all those things and put them into effect, and that NP still remains the same NP today.

The hon. member for Waterberg recited a little poem for us. He recited the third verse of the “Lied van Jong Suid-Afrika”, but I also want to quote a verse—

I am now accusing the CP of betrayal (“verraad”). It is not the NP who committed treachery. We were in the throes of the political struggle. We are involved in a death-struggle against the leftist onslaught—i.e. those hon. members, the “pink jingoes”. We are involved in a struggle to the death on the political battlefield. For treason on the field of battle one is shot dead. They have left us in the lurch and fled. When the battle was at its fiercest, when the leftist onslaught was intense, perhaps more intense than ever before in the country’s history, they left us in the lurch.

Order! I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member but a moment ago he accused the CP of “verraad”. This also includes the members of the CP in this House, and the hon. member must therefore withdraw the word “verraad”.

Mr. Chairman, I said that the leader of the CP had said that the NP had betrayed nationalism. I then said that the CP had betrayed the NP.

Order! If the hon. member said that the CP had betrayed the NP, he may proceed.

I was speaking of the CP and did not accuse the members here.

Order! The CP also includes the members sitting in this House.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: The hon. member for Rissik, and the CP as a whole, accused the NP of having betrayed nationalism. They are saying, in other words, that the National Party, including its members here in the House, betrayed a specific principle. In retaliation, and as a justification for the NP’s standpoint, the hon. member Mr. Van Staden said the CP had betrayed the NP. I contend that he is entitled to say this.

Order! The hon. member Mr. Van Staden may proceed.

I do not think there can be any greater crime than leaving your companions in the lurch on the battlefield. The CP has left us in the lurch on the political battlefield. When the struggle was at its fiercest they took to their heels and ran away. The NP still stands where it has stood all these years. It still stands as solidly behind the division of power and joint responsibility as it has even done. If there is one party in this country that has always stood by its principles, it has been the National Party since its establishment in 1914. In this connection I want to quote from the programme of principles of the NP—

That has been part and parcel of this programme of principles since 1914. I have been an NP office-bearer since 1931, and I would not have been a member of this party if it had deviated from its principles. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I hope the Committee will excuse me—I am sure you, Sir, will—if I deal with the Vote itself. I am glad to see that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is back in the House. I can assure him that although I have no desire to compete for an Artes award, I too would welcome a debate on TV. I think it would be very fruitful and that the hon. the Minister should consider it. [Interjections.] I will not be a competitor for the Artes award; I leave that to the glamour boys, to the mascots of their parties.

I want to deal with the Vote itself, which apart from the provincial allocations of more than R3 billion, allocates R32 million for the running of this department. Like the hon. member for Rissik, I want to compliment the official of the department who spoke at the panel discussion, at the seminar in which I also took part on Friday, Dr. Cloete, on the way in which he presented his case. In a moment I will come to the aspects which he obviously, as an official of the department, could not deal with. He dealt with the departmental side. I want to deal later with political aspects of constitutional planning. However, I should also like to compliment Dr. Cloete on the way he handled his case in Stellenbosch.

This department is, possibly because it is a boffin department, a department of experts, one of whose activities very little is generally known. It is a department of multi-faceted activities which covers every sphere of the life of a South African, from the cradle to the grave, from birth statistics to death statistics. It does not matter what happens in South Africa; in one field or another this department is affected. What I am concerned about is the way it has spread into a vast network of interacting committees and bodies. We have been presented with a very comprehensive report for 1982, which I have taken the trouble to study. I have tried to find my way around its ramifications. I am not surprised, however, that there is no diagram of the structure of the department, because I would hate to be the draughtsman who tried to draw a diagram of all the subdivisions which make up this particular department. I do not think that it would be possible. I knew a little rhyme once about a simple little matter that was really an elaborate affair. I shall not quote the rhyme, but when one studies this report, what may appear to be a simple little matter is indeed an elaborate affair. My knowledge of economic planning is to ascertain how much money is left at the end of the month, but if one looks at “economic planning” in the report, one finds that a regional development policy is the first element in a regional development strategy. Then follows all the negotiations, etc., that lead up to economic planning. However, when one discovers how it works one finds the Economic Planning Branch acting as the Professional Secretariat of the Working Group for Economic and Financial Affairs. Then there is the planning section within the Cabinet committee system and a Quantitative Analyses Section which drew up a publication on Regional Economic Development programmes as a supplement to the main Economic Development Programme and the Sectoral Development Programme. Then one also finds the National Technical Advisory Committee for Regional Economic Development, etc. and by the time one tries to visualize the stages and structures and how they work together, I do not know whether we are not overorganizing ourselves.

If one looks at the “Science Planning” section, for instance, one finds that there is a SAC, the Scientific Advisory Council, and the SPC, the CSIR, the HSRC and the CCSSC, all co-ordinating under the CFA for pay. And so I could go on. There is a myriad of bodies. I should hate to try to work out how many. Just in one field alone there are 195 members of subcommittees. There are ad hoc committees, advisory committees, planning committees, working committees and Cabinet committees. I believe there may be a tendency to overorganize. One has to learn a new language as it were. One battles to become acquainted with officialese but when one tries to learn professional officialese one really knows what it means to struggle.

Parkinson’s Law.

Yes, it is almost like Parkinson’s law, and I think we could reach the stage at the rate we are going when everybody is serving on committees, and too few people left to do the job. If one looks at the staff position in this department it is clear that there is a serious shortage in the staff situation throughout the department. In the professional category there are 83 vacancies, and 104 were filled at the end of the last financial year. Less than half the professional posts are filled, while great staff shortages are experienced on all levels throughout the department. In view of this shortage of staff and the multitude of committees the real danger exists that ultimately everybody will be serving on a committee while nobody will in the final analysis really know what all the committees are actually doing. In this regard I have coined my own professional bit of officialese, which I refer to as co-ordination to achieve a productivity co-efficient. “Co-efficient” means “a number placed before and multiplying another quantity known or unknown.” In this co-efficient is the number by which that is multiplied in order to reach something that is known. I am worried, and I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to give some indication of how he sees that coordination accomplished, and the network of all this information processed in order to reach the most productive and effective result in the end.

I want to turn now to the question of how all these sections affect the final constitutional planning and development itself. There are fields here in which we have hardly begun to operate.

I take, for instance, the reference in the report to “confederation”. We have had a series of meetings, summit meetings, top meetings, etc., and a great deal of time has gone into all these meetings. However, all that has emerged in the end is the Development Bank of Southern Africa. The rest of the whole concept of confederation—what, I believe, is the crucial part of confederation is the weaving together into a common structure of all those people who form part of it, with a common loyalty and destiny in South Africa, shared by all those States that formerly formed part of South Africa. This is, to my mind, crucial.

I know we have a Cabinet Committee dealing with the non-homeland Blacks and with those Black States that are not yet independent. However, let us look at that as well. We have all these structures but how are they going to work? How is that Cabinet Committee going to consult with the …

Order! I am sorry, the hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I merely rise to give the hon. member the opportunity of completing his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. Chief Whip.

I should like to refer to the question of the negotiations by the Cabinet Committee with non-homeland Blacks and with those Black States that are not yet independent. How is this going to take place? What machinery is going to be used in this process? We have all these committees but what mechanism is going to be employed in negotiating with these Black people? It is obvious, of course, that seven Cabinet Ministers cannot hold individual talks with community leaders all over South Africa. One has to identify first all the people with whom consultation has to take place. One is going to need more or less full-time contacts, and Cabinet Ministers cannot perform this sort of task. They can plan, and they can take the ultimate decisions. They can finally meet with the leaders who have been identified but they just do not have the time to break away from their normal activities in order to hold talks with people. We believe that talking should be done by a commission on which Blacks themselves will serve, because that is really the only way to get to the root of the problem. There should be a commission which can get down to this full-time and which can go around the country meeting and identifying the leaders, identifying their aspirations and negotiating in the sense in which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition talked of negotiation. I see that he is again absent at the moment. He pops in for a minute, makes a speech and then disappears again.

He has gone for a TV audition.

In any event, I am talking about negotiations in the real sense where through discussion one seeks agreement and consensus.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to forming a body on which Blacks themselves can participate and which will do the spade-work so that eventually the Cabinet committee, when it takes that task over, will have a constructive base to work on in order to bring this matter to some finality. As matters stand, I do not believe one can get it off the ground, not with all the mechanisms we have now, because that will be the wrong approach to that aspect.

As regards confederation, for instance, I believe we should be talking about what we have discussed in the House. The hon. the Deputy Minister said the table was being laid for a confederal citizenship. That was more than a year ago. “Die tafel word gedek vir ’n konfederale burgerskap of nasionaliteit”, were his words.

Which Deputy Minister said that?

Deputy Minister Van der Walt. It is recorded in Hansard. I have not brought the reference with me, but it is in Hansard. These are issues that should be dealt with as matters of urgency. I am afraid that despite this vast network we are not getting to some of the key issues. We are moving on the field relating to the White, Coloured and Indian but we are not keeping pace in respect of the equally vital field of Black constitutional development and the accommodation of the Blacks in the structure. Confederation must come to far more than simply economic co-operation and assistance. It must move into the fields of one economy, access to the economy, citizenship, etc.

The issue of the non-homeland Blacks is an urgent issue which must be dealt with.

In paragraph 112 of the report of the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning—and this is of particular importance—one reads—

I assume that is Government policy. In the department’s report it is stated as the Government’s objective and I should like to have it on record that this is in fact the Government’s objective. I emphasize the words—

Once one has accepted that, all the consequences and implications that flow from it follow. In paragraph 115, for instance, there is reference to self-determination and co-responsibility. If that is linked to “everyone” participating in all the “processes affecting his interests and aspirations”, one gets, instead of a partial picture, a whole picture of the task this department has to handle.

The report goes on to talk about negotiation. I do not want to repeat what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has said, but the report refers to negotiations with Whites. There is also reference to other groups, but Whites are mentioned specifically in paragraph 116, which speaks of “negotiations among the leaders of the White, Coloured and Indian groups”.

Surely you know the responsibility of this department relates to these groups.

Consultation and negotiation—both words were used—with White, Coloured and Indian groups, is the policy. I want to know what White groups are being consulted other than the Government itself, its caucus and its congresses. We as a party have not been consulted. We have discussed it informally, but that is not consultation and negotiation. I do not know whether any of the other parties have been consulted. I know of no negotiation or consultation with provincial councils as a whole. The Government met with Administrators and with specific individuals on the ad hoc committee—that was in connection with another Bill that is before the House—but I do not know of any consultation with the provincial councils as a whole. It would be a pity if this whole process were to move along without those Whites who are not in the NP being part of the negotiating process until it comes to Parliament where one is faced with a Bill requiring an instantaneous decison on principles and with a Select Committee considering a ready-made package which can only be amended in detail. I should like to see this whole consultation process ensuring that the maximum cross-section of all race groups is included in the process.

I do not want to start now on a new section. I will therefore leave this here for the moment. However, at a later stage of the debate I will deal with the crucial aspect of group taxation powers as the basis of self-determination and group protection.

Mr. Chairman, I have no fault to find with what the hon. member asked the hon. the Minister. I think the hon. the Minister will reply in full in the course of the debate.

I should like to refer to certain remarks by the hon. member for Rissik, since in the present Afrikaner debate on constitutional matters, we on this side of the House are very disturbed that he should have assumed the right to be so insulting about one’s opinion in this House. I am talking about being politically insulting and about his reference to liberals, leftists, and so on. I want to tell the hon. member that I have no doubt whatsoever that I am the only person in this House who has got along with Mr. Jaap Marais on a personal level since 1969 in the constituency I represent today. I want to tell the hon. member for Rissik that since 1969 he has never severed his ties with Mr. Jaap Marais. We reject with contempt the book he quoted from today—that hysterical rubbish about the illuminati and about the Americans who are supposed to have a powerful influence on South Africa. I want to put it bluntly to the hon. member that we are not in the least interested in what other countries of the world say about NP policy. We are not in the least interested in who says what. The only thing that counts in the constitutional sphere as far as we are concerned, is that the NP, the party in power, must create a practicable constitutional structure, in the interests of our country and our children. It is very important to us that we should live in complete harmony with the neighbouring Black States in the future. Not one of us in this House wishes to face a future of war. We are all people who want to work peacefully towards stability and the things we believe in, and therefore we have a responsibility not to divide, but to agree on those aspects we should agree on.

One of those aspects is that there is a dramatic threat from outside. I charge hon. members of the CP with constantly minimizing that threat, particularly when we are speaking about constitutional matters. They consistently spoke in absolute terms about what we could do in South Africa. I wish to put a few figures to the hon. member for Rissik, as well as other hon. members of the CP.

According to the 1980 census, there were 16,9 million Blacks in South Africa. Of those 16,9 million Blacks, 6 892 340, i.e. 40,3% live in the national Black States. [Interjections.]

Order!

