Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, when we adjourned last evening, I had raised the issue of secrecy at the referendum. I would like to explain that when one goes to a polling booth at an election, one is given a ballot paper and a voting number from the voters’ list which is written on the stub of the book of ballot papers. At the end of the day’s proceedings and after the result has been announced those ballot papers and the stubs are sealed in an envelope and are taken away to the electoral office in Pretoria where it is kept for a year and may only be inspected after a court order has been obtained. Everyone is happy with that procedure and there is no problem with it, so those envelopes may not be opened unless a order of the court has been obtained. However, in the case of a referendum as is envisaged by the Government, it would appear that a record of identity numbers is to be kept which will no doubt be sorted by computer to ensure that people do not vote twice, if I understand correctly what the hon. the Minister announced yesterday and previously. A record will be kept of identity numbers of all those people who have voted and these will no doubt be sorted by computer. I want to make it quite clear that I am not opposed to measures to ensure that voters do not vote twice. Indeed, I am much in favour of any measure which will ensure that voters do not vote more than once. However, I would like to know what is going to happen to the list of people who have voted because in an election no such list is available. If such list is to be prepared what is going to happen to it? Who is going to have access to it and how will it be disposed of? It is very important to know how it is going to be disposed of because on the face of it this aspect appears sinister and I hope the hon. the Minister will address his mind to the problem. Other problems which arise are of a minor and technical nature and they arise because of the lack of regulations. They concern voting by foreigners and persons younger than 18. I hope when the hon. the Minister replies he will tell us what he has in mind in this respect. I hope he will also advise us how the counting of votes is to be controlled. This has been raised by all three parties on this side of the House and we are concerned about it. In the Electoral Act this aspect is set out in much detail and a great deal of trust and confidence has been built up in the mind of the public about this aspect of elections. It must be made absolutely clear how the counting of votes is to be handled. In this respect I would like to remind the hon. the Minister of the old saying: Justice must be seen to be done. In this case votes must be seen to be counted and our concern is that by moving the counting of votes away from the halls and the offices where they are traditionally counted, suspicions may be raised in the minds of the voters. Why cannot the votes be counted on a constituency basis? What is the real reason for the change in procedure? Will the yes and no agents be present at the count?

Yes.

Are agents being appointed on a constituency basis?

“Yes” and “no” agents will be present during counting.

Good, I am pleased that that has been made clear. However, we again come back to the question of a constituency count. Agents are being appointed on a constituency basis. I cannot see that there is any valid reason why we should not count the votes on the same basis. I hope the hon. the Minister will reply in full to this.

One further minor point is that I will move on Monday, after having consulted with people in the English department of one of our universities, an amendment that we change the word “referendums” to “referenda”. I will motivate the amendment in the Committee Stage.

Finally, instead of being concerned about opinion polls, as has been mentioned in this debate, I believe the Government should give its attention to advertising standards in the coming campaign. Provision should be made to ensure that misleading claims are not made to confuse an already confused electorate. Let me give just one example. The overwhelming majority of people in this country are against the constitutional proposals of the Government. Even the Labour Party and the NRP are against the basic principles of the Government’s constitutional proposals. Yet an advertisement appeared in the Sunday Times last weekend which read: “South Africa vs. South Africa”. It appeared in all the English-language newspapers. This is misleading, because, as I said, the overwhelming majority of people in this country are against the constitutional proposals. It should not have read “South Africa vs. South Africa”, but “South Africa vs. the Nats”.

Hear, hear!

This is one of the reasons why we want the referendum question to be referred to a committee of judges in case the National Party commissioned their advertising agents to formulate the question. It is our contention that the question should be firmly and clearly formulated and should contain no misrepresentations.

Is it the contention of the PFP that the question is fair, equitable and clear?

We were not consulted, although we might have wanted to make certain proposals to the Government at the time. If the question is to remain as it is, we believe that it could be fair. Judging by the standards set by the NP’s advertising agents, there is no guarantee that this will be the case.

We believe the Referendum’s Bill is a hasty measure, we believe it has not been properly thought out, we believe it is not in the interests of the citizens of South Africa and we will oppose it.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Johannesburg North indicated very clearly to us of course that we had touched them on the raw with the advertising campaign of the NP. I think the hon. member should prepare himself for the fact that at least half of the Progs are going to vote “yes” in the referendum.

The hon. member raised quite a number of matters which in my opinion we could have discussed better during the Committee Stage. In the course of my speech I shall try to return to a few of his arguments.

The hon. member for Green Point moved an amendment which basically reflects the standpoint of the official Opposition. In the first place they are opposed to the measure because it is an enabling measure and because the way in which the referendum will take place will be determined by regulation. They also object to the fact that the Government will now acquire so-called unlimited powers in terms of the measure. They also say that the control over the holding of the referendum is too complicated. Their final objection is that the voters will now supposedly be disenfranchised. These are the basic objections of the official Opposition.

The hon. member for Umhlanga also introduced an amendment. He also objected to the holding of referendum’s on the basis of an enabling measure and that it would take place by way of regulation. He wanted these regulations to be included in the legislation itself.

I shall try to deal with these matters in the course of my speech. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister summarized the basic approach of the Government with regard to this matter very well when he said—

The hon. member for Umlazi summarized the arguments of the hon. members of the Opposition up to this point in the debate very well when he said that the Opposition was arguing in the idiom of an election instead of in the idiom of a referendum. A referendum tests the direct opinion of the electorate as a whole and, as far as I am concerned, it has nothing to do with the designation of specifically elected representatives to attend a specific legislative meeting. Most of the arguments from the side of the Opposition are therefore not so much irrelevant as they are out of touch with the purpose of this measure and the purpose of holding a referendum.

The hon. member for Green Point maintained that they wanted to increase the flexibility of this measure by increasing the number of categories of people who could be asked to vote in a referendum. It was quite clear from their standpoint on the Select Committee that they actually wanted to extend this measure to accommodate the Black peoples in South Africa as well. I want to tell the hon. member at once that there is nothing wrong with holding a referendum among the Black peoples in South Africa to test Black opinion. However, I do not think this measure is aimed at doing that. The Department of Co-operation and Development can overcome that problem very easily. The hon. member for Green Point had problems with regard to the fact that this measure is an enabling act in terms of which referendums will be run by means of regulations. This also links up with the argument of hon. member for Umhlanga. Then the hon. member for Green Point came forward with his usual absurd type of argument. Listen to the way in which the hon. member argues. He says that the Government could change the question by way of regulation and that the Government could change the date by way of regulation. He went on to say that “the Government could mock the public”. I maintain that that is an absolute ridiculous standpoint. Any government seeking the sympathy of the voting public, will obviously not act in such a simple and erroneous way. After all, when it is attempting at the outset to gain the sympathy of people, the Government is not going to get their backs up.

The hon. member for Green Point then raised one very important argument. In this transitional phase in the change in the system by which people can be placed on a voters’ list and the use of identity documents, I want to tell the hon. member at once that he raised a very important point. The hon. member argued that according to a reply by the hon. the Minister to a question, 150 000 voters did not have identity documents and would ostensibly be unable to vote.

The hon. member for Johannesburg North went so far as to say that “the Government was depriving South Africans of their vote”. According to the figures at my disposal according to the IRP5 applications, viz. applications by people to have their names placed on a voters’ list 2 399 000 people were on the voters’ lists on 29 August 1983 for the purposes of my argument approximately 2,4 million, whereas there are 2 646 000 people, i.e. 2,7 million, whose names on the Population Register. The argument I want to put to hon. member is that if we were to contest an election according to the old system, without the aid of the Population Register, there would be 300 000 potential voters whose names did not appear on the voters’ roll. Now the hon. member for Green Point can go and work out for himself what would be best: 150 000 people without identity documents or a potential 300 000 people whose names do not appear on the voters’ roll.

I now want to refer to a further argument of the hon. member for Green Point. He maintained that the voter had the right to vote if his name appeared on the voters’ list and if not he could apply for a vote. That is true of course. We are not disputing that, However, I have to point out that the same principle applies. If a voter has an identity document, he will be able to vote. If he does not have one, he is entitled to apply for an identity document, as he was allowed to apply in the past to become a voter. The principle therefore remains exactly the same. As a matter of fact, I maintain that more people will be benefited by the new system than will be prejudiced by it. I submit that no one in South Africa is being disfranchised, but that every person in this country has the opportunity to apply for an identity document and may then vote.

The hon. member for Green Point went on to argue—and in this regard he was supported by the hon. member for Meyerton, and also to a certain extent by the hon. member for Umhlanga—that the changing of a constituency basis into a regional basis “would suddenly complicate the entire system”, as the hon. member for Green Point put it. The hon. member for Meyerton said that we were “removing the cherry from the cake.” I maintain that for all practical purposes very few changes are in fact being made to the system. The parties still organize on a constituency basis. The voters still vote on a constituency basis, but with the added advantage that there is no formal voters’ list, that the voters have to use identity documents instead of their names appearing on the voters’ list, that there will be more polling booths than in the past, which will in fact give voters the opportunity to vote more easily, and also that the voter can vote wherever he is, and it will therefore not be necessary for him to go to all the trouble of applying for a postal vote.

What is in fact different is the way in which votes will be counted. This is being done on a regional basis. For that reason I want to emphasize that a referendum is a test of the opinion of the total community or of the total population in South Africa. It is not a mechanism by means of which representatives are sent to a legislative body.

I also want to argue that a parallel cannot be drawn between the coming referendum and the 1960 referendum.

Why not, André?

I shall tell you why in a moment. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rissik must please wait a moment. In 1960 …

You voted against a republic, did you not?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rissik was just as much a dyed-in-the-wool United Party supporter as I. I do not know how he voted in the 1960 referendum. However, I was still too young to vote at the stage. I therefore cannot discuss this with the hon. member. [Interjections.]

In 1960 use had to be made of the available mechanism. The only available mechanism in 1960 was the system of voters’ lists and constituencies. Today we have alternative mechanisms in South Africa, for example, the Population Register and the system of identity documents. I maintain—and that is why the Government has adopted this standpoint—that this system is far better suited to a referendum than the old system was.

Mr. Speaker, this brings me to the hon. member for Meyerton. At the outset I want to tell him that we did realize that the speech he had written out was left in Acacia Park. Nevertheless, we did enjoy the few anecdotes he told here. It is just a pity the hon. member for Meyerton did not tell us the story about the letter he wrote to his HNP opponent in 1981, in which he asked that man to stand down in the election because they both thought alike. [Interjections.]

I do want to refer to one argument of the hon. member for Meyerton. It seems to me this is an argument used by both the PFP and the CP. They are not happy about the fact that only one yes agent and only one no agent will be appointed in each electoral division. However, I want to set the hon. member for Meyerton straight.

In 1960 as well there were not only two parties participating in the referendum. In that year there were two parties that wanted to vote “no”. They were the old United Party and the old Progressive Party. Allow me to say that the feeling between those two parties in 1960 was far worse than it is at the moment. After all, that was just after the then Propressive Party had broken away from the United Party.

You seem to know everything about it.

Mr. Speaker, I really think the hon. member for Umbilo should take Afrikaans lessons because he does not seem to understand what I am talking about.

You are quite wrong. I know exactly what you are talking about.

I do not think he understands what I am talking about. Therefore, for the benefit of the hon. member I shall repeat my argument.

You do not need to. I understood you the first time.

I shall repeat my argument because I do not believe that the hon. member has understood it, Sir. I want to tell the hon. member that in the 1960 referendum there were two Opposition parties that voted “no”. The emotion that existed between the United Party and the Progressive Party was of such a nature that the position was even worse than it is today. I want to ask the hon. member for Umbilo whether he agrees with that argument.

I heard exactly what you said and it is not true.

It is not true? Can you believe that, Sir? The hon. member says it is not true!

*Sir, unfortunately fate would seem to be against the hon. members of the CP, because they now have to contest an election with bedfellows whom they appear to be ashamed of. I want to put this question to them: Are they ashamed of entering a referendum campaign with the HNP and the AWB and the Kappiekommando and those elements? [Interjections.] After all, the hon. member for Rissik and the hon. member for Sunnyside had no problems co-operating with the HNP in 1981 because the HNP did not oppose them in their respective constituencies! Even then they were co-operating with the HNP. What is their difficulty now? However, fate is unfortunately against them and they also have to co-operate with the PFP and such left-wing elements as the Black Sash and others. There is a proverb which states: “He that touches pitch shall be defiled.” [Interjections.] That is something those hon. members will have to work out for themselves.

In conclusion I want to say the following: I believe that this House should congratulate the hon. the Minister in the first place and, in the second place, the department for this ingenious mechanism they have come up with, a mechanism which can be implemented and utilized in a very practical way to allow the referendum to take place as rapidly and as smoothly as possible. For that reason it gives us pleasure to support this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Turffontein is, of course, in a better position than I am to tell this House about the emotional relationship between the old United Party and the erstwhile Propressive Party. [Interjections.] I remember very well how frequently that hon. member and I crossed swords in this House, but I do not think that either of us changed his basic principles. When I was a member of the NP, I stood for the same principles as those for which I stand today. [Interjections.] There is one point, however, that I do grant the hon. member for Turffontein. I do not believe that that hon. member changed his principles either.

I did.

Did the hon. member?

I relinquished certain extreme principles. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad that the hon. member has today acknowledged that he waved good-bye to certain of his old principles and that he now has a new batch of principles. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rissik says that he has not changed his basic principles, but would he nevertheless admit that his co-operation with elements of the HNP took place earlier than he is willing to acknowledge?

I can tell the hon. member that there are matters about which my standpoint differs from that of the HNP.

What matters?

I disagree with them in regard to their language standpoint and also about the recognition of independent Black areas. We also differ in regard to our Indian policy. [Interjections.] I just want to say that in 1959 I knew what I disagreed with the HNP about, and I disagreed with them without denigrating them or treating them badly. When all is said and done, those people are still our people. As far as I am concerned, the same applies to hon. members of the PFP. Where I disagree with them fundamentally, I say so, but when I agree with them, I agree. I do not apologize for that. I want to tell the hon. member for Turffontein that I advocate the same principles I advocated two or three years ago. [Interjections.] The hon. member says he has changed, and as time goes on he must tell us in what respects his standpoint has changed. We can discuss that at a later stage.

Mr. Speaker, since the hon. member says he adheres so strongly to his principles, may I ask him whether he still adheres to the principles he adhered to when he was a dyed-in-the-wool United Party man?

The hon. member has the wrong information there. Let me tell the hon. member what the true facts is. My father was a member of the United Party, but my mother was a member of the NP, and the first party I ever belonged to was the NP. I joined the NP in the ’fifties. [Interjections.] The hon. the Deputy Minister over there is always so eager to tell fishpond stories. One day, when the hon. the Deputy Minister is no longer a member of the House, I shall tell the true story about that fish-pond incident. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must now give the hon. member for Rissik an opportunity to proceed with his speech. [Interjections.]

Thank you, Sir. I want to begin by saying that my colleague, the hon. member for Kuruman, is unfortunately not here today. He is attending a very successful congress in Kimberley. He asked me to convey his apologies to the hon. the Minister. He will most probably be back on Monday for the Committee Stage, and then he will say what he wants to say about the Chairman of the Select Committee.

I want to come back to the hon. the Minister’s introductory speech and make a few comments about it. The hon. the Minister spoke about a “dinamiese volkshuishouding”. During the past few weeks we have been debating the new constitution, and yet here the hon. the Minister is still using the expression “volkshuishouding”.

It is an economic term.

Over the past few years we have come to know the hon. the Minister as someone who uses expressions to suit himself, and if one tries to come to grips with his use of such expressions, he comes up with a completely different interpretation. I think that in his introductory speech the hon. the Minister should have used an expression other than “volkshuishouding”. “Dinamies” he can use, because the governing party is “dynamically” moving, as the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning says, towards the melting-pot of new nationhood.

I also want to come back to the expression “democratic basis” that the hon. the Minister used. The governing party has also shown us very clearly, over the past few months, that when they say “democracy”, it means “democracy as it suits the governing party”. If one therefore agrees with the governing party, one is democratic, and if one does not agree, one is undemocratic.

The hon. the Minister also asked how a Government tests the attitude of the electorate. He says that he tests the attitudes of his own supporters every year at the congresses. NP congresses, however, are no longer used by the NP to test the attitudes of his voters; the NP congresses are gatherings where the NP leaders—certain leaders, in particular—tell the people what to do. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Waterberg was only the Transvaal leader for a very short time. When I was a member of the NP, the attitudes of NP supporters were indeed evaluated, but present NP congresses have become congresses of yes-men and yes-women.

You were not there last year; how would you know?

I am very much better equipped to talk about that than the hon. member for Geduld who writes about a CP congress without ever having been there.

The hon. the Minister says there is also another way: The attitudes of the electorate are also tested during elections. I agree with that. He says that the attitudes of interested parties are also tested when they give evidence before Select Committees or commissions. I agree with that. He says that the opinions and attitudes of people are also tested by State institutions or semi-State institutions such as the HSRC. I fully agree with that. The only problem, where the last-mentioned is concerned, is that one does not always have the time or the opportunity to go through the reports on those opinions and attitudes to see how correctly or how scientifically they have been done. The hon. the Minister will agree with me when I say that recent reports on such opinions and attitudes have, in my opinion, been wide open to scientific criticism and that people do not always get an opportunity to confront the issue critically.

But, Mr. Speaker, there is another very important point that the hon. the Minister has forgotten, and I want to add that during the last few months and even years the governing party has shown that it no longer wants to give its opponents, particularly its political opponents, an opportunity to test the Government.

Where do you get that?

I wish that hon. member at the back there would rather keep quiet; he understands nothing about this sort of thing. We have seen this during the past few weeks. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that even within the National Party there is no real chance to fundamentally criticize what the Government is doing, particularly not the Prime Minister.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. member? Does he think that referring this Bill to a Select Committee before Second Reading was not a wide-open gesture giving the Opposition an opportunity to participate constructively in what was to be included in the Act?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister is confirming my standpoint, particularly when I bear in mind the constitution …

We are now talking about the Referendums Bill.

… which is the most important piece of legislation we have yet had. Here we are merely making arrangements for voting on the constitution, but the constitution was not sent to a Select Committee before Second Reading. [Interjections.] Let me say, Sir, that the governing party is approaching ever closer to a period in the history of South Africa when the Opposition parties will, as far as possible, be eliminated in the process of furnishing criticism.

There is another very important matter which my colleague, the hon. member for Meyerton, mentioned, and that is the fact that since the advent of Union this is only the third referendum that is being held, whilst in the governing party’s new dispensation we shall be entering a period in which referendums will apparently be the order of the day.

Are you afraid of that?

No, I am not afraid of that at all, but for that very reason I find it a pity that in regard to the rules of the game greater use was not made of the inputs furnished by the official Opposition, the other two parties in the House and also other registered political parties, so that we could reach more unanimous agreement on the rules. The hon. the Minister spoke about the flexibility of the Act, but from the fact that in future so many referendums are going to be held, there is a certain question that does crop up; and I want to tell the hon. the Minister that our party is very sceptical about the governing party’s acknowledgement of democracy. As far as I am concerned there is still the following question: What does the Government really want to do, in future, in calling for a referendum? The other important point is that the State President is going to play a tremendously significant role in calling for and fixing dates for referendums. It seems to me as if, in the future, the registered Opposition parties will be playing an ever-decreasing role …

They will be eliminated.

Yes, they are going to be eliminated in the process of calling for referendums, and the electorate is going to be tested in ways other than the traditional ways in which voters have had an opportunity to air their views on political issues. [Interjections.] In regard to this new nation that the Government wants to create, I just want to say that it is very clear that the Government will not hesitate to manipulate matters involving the three population groups by way of a referendum, in fact to such an extent that its standpoint will eventually triumph. The Government will do so without accommodating the standpoints of the three respective population groups. As a member of the White population group, I have very grave doubts about the way in which the governing party will, in the future, be able to manipulate the Coloureds and the Indians by way of referendum decisions that will put the White man … [Interjections.] Hon. members can shout “scandalous” until they are blue in the face. Let me tell them straight out that this is going to greatly complicate the position of the Whites in this country. The hon. the Minister also says that it is in the Act and is going to be done on a more regular basis. We have not yet received a reply to the question I put yesterday about whether there were going to be any opportunities …

He is gossiping now, just like Frank.

That hon. member talks about gossiping, but how can one be gossiping here in an open House where he and the Press are present? Surely I am saying this quite bluntly. [Interjections.] Whether I do so during the day or in the evening, I am saying what I sincerely believe. I am not afraid to have people hear me.

In this Bill reference is also made to the Other Coloured Group. I should like the hon. the Minister to spell this out in greater detail.

There are approximately 1 400 of them in the Republic as a whole.

I just want the hon. the Minister to explain this in his reply.

I also want to speak about referendum results and the role that political parties have thus far played in their constituencies. According to convention the boundaries of constituencies were such that the respective political parties could fully delineate and fully play their role within the boundaries of the constituency. I think that the conditions in 1960 were, to a large extent, very different to what they are today. I want to tell the hon. member for Innesdal that he may minimize the role of the 1960 referendum and place it in an inferior position to the referendum that is to take place shortly, that he must bear in mind that the 1960 referendum concerned an ideal which was as old as the National Party itself, i.e. the establishment of a Republic.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member said that that referendum was much less important than this year’s referendum. I want to say that the respective political parties have a very important function to fulfil during a referendum, particularly one such as this. This control exercised by the Opposition is very important. It does not matter whether a party can win a constituency or not; the fact of the matter is that it can have its workers there to receive people and to see whether things are running smoothly and efficiently in the polling stations, so that if something were to go wrong, they could complain, lodge an appeal and even go as far as having recourse to the courts. I get the impression, however, that the governing party, particularly as far as the coming referendum is concerned, wants to deny Opposition parties an opportunity—particularly on polling day—to influence their people and put their standpoint to them. As far as referendum agents are concerned, let me say that the whole political set-up is different to that in 1960. The fact that the Government, with the appointment of a referendum agent, wants to force the Opposition parties to have only one person to carry the responsibility, is being done for two reasons. Firstly, the Government wants to create tension between the various political parties opposing it. It wants to create tension between the HNP, the CP and the PFP. Secondly the Government wants to use this, amongst members of the public, as a propaganda trick. Long before we began with the Second Reading debate of this Bill, the hon. member for Johannesburg West made a remark in this House that boiled down to the fact that the governing party wanted all its opponents under one blanket so that it could then say: “There they all are: Progs, HNP’s, CP’s, AWB—everyone.” [Interjections.] The Government wants to use that as a propaganda trick. The headline in the Burger yesterday or the day before was saying precisely the same thing. That is one reason why one referendum agent must be appointed, and that is to create tension amongst the Opposition parties who are, on the basis of their varying principles, opposed to the referendum. The second reason is the fact that it is a propaganda trick. A moment ago the hon. member mentioned the advertisements in the Sunday Times. As far as I am concerned, it does not matter. The NP can use its money until it is blue in the face. The principles we shall be putting forward are the principles that will eventually win through. Since the Government was unable to win through in the constitutional debate, or in putting its case to the public, it now want to be able to tell the public in one and the same breath, by way of propaganda: If you vote against this, you are voting for Black majority government, and also that if they vote against this, it will be nothing but blatant racial discrimination. The governing party is therefore using these referendum procedures to its advantage. Whilst we have to agree about the rules of the game, the governing party itself uses the rules for propaganda purposes by not divulging the true content to the electorate.