I want the hon. member for Rissik to listen. 10 121 420, or 59,8%, live in the White areas. Of these Blacks in White areas, 5 234 500, i.e. 52%, live in the White urban areas, whereas 4 796 000, i.e. 47%, live in the White rural areas. Almost 60% of the 5 234 500 in the urban areas live in the PWV area. Now I want to tell the hon. member for Rissik: The NP looks at South Africa as a whole. They must not go and tell the public that we are looking at a future constitutional plan for the Coloureds and the Indians and that is where it ends, because that is not true. They can go and tell the people that the NP does not close its eyes to the realities surrounding the facts in respect of the Black population. That is why a Cabinet Committee was appointed. Therefore, the question we in South Africa should ask, is not whether we should accommodate people constitutionally, but how we are to do so without going under. The principle of the autonomy of the Whites, is absolutely cardinal as far as we are concerned. I say to the hon. member for Rissik: They are living in an ideological and absolutist dream world. That is so. Many of them have told me that I have changed a great deal, and that is true. In the early ’sixties I, too was one of those who thought that one could divide peoples and people into absolute compartments and allow them to develop separately. However, the economic realities in South Africa compel us to look at the constitutional realities we have to contend with today. I should also like to say this to the hon. member for Rissik: They need not be concerned about the public at large. The NP’s message in Cape Town will be no different from the one in Waterberg. I believe in speaking candidly, and I promise them that we shall speak to our people in the most open-hearted way, and in doing so, we shall not be trying to scare them. Mr. Chairman, the people who are truly afraid in South Africa are the members of the CP [Interjections.]

Order!

Have you ever heard of a group of people that has capitulated more, constitutionally speaking, than the Oranjewerkers? They say that it is all over; there is no longer even a White homeland. They have gone much further than the hon. member for Rissik. They say: There is no White homeland; let us establish one for ourselves somewhere here. Have you ever heard of such a thing? The AWB says that it is all over. They say “shoot”. How many of those hon. members go and tell the voters at large that there is only one solution for the future, and that we should face up to it?

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell that hon. member: The NP does not believe in the politics of confrontation. We must consider South Africa when we speak about constitutional matters. We should have a kind of Columbia vision. We should rise a little way above the petty politics of the day and look at the world we live in from an elevated position. We should look at the reality of the problems we have to contend with from an elevated position. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Rissik can tell me I am a liberal if he likes. My children, my language and my people, and the children, the language, the people and the religion of my hon. colleagues mean just as much to us as they do to him, but we are not going to try and outbid him on that score. Our people can see it. They know it.

I say that we should have an all-embracing view of this matter. There is interaction between political constitutional matters and the economy, and every other matter in South Africa. In the few minutes that are still at my disposal, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister that whereas we in this country, have to carry through our constitutional process, which is also linked to economic development and deconcentration, we should in future give special attention to the technological revolution the world is wrestling with. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Chairman, I also want to ask the hon. the Minister whether his department could not take the initiative in arranging a week-long congress or symposium in South Africa, at which experts and other interested parties could submit documents to enable us to form a picture of, firstly, how technology may affect South Africa and, secondly, how we may use technology in the interests of our continued existence and in the interests of decentralization. I mentioned this the other day. I have no doubt that a country that wishes to export to the rest of the world today, but that does not have sound technology or does not make use of mechanization, is completely out of the running. I believe that it is a mistaken idea that technology as such leads to unemployment. Dramatic changes are in progress, and we see this in Europe, America—throughout the world. There has been a shift, just as there was during the Industrial Revolution. Just as people have moved from agriculture to the industries, in the technological revolution people are moving from the industries to the service and information sectors. When I consider how much manpower and entrepreneurial enterprise we could save and how much we could save in the field of energy and in the field of Africa technology, then I think it is imperative that, firstly, we should utilize world development to the maximum in South Africa, and, secondly, that the government and the cabinet of the day should know what is available to us so that we can utilize it to the best advantage and so that we can use the capital we have to the best advantage, since we do not have a great deal of capital. We have tremendous problems in this regard. We should also try to utilize our manpower better, since we do not have sufficient trained manpower. I am absolutely convinced that if we turn our constitutional development into a dramatic industrial and economic development—seen as a whole, not only industrial development but also the development of services and our total economic development—then I believe that with housing as a basis, we shall be able to have a tremendous level of employment in South Africa. I am sorry that my time has almost expired, since I should have liked to show the hon. the Minister how we could invest our State money in a dramatic way. If we invest it in the housing sector and we use technology to eliminate the bottle-necks in the housing sector—too few bricks and a shortage of this and a shortage of that—then, under the able leadership of the hon. the Minister of Community Development we would be able to create a dramatic number of employment opportunities for our people over the next few years. We would be able to deconcentrate dramatically and use technology to give these constitutional plans we are dealing with, a practical and economic basis.

Finally, I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the fine annual report presented by his department. I request that he give his urgent attention to this matter, which in my opinion is still being approached in a far too unco-ordinated manner in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Innesdal will forgive me if I do not follow up on what he said because I want to concentrate on another matter, namely the position of the Coloureds under the new constitutional dispensation. In the announcements of this new dispensation made from time to time, first when the guidelines were announced and later when the Bill itself appeared, mention was made of certain political terms which we assume have an accepted meaning, terms such as self-determination and an effective say in matters affecting persons or groups. However, I am afraid that in actual fact what we have here is a built-in constitutional inferiority as far as the Coloureds are concerned, a built-in constitutional inferiority into which the Coloureds have their noses rubbed in various parts of the Bill. The Government does not have an impressive record for its handling of Coloured political rights over the years and it probably reached the height of absurdity when it did away with the old Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. By the Government’s own admission, that Council was done away with because it was an inferior body in the constitutional sense. It was an inferior body in the constitution of South Africa. It was destroyed because in terms of that dispensation the Coloureds could not achieve anything for themselves if the NP was not prepared to give it to them. One wonders if there was anyone at that stage who would have imagined that a few years later the Government would come forward with a so-called new system suffering from precisely the same fatal defects. One can scarcely believe that under the guise of a so-called new initiative the NP could come up with something containing such a crude form of racial domination as is the case here. How can it be acceptable to a Coloured voter or a Coloured political leader that if he submits a proposal to the House in which he sits and he has the support of all those members, and at the same time he has the support of all the Indian members in the Indian chamber and he has the support of 49% of the White chamber and he still cannot have his proposal accepted, he simply has to accept the situation? How can the Coloured population be expected to accept this blatant denial of democracy and how can they put up with the fact that the wishes of an elected majority are being so cynically frustrated in this way? Yet again it is being made blatantly clear to the Coloureds that in this new system they will not be able to achieve anything in this either unless they go hat in hand to the NP and beg for it. As was the case in the time of the old Coloured Persons’ Representative Council, the Coloured population is once again at the mercy of the NP in the form of an NP majority in the White chamber and a President who is elected solely by an NP majority in the electoral college.

It is general knowledge that as far as general matters are concerned, for which provision has been made in the Constitution Bill, the system can be grossly manipulated in such a way that White domination is assured. The hon. the Minister of Health and Welfare admitted this in so many words when he took part in the Second Reading debate on the Constitution Bill the other day.

Even as far as their own affairs are concerned, self-determination in this limited and narrow sphere is being seriously restricted. Perhaps one could put a question to the hon. the Minister in this connection since the Coloureds and the Indians are being expected to maintain apartheid in the sense of a separate political say. They now have a say over housing in their own group areas, but I want to know from the hon. the Minister whether it will be possible for the Coloured House to throw open their group areas to allow Whites and/or Blacks to come and live there. It seems to me as if this would not be possible because such a decision would be in conflict with clause 18. They will also have a say over their education, and now I want to know whether it will be possible for the Coloured House to throw open their schools to children of other races. Once again it seems to me the answer is no. If I am correct that it would not be possible for the Coloured House to take such decisions, we can hardly speak of self-determination in the case of the Coloured House with regard to its own affairs.

So what is the difference between the old dispensation which the Coloureds had in the time of the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council and the dispensation contained in the constitution Bill? The difference is merely that there is now a possibility for Coloureds to be included in the Cabinet and that provision has been made for joint standing committees.

In a constitutional system, if on the one hand one places the ordinary Coloured voter in a position of powerlessness as is being done here while on the other hand one includes Coloureds leaders in the Cabinet one has a recipe for the isolation of those selfsame Coloured leaders and one begins the process of alienation between those leaders and their voters. The appointment of Coloured Cabinet Ministers without making concessions on the level of political power and discriminatory legislation simply means that one is co-opting those leaders for the administration of apartheid.

Of course this presents the Coloured and Indian leaders in this country with a tremendous dilemma. They are presented with a choice—a miserable choice—between the crumbs from the political table of the Whites on the one hand and total political famine on the other. Do the hon. the Minister and members of the NP really think that a Coloured Cabinet Minister can survive politically if he has to accept joint Cabinet responsibility for decisions on group areas? Can he return to his voters and survive politically? He cannot; it is impossible for him to survive politically. Can a Coloured leader if he is a Cabinet Minister survive politically if he has to accept responsibility for the sort of treatment meted out to Black squatters at the KTC camp?

Why do you always discuss that?

Can they accept political responsibility for discriminatory legislation on which the Government insists and regarding which the Government is not prepared to make concessions? If they accept such political responsibility can one expect them to retain any credibility among their own voters after they have co-operated in that system for a few years? They are presenting those people with a terrible choice, an impossible choice.

As far as the standing committee system is concerned, they are being told that this will assist us in steering clear of the conflict style of political decision-making. However, one thing a committee system cannot do is to give power to the powerless. Within the system created by the Government in the Constitution Bill, a terrible injustice is being done to a Coloured or Indian politician by inviting him to serve on such a standing committee. The almost inevitable impression which is being created in those people’s communities is that they are being invited to scheme with the NP behind closed doors. Hon. members have to admit this, because they have seen the reaction from those communities to people who have given the slightest indication of co-operating in the new dispensation.

May I ask you a question?

No, I do not have the time.

The sort of compromise one can reach in a standing committee, a Select Committee as we have it here, cannot be reached in the knowledge that one side has to beg while the other side can be miserly. This cannot work.

In this new system nothing more is being done than once again to create a mere political platform for Coloured politicians. In order to use a political platform properly they will have to move from conflict to conflict, unless the NP in fact gives them the opportunity to report to their voters that something positive has been achieved, that certain concessions have been made as regards racial discrimination. There is no indication that this will be the case. For that reason I have no faith in this system and I cannot put it better than the hon. member Mr. Van Staden did when he said that the NP still stands where it stood in 1948.

Mr. Chairman, there is an old saying that a drowning man clutches at straws. I cannot interpret the performance of the hon. member for Green Point in any other way than as a deliberate attempt on his part or on the part of his party to try to detract from the support already perceptible among Coloureds for this system. It seems to me as if the hon. member is afraid that this system is going to be accepted by the Coloureds and that his party’s contribution is going to become irrelevant.

The hon. member referred to a built-in constitutional inferiority. I should like to know from the hon. member for Green Point in terms of his own party’s policy how many Coloureds would have seats in this Parliament if a miracle were to happen and their system of one man, one vote on a common voters’ roll were to apply. I maintain that one would be able to count the number of Coloureds on the fingers of one hand. In terms of the proposed new constitution, provision is made for 80 Coloureds to take their seats in Parliament. However, the hon. member referred to this as a built-in constitutional inferiority. I cannot see how the hon. member for Green Point can make such a statement. As far as the election of the State President is concerned, the Coloureds will have the same authority as their counterparts in the other chambers. They are not being overlooked in the election of the State President and are being given that joint responsibility.

In their specific House or Chamber the Coloureds will not have an inferior legislative authority in comparison with the Whites. The legislative authority of all three Chambers will be exactly the same. How can the hon. member therefore refer to a built-in constitutional inferiority?

The most astounding statement the hon. member for Green Point made was that if a Coloured were to serve on a Standing Committee, he would be accused of scheming with the NP behind closed doors. I want to ask the hon. member for Green Point: If he serves on a Standing Committee now, is he scheming with the NP behind closed doors? Surely there is no difference in the de facto position with regards to Standing Committees.

I want to exchange a few ideas on the new constitutional dispensation seen against the background of the Westminster system. South Africa’s constitutional law system has for the past 72 years been based on the British model, which is also commonly known as the Westminster system. This is a system which has developed over a period of 1 000 years and which is still developing specifically to accommodate the unique constitutional requirements of the United Kingdom. It goes without saying that all constitutional development in South Africa has thus far gone hand in hand with adjustments to this specific British model, because the constitutional demands in South Africa obviously differ from those in Great Britian. These adaptations and adjustments have always taken place with the retention of the Westminster system as such. For argument’s sake, I can mention three examples of such adaptations or adjustments. The mere fact that South Africa’s constitution is thus far almost entirely a written constitution is in itself an alteration of the Westminster system which is essentially unwritten. In 1961 an essential characteristic of the Westminster system, the monarchy, was done away with and a republican form of government was accepted in South Africa. The Senate was abolished, which was essentially an adaptation of the traditional bicameral system of the Westminster system. I think the constitutional development has now reached the stage where far-reaching adaptations to the Westminster system have become essential. Why? Proceeding from the standpoint that the Whites, Coloureds and Asians form a single state community—and this has always been the standpoint of the NP—but also proceeding from the standpoint that within this single state community group interests also have to come into their own and have to be protected—this has also always been the standpoint of the NP—I feel that the only feasible political solution is that of self-determination within a group context and joint responsibility as regards matters of common interest. Joint responsibility or joint decision-making cannot take place within the framework of “winner takes all”, which is an essential feature of the Westminster system. This system will therefore have to be adapted in such a way that provision can be made for group autonomy and that joint responsibility can take place on a basis other than that of “winner takes all”.