The voters are not all that stupid.

That is the advantage we have. We know the voters are not all that stupid. Fortunately the voters of Innesdal think for themselves. They are saying these things because the Governments political slip is showing to such an extent that it is still going to trip over it. [Interjections.]

This referendum is very important. The voters out there must have the right to hear the standpoints of the various parties very clearly. People surely do take part in the referendum as members of political parties. The NRP takes part in this referendum as the NRP, with its individual principles, its individual standpoint and its specific view of things. That is why I am requesting individual agents for them if that is their request. We are taking part in the referendum. Give us our referendum agent, someone who endorses our views. Also give one to the PFP and to the HNP. [Interjections.] Give one to all the registered political parties who ask for one.

The AWB as well?

Yes, if the AWB is registered as a political party and asks for one … [Interjections.] If they are members of an organization that should not be there, put them in gaol.

I want to conclude by saying that the governing party drew up the rules of the game to suit itself. Let us accept the fact that the hon. the Minister will not back down on this point, but this will eventually prove to be to the detriment of the governing party. The governing party is going into this referendum as a party neglecting its past. It is entering this referendum as a party whose principles are vague and blurred. It is going into this referendum as a party without hope and without a future. The converse is also true. In this referendum the old, traditional standpoints of the Whites will again be endorsed. There will be two currents of thought amongst the Whites, i.e. that of the conservatives, based on the old, well-worn conservative principles, and also that of the liberals, based on the old, well-worn principles of that liberal trend of thought in South Africa.

In this referendum it will become increasingly clear that the NP, wanting as it does to occupy the middle of the road position, will not succeed in its aims. If, on any road, one keeps to the left, or keeps to the right, there is little chance of being involved in an accident. It is the people who walk in the middle of the road who are run over. To an ever-increasing extent the NP is finding itself in the position in which the old United Party found itself. We are busy hearing the NP’s swan-song.

The CP will be voting against this measure because, in compiling the rules of the game, the Opposition parties are not being considered. If this measure is passed, the CP will be approaching the referendum in a positive spirit. Even though we are opposed to them, we shall accept the rules. In this referendum we shall make a contribution to the finest ideals and principles of democracy. I do not doubt that the people will say “no” to White capitulation. The people will also say “no” to the distortion of the issue involving the various population groups in South Africa. The clarity that will emerge, after the referendum results are in, will undoubtedly benefit the CP.

Mr. Speaker, I would very much like to come to light with a meaningful reaction to the hon. member for Rissik’s speech, but unfortunately his speech was based on presumptions and suppositions which, at times, had him making statements which bordered on the reckless. It is very difficult to reply to such a speech.

At the beginning of his speech he had a gleam in his eye whilst speaking about the CP and the congress in Kimberley. Let me tell the hon. member that I am prepared to join him in being tested for conservatism. He can draw up the rules for such a test. We can then see who is conservative and who is not. I am conservative, and I make no secret of the fact. The hon. the Prime Minister and the Minister of Internal Affairs are also conservative. Conservatism is built into the NP’s programme of principles. We on this side do not need to tie labels round our necks to indicate that we are conservative.

Give us a definition of conservatism.

We do not need a mendacious gossip-sheet, which obtained its name by doubtful means, to tell us how conservative we are. We do not need to wear bonnets to tell us how conservative we are. We do not need to walk around with Russian AK rifles to protect our conservatism.

But you are jolly handy with a guillotine!

We are conservative, and the CP must not try to mislead the electorate with their statements about what conservatism is.

I now want to focus my attention on the Bill, however, and say that the Referendums Bill is not only unique, but also in many respects model legislation on which it will be difficult to improve in the future. As the hon. the Minister said in his Second Reading speech, this measure also embodies elements of flexibility and is therefore pre-eminently able to provide for the holding of referendums to determine the views of the electorate of the Republic, or any portion of that electorate, on any matter whasoever. I find it very difficult to accept that there are people who are opposed to this Bill. They are either being wilful or their opposition is unfounded.

This is the second time since 1910 that we shall have gone to the polls in a referendum. Everyone who was involved in the 1960 referendum will readily concede that the problems that were experienced—and there were many problems—are now largely being eliminated by this legislation.

What problems were there? There were no problems.

There were many problems. I shall be coming to that. I have been involved in elections for 30 years now, and I was also directly involved in the 1960 referendum. I shall try to sketch for that hon. member the problems we experienced and compare that situation with what the situation will be in terms of the provisions of this legislation. This legislation was specifically aimed at eliminating all the impediments encountered at that time.

Firstly it will now be possible for the voter to cast his vote in as easy a manner as possible. Secondly provision is being made for the voter to get to the polls in as convenient a manner as possible, and he only has to present his identity document and then to vote. Then the whole procedure is over. For this purpose ballot-boxes will be placed at convenient spots. Ballot boxes will even be installed in large buildings or complexes where there is a concentration of voters. That is how easy and convenient it will be made for them.

Mr. Speaker, for two reasons I hope you will permit me to refer back to the 1960 referendum. I specifically want to refer to the Welkom constituency in the Orange Free State. This constituency furnished the largest number of “yes”-votes in the Free State. It is also one of the five constituencies in the country that returned more than 9 000 “yes”-votes. That is not all, however, because it was also the constituency that tipped the scales when the “no”-vote still held the lead. That was a proud achievement for the Welkom constituency.

Yesterday the hon. member for Meyerton made a beautifully descriptive speech. He referred to events during that referendum, the people flocking together and sharing in the joy and happiness when the result was made known. That is true. There was, however, also another side to the picture which he did not mention. It does not help just showing the more attractive side of the picture. I was also present at such a polling-station and had to witness literally hundreds of people, embittered and disappointed, turning away from the polls because their names were not on the voters’ roll. It was not merely the result of negligence. They were long-established voters whose names, for some or other reason, were simply not on the voters’ roll. There were many people who could not vote in the referendum. It was a great disappointment to them. This Bill specifically aims at permanently eliminating that problem. I trust that the provision in this Bill about voters having to use their identity documents when voting will form the basis for all future elections in the country.

I also want to take the hon. member for Rissik up on what he said about elections and referendums. I have consulted every possible authoritative works on elections and referendums and would like to refer to Kotzé and Van Wyk’s book Die Basiese Konsepte in die Politiek, in which the following definition of a referendum is furnished, and I quote—

The hon. member for Turffontein also referred to this, and I also want to emphasize the aspect of a direct vote—

I also consulted other works on the same subject and would also like to refer to Norman Wilding and Phillip Laundy’s works The Encyclopaedia of Parliaments and Parliaments of the World, in which a very clear distinction is also drawn between direct and indirect elections. In direct elections the opinions of members of the population are tested, whilst indirect elections are elections held on a constituency basis. This means that all hon. members of the CP are products of an indirect vote and not a direct vote as would, for example, have been furnished by a referendum. [Interjections.]

Have you read what Prof. Redheart said about it?

The hon. member for Jeppe may go and consult that work himself.

But you said you had consulted all the works on that. [Interjections.]

There is also a comprehensive definition of a referendum which I came across in Parliaments of the World, and I quote—

These are of course aspects, Mr. Speaker, which can be debated in more detail during the Committee Stage. I also consulted some references in connection with the CP suggestion that the name “referendum” be changed to “volkstemming”. Nowhere in the well-known works could I find the term “volkstemming” being used. It is therefore again merely a case of playing with names.

It is part of the “volkshuishouding”.

I do not believe it is anything more than a mere playing with names. Both words, after all, mean exactly the same thing.

The legislation under discussion also makes provision for the making of regulations in regard to facilitating the procedure applicable to referendums. It also adequately provides for the elimination of certain offences or malpractices, and this is being done by way of penalties varying from a fine of R1 000 or imprisonment for 12 months to a fine of R10 000 or imprisonment for three years, depending on the seriousness of the offence.

I again want to point out that the most important aspect in this legislation is, in my opinion, the voting procedure to be adopted to make things as convenient as possible for the voters. They could therefore cast their vote with the least possible effort. Surely it is the object of this legislation to eliminate all possible obstacles. In terms of this legislation the voters will now be able to vote where it suits them best. Voters can move to wherever they want to without forfeiting the chance to take part in the referendum. Every voter who has an identity document can simply go and vote at the ballot-box that is most conveniently situated for him. One must note, however, that only the prescribed identity document will be accepted and not ID cards.

Because the voting procedure has been simplified to such an extent, I think that each political party in the country ought to welcome this Bill. In his volume Republiek van ’n Duisend Jaar, the poet G. A. Watermeyer wrote, amongst other things, the following words: “Elke hand wat ’n kruisie maak, is ’n hand wat aan die toekoms raak”. The converse is, of course, also true. Each hand that does not make its cross also has an affect on the future. For that reason one can make a very serious appeal to the thousands of voters who are not yet in possession of identity documents to apply for them without delay, in fact before 30 September. South Africa needs these voters, at the polls too.

In conclusion I want to thank the hon. the Minister and his officials for drawing up this legislation. I also want to thank the members of the Select Committee and, in particular, the very competent chairman, the hon. member for Tygervallei, for the work they did in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member Mr. Vermeulen indicated that he viewed this legislation as a model Referendums Bill. I regret that I very positively cannot support his attitude in that regard. I am somewhat worried because only last year we adopted totally new referendum legislation consisting of something of the order of 83 clauses over some 70 pages. The hon. members on that side fought assiduously to push it through with the minimum number of changes because they believed—only a year ago—that that legislation was the alpha and omega of referendum legislation. That legislation is now being replaced by this minuscule document which contains something of the order of 18 clauses over some 15 pages. Quite frankly, Sir, as far as I am concerned we may as well not have a Referendums Bill except to say that we shall be permitted to hold a referendum. That is as I read this particular document.

The hon. member for Umhlanga was the first hon. member in these benches to speak on this legislation. He indicated that we would be opposing this Bill and I wish to reiterate his statement. We are going to oppose it most strenuously and primarily in respect of two vital matters of principle.

The first of these is in respect of the fact that the State President will have the authority to produce all the regulations relating to a referendum. To all practical intents and purposes the running of the referendum will be subject to regulations that the State President will be able to produce. As far as we are concerned, that is an abrogation of our functions as members of Parliament because in the previous Referendums Bill the regulations in regard to how a referendum was to be run, who was to vote, how they were to vote and so forth were all enshrined in the Bill, and I see no reason whatsoever why that should not be the case today. I want to make it clear that we have no objection to an updated and more modernized system. Frankly, I believe that in the past our system was somewhat antiquated and required modernization. When the previous legislation was passed we were endeavouring to introduce a certain measure of modernization into it. Nevertheless this Bill before us completely removes from Parliament all the primary regulations in respect of who shall vote, how people shall vote, where they will vote, where the votes will be counted and so forth, which were contained in the previous legislation.

The second point in regard to which we strongly disagree with this legislation on a matter of principle is the fact that up to and possibly in excess of 150 000 White South African citizens who have taken the trouble to have themselves registered as voters could be deprived of that vote in this particular referendum because for one reason or another they do not have the identity documents that it is intended shall be used for this referendum. We believe that this is most iniquitous. I know it has been said that there may well be an additional few hundred thousand voters who will be brought on because they are on the population register, but I would suggest that those who have taken the trouble to ensure that they do have the right to vote and who have the franchise are more likely to be actual voters than those who are too lazy to bother about it and have not got themselves on the roll. Therefore I would suggest that there is a very strong likelihood that a great number of people who will be brought on to the roll just because they are on the population register, and not because they have applied for franchise, will not bother to vote anyway. This again is an aspect which worries us because we feel that approximately only 10% of the population of South Africa will be deciding upon the future of this country, upon the legislative system for this country. That being the case, at least let us be assured that that small percentage of our total population will to the maximum have the opportunity of voting. Let us not deprive those 150 000 people who apparently are registered as voters but will not be able to vote if they do not in the interim obtain books of life. This particular aspect worries us very, very considerably, and in due course we shall have an amendment on the Order Paper for the Committee Stage.

The hon. member for Turffontein indicated that perhaps some people did not know the difference between a referendum and an election. Of course I have known the hon. member over a fairly long period. He is a very pleasant fellow and we have always got on well together, I think. The point is that I think most of us do know the difference between an election and a referendum. That, however, is merely a point en passant. The point that really does worry me is the nonchalant and casual way in which he indicates that it is perfectly all right for these 150 000 voters to whom I have referred to lose out if they are so careless as not have an ID book and it is much better to get these few hundered thousand extra people who have been too careless to get themselves registered. I think this is really an appalling attitude on the part of the hon. member.

The third principle about which we are very disturbed is that this referendum is not to be run on a constituency basis, but on an area basis which means that one will not have the stimulation and the organizations working in the same way as one would have in an ordinary election to ensure that one gets as many people as possible going to the polls. We believe that this system of having it in regions and not having the constituency stimulation and ultimate counting is going to have the effect of reducing the percentage, and as I have already indicated, with such a small percentage of our population having the franchise, this to us is undesirable.

In respect of the comparison between the Referendums Act of last year and the present Referendums Bill I should like to make one comment. Why has it been so necessary within the space of one year to draft a totally different Bill which bears no relation to the other? Which of the two Ministers responsible for these two Bills is so totally incompetent that one has to throw the other’s work out within the space of a year, because this is the implication of what we have before us? I have been involved in the creation of legislation, and the original Referendums bill could have been amended to achieve the main objective that the hon. the Minister seems to be wanting at this particular stage. In my opinion he has made an absolute fool of the previous hon. Minister of Internal Affairs who produced the original Bill. I can assure him that I would be most unhappy if it happened to me. [Interjections.]

The Bill before us today is so wide in its interpretation of what can happen in respect of regulations prepared by the State President, that it makes a farce of the whole system of having a Referendums Bill. Frankly, if we wanted to go through this we should have had a Bill which said that in respect of a referendum, the State President may make regulations to do anything and everything he likes in respect of running a referendum. That is all that is needed. This is the effect of this Bill. It makes it very difficult. In the coming referendum we shall be fighting on the side of the NP for South Africa, for a “yes” vote. [Interjections.] We shall be doing this, but we want to be sure at the end of this that we are not going to have people saying to us “You fought a good fight with dirty rules”. This is an aspect that worries us very considerably. We shall not be supporting this Bill because we conceive and consider it to be totally inadequate and no way near as satisfactory as the Referendums Bill of last year which should have been updated to accommodate the real needs of the situation.

Mr. Speaker, I am obviously pleased that the hon. member for Umbilo and his party are opposing the Bill, as we are. I think there are a couple of points in his speech which are worth highlighting. One of his very last points illustrates the whole context, where he said it is no use fighting a good fight when you have dirty rules. I think that is a critical aspect we should bear in mind.

The second point I should like to draw attention to is people who have taken the trouble to register as voters compared with people who have taken the trouble to obtain an identity document. People who have taken the trouble to register as voters should certainly not be losing their votes.

The third and possibly the most important point that the hon. member made was the recognition of the fact that 10% of the population of South Africa are going to decide on the future of everybody. I think we should remain aware that irrespective of this Referendums Bill and the referendum itself, the vast majority of people in this country are opposed to the new constitution, that it is to be put at a referendum. They have no say whatsoever in this matter.

I wish to highlight three major objections to this Bill. However, before I do so I think it is important to put this Bill in its proper context, because it is part of an overall pattern. We have a desperate Government that is losing support and has lost confidence.

Are you serious?

Yes, I am serious. In its attempt to cling to power it is jeopardizing accepted democratic practices at every turn. The NP has adopted a philosophy of what I call a philosophy of 3B’s, and that is not three Bothas. This philosophy is: When in trouble, do one of three things: Either buy your way out of it, or brazen your way through it, or bulldoze your way over all opposition. I believe that this is the corrupt philosophy of the means justifying the end and the false belief that might is right.

What is your second B?

Brazening your way through it, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Information does on the subject of leaflets at present. It is in this spirit that this Bill is being rushed through Parliament, simply because it suits the NP.

The first major objection that I want to draw attention to is the fact that this Bill will deprive tens of thousands of people of their right to vote. The hon. the Minister has given various assurances about the number of people involved. He said it was something like 158 000.

That is not correct.

I do not know what that hon. member is muttering about. Did the hon. the Minister not give that assurance? The hon. the Minister gave assurances that the procedures, etc., will be set up so that if people take just a reasonable amount of trouble, it should not happen. In fact, it could be prevented. What are the facts in this regard? In the mid-seventies there was a Select Committee examining the Electoral Act, and as a result the electoral Act of 1979 introduced the concept of using the population register as a basis for voters’ roll. It had a proviso, however, that it would only come into effect at some later date. The undertaking was given that it would not happen until such time as virtually everybody had an identity document, and that there would be transition periods during which there would be parallel rolls for the political parties to compare, etc., throughout the country. I know in a couple of by-elections there have been some comparative rolls, but that has not been done throughout the country. The political parties have not had an opportunity to compare them and to try to get to people who do not have identity documents.

Last year in the Select Committee on the Electoral Act the possibility of disenfranchising people was discussed at length. Various suggestions were included in the report of the committee—which was subsequently shelved—to make provision for the transition from using voters’ rolls constituted on the basis of the RV1’s to using the population register as a basis for voters’ rolls. A series of mechanisms were suggested, although not all the ones that we wanted. The Government members themselves suggested mechanisms to prevent people losing their vote. Again, in discussions, undertakings were given that nothing was going to be rushed, that there would be a transition; that one would be able to see what was going on; that one would be able to get to the people; that one would have plenty of time, etc. However, that has not happened. The Government has reneged on these promises and Opposition political parties have not been given time to adjust or to attempt to find people to get their books of life.

I want to mention a second fact, Earlier this year I asked a question in the House about the issuing of identity documents. I was told that as at 30 September last year—the most recent date for which figures were available—some 320 000 applicants were waiting for documents. This included White, Coloured and Asian applicants, because apparently it was not possible to differentiate between them. In the year leading up to that date only 200 000 identity documents had been issued. In other words, as at that date there was a 19-month backlog of work. Now it is claimed that this is up to date, with only some 158 000 Whites without identity documents. However, the reply to a question in the House earlier this month suggested—I have been informed subsequently that some of the figures are wrong, but I believe I will be supplied with the correct figures—that in every single month of this year more applications were received for identity documents than documents were issued. That certainly does not lead one to have any great confidence that the situation has improved that much.

As member of Parliament I have been approached by people waiting for up to two years for their identity documents. In many of these cases no further documents were requested from them and their books of life were eventually issued. I know of a case recently where someone wanted to change his book of life. He asked for application forms and those forms were sent to him very quickly, but in those application forms there were a whole lot of photographs of other people who had nothing to do with the people concerned. We know of the problems that have been experienced over the years of documents being lost. Those documents were lost, I feel sure, by people themselves, but also by the department. So, I am afraid I cannot accept this bland assurance, nor can I share this confidence.

The group that is going to be hardest hit by this mass disfranchisement will be the elderly. For many of them the problems of finding old documents, filling in forms and having photographs taken will discourage them from applying for books of life. In addition, the anxiety caused by being asked to send away personal documents will put many older people off altogether. The form for applying for one’s identity document has certainly been condensed and simplified from the six pages it was to the present two pages, but even on the existing form amongst the questions one is required to answer—and I am now thinking of someone who is 60, 70 or 75 years old—one finds questions such as: “Your father’s date of birth and place of birth; your mother’s maiden name; her date of birth; her place of birth.” Anybody who has had dealings with older people, particularly those in institutions, will know that that kind of information is often extremely difficult for them to come by.

The parties could help these people …

They should.

… but the promised transition has not taken place. The hon. the Minister says the parties should help them, but in Cape Town Gardens I do not have a list of those who do not have identity documents.

You can get one. It is immediately available.

Perhaps it is immediately available, but there are only two months to go before the referendum is held. This is the sort of thing we were promised would be available over a period of many months before a switch took place. We cannot spend half our referendum campaign running around trying to find people who we are now told do not have books of life. In practice tens of thousands of elderly people are going to lose their votes. It is disgraceful that this Government is unilaterally going to deprive people of a right some have had and exercised for 50 or more years.

The second problem I wish to highlight is the intention to do away with the voters’ rolls and constituency voting. I understand the NP’s embarrassment at seeing constituency results.

We are saving you a lot of embarrassment.

The Government has ignored key aspects that apply to a referendum or an election. The first aspect is that the public and participants must have confidence in the procedures. If we are to have a free and fair election or referendum, the public and the participants …

[Inaudible.]

Sir, I do not know whether the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning has not had enough chance to talk in the last three weeks or so …

Just carry on. You talk so much nonsense.

The public and the participants must have confidence in the procedures. In this referendum the procedures are new, they are untried and at this stage they are even unknown. They are unilaterally decided upon and they have not been introduced slowly. Secondly, the contending parties must have access to voters to put their points of view. In this referendum there will be no rolls and there will really be no time available for political parties to integrate their systems. Thirdly, the participants must be able to witness controls to ensure that malpractices are not occurring. There is going to be no reasonable possibility of doing this. Since in this referendum we will be moving away from constituencies, the control of familiar faces and of knowing people in the area and therefore being aware of outsiders is just not going to apply. The tried and tested procedures are being discarded simply because it is in the interests of the NP to do so.

The third problem is the question of giving the Minister carte blanche to do what he likes. As the hon. member for Umbilo pointed out, this Bill might just as well have had only one clause which would have read: “The Minister has the right to make regulations for referendums and matters related thereto.” It would have saved paper and eliminated pretence. The proposed holding of referenda by way of regulations is undemocratic, unjust and open to abuse. We are given assurances, but I do not accept them. Consider the background to this.