It is interesting to note that this is not the first time the Westminster system has come under pressure to make provision for group autonomy. When deep-seated religious differences made the functioning of the Parliament in Northern Ireland impossible, a Parliament which also functioned on a one man, one vote basis, that Parliament was dissolved and provision was made for a House of Representatives, which for the first time in the history of the United Kingdom was elected on the basis of proportionality. In 1973, for the first time in the history of the United Kingdom under the Westminster system, a legislative body was elected on a basis other than that of “winner takes all”. For the first time provision was also made in terms of the British model for an executive authority which included both majority and minority groups. Unfortunately this system failed in Northern Ireland because the respective groups were not prepared to work together. I hope the same thing is not going to happen to this attempt in South Africa. The hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning has pointed out that the success of a constitution depends on the attitude of those involved. That is true of course. In this regard history gives us an example of a similar system failing because people were not willing to accept one another’s bona fides and were not prepared to work together. As far as Scotland and Wales are concerned, pressure on the Westminster system to make provision for the autonomy of these separate groups has not been lacking. That is why in the ’sixties the Labour Government brought out a White Paper in which provision was made for chambers of representation for the Scots and for the Welsh, with greater or lesser legislative and executive powers. These recommendations in that White Paper were embodied in legislation, and were agreed to at Second Reading, but unfortunately the legislation came to grief during the Committee Stage owing to the divergent differences of opinion of the Opposition parties in the British House of Commons.

Again I want to express the hope that a similar attempt will not come to grief in the same way in South Africa. The way in which the self-determination of groups can be accommodated within the Westminster system is therefore still an unsolved problem, in the United Kingdom, too. There, too, they are still seeking a solution. I have mentioned that there have already been three failures. They are, however, still seeking a solution, and perhaps this Bill that has been referred by us to a Select Committee—although it cannot serve as a blueprint because the circumstances are totally different—can serve as a guide to accommodate this problem which exists in the United Kingdom. I just want to repeat that I feel that the only solution to the problem of accommodating group interests within a single state community is self-determination and joint responsibility. One Patliament with three chambers and an executive authority on which representatives of all groups serve, might in fact be the solution. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, at the very beginning of my speech I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his department on the tremendous job they have already done, and also wish them every success with the almost superhuman task that still lies ahead. Insight, patience and unlimited wisdom will be needed to accomplish this task.

During the previous debate the hon. member for Umbilo made certain remarks that I never expected to hear from the NRP. In any case, he was one of the people from whom I least expected to hear those remarks. The hon. member indicated that he and his party and the other Opposition parties in this House, together with their Press and various other organizations, would do everything in their power to see to it that the Constitution Bill came to grief. We need no longer have any illusions about that.

Mr. Chairman, the big difference, however, between proper consultation and boycott actions or the deliberate obstruction of the proposed constitutional initiatives should be clearly distinguished from each other. The PFP’s opposition to the proposed draft constitution is based mainly on the PFP argument that it does not reflect the wishes of the population of South Africa. The CP and its adherents, some of them members of organizations that will not stand up to scrutiny in the light of day, are, of course, trying to destroy the constitutional initiatives from the outset by appealing to the most basic instincts of each and every group in the Republic of South Africa. The validity or acceptability of the Government’s constitutional proposals are being questioned, of course, not because they are not based on the valid legislative processes of this sovereign Parliament, but because this Parliament and the electorate of South Africa are supposedly not representative of the population of the country. With all due respect, I want to say that this Government realizes, more than any other previous Government, that a constitutional model that does not take the reasonable demands of all other groups in South Africa into account is doomed to failure. On the other hand, it is no use our being stampeded by idealism and a dream-model which simply cannot keep pace with reality. We on this side of the House realize that if proper stability is not maintained, the introduction and implementation of any constitution is impossible.

As far as the proposals and dialogue of the other side of the House are concerned, this evening I just want to refer briefly to the CP in regard to this issue. Unfortunately we do not yet know much about their contribution, except for their heartlands concept.

But you learned enough in Thabazimbi.

We can discuss this with the hon. members of the CP. The question that arises is whether or not the programme of principles of the CP has changed since the party was founded last year. Do they still adhere to their constitution of last year, yes or no? Can the hon. members of the CP assist me in this regard? [Interjections.] It seems to me as if they do not want to reply to that. Do they still adhere to the basic principles of their constitution of last year? [Interjections.] Very well, they say they still adhere to their programme of principles of last year. Since they are asking questions regarding legitimacy and the like, I should like to ask them whether they took the views of Coloured groups in this country into account. Did they hold discussions with either the Coloured leaders or the Indian leaders in South Africa?

When the NP drew up its principles, were the Blacks consulted?

Did they try to gain background information about whether these people would in any way accept their point of departure on heartlands, yes or no? [Interjections.] In paragraph 8 on page 1 of their constitution one reads that they adhere to the “billike geografiese ordening” of South Africa. Then one asks oneself who will decide what is fair. Will it only be the hon. members of the CP who will decide what is fair, or what is their approach in this connection? I should like to hear what their view on this is. On page 5 of their constitution, in paragraph 2.2.9, it is stated—

What a joke!

In the first place I should like to know from them if there were discussions with the Indians in this connection.

That is wishful thinking!

In the second place, will any coastal area be allocated to the Indian community in the fight of the fairness to which reference is made in the CP’s constitution? If so, how will such a coastal area be properly patrolled to check on the immigration pattern? A further question one could ask is whether, as far as air space is concerned, the CP will want to introduce certain measures, with regard to this sovereign country, in order to limit immigration by air. What will the position be with regard to visitors from India coming to the respective areas?

What do you do at present with the Black States?

Will they appoint some of their people to inspect the population register of such an independent Indian area?

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Sir, I do not have the time. If such an Indian heartland is to be completely sovereign, when did the CP change its programme of principles? I want to indicate, by quoting a passage, that they said that they had changed their programme of principles. They were asked whether the Indians would be able to formulate their immigration policy without hindrance if the CP were to come to power and the Indians were to accept a State of their own. The reply the hon. member for Lichtenburg gave in this House on 18 May was that the Indians would be totally independent, but that immigration would cause problems for them in their own country because they would have to provide work for their own people. He said that it would nevertheless be their own affair because they would be sovereign. He said that they would be able to take such a decision in connection with their own country. How does one reconcile this with what one reads on page 5 of their constitution to which I have already referred?

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Chairman, when proceedings were suspended before supper, I was quoting from the Hansard of 18 May 1983, col. 7293, to indicate that according to the instructions and impressions hon. members of the CP have just given me, the hon. member for Lichtenburg would seem to have decided off his own bat to deviate from their programme of principles. I think he did so because he is a strong leader and because he realized that what they have set out in their programme of principles could not be implemented in practice.

That is wishful thinking.

Is he saying the hon. member for Lichtenburg did not deviate from their programme of principles? I think that during the past by-election those hon. members practised political deceit on an abominable scale. They are still doing so. They are misleading the White voters in South Africa in so abominable a fashion that the lies they are telling will at some stage or other catch up with them politically. At one stage I asked those hon. members to test their programme of principles against the principle of justice and that of fairness. Their hon. leader, however, stated unequivocally in this House that they stood by the principle of justice and would fall by it. However, I think that they are using that principle to barter with. I want to make it quite clear that the sooner those hon. members come forward and state clearly where they stand in this connection, the better it will be for that party and the voters of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Roodepoort asked those of us on this side of the House whether we still adhered to a fair geographic distribution of territory between the various peoples in this country, and if so, whom we consulted before making this our policy. I want to ask the hon. member whom the NP consulted when the NP drew up its homeland policy. Did the NP consult the Black people? Whom did the NP consult before it came up with its 1977 constitutional proposals? That was therefore an absolutely ridiculous question to have asked.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Sir. The hon. member for Roodepoort asked us to stop practising the sort of political deceit we are supposed to have practised in the battle of the Bergs. Which hon. Minister, however, told the people at Bulge that there would be no Coloured Ministers in the Cabinet?

This evening I should like to address a few words to the hon. member for Randfontein. He gave one of the most astounding performances here today. He explained to us that the powers of all three the Chambers would be identical. We know that only last year that hon. member was saying that the constitutional baby lying here in its swaddling-clothes was not the one we had in 1977. Now the hon. member turns round, however, and accepts paternity. According to him the 1977 baby and this baby are identical. However, most astounding of all is his having mentioned the constitutional failures that there have been. The first example he gave was the Parliament of Northern Ireland. He maintained that the system had not worked there owing to religious differences. Let us consider the religious differences in Northern Ireland. Here we are further apart, poles apart, in fact, if we compare our religion and the religion of the Indians in our country, for example. How on earth can the hon. member therefore expect this constitution to work in South Africa?

The hon. member Mr. Van Staden referred scornfully to the hon. member for North Rand and spoke of the days when the hon. member was still in political diapers. I want to tell the hon. member that when he was still in political diapers an old veteran of South African politics sent me a letter, the morning after the publication of the Constitution Bill. This man, Mr. P. J. van Rooyen, is well over 80. When he was in the political arena in South Africa, that hon. member was still in political diapers. This veteran told me: “Ons is gisteraand uitverkoop.” He based his opinion on a cutting from Die Transvaler of February 1942, when Die Transvaler was still a national newspaper in the true sense of the word. In the report it was stated—

The Republic only became a reality in 1961. I should now like to quote what ideals those people cherished.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I do not have time for questions now. We have just yesterday celebrated the 22nd birthday of that Republic. However, just listen to the idealism of those people and what they foresaw in that new constitutional dispensation. In the preamble it is stated—

However, I should also like to quote what they had to say about citizenship. In section (3)(ii) it is stated—

In subsection (iii) it is stated—

It was clearly stated that the ideal was for Whites to govern Whites—an Afrikaner republic governed by Whites. That was their ideal. This recognition of its national destiny, as embodied in its Voortrekker past impartially spells out the centuries of strife and struggle of the only indigenous White nation in Africa. As a matter of fact, the entire development process of the Afrikaner nation has its roots in its inborn and outspoken objection and resistance to being governed by foreigners, and this is written into, etched into, its history—its centuries-long struggle for its own fatherland and its own freedom. What were the causes of the Great Trek? There was a Government in power in the Cape Province with which our forefathers were no longer satisfied. It was a foreign Government.

Is it still in power?

I am coming to that. There were two Anglo-Boer Wars involving the same principle, because they refused to accept being governed by a foreign Government. After all the misery of the Second Anglo-Boer War—about which those hon. members should know a great deal—on 31 May they met in Vereeniging, and in section 9 of that Peace Treaty it was stated, in the handwriting of gens. Hertzog and Botha that the Boers refused to extend the non-White franchise, which existed in the Cape and Natal at that stage, to the Transvaal. With that condition in mind, they were prepared to lay down their arms. Now those hon. members come along with a new constitution and in that constitution they are bringing the non-White franchise into the South African Parliament. In what way is that different from what some people did during the Second Anglo-Boer War when they betrayed the principles of freedom of a people? Then followed a long constitutional struggle to arrive at full political self-realization. The people in this country could only achieve this by forming a national political front with separate development as its basic policy. This brought about meaningful, peaceful and orderly development in South Africa and made the Black people free and independent. The CP believes that this is still the only just solution for the diversity of peoples of South Africa, including the Coloureds and Indians. What is the alternative? The only alternative is a movement towards not only healthy power-sharing but total power-sharing, total political integration, and the Government’s—new Constitution is the first step. No matter how one looks at it, it remains a form of majority Government. If we read clauses 8 and 9, we see that those clauses determine the way in which the President is to be elected. If we read the Government’s guidelines, we see it clearly stated that the composition of the electoral college, namely 50:25:13, is roughly in accordance with population figures [Interjections.] No, Sir, these are not the 1977 proposals; those are the latest guidelines. [Interjections.] Now that hon. member says we have to be fair. Let me ask the hon. the Minister this: Would he be prepared to be fair and just if those population ratios were to change as far as the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians were concerned? [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister need only state his basic standpoint. If this were to happen, would he reconsider the composition of that electoral college? [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pietersburg went back to 1942 again tonight. I just want to tell him that the ideal of the Whites and of the Afrikaner to survive has not changed in any way and that we still adhere to it. The fact of the matter is that the circumstances under which we have to realize that ideal 42 years later are completely different from those that prevailed in 1942, for in 1942 there was not a single independent Black State in Africa. In fact, the cry of “Uhuru” had not been heard in Africa and we did not have any Marxist States to contend with on our borders.

I should like to come to the hon. member for Rissik, who quoted at length here earlier this afternoon from a speech made by Prof. Huntington. I take it that the speech to which he referred was the one made at RAU in September 1981. I should be glad if the hon. member would just indicate to me whether that is correct. [Interjections.] It seems that the hon. member does not wish to reply to that, so I should like to refer to this speech by Huntington. I want to say at once that I do not think Huntington can be quoted as a supporter of the NP. I do not think his ideology and his thinking are in line with those of the NP at all. At the same time, however, I think that since this was an academic paper, it is nevertheless important to take cognizance of a few ideas expressed in it. It is not necessary either to quote from it selectively, as the hon. member for Rissik did. [Interjections.] I should like to read the following quotation to the hon. member for Rissik. On page 16 of his paper, Huntington said the following, among other things—

The hon. member asks: What does this mean? I want to ask the hon. member for Rissik this question: Do we have the potential for revolution in South Africa, yes or no?