Let us take the regulations in regard to referendum agents. The Select Committee were given the regulations as a general guide of how things would go. In terms of that each political party could appoint a referendum agent in a constituency. Now the hon. the Minister says that one “yes” and one “no” agent will be appointed.

It is not comparable to 1960, because the “for” or “against” were for similar reasons. The UP and the PFP were against it for similar reasons. The Constitution Bill is far more complicated. The NP, the NRP and the ANC would all like to see a “yes” vote. The NP, because by entrenching apartheid, excluding Blacks and giving the State President dictatorial powers, they think it will entrench White NP domination. The ANC thinks that by excluding Blacks, entrenching apartheid and giving the State President dictatorial powers, it will increase the possibility of violent conflict. Similarly, groups opposed to the constitution such as the PFP and the CP differ fundamentally in their approach.

The forthcoming referendum is cynical manoeuvre to embarrass the Government’s opponents. The hon. member for Tygervallei thought it was a big joke. I am not surprised. After his role in bulldozing the Constitution Bill, moving the closure, etc., I think he has lost his sense of shame. Die Burger, the official organ of the NP in the Cape, was obviously given advance information and this they published yesterday morning. The hon. the Minister should apologize, but the hon. member for Tygervallei brazens it out by saying it was logic. It is like the impeccable logic of the NP in having advance information of the timing of the 1981 general election.

Opposition parties are in the dark. The regulations are coming out in dribs and drabs. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister: Does the Government know how it is going to run the referendum? Does the Government know how it is going to regulate it?

Yes.

If the Government knows, why do they not tell everyone? Why do they not tell us everything instead of giving us bits and pieces in one speech? The whole approach is one of take it or leave it. The Minister can do what he likes, when he likes and how he likes, and if something goes wrong he can change the regulations to suit himself. The Opposition is placed in an impossible position. It has no say whatsoever in the formulation of the regulations. It does not know what they are and when they are to be announced, and it is therefore impossible for them to organize properly. You cannot start a contest before the rules have been published. You cannot even start preparing properly.

The Government knows that it is an untenable situation, but it has lost its sense of shame many years ago.

The Opposition has no reason to have confidence in the Government’s record in these matters. In the 1977 general election they spent R30 million on The Citizen newspaper to boost their chances. We learnt recently that in the 1981 general election they used prisoners who were in jail for fraud to make banners for them. In 1983 the Middelburg constituency fell vacant in May, but the by-election is only going to be on 2 November. This is in contrast to what happened in 1980, when the member for Simonstown resigned on 30 June and the election took place in the first week of September.

Let us look at the constitution as such. The referendum was on and off and delayed entirely at the whim of the Government. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Information has distributed about three quarters of a million leaflets at a cost of more than R100 000 of taxpayers’ money. Ministers go on helicopter joints to NP meetings at a cost of about R5 800. In the discussions on the Constitution Bill, the Government used the guillotine and closure to prevent the proper airing of Opposition views. SABC-TV and Radio is used shamelessly and repeatedly to churn out propaganda in their favour.

It is not surprising that the Opposition wants referendum procedures prescribed by law. Why all this unseemly haste? Why this determination to bulldoze the Bill through Parliament and to brazen out any criticism? It is part of a pattern. The NP is in trouble but it has two strong cards. It has more money than all the other parties put together and it has control of SABC-TV and Radio. They have therefore decided to deny the Opposition normal access to voters. A spinoff of that is to reduce NP embarrassment over constituency results. Furthermore, they introduce uncertainty into procedures to make Opposition mobilization of support more difficult. The result is that the mass media, dominated by the NP, can play an enhanced and pre-eminent role in the referendum campaign. In so doing, the NP’s chances of winning are greatly increased. This Referendums Bill is just part of a whole process of denying equal opportunity to Opposition parties. It is anti-democratic and as such it is a sign of the times and a warning of what is to come. It is a disservice to our country, yet it will be bulldozed through because it is in the short-term interests of the NP.

We shall oppose this Bill for the reasons that my colleagues and I have mentioned. It is designed not to reflect the opinions of the voters but to distort them. In doing so life will be made more difficult for the parliamentary Opposition, but more important, the truth will fade further into the darkness and the prospects for peaceful change in this country will be diminished.

Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to all the various speakers, and I must say that it is a long time since I have heard, in this debate, a speaker talking so much nonsense and drawing so many wrong conclusions as the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. Since 1958 I have been intimately involved with elections, and in each election in which I have been involved, and also those that took place before my time, there were tens of thousands of voters throughout the country whose names had, for some or other reason, been left off the voters’ roll and who could therefore not vote. The Opposition parties are now making a great fuss about the 150 000 voters who will not be able to vote on this occasion. At the same time, however, they suppress the fact that this will be the first time in history that voters are given the opportunity, right up to one month before polling day, to get themselves on the voters’ roll. There is nothing and no one stopping any of the political parties getting their organization going right now to enable the 150 000 voters who do not have identity documents to get those documents before the end of September. I think it is a tremendous breakthrough, on the part of the Government, to have put those voters in the position of actually being able to vote.

Why has it never been possible in the past?

Because it has never been possible in the past, these people want their bread buttered on both sides. I shall come back to that argument again in a moment.

South Africa is approaching a watershed. As other hon. members have said, South Africa is making an appointment with the future that is going to have far-reaching effects on each and every voter. Regardless of what the result of the referendum is, South Africa will never be the same again. We stand on the threshold of irrevocable change.

Suppose you lose?

Whether the result of the referendum is a “yes” or a “no”, South Africa will irrevocably have been placed on the road to far-reaching changes. The question is therefore no longer whether we should indeed change, but rather how we should change. All the political parties in this House agree on one thing, and that is that the underlying status quo cannot be maintained. All agree that there must be far-reaching changes. That is what the NP is saying with its new constitutional plan about which we are holding a referendum on 2 November. That is what the CP is saying with a totally new policy of establishing the Coloureds and the Indians in sovereign independent Coloured and Indian homelands…

It is an exciting policy.

… and that is what the PFP is saying with their policy, now openly acknowledged by their leader, that Black representatives can have the majority of seats in this House, which would mean Black majority government. Because that is so, a referendum is being held on the very simple question: “Are you in favour of the implementation of the Constitution Act, 1983, as approved by Parliament?” There are no gimmicks in the question. It is so crystal clear that each and every voter, even the hon. member for Jeppe, can understand it and know exactly what it is all about. This also indicates the foolishness of the arguments of the official Opposition which, in the Select Committee …

Order! I am afraid the rest of this hon. House does not understand the sign-language and gestures now being used by the hon. member for Koedoespoort and the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, he made a fist at me. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Kimberley South may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, this also clearly indicates the foolishness of the PFP which, in the Select Committee, proposed that a panel of judges should consider the question to be put to the voters with a view to determining whether the question was fair and just. One cannot but ask what Government would be so foolish as to formulate a question, which is to be put to the voters, in such a way as to cause confusion. Throughout the years numerous Select Committees have tried to make the Electoral Act more streamlined so that it would be as easy as possible for the voters to cast their votes.

Prior to each election a Select Committee is appointed to review the deficiencies in the Electoral Act. It is therefore of great significance that a Select Committee sat recently to consult on the Referendums Bill. The most important change, a complete innovation in the system in South Africa, is the fact that there will be no voters’ rolls because everyone with an identity document will be able to cast his vote at any polling station.

In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister, in consultation with interested parties, said that provision would be made for a great many more polling stations so that each voter, wherever he happened to be, would be able to cast his vote at the polling station nearest to him. To make this possible the very well-known and controversial system of postal votes has been done away with, and that is the most important reason why the result of the referendum cannot be determined on a constituency basis.

Another very important reason is that the voters will be able to cast an unprejudiced “yes”-vote or “no”-vote and, what is more, free of party-political ties, because the referendum does, after all, transcend political boundaries. We see as much in the House. We notice, for example, that the PFP and the CP, together with the HNP and the AWB, the Kappiekommando, the UDF and the devil knows who else, who all disagree radically with each other, are now entering into an election pact with a view to joint action in each of the constituencies.

And you and Allan Hendrickse have teamed up.

That is, of course, because there can only be one yes agent and one no agent in each constituency.

I now want to come back to the hon. member for Rissik. He alleges that this is going to cause tremendous tension amongst political parties. I cannot understand how that will actually …

You are the ones who want tension.

The hon. member for Rissik says we want to create tension.

I agree with him.

Sir, that hon. member does, in any case, agree with everything that is not fit and proper. [Interjections.] I cannot understand why there necessarily has to be tension amongst the various political parties. [Interjections.] The NP, for example, is going to negotiate with the NRP. In certain constituencies they will be appointing yes agents, whilst we shall be appointing yes agents in other constituencies. Surely there is no tension about that between the NP and the NRP. So why should there specifically be tension between the CP and the other Opposition parties?

How many times must I tell you that we do not agree with the Progs?

You are nevertheless “chummies”, Koos. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I believe that this new referendum system will make it much easier for the White voters living within the borders of South Africa to get to a polling station. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, as you know, I can speak very loudly. There are, however, certain hon. members who are now drowning me out. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Kimberley South may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Even voters of the Republic of South Africa who have been seconded to independent Black States, and Government officials on foreign service, will find it much easier to vote in the referendum. With South Africa embroiled in a war, with thousands of national servicemen deployed on its borders, and also on the borders of South West Africa, it will now be possible for our chaps to cast their votes at their own bases anywhere in South Africa or in South West Africa—at polling stations at their bases—regardless of the constituency in which they are registered as voters.

For that reason the CP’s plea that the vote should also be extended to the White voters of South West Africa is totally incomprehensible to me. The NP rejects that plea, simply because the White voters of South Africa have no say—nor can they expect to have any say—in the internal affairs of South West Africa. In South West Africa itself there is division. At the congress held there recently, the National Party of South West Africa advocated that the inhabitants of South West Africa participate in the referendum. The Republican Party, on the other hand, does not advocate participation in the referendum by the inhabitants of South West Africa. I do not doubt the fact that there are certain voters, at present in South West Africa, who would indeed be entitled to vote in the referendum, but there will not be polling stations in each town in South West Africa for them to vote at. That will mean that those voters will have to travel to the nearest town in the Republic of South Africa in order to cast their votes. If one wanted to be consistent about all South African citizens being able to vote, even if they are not resident in South Africa, one would have to give all South African citizens throughout the world an opportunity to take part in the referendum. That could result in people like Peter Hain, who may still have his identity documents, also being able to participate. Is there any hon. member in this House who would like to see people like Peter Hain taking part in this referendum?

For these reasons I gladly support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kimberley South said that as far as the Government was concerned there was no problem whatsoever in using ID books. He said that those ID books would be issued. We on this side of the House have said that the system of voting as we had it in the past should be continued. I want to remind the hon. member for Kimberley South that he forgot to tell us that the NP registered 125 000 voters prior to the referendum in 1960, and that could quite easily be done in this particular case as well.

I should like to put this point to the hon. the Minister. If a soldier on the border does not have his ID book, what is going to happen as far as his vote is concerned?

In his speech, the hon. the Minister mentioned various means of consultation between the government and the people of this country. However, he forgot to mention one very important means of testing public opinion which we have at present, and that is on the occasion of by-elections.

I said I only wanted to mention a few.

We have first-past-the-post elections in South Africa. While it is true that the NP did win the majority of seats in the by-elections, if one adds the total vote to the right of the political spectrum in South Africa, one finds that the Government were very fortunate indeed that the right wing did not form coalitions. Therefore, it would be wrong to use that type of test.

Regulations should only be made when completed statutes have been accepted in this House because it is dangerous to have a system run by regulation. It smacks of the system of government in places like Lesotho, Botswana or Zimbabwe.

During the debate in this House when the question of loading and deloading was discussed, the hon. the Prime Minister said that he did not agree with the principle of one vote, one value. However, if a referendum is compared to a general election, there can only be one vote, one value. The question I want to ask is: Why did the hon. the Prime Minister change his mind? You see, Sir, the question of deloading or loading is one of blatant discrimination. Deloading is a particularly useful tool to get more for the rural interests of any country who seek to maintain their power despite their declining share of population relative to the cities. This is not the case now in regard to a referendum. Whether one votes in Prieska or in Durban, for the first time one’s vote still has the same value. When one votes in a general election or at a by-election, one’s vote has a different value because it is loaded up to 15% and deloaded by up to 30%. In South Africa the English-speaking voters have tended to live mostly in densely populated areas while most of the rural areas are settled by Afrikaans-speaking voters.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, before the suspension of proceedings I said that most of the English-speaking voters in South Africa live in the Cape Peninsula, the Port Elizabeth area, the Durban-Pietermaritzburg complex and the central Witwatersrand. They normally do not vote for the NP, but because of the fact there is no “one vote, one value” system as one is going to having in this referendum, the English-speaking voter is grossly underrepresented in this House as it takes almost twice as many of the English-speaking voters to elect one member in a place like Durban than it takes Afrikaans-speaking voters to elect one member from the Karoo area. However, as long as the hon. the Prime Minister does not believe in “one vote, one value” and he shows it by not changing the new constitution which has now been approved of in the committee of the Whole House, the English-speaking voters will be allotted to a permanent political minority.

A “yes” vote for the new constitution will even go further and perpetuate the English-speaking voter’s position of inferiority because that is what this constitution continues to do. The voters’ roll as at the end of June shows that if one lives in Prieska or Vryburg or Namaqualand, one only requires 9 000 voters to provide one member to this House, but if one lives in Bezuidenhout or Krugersdorp or Brentwood or Pretoria East or Waterkloof one requires between 17 000 and 19 000 voters to elect one member. Yet, when it becomes necessary to get a particular point of view expressed, we go for a system of “one vote, one value”.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The hon. member is discussing the formulas for delimitation but this forms no part whatsoever of the Bill we are dealing with now.

I am watching the hon. member to see what connection he makes.

I do not think he can make a connection.

I shall watch him closely all the same.

The point I am trying to make is that in this referendum we are actually going to have “one vote, one value” but when it comes to the election of members of the House, this does not apply at all. The question is: Who will win in this referendum?

There is no doubt about who is going to win it.

Well, that is the hon. member’s point of view.

In an effort to assess the position I should like to point out what happened at the last election and the various by-elections. One could also look at the various opinion polls. One finds a very interesting situation. In the blue collar and rural areas the hold of the NP has been whittled away in the past year, and had the combined vote of the right Opposition been cast together, there might have been a different composition of this House. If the vote of the English-speaking and the vote of the Afrikaans-speaking voters should be split in this referendum, one doubts whether the Government would get a majority of 100 000 votes.

There are more than 400 000 potential English-speaking voters. These voters voted in the last election for either the PFP or the NRP. They hold the balance of power in this referendum. This is why the Government, realizing that the English-speaking voter holds the balance of power, is trying to win his allegiance and tries to get him to vote “yes”. The hon. the Prime Minister really wants the English-speaking voters to sell their birth-right for a mess of potage. A “yes” vote will relegate them to a position of permanent political inferiority. English-speaking voters would do well to cast their mind back to the last referendum and to ask themselves why they are being wooed again for their votes as their fathers and mothers were in the referendum of 1960. Dr. Verwoerd was the then Prime Minister and the architect of grand apartheid as it exists today. He wanted a republic during his premiership and if he could have had his way—he stated that long before the referendum—he wanted a republic outside the Commonwealth, but he was prepared to have a treaty of co-operation and friendship with Great Britain because of the large number of English-speaking people in South Africa. The bonds between English-speakers and their mother country were very strong indeed. Estimates, according to the book The Republic of South Africa by Van Jaarsveld and Scholtz, showed that at the end of 1959 the referendum for a republic would be lost by some 70 000 votes, and therefore it was essential to get the English-speaking voters’ support. In January 1960 Dr. Verwoerd announced in this House that he would …

You are fighting the Boer War all over again.

I am not fighting the Boer War. I am fighting a real war. Dr. Verwoerd announced that he would hold a referendum to decide on a republic for South Africa, and that a majority of one would be sufficient. The only way he could get the English-speaking support was to proclaim that the Republic would be within the Commonwealth. Eric Louw, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, attended the Commonwealth conference in 1960 where it was decided that becoming a republic and membership of the Commonwealth were two separate factors. The position was that membership of the Commonwealth was going to depend on the attitude of the Commonwealth premiers to apartheid and its dismantling.

By June 1960 it was estimated by the NP…

Order! I have allowed the hon. member to go very wide, but I think he must now get back to the Bill.

Sir, I am trying to show that the advertisements and other methods that are being used in this referendum are exactly the same as those applied in the previous referendum.

But does that have any bearing on the Bill itself?

Yes, Sir. Other hon. members have spoken about the forthcoming referendum and about the effects certain things will have on it.

The hon. member may proceed.

They had a Union Congress at that particular time. At that congress Dr. Verwoerd said—

However, the referendum took place, and we know what the result was. In March 1961 South Africa left the Commonwealth and the promise which Dr. Verwoerd had made to the English-speaking people of the country fell away. The same is happening in this particular referendum.

I should like to come to a few matters dealing with this particular Bill.[Interjections.] I should like to ask the hon. the Minister a number of questions. He says that he wants flexibility in this particular Bill. Will the referendums that will be held amongst Indians and Coloureds be different from the type of referendum that will be held amongst Whites? The hon. the Prime Minister has said that the Coloureds and Indians will be given an opportunity for expressing their opinion.

It would have been quite easy to have made provision for Blacks in this Bill too. Why should Blacks not be subjected to referendums? Why should the Government not also ask the Black people of South Africa their views on particular matters? In the clause which stipulates who can participate in a referendum Black people have been omitted.

Another point is whether the hon. the Minister will announce well in advance where the polling booths are going to be. Are there going to be polling districts on the same basis as has applied up to now? Secondly, where is the count going to take place in the respective regions? It is rather important that people should know well in advance where the count is going to take place. I cannot imagine that in Johannesburg, for instance, the count will take place in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer for Johannesburg. I cannot imagine 300 000 votes being counted in that office. There is not even enough place there to count a few thousands votes.

I should like to conclude by saying that a “no” vote by an English-speaking person does not necessarily mean support for the CP. A “no” vote is a vote for a better constitution for all groups in South Africa, a vote indicating that the constitution must be rewritten and that in the new constitution all groups in South Africa must be able to participate. That is why one votes “no”, because the proposed new constitution will entrench apartheid for a long time.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout touched on a very important matter when he asked what the position was going to be with regard to the men on the border. I am certain the hon. the Minister will reply to that. The hon. member also said he was not fighting the Boer War but a real war. I shall tell him the story about the person who once told me that he hated the English because of the Boer War. When I asked him why, he said because too few Van der Merwes had been shot dead! [Interjections.]

This brings us to this Van der Merwe debate. I am proud to say that on our side alone I am the third Van der Merwe to participate. A Van der Merwe to the right of us has also participated. This illustrated one thing, namely that this bill is nothing but a Van der Merwe joke. [Interjections.]

The hon. member Mr. Vermeulen referred with a broad smile to 1961 when Welkom ushered in the Republic. I have bad news for him. It is the Free State that is going to cause the “noes” to win on 2 November.

The hon. member for Tygervallei saw fit to discuss a topic on which he would seem to be a great expert, namely bad manners. He need only look at the Hansard reports for the last three weeks to see which Chief Whip in the history of Parliament has the reputation of having been called to order and of having had to withdraw his words the greatest number of times.

Sir, this Bill is a short Bill. It contains only 18 clauses and of course there are several good points in it. We consider the question to be fair. However, we also have objections in principle to this measure. The problems we have with its principle are concerned with the establishment of the concept of one South African nationhood, the fact that there is going to be only one main agent per constituency, the regional counting and the dictatorial way in which the rules will be laid down.

The measure also introduces something new and in this regard it represents a very important revolutionary moment. A new style of government is now rearing its head. Instead of one strong mandate which a government receives regularly, say every five years, referendums will now be held regularly. This is a new style of government. It has very important implications. The first is that the mandate principle is being violated in this way. It is establishing an ad hoc type of government and this weakens effective government and creates uncertainty. Stability must therefore suffer under this constant mandate-seeking. This very clearly implies a Government without self-confidence, a Government which does not know the will of the people. For that reason it has to keep on consulting the people. This is also in line with our view of this Government. Our standpoint is that we should rather go to the people every five years and get a proper mandate.

This measure is in effect “the rules of the game”. The preparatory phase for the game has now been completed. We have been making progress for years now towards a new constitution and we shall now at long last have to test it. We are now discussing the rules which will apply in the ring. There is only one all-important rule which has to apply in this case, and that is that there should be no restrictions on the equal opportunity of all participants to participate. In other words, the will of the voters must be exercised freely and without restraint. That was also what the NRP said.

On 2 November the CP is going to participate in the referendum with a few strong points in its favour, but will also be handicapped by a few weak points. The Government will also participate with certain strong points and certain weak points. The strong point of the CP is that it has a case. It represents the traditional principles of the Whites, of the Afrikaners and of the NP. It is fit, young, trained and eager. Our weak point is that the Government is in the position, and is already doing so, to manipulate the media, and it has big business on its side.

The NP is going into the referendum with one major weak point, namely that it has moved away from its principles and has been stripped of its credibility. I had hoped that hon. members would ask me to prove this, but since they did not, I should like to remind the hon. the Prime Minister what he said in Rapport of 10 September 1978, namely that a tricameral Parliament was not NP policy. As I have already mentioned, the NP is going into the referendum stripped of its credibility.

Our objection is that this Bill is a building block in the NP structure in which it wants to amalgamate Coloureds, Indians and Whites into one nation. The opinions of Whites, Coloureds and Indians can be tested together. In addition, only one agent has been appointed, and we consider that unfair. It sabotages political parties and prevents them from participating effectively in a referendum. In addition, it also creates conflict. The PFP do agree with us, but I want to make it clear that I am far closer to the NP than to the PFP. If that comes as a surprise to you, I just want to add that I am going to vote “no” on 2 November. The fact that only one agent is going to be appointed, prejudices political parties. It is a violation of the democratic principle that every political party can participate freely and without restriction. I do not know what the NP is afraid of. As far as the regional counting is concerned, the major question is whether this will make a contribution or whether it will be counter-productive in testing the will of the voters. I think it will be counter-productive. [Interjections.] Folidol, why don’t you keep your mouth shut? You are still suffering from the effects of that stuff you sprayed all over the place when you were still flying.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member entitled to call another hon. member “Folidol”?

Order! Did the hon. member for Jeppe call the hon. member for Kroonstad “Folidol”, and what does it mean?