With your policy the matter is much worse. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member does not want to reply to that, but I take it that the hon. member would probably agree that the potential for revolution does exist in South Africa.

Your policy explains it.

The question is: If the potential for revolution exists in South Africa, what are we doing to prevent it?

Stick to separate development. [Interjections.]

Let me ask the hon. member for Rissik this: Do we want a repetition in South Africa today of the 1976 riots, for example? Do we want a repetition of that?

I do not want a repetition of Sharpeville either.

So the hon. member for Rissik is implying that we do not want a repetition of the 1976 riots. I take it that the hon. member would say that we do not want a repetition of the Pretoria bomb explosion either. [Interjections.] He agrees. The question is what we are doing about it.

It would serve no purpose for us to try to score political points off one another about what Huntington is supposed to have said or omitted to say. I shall come back to him presently. The important point is that if the hon. member for Rissik agrees that we should prevent revolution, that we should prevent riots such as those which took place in 1976, that we should prevent any further explosions such as the one in Pretoria, surely it is true to say that we should see to it that the problems of South Africa are solved in South Africa itself. Nowhere else will they be solved for us.

But the NP is one of the problems.

You have never been a Nationalist. [Interjections.]

Order!

No one on earth, neither Huntington nor the USA Government, nor any other power on earth, is going to help us to solve this problem. We are the only ones who must solve it.

If this is so, it is important—this goes for the CP as well—that we should address the problem, that we should get away from the kind of argument which the hon. member for Rissik advanced this afternoon. The hon. member for Rissik referred to me as a “new Prog”, or words to that effect, he referred to us as “internationalists”, or words to that effect, but I want to ask him what he was doing in America earlier this year. After all, he spent six weeks in America earlier this year.

I was not influenced in that way while I was there.

It seems to me, on the face of it, that he paid a visit to the Ku-Klux-Klan. Perhaps it is time the CP investigated the connections of the hon. member for Rissik. If the hon. member’s ideas which he expressed this afternoon had to be put into effect, I fear for the future of South Africa. If this is the attitude they are instilling into Whites, into good, peace-loving people in South Africa, then I fear for the future of South Africa. I think it is time we stated clearly that what the CP is doing and what it is involved in is endangering our future in South Africa. I put it to the hon. member for Rissik that they will not be able to satisfy the expectations which they are creating among the great majority of their supporters. They will not be able to satisfy the expectations which they are creating among the great majority of their supporters, except if they proceed from the standpoint of racial or colour prejudice. I ask the hon. member for Rissik whether he is opposed to a Coloured person conducting a religious service on television. Is he opposed to it?

Of course he can do so before his own people.

I am asking the hon. member a simple question: Is he opposed to a Coloured conducting a religious service on television under the present circumstances? [Interjections.] The hon. member is a theologian, so he should be able to reply to this question. He has only to say “Yes” or “No”.

I respect the ruling of the Chair. [Interjections.]

The hon. member should remember in future that he says he respects the ruling of the Chair. The hon. member knows what I mean by that.

In a debate on 11 May this year, the hon. member for Brakpan said that the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information, who is responsible for the SABC, should please do something to ensure that Coloured persons would no longer conduct religious services on television. He said that people were asking for a stop to be put to this. What attitude is he conveying? The point is that if the hon. member for Rissik is opposed to this, he is presenting himself as a person who is driven by racial prejudice. If the hon. member for Rissik replies to that question in the negative, he will not be saying what his supporters want to hear. The question is what the responsibility is which rests on us all to cultivate an attitude in South Africa which will enable us to prevent revolution, to prevent repetition of the 1976 riots and to ensure our survival in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege for me to speak after the hon. member for Johannesburg West, because he succeeded in stripping hon. members of the CP of their thin layer of veneer tonight and in showing them up for what they are. The hon. member for Johannesburg West exposed the political fraud tonight which hon. members of the CP are perpetrating upon the people of this country.

Before I go any further, I want to say that this is a very historical discussion which we are conducting on this Vote. This is the first time this Vote has been discussed in this House, as the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning was only recently established. I should very much like to convey my good wishes to the hon. the Minister, the Director-General and the officials of this department for the work they are doing in performing a task which must be one of the most difficult and most important tasks resting on the shoulders of this Government today.

Like the previous speaker, I should also like to address the hon. member for Rissik and his henchmen. I want to endorse what the hon. member Mr. Van Staden said this afternoon. The hon. member Mr. Van Staden quoted from the programme of principles of the NP, and I want to do the same, because the hon. members of the CP sat in the NP under false pretences for many years. They subscribed to certain principles. When the time came for them to make a choice for South Africa, they did not have the political or the moral courage to co-operate in solving South Africa’s problems. I quote article 2.2 of the principles to which they subscribed over the years, as follows—

Section 3 reads as follows—

We are engaged in a process today which began 70 years ago when the NP was founded. The Department of Constitutional Development and Planning is the cultivation today of constitutional development which has been, taking place in South Africa over the past 70 years, development in which those hon. members participated, but which, because of their own political frustrations, they are no longer prepared to support. The hon. members of the CP are the hitch-hikers of South African politics, especially the hon. member for Rissik, since this is the third party he has belonged to. They are the hitch-hikers of South African politics. They wax very eloquent in this House about the White man and they walk from house to house and from platform to platform shouting nothing but “White man, White man, White man!”. However, they have never understood what the principles of the NP have been since its inception. The hon. the Prime Minister said a very important thing at the federal congress of the NP in Bloemfontein, something which really gave me food for thought. He said that the greatest danger to the survival of the Whites in South Africa lay in the fact that some Whites showed a reluctance to carry out their responsibility to South Africa. Since its inception, the NP has set itself an ideal and an objective, and the party was born out of a love for its own heritage and for this fatherland. We are not ashamed today of the fact that we as Whites have to provide the leadership in this country. We are the guardians of other peoples living in this country and we are prepared to carry out our responsibility to South Africa. One can only carry out one’s responsibility to South Africa by recognizing one’s responsibility in respect of the Blacks as well, because, as has been pointed out in this House, the process of constitutional development for the Blacks in this country has been going on for years. One cannot solve South Africa’s problems until one has solved that problem. One cannot solve the problems of South Africa until one has solved the problems of the Asian or the Coloured. Only when we have solved the problems of all these peoples and population groups in this country shall we be able to say that we have carried out our responsibility to South Africa. The hon. members of the CP are not prepared to carry out that responsibility. The hon. member for Rissik made some quotations here this afternoon and tried to hang albatrosses around the neck of the NP. They quote the words of Dr. Crocker and Mr. Huntington in this House as though they represented the policy of the NP and as though we were being forced in a certain direction by those people.

I endorse what was said in this connection by the hon. member for Johannesburg West. The NP has accepted responsibility for South Africa since its inception, and it will carry out that responsibility. It will not allow itself to be pressurized by people from outside. Least of all will it allow itself to be pressurized by the hon. members of the CP and by the kind of writings which we are getting from Ermelo at the moment and the writing which the hon. member for Rissik presented to us tonight. The solutions for South Africa are to be found in South Africa and we shall find the solutions to those problems in this country. But what is the CP doing? The CP is still trying to justify its political betrayal of the NP. They are always dragging in by the hair the terms “power-sharing”, “mixed government” and “multiracialism”. These things are not even at issue. These are things with which they want to confuse people in these difficult days which lie ahead for us. However, we in the NP say that we are prepared to accept co-responsibility with fellow-citizens of colour in South Africa. We shall share that responsibility with them, and we shall do so for the sake of South Africa.

I conclude with the words—I suppose we could call it the slogan—of the leader of the NP, the hon. the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa, where he said: “Forward into the future with faith and courage, without fear.”

Mr. Chairman, I suppose the hon. member for Kroonstad and the hon. member for Johannesburg West will not take it amiss of me if I do not react to their speeches. However, I shall refer briefly in the course of my speech to what the hon. member for Klip River and the hon. member for Randfontein said in their speeches. In addition, I just want to add my good wishes to those that have already been conveyed to the hon. the Minister and his department on this occasion tonight where we are able to discuss the Vote and the activities of this department for the first time. I want to convey my appreciation to the department for the very interesting report which has been made available to us this year.

There are a few aspects in this connection which I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. The first one is in connection with the Central Statistical Services. Although I am naturally impressed by the Central Statistical Services of the department, I do believe that a problem exists in that many of the statistics do not include the essential data with regard to the four independent States, Transkei, Ciskei, Venda and Bophuthatswana. In spite of the fact that those States are independent, their economic and other interests are in many respects still intertwined with those of the Republic. Therefore I wish to suggest that some of our statistical services should provide for the inclusion of data relating to those four independent States.

I was impressed by all the activities of the department and also, among other things, by its scientific planning. I must say, however, that I do not know where the hon. the Minister and the Cabinet are going to find the opportunity and the time to study and digest all those reports. They have my best wishes in this respect, in any event. I hope things will work out for them.

In this connection I also wish to express the hope that a considerable proportion of these reports will be made available by the hon. the Minister and the department to all hon. members of this House. I believe that in this way, a real service can be rendered in raising the level of debate on all those important aspects in this House.

If it is possible, this will be done.

I should really be pleased if this could be done.

Then I should like to comment more specifically, Mr. Chairman, on a paragraph in connection with the constitutional planning—paragraph 119—in which the position of Blacks is dealt with. I also want to refer in passing to paragraph 117 up to and including paragraph 123. In paragraph 119 it says—

I do not want to quote any further, Mr. Chairman. I just want to point out that these are aprioristic assumptions. I do not expect this from scientists. I do not expect them to mention aprioristic assumptions of this nature in a paragraph dealing with a scientific subject such as a constitutional structure. I want to make it clear that I regard this as completely unscientific, and that in my opinion it is not justifiable.

However, I was interested in the statement made in paragraph 122 with regard to the urban Blacks in the Republic. In that paragraph it says that discussions will also have to take place in the very short-term with the elected representatives of these Blacks. I should be gratified if the hon. the Minister would indicate to us in the course of this debate how he proposes that discussions should take place with the elected representatives of the Blacks in the Republic of South Africa. Having said that, I want to repeat that I appreciate this report. I am also concerned about the position in respect of professional staff in particular and about the large number of vacancies which exist in the department.

I come now to a remark made by the hon. the Minister at the end of the Second Reading debate, when he referred, among other things, to my own contribution in politics. I am old enough and I have been in politics long enough not to worry about what other people have to say about my contribution or lack of it. I have only one criterion, and that is that I act in accordance with what I consider to be right. Other people may regard my contribution as insignificant, but to me that is not a criterion. I just want to tell the hon. the Minister—the hon. the Leader of the Opposition came back to this question this afternoon—that this has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of an argument.

As regards the question of the President’s not having to resign if a motion of no confidence in him is passed, I take it amiss of the hon. the Minister that he should have said that I had obviously not read the Bill. I have studied the Bill very carefully, and I want to tell him that he is wrong, because the Bill does not provide for the President to resign when a motion of no confidence …

I said the conventions had been retained. Do you not understand that?

Just wait a minute. The hon. the Minister told me that I was wrong on this particular point. The President is relieved of his office through the normal constitutional process, the legal process. He does not resign—that is the point. I only said that the Bill did not provide for his resignation when a motion of no confidence in him was passed. There is a material difference, a fundamental difference, between the position when a man has to resign and when he is relieved of his office through the operation of a law. That is all I want to say to the hon. the Minister.

The hon. member for Randfontein said, with reference to the speech made by the hon. member for Green Point, that he got the impression that we were afraid that the Coloureds wanted to co-operate with the Government and its proposals. Now a symposium has been held at Stellenbosch—I just want to say in passing that I appreciate the conduct at that symposium of a member of the hon. the Minister’s staff, Dr. Cloete—and if the hon. member for Randfontein had been there and had heard what Mr. Curry, Mr. Julius of the Volksparty, and Mr. Pieter Marais of COPE had to say about their total, unanimous rejection of the foundation of the Government’s policy and proposals, the hon. member for Randfontein would not have made that remark, which I regard as a most irresponsible one.

The hon. member for Randfontein also talked about the Westminster system. I wish we could get some clarity about what we are to understand under the Westminster system, because it was clear from the hon. member’s speech that he is confused. The proportional system has nothing to do with the principle of winner-takes-all. There are many countries in the world where the proportional system applies and where the system of winner-takes-all also applies, such as Israel. I just want to tell the hon. member for Randfontein and other hon. members that it is time we decided what we should understand under the concept of the Westminster system.

Then I want to refer to the hon. member for Klip River as well. It has become customary in this House for hon. members to make use of certain terms. All the new references to “own affairs” and “general affairs” actually constitute a kind of terminology which I consider to be completely foreign to politics and which does not belong in politics. Other concepts which are used in this House are “tenable” and “attainable”. Everything is now being judged in terms of what is tenable and attainable. The hon. member for Klip River kept saying in his speech that this was attainable and that was unattainable. On what basis is it attainable? The mere statement that something is attainable or is not attainable does not tell us anything. Only when we say that something is not attainable for this or that reason does it have any merit. However, simply to dismiss something by saying that it is not attainable within the context of our situation quite honestly means less than nothing. I say this with all due respect.