Mr. Speaker, it is his nickname. The hon. member was a pilot and sprayed crops. We hear that the poisons he sprayed affected him. That is why he is so stupid. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Jeppe is making a very big mistake …

Order! The hon. member for Jeppe may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I maintain that regional counts are counter-productive and the regions are of different sizes. In the hon. the Prime Minister’s region—it is not his political region; it is the geographic region—there will be 45 000 people, but in Johannesburg, the region where we are, there are 250 000 people. Now it is my standpoint that in a referendum one should take a far more detailed regional sample than among 350 000 people. The point I actually want to make, is that enthusiasm is lost in this way. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if Folidol would keep his mouth shut.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: May the hon. member for Jeppe refer to hon. members on this side of the House by their nicknames?

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member for Jeppe that it is a rule of this House that an hon. member must refer to other hon. members as “hon. members”.

Mr. Speaker, I shall not refer to the hon. member again. Just in passing I want to thank the hon. member who sent me the banana in the glass. It would seem to have something to do with my nickname.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I want to know if it is permissible for bananas to be imported into this House!

Order! The hon. member for Jeppe may proceed.

It is essential that a referendum should also give an indication of the support which public figures enjoy. We expect that this is the underlying reason for the decision that we have to contest this this on a regional basis. We know the NP is worried about what support public figures are going to have everywhere. We think that there is only one hon. Minister who is going to do well in the referendum and if there should be an election. That is the hon. the Prime Minister. With his particular vision and driving force in politics, I am convinced that he would be the only NP Minister who would be able to keep his deposit.

I should like to refer to opinion polls. In clause 11 reference is made to opinion polls. In principle we agree that the evil of the manipulation of public opinion has to be combated. We have had experience of this. However, I have a slight problem with this. There are scientific opinion polls, there are personal opinion polls and there are academic opinion polls. I just want to refer hon. members to this report in Beeld on an opinion poll which was held. It reads like a Western. The headline of the article is “Begin van die einde van die CP”. The article might just as well have been written by Louis L’Amour when hon. members hear what I am going to read. In this article we read—

The article in Beeld continued—

On the strength of these opinion polls it was stated what the result of the elections would be. They went on to say that the opinion poll indicated that in Waterberg the CP would poll 26%; the NP 47% and the HNP 15% of the votes. My first problem with this opinion poll is that the total here is only 88%. When this opinion poll was made on 28 February, and the results were published, the Transvaal leader of the NP said that the results of the opinion poll did not come as a surprise. The NP itself expected it. Here we therefore had a position where there was a scientific opinion poll and an opinion poll of the NP and an opinion poll made by an academic. All of them were very wide of the mark. I maintain that this was manipulation of public opinion.

We can discuss clause 11 further during the Committee Stage. At this stage I just want to say that I cannot see any difference between subsection (1) and (2). Subsection (1) covers the kind of opinion poll undertaken by MIS, MIS-estimated and generally MISsed by MIS. Subsection (2) does not exclude canvassing possibilities. How are we going to differentiate between these two? To me this seems to be a problem.

In conclusion I want to say that this Bill, which lays down the “rules of the game”, the “rules” in terms of which we are going to face each other in the ring on 2 November, is unfair and that the rules are going to prejudice us.

Mr. Speaker, from the moment we began discussing the new constitutional dispensation, the PFP and the CP have been shouting about how they are going to oppose it. However, now that we are creating this machinery to give them the opportunity of opposing it, they are shouting louder than ever. I cannot understand why they are making such a fuss about this Bill. We are offering them the boxing gloves and the opportunity to get into the ring and put everything into the fight. Looking at them, however, it would seem to me that they now want to move away from a referendum—those same sanctimonious people who went and told the story in Waterberg and Soutpansberg that the Government had suddenly become afraid and no longer wanted to hold a referendum. What do they say now? Those hon. members must be careful that the CP does slip on that banana of the hon. member for Jeppe on 2 November. When we passed the legislation on referendums in 1982, the hon. member found it acceptable. However, now he is saying that the NP is continually seeking mandates. He says that the NP does not know what the will of the people is and that that is why we are going to hold a referendum. However, we do know what the will of the people is. In fact, the very reason we are holding this referendum is to show how well we know the will of the people so that, for once and for all, they can desist from telling the story about us not knowing what the will of the people is. The hon. member went on to say that the NP has been stripped of all credibility. Shame. In fact, Sir, the NP has now been stripped of all its untrustworthy elements. That is why they are sitting in those benches now. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Jeppe has already had an opportunity to speak.

Sir, on a point of order: The hon. member for Kroonstad is continually making personal remarks about me. I have heard him say: “K-o-o-s, K-o-o-s!” six or eight times.

The hon. member for Stilfontein may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. [Interjections.] Really, Mr. Speaker, hon. members of the CP are just like little boys. They continuously complain and cry and howl for sweets, but the moment they are given their sweets, they howl and cry about the fact that they are strawberry-flavoured and not banana-flavoured. [Interjections.]

†Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout tried to indicate to us here that the English-speaking voters in 1960 were afraid to vote “yes” because they were going to give a lot away. I am sure that the English-speaking voters in this country have realized by now that they have gained quite a lot, as a matter of fact, much more than they lost. I am sure that by now they must be very thankful that the “yes” vote carried the day in 1960.

When one looks at immigration figures, and at where the majority of immigrants come from, it is very interesting to note that they come from the English-speaking parts of the Western World. I would like to say to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that the English-speaking people, as I know they will do on 2 November, will vote “yes” and will realize that they have everything to gain in this country, and nothing to lose. [Interjections.]

*Mr. Speaker, I just want to come back briefly to a few of the foolish things hon. members of the CP said here today. One of the things they said, is that all political parties should have a chief referendum agent. We are not having a political election. We are simply having a “yes” or “no” referendum. This referendum goes far beyond the bounds of political parties. This referendum is not concerned with the issue as to whether the Government’s policy should be accepted, or whether the policy of the Opposition parties should be accepted. It is concerned solely with an opinion poll among our voters. If we should accede to the wishes of hon. members of the CP, it would mean that all of a sudden every inconsequential little party will have to have a chief referendum agent. In fact, I know what the CP will do under those circumstances. They will want a referendum agent for the AWB, as well as for AET, the HNP, and then they will also want to drag in the United Democratic Front.

And the KWV, too.

Yes, the whole lot. They will simply bring all these groups together and try to enter the battle with the whole lot together. No, really, I think they must be careful not to try and load too much onto the tortoise’s back, since at some stage that tortoise is slowly going to grind to a halt. Perhaps that would be a good thing, however. At least it would prevent the tortoise from retreating so rapidly, as is apparently the case nowadays. [Interjections.]

The NP is a big, strong party, and we are prepared to enter this battle in order to make known to our voters the principles in which we believe. The CP also have something they call a newspaper—Die Patriot—in which they can put across their views to the people. What they have there, is a knock and drop kind of story.

Koos knocks, but who drops?

Yes, more drop than knock. [Interjections.] If the CP were to adopt sound and moderate standpoints, I am certain that television and the newspapers would also put forward their standpoints. They need not be concerned about that. They will also be given an opportunity, just like all the other parties. To tell the truth, I do hear their hon. leader’s name being mentioned on television from time to time. [Interjections.]

Another thing hon. members of the CP claimed, was that referendums were going to become the order of the day. Really, Mr. Speaker, I do not know how those hon. members can truly believe that that is going to happen. Do they really think we are going to hold a referendum for every Tom, Dick and Harry; for every little question we want an answer to?

Not for Tom and Dick, but certainly for Harry! [Interjections.]

The only reason we are holding this referendum … [Interjections.] … is to ask the people of the Republic of South Africa to support the new proposals of the NP; to ask the people of South Africa to agree with us in this respect, and not to be afraid of the stories hon. members of the CP are telling the world at large. [Interjections.] No, really, those little bits of gossip of theirs come straight from the tortoise’s gossip column. I honestly believe that. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Rissik is not present in the House now. However, I must say that I am of the opinion that he has displayed a negative attitude for long enough. I believe it is high time that he begin to be a little positive, and that he seize the opportunity this referendum is offering him with both hands. This is truly going to be a great day in the history of our country. I shall take it amiss of those hon. members if they try to influence the people of our country in a negative and nasty way. We do not deny them the opportunity of putting their case, but I want to appeal to them earnestly to try to put their case absolutely positively, and not in a disparaging way, as they have done in the past.

The idea of TV debates is nothing new. I think the hon. member for Meyerton mentioned this. We are all aware that the SABC asked whether the debate on the Third Reading of the Constitution Bill could not be televised. I do not think I need to tell that hon. member what the causes and reasons were for our unanimous decision that that debate should not be televised. I must honestly say that when I think of a certain professor who appeared on television to sell this new idea of a Coloured homeland, and how he fared, I want to tell those hon. members that I think they should really be grateful that all the parties decided unanimously not to permit any TV debates. They would come off second best in such a debate, and they would therefore have a difficult time in the referendum.

Let us consider once again what this Bill entails: It makes specific provision for the opinion of our people to be tested. It makes no provision for a by-election or a general election. The principle to obtain an opinion with regard to a certain matter, has got nothing to do with a general election. We are not asking the electorate of the Republic to express an opinion as to whether or not they have confidence in the Government. We are not asking the electorate to give an opinion on whether they want one man, one note, like the PFP, or whether they want a Coloured homeland. All we want to know from them, is whether they agree that the course we, the NP, want to pursue, is the right cause for the Republic of South Africa. I am fully confident, as I stand here this afternoon—and I think this is why those hon. members are making such a fuss—that the electorate of the Republic of South Africa are going to back us with a “yes” vote on 2 November 1983. In my opinion, the fuss that side is kicking up is only because those hon. members are afraid of the forthcoming day of reckoning. They can say what they wish. They can try to fan Afrikaner emotions on the one hand …

What about the NRP?

That hon. member should rather join the member of his family who is outside this House. On the other hand, those hon. members of the PFP can try to fan the emotions of the English-speaking people. It is my contention that the vast majority of people in the Republic are reasonable, thinking people. If they are not reasonable, thinking people, may I be so bold as to say today …

May I please put a question?

I have no time for that, Sir. When that hon. member comes to Orkney again, he can put his questions to me personally, and then I shall give him a hearing. I shall welcome him there. If most people in this country were not reasonable people with a reasonable amount of insight, they might have voted the PFP or the HNP into power in 1981. Furthermore, if most people in the Republic of South Africa were not reasonable, they would not have awarded the vast majority of seats—some of them unopposed—to the NP and left them in our hands during the recent by-elections. Once again figures were quoted with regard to Waterberg. I just want to tell the hon. member for Jeppe—he is so fond of figures and statistics—that he should go and study those figures. His leader by no means represents the majority of voters in Waterberg, something which is, in fact, true for the hon. member for Soutpansberg. The hon. member must go and revise his figures. I think the hon. member for Waterberg drew something like 38% or 40% of the votes, but we obtained an outright majority in Soutpansberg.

This Bill is one which creates a fine, streamlined procedure. I have already said that it is completely different from, and has nothing to do with, a general election or a by-election. I am sure that those hon. members on the opposite side of the House welcome this streamlining. I am sure that secretly they are very pleased that an opportunity is being created for us to hold a referendum with such a streamlined system. One cannot test the will of the people, the will of the population, or whatever one wants to call it, as regards a specific matter by holding a general election—that is an outdated way of going about it. That is why this legislation…

Will the Indians and the Coloureds be allowed to hold a referendum on the same basis?