The hon. member for Klip River spoke about the need to preserve one’s identity and linked this to the new constitutional proposals. I have often asked, and I now want to ask the hon. member for Klip River, what political rights have to do with preserving the identity of a group. Political rights have nothing to do with that. The Indian group has had no political rights in South Africa. The Hindu group and the Moslem group have never had any problems in preserving their own identity.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the hon. member whether the fact that the Indians in South Africa have preserved their identity is not due to the very fact that a White Government is in power here?

Surely the hon. member knows that it has nothing to do with that. The identity of a people is certainly threatened when the very existence of that people is threatened. When a people is exterminated or dispersed, that is a different matter. However, the identity of a people is a matter which lies within the people itself and it lies in the willingness of the people itself to preserve its identity. Really and truly, the NP must not tell me that it is seeking to justify these constitutional proposals on the basis of a desire to preserve anyone’s identity.

I want to go further. Even if we accept—I have asked this question repeatedly, and I am waiting for a reply from the hon. the Minister or the hon. member for Klip River—that it was a question of identity, what is the identity of the Coloured which has to be protected and preserved by means of these constitutional proposals? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member Prof. Olivier has made a very ill-considered speech, in my opinion, in which he attacked various people and tried to defend himself against the criticism of the hon. the Minister. He quoted all kinds of superficial examples, such as the use of new words like “attainable”, “untenable”, and so on. Surely it is a simple fact in politics that certain things are possible, for very good reasons, while other things are not possible, for very good reasons. Surely the hon. member cannot expect one to examine this matter in detail within the scope of a 10minute speech, as he was also unable to do. He made the statement, for example, that a certain paragraph of the report was unscientific, in his opinion, but he also failed to tell us why he regarded it as unscientific. If he makes that kind of allegation against the hon. member for Klip River, I think he should prove his statements in this House.

We on this side of the House have stated our policy very clearly in the debate on the draft constitution, in the debates on all the various Votes, including that of the hon. the Prime Minister, and we have indicated what is possible and what is not possible. I want to tell that hon. member that one of the things which are not possible in South Africa is for his party to come into power under the present constitutional dispensation. The White voters are not prepared to vote for a party of which they have a certain mental image, namely that of a party under whose policy they will have no future. This is one of the things that are not possible.

Just give us equal time on television. [Interjections.]

I do not quite understand what the hon. member means. In any event, I do not see what television has to do with a constitutional debate. It has absolutely nothing to do with this debate, and the hon. member knows that. That kind of remark is just as superficial as the kind of speech he made in this House.

The hon. member wanted to know from the hon. the Minister how he was going to negotiate with the elected representatives of Black people outside the national States. That hon. member knows that elected community councils already exist in various parts of South Africa. He also knows that legislation has already been passed in terms of which the various Black urban communities can obtain full autonomy at the local level, that these elections are going to be held in October, that people are going to be elected and that one will be able to negotiate with those people just as one can negotiate with anyone else. Therefore I do not know what that party is trying to suggest. They think there is only one form of negotiation, and that is a national convention—a multilateral tower of Babel. Any other form of bilateral negotiation does not exist for those people. I also want to tell that party that they, just like the CP and most other opposition parties in the history of South Africa since Union in 1910, have made no contribution to the constitutional development of South Africa. Every important constitutional development in this country has been initiated by the NP. Historically, the NP has been the only vehicle of constitutional development in this country up to this day. Just think of the role played by Gen. Hertzog at the Imperial Conference in 1926, which led to the Statute of Westminster, in terms of which the dominions, including South Africa, obtained their sovereignty. This was an important constitutional advance. The hon. member Prof. Olivier should also bear in mind that the Republic, another important constitutional advance in this country, was brought about by the NP. The conferral of self-government upon various Black peoples and the granting of independence to four of them were drastic constitutional changes initiated by this party, the NP. I ask: What did the old United Party, the PFP or any other party contribute to this very important constitutional development process? They simply boycott and criticize everything and make no positive contribution. Looking at this kind of conduct on the part of Opposition parties, I must say that it really astonishes me that the PFP and the CP, having completely rejected the draft constitution of the Republic of South Africa and asked that the Bill be read this day six months, should still have the temerity to sit on the Select Committee on the Constitution. I simply cannot find any moral justification for such a standpoint.

The granting of independence to some Black States and of self-government to others were important steps forward—a drastic constitutional change—in terms of the policy of separate development, a policy designed, developed and refined by this party. I say to the CP they will not succeed in stealing this policy of the NP and distorting it into a caricature which offers no future for anyone in this country. Now I come to another thing which is impossible. While it is possible to designate traditional areas for the various Black peoples because of their historical pattern of settlement, it is not possible to designate any such areas for Coloured people and Asians. Therefore I say to the hon. member Prof. Olivier that this is another thing which is not possible, which is not attainable and which will not be tenable in South Africa. The CP knows that there is no historic foundation or basis in principle for their fantasy of imaginary, independent states for Coloureds and Asians. They know it is absolutely impossible. They also know that it is not practicable. Nevertheless, because they have become an Opposition party, they are being just as irresponsible as all the other Opposition parties. I now want to level the charge at them that they do not care what the future holds for South Africa. They do not care at all. They engage in irresponsible politics, popular politics, in an attempt to gain a few votes, and they do not care if the constitutional development, the security and the future of all who live in this country, including the Whites, are destroyed. Therefore I want to warn the CP that just as it is impossible for the PFP to come into power in this country, it is impossible for them too. They cannot make any constitutional changes, nor can they make any contribution, with their philosophies and their irresponsible politicking, to the constitutional development of this country. They are doomed to play the role of a small minority party, just as all the other boycott and irresponsible parties which have failed as Opposition parties in this country are doomed.

Mr. Chairman, when the history of Southern Africa during the second half of this century comes to be written, a special chapter will probably have to be devoted to the untiring efforts of this hon. Minister whose Vote we are discussing today, to the gigantic task he has performed over the past few years and months in order to accommodate, within the total constitutional development process of South Africa, the two population groups in our country that have not been properly provided for in the past. Precisely because such an enormous amount of time and trouble and attention has been devoted by this department in recent months and years to consultations and negotiations in order to give final shape to this new dispensation which is drawing near in South Africa and to do so in consultation with the Coloured and Asian populations of South Africa, it is indeed regrettable that one can find no means of persuading the two main Opposition parties in this Parliament to debate this question which is at issue—the question of the future of the Coloured and Indian populations—and that each of them in its own way insists on dragging in the position of the Blacks in South Africa. While the measure which has been referred to a Select Committee does not deal with the constitutional position of the Black people as such, both the official Opposition and the CP insist on dragging the Blacks into this whole debate. I want to suggest that there is no better illustration of the absolute inability of the official Opposition and of the CP to address the problem of the Coloured and Asian population groups in this country than their inability to confine themselves to this one matter.

What do the Coloureds and Indians have to say about it?

When the official Opposition sets out its objections to the proposed new dispensation for our country, its very first objection is the fact that this dispensation allegedly fails to provide for the Black people of South Africa. They are still trying to propagate the erroneous idea that the constitutional future of the Black peoples of South Africa must necessarily be the same as or analogous to that of the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians. The official Opposition knows very well that if it confined itself to the Coloureds and the Indians and their future in its debate on this future dispensation, it would have no hope of enlisting the support of its own followers. It knows very well that even the most leftist PFP supporters will agree that even within their own approach to matters, there has been progress in the constitutional field. Now it has to rely on attempts to frighten the White, Coloured and Asian populations with talk of retribution and the vengeance which will supposedly be wreaked upon them by the Black people in South Africa. In this way, the official Opposition is trying to tell the Coloured and Asian population groups that they must refrain from participating in this new dispensation, while they themselves have always demanded the right to participate in this parliamentary system of ours. What the official Opposition is really telling the Coloureds and Indians of South Africa is that if they themselves need medical treatment, they must refuse to undergo such medical treatment unless the person next to them is treated first. Therefore they must give priority to the position of another group before attention can be given to their own legitimate needs. Provision must first be made for someone else.

The official Opposition knows very well that by using the Black people as a football in this whole debate on the future constitutional dispensation for Whites, Coloureds and Asians, they are holding out prospects to the Black peoples in Southern Africa which they have never had. They know very well that even when the Constitution of the Union of South Africa was drafted in 1909, a different dispensation was proposed for the Black peoples of South Africa. Even in the 1909 Constitution, provision was made for Blacks to be under the direct control of the Governor-General at that time and subsequently of the State President.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Sir, I am sorry; my time is very limited.

The hon. members of the official Opposition know that all Governments since 1910 have advocated a totally different constitutional future for the Black peoples of South Africa. Accordingly, the direction in which they have moved with regard to the Black peoples has also been totally different from that in respect of Whites, Coloureds and Indians. What is even more important is that hon. members of the official Opposition also know that their whole argument about the question of whether the Black peoples should be accommodated within the unitary state concept which, for the sake of convenience, we call White South Africa, was lost 30 years ago when the representation of Blacks in Parliament was abolished, to be replaced by the homelands development concept, which has culminated today in sovereign independent national States and self-governing homelands. That argument was lost 30 years ago, but in spite of that, the official Opposition is still trying to propagate the erroneous idea that the constitutional future of the Blacks should be the same as that of the other population groups in the country.

In the same way, but from a completely different point of view, the CP is trying to run away from the question of the future of the Coloured and Indian population groups. When the hon. members of that party go to the voters, as they did recently, their primary objective is not to tell the voters about the merits of their so-called homeland policy for those people. As far as the voters are concerned, the Coloureds and Indians may as well not exist, for all practical purposes, because the CP consistently tries to create the impression among its voters that the new dispensation which we advocate is only the beginning of a similar dispensation for Blacks.

The hon. members of the CP, and specifically the hon. member for Kuruman, waxed eloquent in the Second Reading debate on the Appropriation Bill about the wonderful progress which the Government had made with Black homeland development and the constitutional development of Black peoples, using this as an example of the way in which they want to work out Coloured and Indian policy [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, before I start with what I have to say, I would like, if I may, to crave the indulgence of this House on a matter of personal explanation. In respect of a speech I made previously, it has been brought to my notice that a certain sentence I used could be construed as impugning the personal integrity of the hon. the Minister. I want to make it clear that it was never my intention to do that. It was perhaps an unfortunate way of expressing my view that we had different ways of interpreting opinions on statements that have been made. I can assure the hon. the Minister that it was never my intention to impugn his personal integrity.

I want to congratulate Dr. Du Plessis on his appointment as Director-General of Constitutional Development find Planning. I think that he and his officials have a terrific job. I do not know whether they will ever resolve all their problems in our lifetimes, but I do sincerely believe that they will make a very good effort to do so. To find solutions in a country such as South Africa where we have diverse societies with diverse stages of evolution and very substantial differences in cultures, is going to be a job requiring the wisdom of Solomon. I hope that Dr. Du Plessis has that kind of wisdom.

On studying the report, one finds that this department has the same sort of problem which it seems most other State departments have, namely a terrible staff shortage. In some instances the shortage is approximately 50%. Quite obviously it is going to make the job impossible if the necessary staff, and well-trained staff, cannot be obtained. When one looks at the situation, and particularly in respect of planners, it is worse than it looks, because whilst it generally seems as if the staff position has been maintained with regard to numbers, experienced people are in fact leaving the department and inexperienced people are being appointed. I am afraid that if we do not have adequately trained staff, particularly in this sort of work, the job is going to be quite impossible. I would therefore suggest that the hon. the Minister and the Director-General may possibly have seriously to consider reviewing their priorities. Some of their activities may not be of such vital importance and they could perhaps be put on the shelf for a while. I cannot help but feel that it is far better to do fewer jobs properly than a whole lot of jobs not so well. I realize, of course, that some jobs cannot easily be put aside.

I noticed in this regard that in the economic planning section there is a variety of subjects under consideration, for example, the demand for housing in South Africa. Those of us who are interested in housing matters know that there have been an enormous number of studies on housing, and that there is a chronic shortage of all types of housing in all parts of the country for all population groups. I cannot help but feel that it might be superfluous at this stage to spend time on this sort of study when we know that we can put up housing of any sort almost anywhere and that they will still be needed and occupied. This is the sort of thing I mean when I suggest that we should perhaps give consideration to cutting out certain jobs and reviewing our priorities. In respect of physical planning, of course, this is work that is greatly needed and is in fact essential. It is appreciated that those operations that involve demography and the decentralization of commerce and industry are points that are going to have to be studied if we are going to achieve any particular success for the future of our country.

In respect of social planning there is one point that I found rather intriguing. I am not quite sure what it means. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can indicate at some stage what it is. I am referring to a national population policy. I am not quite sure what that can mean. No explanation of any consequence is given in the report, but it does sound very interesting. Perhaps we are going to have more or fewer people and move them from one place to another. I believe it would be quite interesting to know what it is.

A little further on in the report I saw another interesting item in respect of different styles of low-cost housing. Here again, there are universities all over the country that are working on this. Surely it should not be necessary for State departments to be working on this as well? One cannot help but feel that we are perhaps devoting time to subjects that are not strictly necessary.

In so far as central statistics are concerned, quite obviously a country does require statistics, particularly in respect of the population register and matters of that kind. We completed a population register in 1980 and this information is not yet fully computerized, but already we are talking about another population register in 1985. As I understand the position, it is not normal to have population registries at such frequent intervals. They are very expensive and if we have a shortage of staff, possibly this is something else that could well be delayed.

Constitutional development and planning is also an extremely important area and already the department has presented—through the hon. the Minister, of course—two Bills that have been to say the least, mildly controversial. There are obviously going to be others. I am referring, of course, to the Republic of South Africa Constitution Bill and the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Bill.

At this stage I would like to see whether it is possible to clear up one difficulty that I believe many of us have, and that is a positive interpretation and definition of what is meant by “in consultation with” a body. This is a point about which I feel rather strongly. I really do wish that we could get some clarity on this matter because it has been suggested to me—in fact, this has been the experience that I myself have had—that “in consultation with” means that one is called to see somebody and one is told what they are going to do. That constitutes consultation. As far as I am concerned that does not constitute consultation. That constitutes telling somebody what you are going to do. I really do believe that consultation, particularly in respect of the executive committee of a province—and I believe I can talk with some small authority in this regard—should mean that the executive committee member first dealing with the subject is given the background and information and he is told what is proposed and a discussion is held with him. However, Executive Committee members do not work as individual Ministers. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I shall not react directly to the speech made by the hon. member for Umbilo. However, I wish to express my appreciation to him for the fact that he set one matter straight, the matter concerning certain remarks he made here earlier today in another debate.

The NP has been governing South Africa for the past 35 years, and I should just like to point out a few dates which are significant. I wish to indicate that what we are experiencing in our country at this juncture on the part of the Opposition parties is not unfamiliar at all. Indeed, I shall confirm this during the course of my speech.

In the first place I should like to refer to what the late Gen. Botha said in 1913, and I quite him as follows—

Gen. Hertzog himself said, and I quote him—

In 1959 the Promotion of Bantu Self-government Bill was introduced here in the House of Assembly. In the debate on that Bill we witnessed exactly the same behaviour on the part of the official Opposition as we again experience here today. The then Leader of the official Opposition at that time also opposed that Bill at its introduction. The official Opposition in those days—and some of the then hon. members of that party are still sitting in this House today—moved an amendment in which they proposed that the House declined to grant leave to introduce the Bill. Their motivation for that behaviour of theirs was that South Africa would in that way be steered in a direction which would lead to the destruction of the Union, and would turn out to be fatal for the future of the people of South Africa.

The reaction of the then Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, to the attitude of the United Party was that the Government intended to proceed to give the Black people in this country self-government.

If we observe what happened afterwards, we note that the NP Government granted self-government to Black States, self-government which in due course blossomed into full independence. I should like to know from the Opposition parties in this House whether they are of the opinion that a single one of those Black leaders of the independent States is prepared or will be prepared to give up their independence. How did the then official Opposition therefore arrive at their arguments that the Black people did not have the ability to govern themselves? Hon. members will still remember that the last hon. member who represented the Black people in this House was Mrs. Margaret Ballinger. In her last speech here in the House she said in regard to the granting of self-government to the Black people that this was the shortest route to disaster in South Africa. In spite of that the NP proceeded in a positive way to do exactly that.

I want to pause at another date, namely 11 March 1960, when a Referendum Bill was introduced in this House, for the purpose of holding a referendum to test the will of the nation with a view to the establishment of a Republic in South Africa. On that occasion, too, the then official Opposition party adopted precisely the same standpoint here. Not only the United Party, but also the Progressive Party, were opposed to the introduction of that Bill.

So what is happening now, while we are in the process of planning a new political and constitutional dispensation for South Africa, is not familiar at all. I do not wish to try to cover the whole field now. It began with the report of the Erika Theron Commission. Hon. members know the subsequent course of events.

The conduct of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in the House this afternoon was once again merely a reflection of the conduct of that Opposition party as a whole when it comes to constitutional development in the Republic of South Africa. The NP, however, will continue to take the decisions in the interests of all the inhabitants of the Republic of South Africa.

The time has come for every reasonable South African to devote himself purposefully to seeking answers for our unsolved problems and to building the future of a satisfied community in this wonderful country of ours. If we fail in our task we shall be leaving the future Republic of South Africa and our descendants in the lurch. I am asking every South African of goodwill to help accomplish this task. We must be prepared to do more for our country than for our hatred and prejudices. There is so much for which we can work in this country and for which we can be grateful. Let us arrange our priorities correctly. Let us serve our country with devotion and dispel all doubts with courage and faith. We must move away from conflict. We must move in the direction of consensus. Continuous consultation and negotiation among all the population groups are considered to be the only way in which constitutional reform can be successfully pursued.

There are flames leaping high in the world, but those flames are also clearly visible in the Republic of South Africa. For example, there are the flames of communism, the flames of terrorism and the flames of revolution. There are flames of hatred, envy, dissension, malice and suspicion. Those flames are also being fanned in our own country. There is the marring of sound relations, mistrust and conflict. My question to all the parties in this House is this: Are you, through your conduct, fanning those flames, or do you wish to join us in extinguishing those flames? If they are fanning those flames, I want to tell them that the price which all of us in this country will pay, will be incalculable. I wish to make an appeal to every well-disposed, reasonable, right-minded South African of goodwill to help build on a structure within which all South Africans can live, a structure according to an approved plan with prescribed materials, using the building blocks of law and order, labour, peace and faith, hope, love, trust, understanding, sacrifice, tolerance, sound relations and sound attitudes towards one another. As reward I can assure all the inhabitants of the Republic of South Africa that they will have peace and prosperity.

I want to conclude with this entreaty: May we be given the courage to change the things we can change; may we be given the calmness to accept the things we cannot change; and, most important of all, may we be given the wisdom to be able at all times to distinguish between the two.

Mr. Chairman there is not much I wish to react to in respect of what the hon. member for Witbank said. I have no problem with the historical survey he furnished in connection with the Black people. He said that the official Opposition had adopted the standpoint in 1959 that Black people did not have the ability to govern themselves. In this connection I only wish to say that I am convinced that the NP adopts the same attitude today in respect of the Coloureds and the Indians. They give one to understand that those people also do not have the ability to govern themselves within their own territories. The hon. member for Witbank also said that we should move away from conflict. I am in complete agreement with him. But the way to move away from conflict is to move towards separation.

At least two hon. members on the Government side referred earlier this evening to article 3 of the principles of the NP which begin with the words “fair and equal treatment”, and what follows. On the basis of those principles they then tried to nail the CP to the cross and at the same time justify in those terms their own new policy of power-sharing, of racially-mixed government and of political integration. Surely that article was not written into the principles of the NP yesterday or the day before. The article as it stands there has been part of the principles of the NP for decades. Under that article the NP came into power in 1948 with its policy of apartheid, which subsequently became known as separate development. Under that article the NP created an independent country and government of their own for each of the various Black peoples. While that article applied as a principle of the NP, the NP Government abolished representation of the Blacks in the House of Assembly. Under that article the NP removed the Coloureds from the common voters’ roll. Under that article the NP removed Coloured representation from this Parliament. Under that article Advocate Strijdom said: “Baasskap van die Blankes oor homself in sy eie gebied”. On what basis is it now being said that article represents justification for the new policy of the NP and that it justifies accusing the CP of having deviated from that principle and therefore being nailed to the cross?

The hon. member for Randfontein referred earlier this evening to the need for the NP, in the present situation, to move away from the Westminster System. He said that drastic adaptations had to come about. He referred inter alia to a single state community of Whites, Coloureds and Indians within which common interests and group interests were to be promoted. When the NP came into power in 1948 there was a single state community in this country, in which the Black people were also involved. From within this single state community, which included the Blacks, the NP began a process of disengagement in terms of which it disengaged the Black peoples one by one and gave them their homelands, and eventually to four of them their own independent States. What remained in this process of disengagement were the Whites, Coloured and Indians. These three groups have consistently been regarded by the NP Government as separate groups. Whites—it does not matter how many components comprise this group—are considered to be one group. All Coloured persons are considered to be one group and all Indians to be another group. In its own new dispensation the NP is at present making provision for the continued existence of these three distinct groups. According to the policy of the CP, this process of disengagement must be continued so that the component parts of this single state community of Whites, Coloureds and Indians will also be disengaged, so that each group will have its own territory within which it will be able to govern itself and retain its self-determination. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Innesdal said that we must rise above our present circumstances and that we must look at South Africa in its entirety. He said we should have an overall vision of South Africa, as the world sees us. For 33 years the NP with its policy of separate development took an overall look at its own situation, in its entirety and as part of the vision it had of the total situation in South Africa, it disengaged ten Black peoples, and what remained were the three population groups that still had to be disengaged. In 1977 the NP was occupied with this process of disengagement and if it had not been for the adversity which it met with from the Coloured and Indians along the way, that process of disengagement would already have been a long way towards completion.

In a debate in this House on 18 May 1983, in column 7396 of Hansard, the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning said that this new constitution plan was concerned with the reconciliation of conflicting interests and aspirations. In other words, this plan is the means in hand of bringing about reconciliation among various population groups. Now, however, only the Whites, Coloureds and Indians are being involved and we are attached when we ask what the position in respect of the Blacks is. Are they not also part of this reconciliation process among people? I am asking this specifically because the hon. the Minister described this reconciliation as a Christian reconciliation. But when Rev. Hendrickse makes certain statements in these circumstances, how are these to be reconciled with Christian reconciliation? He says: “The new Constitutional Bill is a point of departure rather than a place of arrival”. In other words, this plan is to his way of thinking not an end-product but merely the beginning of the road he wishes to follow towards the attainment of “one man, one vote” in a unitary State. That is his destination. [Interjections.] I have nothing to do with the official Opposition now, and I am merely referring to what Rev. Hendrickse said. If this was his standpoint and if it conflicts with the standpoint of the NP today, how is the NP going to bring about reconciliation? I also want to put this question to the hon. the Minister: When that hon. gentleman says: “The Coloured people will certainly not accept the flag as a symbol of unity. It will remain a symbol of oppression and dispossession”, how are they going to bring about reconciliation when he rejects our flag?

In addition there is the national anthem. While arguments are raging and hairs are being split over the concept of “people” (volk), of what people will that be the national anthem in the new dispensation? Reverend Hendrickse has the following to say about the fourth verse of the national anthem: “Our children can never say that the heritage of our fathers remains the heritage of our children”. They cannot say it, and are not prepared to accept it. Can there be reconciliation concerning these symbols of ours with this man who says in advance that he cannot accept these things and rejects them? We must be careful not to assume Christian reconciliation to mean that it is a reconciliation which can be brought about among all people. Christian reconciliation is only possible within the context of Christianity. Only people who are reconciled in Christ can really be reconciled with one another on a Christian basis, and I am not the only one who says this. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Koedoespoort and I get along well together. We do not have many problems with one another, except that in politics we do not speak the same language. This evening the hon. member referred at length to all the rights of the Blacks, Coloureds and Indians which had been abolished over the years and in the course of the constitutional development of our country. However, he did not add that every right of which people were deprived was replaced with something better. Perhaps this was not done to the satisfaction of all. Perhaps this was not the best arrangement that prevailed, but every right that was abolished was replaced with something better.

Another problem I have with the hon. member and the members of his party is that they have now established a new party and have hijacked, to serve their own political self-interest, all the former leaders of the NP from Gen. Hertzog right down to Adv. Vorster. What is more, they are also hijacking the policy of the NP and telling the public that this is their policy now and that the NP has another policy. That party appeals to the statement of former leaders of the NP and then appropriates those statements. During the by-elections we saw the slogans: “Vertikale differensiasie” or “Differensiasie: Stem KP, stem vir differensiasie”. However, vertical differentiation or separate development is still the policy of the NP. [Interjections.] Of course it is, in respect of the Coloureds as well.

What does the blue booklet say?

I say it. [Interjections.] It is what the NP also says.

Do you disagree with the blue booklet?

The blue booklet does not contain the official standpoint of the NP. [Interjections.] The policy of the NP is the policy of separate development. Each of the population groups in this country will develop separately, as is the case with the Whites, the Coloureds and the Asians. In their own group areas, these peoples or community sectors will develop, they will elect their leaders and here in the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa those leaders will assemble. They will govern their own communities in regard to their own affairs that are of importance to those communities. In addition they will also manage those affairs which are of common interest jointly.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort had a great deal to say about Rev. Hendrickse, as if what Rev. Hendrickse said were the alpha and the omega. The Coloured residential area of Pretoria is situated in that hon. member’s own constituency.

It is not situated in my constituency.

Well, if it is not situated in the constituency of the hon. member for Koedoespoort, then it is situated in the Roodeplaat constituency. In any event it is very close. Has that hon. member ever been present at Eersterus on Republic Day?

Have you ever been there?

Yes, I have. I am asking whether the hon. member has ever been there when the Coloureds hoisted the national flag and sang the national anthem. [Interjections.] Yes, that was also the case in Soweto. Was that hon. member ever present on such an occasion in Soweto? [Interjections.] No, he was never there. We must not pretend that the Coloureds and the Indians are not also citizens of this country. We must not make statements implying that these people do not also have a right to be in this country, as if these people do not, together with the Whites, have interests here which have to be served jointly. To the Coloured, the Indian, the hon. member for Rissik and myself, this country is our fatherland. Because it is our fatherland we all have common interests that have to be served. The hon. members of the CP must give me an answer to this question: If all of us pay tax which is paid into one State Exchequer, while only the Whites decide how that tax is to be applied …

We shall apply it for them in their own country.

Oh, the CP will do it themselves; the CP will do it for them in their own country, because the CP determines where their own country will be. The CP determines what the taxation will be and the CP determines what kind of houses they will have. The CP determines where they will be built and who will live in them. The CP determines who will immigrate thence, and who will not.

I want to say a few words about the Indians, because the Indians are being presented as the absolute Antichrist, who live only in Natal. These people do not live from Dan to Beersheba; they live in this country from Baardskeerdersbos to Hessie-se-water. In Bredasdorp there are three Indians, in Louis Trichardt, 508; in Schweizer-Reneke, 113; in Empangeni, 415; in Malmesbury 63 …

And in Hercules?

There are two Indians living in Hercules. In Nelspruit there are 714; in Richard’s Bay, 207; and 405 in Lichtenburg.

To what church do these people belong? Of the 821 000 Indians living in this country, 102 500 are Christians. [Interjections.]

Order!

580 of those Christians are members of the Gereformeerde Kerk; consequently there are 580 Doppers. [Interjections.] What is more: 40 of them—for what reason I do not know—are members of the Jewish faith. [Interjections.] 2 240 are members of the N.G. Kerk. What is very interesting, is that there are far more Whites who belong to no church at all then there are Indians who do not belong to any church.

The Indians of our country are a peaceful community that bothers no one, and they have for many years now been friends of the Whites and particularly of the Afrikaners. They are people who as a group have the lowest crime statistics. They do not consume alcohol and are therefore not guilty of excessive drinking. They have no divorce rate at all. If one wants to talk about conservative, then the Indian community of this country is conservative.

Mr. Chairman, during the course of the debate someone said the CPs had been driven past a certain place until they came to a hole. I do not know where that hole is, but it reminds me of the old story about the man who sold holes. He turned up regularly with his lorry and loaded up the holes. He loaded up one hole after another to take away and sell. Then one night he himself drove straight into a hole, and that was the end of him. This reminded me a great deal of the CP, but I do not know whether that hole to which they have been driven is big enough for all of them; nevertheless, I am certain that they are going to fall into one hole or another.

To me the new constitution is a point of departure, just as it is for Rev. Hendrickse. I am saying this for the information of the hon. member for Koedoespoort. I think the kudus are probably down with scabies there. Not only is it a point of departure for me, but is a movement out of the political morasse in which we had become bogged down, in which we were stagnating and in which we have been stuck for years without being able to move. To me this new constitution is a joyful event, and I accept it with gratitude. It salves my conscience, my Christian convictions, my self-integrity and my integrity towards other people. I am not seeking political popularity or personal gain in this new constitution. I am seeking Christianity, honesty, human dignity and justice for the individual, a place in the sun for everyone in South Africa. I am seeking solidarity for South Africans in one nation, a South African nation. If the hon. member for Rissik experiences problems with the concept of “nation”, and his leader has problems with his other 26 000 atheists, I could not care less. My uncle always said that a stupid person was perhaps being wilful, but that a silly person remained a silly person. A pious person remains pious, but a hypocritical person remains despicable. I believe that as an Afrikaner I must realize that there can only be a place for the Afrikaner people in South Africa once room has been made for a South African nation. The Afrikaner people cannot exist without a South African nation. I take it the hon. member for Rissik cannot understand this. He can only feel aggrieved and remain aggrieved. This new constitution of ours is attempting to make room for a South African nation. The CP itself feels that there must be a change in South Africa, and for that reason they speak in an undertone and behind the scenes of a Coloured homeland. The official Opposition also wants change and for that reason they advocate a national convention and “one man, one vote”. We on this side also want change. All of us want change, but we differ on the degree, the form and the magnitude of that change. If we were all honest and sincere, we would be able to argue about this and try to reach an agreement as far as this matter is concerned. But what is the CP doing? They say they reject it and away with the future of South Africa and away with the future of our children. The Progs keep on boycotting. They boycott everything in sight and do not want to know about Coloured interests. As far as they are concerned, it is—

†The Coloureds are out, Inkatha is in. The new dictate, the new fashion of the Progs is called “ANC with Inkatha”.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: Is the hon. member allowed to make an ANC connection and an Inkatha connection with the PFP?

I am listening to the hon. member …

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, but the actual words that the hon. member used were that the new fashion of the Progs is the “ANC and Inkatha”. That clearly implies an alleged link between the PFP and the ANC. The ANC is an illegal organization, and therefore, with respect, that is an improper remark.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the term “ANC”.

Mr. Chairman, may I just explain?

No. The hon. member must first withdraw it.

Please, Mr. Chairman, may I state my side as well? They have stated their side. My words were “Prog fashion called ANC with Inkatha …”

Order! The hon. member made a connection between hon. members of the PFP and the ANC. The ANC is a prohibited organization. Therefore the hon. member must withdraw it.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw it.

My wife and I were married by antenuptial contract. I take it that the PFP is married out of community of property.

†The new fashion of the PFP is apparently pitch black. This new fashion does not even include one glimmer or glitter of colour. There is not a spot of colour in the 1983 fashion of the PFP. As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me, I want to state that the PFP has become a subbranch of Inkatha.

You are talking rubbish.

You are talking nonsense.

It is true and they know it. According to the PFP the Coloured group is a mere nonentity these days. They do not count anymore.

Who said that?

The Progs will decide what the Coloureds should want or not want, have or not have, think or not think. That is what the Progs say these days. That is what the Progs believe these days. They sold out the Coloureds. In a speech in the provincial council during 1971, i.e. about 12 or 13 years ago, I as a Nationalist said that the Coloureds speak my language and are my fellow-countrymen and my friends and I want to retain them as such for the future. After 12 years I say the same in this House tonight, namely that I want the Coloured man as my friend and as my fellow-countryman. That is more than Arafat can say.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

Of course not, Mr.

Chairman. The hon. member has wasted enough of my time already.

You have nothing to say; so it does not matter.

It is time the Coloureds thought for themselves and decided what would be fit and proper for themselves, and not the Progs or any other organization or party in this country. I maintain that many Whites in the past unfortunately regarded the Coloureds in this country as a problem instead of an asset to the country.

That is why you took them off the voters’ roll.

That hon. member remains a problem. Unfortunately the English liberalistic influence over the past 100 years has constituted no material benefit for the Coloureds as a group in this country, in spite of limited franchise. I want to maintain, and admit, that the Afrikaners as well and also the NP in some respects committed an injustice in certain cases to the Coloureds. There were Nationalists who spoke about the Coloureds being a nation in the making. To me that was an absurdity, and I am not ashamed to say it.

Why did you not say it at the time?

I did say it. However, I did not run away from the party, as that hon. member did. I stayed on to try to rectify the matter, and today it has been rectified. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for East London North, who has just expressed his love for the Coloureds so passionately, was, of course, conspicuous by his absence on the day when a vote was taken in this House on the question of whether or not the parliamentary diningroom should be thrown open to non-Whites. [Interjections.]

†Just like the Labour Party, the National Peoples’ Party, the Congress Party, the Reform Party, Inkatha, the PFP and other parties stand for a non-racial South Africa. The Government stands for a multiracial South Africa. That is the reason why we do not coin every phrase with reference to colour or race, as hon. members of the NP do it. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to take a look at the achievements of this hon. Minister and his department from two angles. Firstly I should like to pose the question of whether what they do really address the constitutional problems of South Africa. Secondly, I should like to examine the question of whether it unites the people of South Africa in one common objective. The current constitution carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction because the Blacks have been excluded from it ever since Unification in 1910. As such the current constitution does not serve the needs of a democratic society. The exclusion of the Blacks, and later also the exclusion of the Coloureds and the Indians through legislation passed by this Government, resulted in a series of discriminatory laws and unjust administrative practices. To most people who sincerely strive for a democratic, free and just society in South Africa, the statement of the problem that has to be solved consequently becomes quite simple.

The first question is how all people should be included in a political structure on an equal basis, and the second question is how all discrimination based on race and colour should be removed. The solution to the second problem is quite simple. One merely removes all discriminatory laws from the Statute Book, and that goal will be accomplished. Let us not, however, become side-tracked by the semantics of so-called “necessary discrimination” or “vertical differentiation” or any other such terms that are so frequently used by the Government in order to rationalize their policies. All discrimination is hurtful to those who are on the receiving end, and after decades of exclusive access to the process of the allocation of resources Whites have acquired the best of everything, and separate can never be made equal. Therefore those people who have to be included in the process now will certainly not be fobbed off by a vote once every five years. They also want to see the restrictions and the discriminatory laws governing their daily lives removed.

In the report I see no reference to this very important aspect of reform. If there is to be any credit given to this department for creating a mood for reconciliation and for change I ask that this hon. Minister should set up, as one of the urgent tasks of his department, a special “Committee for the Removal of Discriminatory Laws and Practices”. [Interjections.] Such a committee should pursue its task irrespective of whatever bumpy course or dead-ends the constitutional development will follow over the next few years.

With regard to the inclusion of people in the democratic process this Government again stands alone in its acceptance of the guiding principles of the proposed new constitution. Only this Government is of the opinion that Blacks are now excluded and that adequate provision can be made for them along the lines of partitioning. Only this Government believes that Coloureds and Indians should be satisfied with the way in which they are being included. Again only this Government can bluff itself into believing that its proposed new constitution is the result of negotiation and agreement. As the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has already pointed out, it is admitted in the report that—

What now is the truth in respect of the so-called negotiations? With the Indian community, for instance, the hon. the Minister did not even hear out the views of those political groups, who, for reasons of principle, do not want to take part in racially divided structures. What is more, however, is that even those people with whom the hon. the Minister claims he has negotiated, namely those political parties that are represented in the S.A. Indian Council, look upon the sessions with the hon. the Minister as, at best, command performances at which they were informed and not even consulted. So, there may have been discussions with Coloured and Indian leaders, as the hon. member for Klip River suggested, but certainly there was never any agreement before the NP congresses about the basis on which to carry on. If there was, I wonder what has happened to that agreement since then. So I do not know who is fooling whom. How pathetic it is that we should discuss here such an important aspect as a new constitution for South Africa while not even the guidelines, not to mention the details, are accepted by the people to be included in the new dispensation. How pathetic it is that this Government is hellbent on forcing through a constitution that nobody else wants. In fact, even those people who might take part are only bent on destroying this thing. How pathetic it is that the Government has now reached such a state of bankruptcy that it actually invites Coloureds and Indians into a system with the offer to come in and destroy it. How pathetic it is for a Government to have to admit that either they will have to impose their will as a minority over that of the majority or else the success of real constitutional reform will be measured by the failure of their own guidelines. I submit that the Government is failing to address the real problems of constitutional and socio-economic reform in South Africa.

The second test of the effectiveness of the Minister is whether the process of constitutional development has served to unite the people of South Africa in one common objective. The failure of the Government to address the real problems of South Africa and therefore its failure to get general acceptance for the guidelines has certainly unified the people of South Africa in some respects. I obviously do not have the time to refer to all the evidence, but firstly it has certainly unified the people of South Africa in their condemnation of this Government and this constitution. It has certainly succeeded in swelling the ranks of those who now believe that real change will only come through violence. It has certainly succeeded in politicizing labour organizations and other community organizations by those people who do not want to work inside racist structures created by the Government. I am talking here of structures such as local affairs committees, even the S.A. Indian Council, or for that matter the new three-chamber parliament. It has also increased the determination of the stand by those moderate groups who wish to see a non-racial democratic society in South Africa become a reality. Here I am talking of the PFP which stands alone in White politics in preventing final Black-White polarization. In the words of Gatsha Buthelezi—

I am talking, too, of the Natal Indian Congress or the whole Congress Movement, of the Indian Reform Party and at this stage also the S.A. Indian Council parties, whose stand prevents, finally, a polarization between Black and non-Black. I am talking also of Inkatha, Gatsha Buthelezi, Dr. Cedric Phatudi and Mr. Mabuza, Black leaders who took all their courage in their hands to forestall a reactionary Black nationalism by rejecting a Black federation as being just another type of apartheid or racist solution to South Africa’s problems.

The process has also divided people, not in their condemnation of the proposed new constitution, but only in their strategy as to how best to fight against it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I shall unfortunately not be able to react to everything the hon. member for Greytown said. I do, however, want to refer to one matter the hon. member raised, a matter to which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred obliquely earlier this afternoon and which has become a refrain in the CP ranks, i.e. that the Coloureds whom we want to bring into the system supposedly adopt the point of view that they only want to be involved in the system with a view to destroying it. That is honestly not the message I get. I do not know what those people are referring to who say that. What is indeed true, however, is that the members of the Labour Party are saying that they do not agree with the Government’s political philosophy. They say that they will enter into the system in an attempt to have their political philosophy, which differs from the Government’s philosophy, make its mark. That does not, however, in any way differ from the position we are in as far as the Official Opposition or the CP is concerned. They are also in this system with a totally different political philosophy to ours, and yet we manage to live together. Surely they are not here to destroy the system. They are working with the system.

I actually want to come back to certain remarks the hon. Leader of the Opposition made here today. I also want to refer generally to the debate being conducted between ourselves and the Official Opposition on the merits of this plan. I hold it against the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, to a certain extent, that in 1983 he is still judging the NP’s conduct towards the Coloureds in terms of the 1977 plan. The 1977 plan was presented to the Coloureds for their acceptance or rejection. That was the standpoint we adopted in regard to the Coloureds at the time, but we ourselves subsequently conceded that it was a mistake. That is unfortunately on record in the hon. member’s Hansard, though perhaps not in so many words. That is honestly not the position today.

It is quite true that our process of negotiation with the leaders of the Coloured parties and the Indian leaders differs from the way in which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to negotiate with the Coloureds. We did not have such a structured national convention as the one they advocate. These people were, however, consulted on numerous occasions before the guidelines were finalized, after they were finalized and before the legislation was drawn up. [Interjections.]

What concessions did you make?

On this issue I do not want to score a political point against the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, but I honestly think that if he is of the opinion that in 1982 and 1983 there were fewer negotiations with the Coloureds than there were in 1977, he really should go and have another look at what the circumstances were.

I actually want to take the same argument a little further. If we look at what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has today set out as the PFP’s approach—as I understood it—we notice the fact that the Official Opposition foresees a national convention in which all the people will have a say. Meanwhile, however, the Whites still govern as an interim Government, and any decision of the national convention must eventually be implemented by the White Parliament. This means that when all is said and done the White Parliament has a right of veto as far as any constitutional development is concerned. If it is not acceptable to the White Parliament, it cannot be carried through. If the new dispensation proposed by the Government were implemented, the position would be such that the Coloureds and Indians would be represented in this Parliament. There are certain things in the Constitution which they do not like, but here in Parliament we can talk to each other. There are indeed certain provisos built into the Constitution to ensure that the Coloureds cannot unilaterally amend the Constitution without the agreement of the Whites. In other words, the Whites have a veto-right on any constitutional change. In this situation, however, the Coloureds are in no worse a position than they would have been in terms of the PFP’s national convention, in the sense that they can talk to us and reach agreement with us. If we can agree on any constitutional amendment, it can be implemented. If we cannot agree, it cannot be implemented. They are in no way in a worse position than they would have been if the PFP’s national convention were to have been convened.

As far as the position of the Black people is concerned, time does not permit me to give a really detailed analysis of the situation. The only point I want to make in this connection is that for the past 30 years now the National Party has proved that there is a way of giving people full political rights other than specifically bringing them into this Parliament. That principle has been confirmed and proven. The political constitutional development that is taking place at present in regard to the Black people, local government and so on, development that does not necessarily lead to this Parliament, there being the possibility of another destination, is not necessarily invalid. That process is taking place at the moment. The one important thing we are going to achieve with that is the establishment of legitimate, elected leaders of Black communities who can take part in the political dialogue in South Africa. For that reason there is no stagnation in this process.

In conclusion, let me say that the Opposition’s standpoint on the Constitution Bill is something I hold against them. In the Second Reading debate on the Bill, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition rightly raised the question of the legitimacy of the constitution. The official Opposition, however, was in a very good position to assist in obtaining support, amongst the Coloureds, Indians and Black people, for the legitimacy of the reform process of which this Constitution Bill is a part. They could have done so if they had not again chosen, as in the past, to oppose it. We would then really have stood a much better chance of making a far better start on a reform process in which we could take all the people of the country along with us. In that connection I really hold it against the official Opposition for having let slip this opportunity of helping us to mobilize the support of the people of South Africa for the reform process. I want to repeat that after this law has come into force, neither the Black people nor the Coloured people will be any worse off than they were before. The majority of them will be in a better position, provided we obtain their co-operation. The official Opposition could have helped to achieve that if it had wanted to. If this reform process proves to be a difficult task, the official Opposition must take a great deal of the blame for that state of affairs.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to refer to an interjection the hon. member for Rissik made. I think that remark will prove, once and for all, where the CP and the AWB stand and what the AWB’s attitude is. The hon. member said to the hon. member for Brits: “Ah, man, we shall simply throw you to the AWB.” What was he implying? He was firstly implying that the CP and the AWB are one. Secondly he was acknowledging that the AWB is militant. Surely that is what he was saying. “We shall throw you to the AWB; they will fix you.”

I should also like to refer to the hon. member for Pietersburg. Today the hon. member took us on a journey back into history. He said, on the basis of what he quoted Dr. Malan as having said in 1942, that we were no longer on the right road, that we were on the wrong one. I recall, however, that Dr. Verwoerd, the Afrikaner’s great prophet, said at one stage that by 1978 the stream of Blacks back to the homelands would be greater than the stream of Blacks to the urban areas. We in this House all know that this is not the truth of the matter. The truth of the matter is completely different, because everyone tells us there is tremendous urbanization amongst the Blacks and a tremendous influx of Blacks to the cities. Because Dr. Verwoerd said it, however, is it now the gospel truth and must we stick to it? Or must we accept the new set of facts and make provision for the new circumstances that prevail in the country?

Today I want to talk about taxes. Hon. members will not believe me, but the man who inspired me in this connection is the hon. member for Jeppe. [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Jeppe drove me to desperation, but in any case the hon. member for Jeppe ran into me in the Springbok Room at Jan Smuts Airport. He asked me what I would say to the Whites’ share of the country’s taxation being 80% or 90%. Is that correct?

I do not discuss here in Parliament what I spoke to you about in the Springbok Room.

Well, Sir, then I must withdraw my statement that the hon. member inspired me. [Interjections.] I feel that we should possibly investigate this matter more fully.

Just tell us, for a moment, what you said to the hon. the Prime Minister at Vaaldam? [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to go on with my argument.

Mr. Chairman, may I please put a question to the hon. member.

I shall answer a question provided it has to do with the country’s future, because that is what I am discussing at the moment.

Yes, it does. I want to ask the hon. member whether it is correct that he said that in Acacia Park Brown people should not walk on his stoep or sit on the benches.

I am very glad the hon. member has now eventually brought this piece of gossip to this Committee, because now I can reply to him in all honesty and sincerity. Regardless of the colour or the race of workmen, I take exception to their camping out on my stoep. If the hon. the Prime Minister came to sit on my stoep each day when I was not there and threw my newspaper every which way, I would hold it against him too. [Interjections.] I hope that satisfies the hon. member [Interjections.]

When we review the way taxation is divided up in this country, we see that the largest component at present is personal tax, which is something like R5,3 milliard. The CP and their followers, however, are not satisfied with saying that is the Whites’ contribution to the total taxes of the country. They say that 80% of the whole kitty, an amount of roughly R17 million, is what constitutes the Whites’ contribution. Within the first half of this decade the buying power of the Blacks in this country will have outstripped the buying power of the Whites. The major portion of sales tax is therefore going to be in the hands of the Black man, and how is those hon. members’ story then going to hold good? It is merely a superficial argument. The true facts are that the major portion of the tax collected in the country comes from the large companies, the mines and the farming industry. A large portion of the tax collected from these sources is indicated as “personal tax”.

How is the money made on which the tax is paid? What is involved, in the first place, is surely the raw material. Whose asset is the gold buried in the soil of our country? Is it only the Whites’ asset? Do the Whites have the sole right to our fertile soil, or is it a national asset? Surely it is an asset shared by all of us. What is also needed, in order to make money, is capital. The Whites provide the capital. In the third place, one needs expertise. The Whites also provide the expertise. Fourthly, one needs labour. Surely that is also part and parcel of capital, or do those hon. members think that capital only means money? If one looks at all the factors, one realizes that the tax paid in this country is paid by all of us, because all of us make a contribution to the profitability of the country’s industries.

The actual danger in the statement I ascribed to the hon. member, a statement which was nevertheless definitely used by hon. members of the CP who confronted me in public, lies in the future. What would the future effect be of the kind of attitude that revenue should be channelled to the various population groups on a colour-categorizing basis? Having noted that in real terms, during the period 1975 to 1981, the salaries of people of colour had increased by 2,4%, one must go further and note that on the basis of an average projection there will be 68 million people in the country by the year 2020. Of those 68 million, 60 million will be people of Coloured and only 8 million will be Whites. Even if one wants to conceive of the least uncomfortable position for the Whites, one has to accept that 20% of non-White families will, by that time, be richer than the average White family. If one proceeds from the standpoint that there are six people per family in the case of non-Whites and four people per family in the case of Whites, one finds that there will be 2 million non-White families richer than 1 million White families.

What does this tell us? This tells us that if, in future, we persist in the categorization of the allocation of income tax to the various groups, the Whites in this country could end up in the most unenviable position imaginable. No law that anyone in this Parliament can make can get round this, because the present-day labour situation is so critical that companies are not only training non-Whites as artisans, but are also training non-White management personnel to occupy managerial posts. Do hon. members realize how unacceptable this is to the average White? What can one do about it? There is nothing one can do about it, regardless of who is governing the country. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to say at once that I listened with close attention to the contributions made by various hon. members to the discussion of this Vote. At the outset I wish to make a few comments which in my opinion are essential.

At present a very dangerous action is in progress whereby an attempt is being made to create the impression that the Government, in respect of its constitutional proposals, wishes to rush through the various stages of the Constitution Bill. The basis of this extra-parliamentary formulation of standpoints in this connection originates in the first place with the official Opposition. I do not wish to deny the members of the official Opposition the right of adopting a standpoint, but I dispute their right to purvey untruths to the Press, the media. I observe that the hon. member for Sea Point is busily making notes. He of course is the man who is responsible for these untruths being publicized. In a report which appeared on 26 May in the Rand Daily Mail the hon. member was quoted in this connection.

Quote him.

Would that hon. member please keep quiet? I am not talking to him.

You cannot shut me up; only the Chair can do so. Stop behaving like a …

Order!

The hon. member is still red.

What did the Minister say?

Oh please, man, you are red and you remain red.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member may not say that, and he knows it. I call on you to ask the hon. member to withdraw it.

No way.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: The hon. member is anticipating your ruling and is bringing you into contempt.

Order! The hon. the Minister may proceed.

According to the report the hon. member for Sea Point granted an interview to the reporter who wrote the report. He is of course entitled to do so.

What are the facts? The hon. member is a member of the Select Committee.

What did I say? Quote it.

I shall come to that. The hon. member must give me a chance. As I said, the hon. member is a member of the Select Committee on the Constitution. He was present when the dates for the sittings of the Select Committee were determined. The hon. member was present when we agreed on the sitting days.

That is untrue.

Surely we were all there.

Yes, we were all there.

By whom were they determined? The chairman determined them.

I moved the motion and the hon. member will remember that the only hon. member who spoke about the sitting times was the hon. member for Brakpan. The hon. member for Sea Point did not say a word. But why are the hon. member and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition now implying that it is the Government’s intention that the business of the Committee must be disposed of within 10 or 14 days? According to a report in the Sunday Times, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked: “What is the Government trying to do? Smuggle in the constitution? This is not just an ordinary Bill; it is probably going to become the constitution of the country. People are entitled to make representations if they want to.” What are the implications of this statement? The implication is that not everyone is going to have an opportunity of making representations. Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition agree with me that is the implication?

Such an inference may be drawn from that, yes.

What right does the hon. leader have to say that?

Are you going to allow Indians to appear before the Select Committee?

I do not decide on behalf of the Select Committee; the Select Committee decides for itself. [Interjections.] It is no use making a noise as a substitute for an argument. The fact of the matter is that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is at least displaying the honesty of admitting the implication of what he said. The implication is that people are not going to receive an opportunity to make representations. Is that not the inference which he wanted people to draw?

It is an inference which can be drawn.

It is not an inference which can be drawn; it is an inference which the hon. the Leader did in fact draw. The hon. member is indulging in semantics now. On what grounds, asks the Leader of the Opposition, can people be refused an opportunity to make representations? The Select Committee did not make a statement on whether or not it was going to hear evidence. The hon. the Prime Minister stated that we would sit as long as was necessary to dispose of the legislation.

We can also dispose of it now.

I did not interrupt hon. members when they were speaking.

That is an old story.

Order!

I allege that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has no grounds whatsoever for creating this impression, and I want to ask him whether he will be prepared to deny it.

I shall speak again.

Is he not prepared to admit it now?

I think I have grounds.

I shall indicate what the grounds are. These are the false grounds which the hon. member for Sea Point conveyed to his caucus. The hon. members of the PFP now realize that they cannot really offer any resistance to the proposals of the Government. If one reads the newspapers which support them carefully, one will see that the issue now is not the merits of the constitutional proposals, but the methods and procedures. If one wants to know what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is going to do, simply read the English language newspapers 14 days before the time. Then every hon. member on this side of the House or on the other side of the House will be able to prepare their speeches, because we will have obtained advance notification in the newspapers.

I thought that if we had problems with the business of Parliament and with the business of instruments of Parliament, of which the Select Committee is one, we would in the first place use those instruments to open up a discussion of our objections. No one who acts in a reasonable way will fault me when I make this point now. The hon. member for Sea Point did not object to the business of the Select Committee on the Select Committee itself. He sat there without saying a word.

You are telling a gross untruth.

No. [Interjections.]

Order!

The fact of the matter is that we decided on sitting days …

You are overstating …

Order! I ask the hon. member for Sandton to stop interjecting now.

Let us assume that we adopted a resolution in this connection. On what basis can the accusation then be made that we do not want to allow sufficient time on the Select Committee for the discussion of the Bill, that is if I have to accept the argument of the hon. member for Sea Point?

You never said that.

Then surely he has no reason to complain, for surely he is then able, at the next meeting of the Select Committee to put his standpoints and proposals in respect of procedure and sitting days to us. Surely he did not do so. If he did not do so, why is he now participating in a campaign which is devoid of all truth merely in order to make a little political capital for himself?

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.