When we want to test the opinion of all three these segments one day, yes. We shall certainly do so when a specific matter is at issue.

Not when it concerns the Constitution Bill, however.

Nothing is preventing us from doing so, but we want to test the opinion of the White voters of the Republic concerning the Constitution Bill on 2 November. We shall see what happens in the future. If ever we are faced with something about which we want to test the feelings of everyone in the future, we shall afford all three the population groups the opportunity to share in that decision.

The White man will decide.

I have said before that this Bill cuts across all barriers. When I say that the Referendums Bill cuts across all barriers, it means that it also cuts across the barrier of colour. Surely that is why we are including the Asians and the Coloureds in this legislation. I know that this is one of the objections of the hon. members of the CP. I am sure that if they had the opportunity, they would suddenly decide to have three kinds of immorality laws as well—one for the Coloureds, one for the Asians and one for the Whites. They would really do that. I honestly cannot see what those hon. members are kicking up such a fuss about.

There is no question of a common voters’ roll here. I think this is one of the greatest phantom fears lurking in the back of the minds of hon. members of the CP. We have been saying from the outset that we are going to have three separate voters’ rolls. We have been saying from the outset that we are going to have three separate population groups voting.

The issue is not a voters’ roll.

I know it has got nothing to do with a voters’ roll, but I am simply trying to tell hon. members of the CP that they have nothing to fear; this has got nothing to do with a common voters’ roll. I am very pleased the hon. member said that, since it shows that he is listening to what is going on for a change.

I do not know why the hon. member for Jeppe so badly wants us to announce the results on a constituency basis. He will not know who in the constituency voted “yes” and who voted “no”, in any case. The people who are going to vote “yes” will come from the ranks of the PFP, the CP, the HNP, the NRP and the NP. What would be the sense in trying to determine how many people in a constituency voted “yes” or “no”? I really cannot understand what they want to do with such limited statistics. The people who are going to vote “no”, will come from the ranks of the CP, the HNP, and the PFP, and I can give the assurance that very few of them will come from the ranks of the NRP and the NP.

This Bill gives everyone the opportunity to vote either “yes” or “no”; to say: “yes, we want you to proceed on the path you have taken,” or to say: “No, we want you to reconsider.” Any party that does not seize this opportunity positively on 2 November, is an extremely foolish party. However, I know that our voters are going to provide us with a resounding “yes” on 2 November.

Mr. Speaker, we have now come to the end of the Second Reading debate, and I must say that for me there was an element of tragedy in the debate because not one of the Opposition parties displayed the courage or the vision to support an attempt at meaningful removal of unnecessary red tape. They all found reasons to this opportunity of accommodating the voters and making it easy for them to vote, to pass. That is after all, the main purpose of the Bill, and why the Bill which was passed last year was amended. They allowed an opportunity of escaping from a time-consuming, cumbersome and clumsy system, to pass. Convulsively hon. members of the PFP in particular fell back on a system which may truly be regarded as archaic. So obsolete were the arguments of hon. members of the PFP, so rigoristically were they bound by tradition, that they resembled the tortoises and the CP the hares. At least the CP welcomed the use of identity documents instead of voters’ lists and realized that this had many inherent advantages and few disadvantages per se.

We also said that the question was a good one.

All the parties conceded that the question was a good one. Consequently we need not argue about the question. The CP’s problem lies with the answer and our success will lie with the answer.

I do not intend replying to the speech made by each speaker. However, I shall be replying to a few specific questions and I shall touch upon the various themes which were dealt with.

Before I do so, however, I should like to thank hon. members on this side for their constructive contributions. The speaches of the hon. members for Tygervallei, Innesdal, Umhlazi and Turffontein, the hon. member Mr. Vermeulen, as well as the hon. member for Kimberley South and the hon. member for Stilfontein testified to insight and thorough knowledge. They testified to a willingness to try out the new procedures for making the polling procedure more streamlined. In particular, however, they testified to confidence in the cause in which they believe, namely confidence in the principal matter which will result from this Bill, viz. the referendum. They also testified to expertise. They testified to a willingness to accept modernization, something which has been necessary for a long time. I should like to thank them for their effective support of and enthusiasm for a constructive renewal of our voting procedure. I should also like to associate myself with their arguments. They facilitated my task considerably.

I should now like to concentrate on a few of the matters which various hon. members raised. Firstly I want to tell all hon. members at this early stage that as soon as this debate is over and before we adjourn at the end of next week, I shall give all the parties copies of the draft regulations so that they can see the final draft at the earliest possible opportunity. I may not publish them before a certain time has elapsed, before the referendum itself has been proclaimed, but I shall give these to them before we adjourn so that they will know precisely what they contain. If there is time, I shall give an indication during the present debate of the most cardinal points as they will be contained in the draft regulations.

The hon. member for Rissik apologized for not being able to be present here this afternoon. He made a bitter speech, intermingled with suspicion and a vindictiveness to which we have begun to grow accustomed, but it was more intense than usual this time. What did the hon. member say? He accused us of wanting to exclude the Opposition. He accused us of ignoring the Opposition parties with this Bill.

Surely that is true as far as agents are concerned.

I should like to come to that at once. The main complaint now is that I gave an indication, at an early stage and on a confidential basis, to the leaders of the parties—and I also repeated it in my Second Reading speech—that there would be an equal number of agents for the yes vote and for the no vote. That is the first point. The second is that there will be one chief referendum agent for the yes vote and one for the no vote. What is the principle here? It is equal treatment of the two standpoints. That is all. It is not being done to place those gentlemen in a difficult position when they have to negotiate with the Progs. We all know that they have widely divergent reasons for wanting to vote “no”. However, they have a common objective. That common objective is to halt the orderly development contained in the Constitution Bill. Why one should vote “yes” or “no” is not important from the supervision angle. The fact of whether a person votes “yes” or “no” is important. What is also important is that those who say that a “yes” is not in the interests of South Africa, should be in the position where they can be assured that there is effective supervision, that there is no scheming and that there are no malpractices which benefit the yes vote.

Have you started printing the yes votes yet?

The opposite is also true. As far as the no vote is concerned, which we think will lead to chaos, it is necessary for the supporters of the yes vote, the positive people of South Africa, to be certain that no malpractices occur which benefit the negative people. That is the only function which these agents have. Their function is to be present. They are entitled to be present at all occasions when votes are counted and when ballot papers are issued. They are entitled to exercise supervision to ensure that the officials who are in control of this election do their work properly. They must also ensure that no malpractices occur.

This referendum is not concerned with giving any political party—whether the NP, the NRP, the PFP, the CP, the HNP or the Blanke Volkstaatparty—a platform on which to build up their own image. They can do that at the next general election and also at by-elections. This referendum is concerned with giving every White voter in South Africa an opportunity to express his opinion impartially on one question only, regardless of his political affiliations. That question is: Do I want the constitution, as it will have been finalized, to be implemented, yes or no? We on our part do not intend conducting the referendum campaign in such a way that it is concerned with furthering the interests of the NP. [Interjections.] It is in the interests of South Africa that the voter’s ideas, when he has to decide to vote “yes” or “no”, should not be distracted by any side-issue of any kind. It is also in the interests of South Africa that every voter should be persuaded to answer to his own conscience: What do I really believe is in my own best interests and those of my people, and of this country and its people?

For that reason there should be equal treatment, as there was in 1960. Now hon. members say that circumstances differed in 1960. The hon. member for Meyerton said that, and he was quite wrong. In 1960 the Referendums Act which was formulated specially for that referendum, stated that there would be only one agent for the yes vote and only one agent for the no vote. There was more than one political party represented in the House that advocated the no vote.

One party had only one representative here.

That makes no difference. They did only have one member here, but they had a country-wide organization. I can give the hon. member the assurance that what will now have to happen between us and the NRP with regard to the yes vote, and between the CP, the HNP and whoever else wishes to cast a no vote, was what had to happen then in many electoral divisions. For that reason the hon. member was factually and juridically wrong in drawing this comparison.

I want to give this House the assurance, with all the earnestness at my disposal, that it is not the object to force the Opposition parties into a crush-pen or to ridicule them by lumping them together. The object is equal treatment. The interest of the voter is the ultimate deciding factor. If six parties participate and each of those six parties have, say, five agents, one already has a potential of 30 people who may be simultaneously present at one polling station and who can push voters around and intimidate them. The number of agents that have to be there has to be determined by the question of how many are necessary to be able to do the work effectively. Their function is to ensure that everything goes off smoothly, and that is the only function they have.

There are only four parties in the House of Assembly.

There are parties outside the House of Assembly that are registered as such and they are also entitled to participate. Anyone is at liberty to establish an organization solely with a view to the referendum. Nowhere is it prescribed that only political parties may participate in this referendum. Any group is at liberty to get together and to decide to form a voluntary association and to propagate a no vote because they do not like any of the parties which are propagating a no vote. There is no preferential treatment of any political parties in this referendum. Hon. members must realize this.

The second matter which the hon. member for Rissik raised was that we were now the so-called middle-of-the-road party. The yes vote covers the whole road. We are not to the left nor the right of the road. This is the road of South Africa, and the Opposition Parties are the curb-stones, the extremists, the people who absolutize a half-truth in South Africa. The PFP correctly perceives the need for co-operation in respect of the vast area of common interests, but they display no sensitivity or insight into the real, inherent problems of the diversity of South Africa. They pay lip-service to the need to recognize that diversity and to build co-operation on it and to give each group security. The CP absolutizes reality. We agree with them that this is an extremely important aspect of reality, and it is also the point of departure of the NP, namely the need to maintain group security, to recognize differences which exist and to seek solutions to them. However, they merely pay lip-service to the need for co-operation among groups. They come forward with fine-sounding theories about how there can, after all, be co-operation, but with their whole attitude and approach they destroy any hope of there ever being co-operation because they display a humiliating attitude to the people with whom they say they are prepared to co-operate.

We cannot trust you after the things you wrote.

I still stand by what is stated in the pamphlet to which the hon. member is referring, but those hon. gentlemen do not. It is stated in that pamphlet that there are own affairs and common affairs and that there are own structures for own affairs and joint structures for common affairs. We support this whole-heartedly and it is written into the new constitution.

Are you in favour of the White Parliament retaining all its powers?

The White Parliament is now, with the discussion of the constitution, deciding what powers it will retain and what powers it is going to deal with in another way. There will be a House of Assembly which will have full say over the own affairs of the Whites.

There is not going to be a White Parliament.

The White Parliament is now in fact deciding how it is going to divide what and how it is going to separate it. It is also in the process of deciding—and within a week we will have disposed of the matter—what powers it is prepared to share with other population groups on the basis of responsibility. That is what this entire debate is all about.

I thought the President was going to decide. [Interjections.]

Order! I appeal to the hon. member for Bryanston and the hon. member for Jeppe to give the hon. the Minister an opportunity to make his speech.

Very well, Sir, but then the hon. the Minister must not talk nonsense.

The hon. member for Bryanston’s leader said …

Order! I have just given my ruling that the hon. member for Bryanston should give the hon. the Minister an opportunity to make his speech. I had hardly finished speaking, however, when the hon. member for Bryanston made another interjection. I consider that to be a reflection on the Chair.

I apologize, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. the Minister may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow me to rub the nose of the hon. member for Bryanston in his own nonsense. The hon. member’s leader stated on behalf of their party that if they were to come into power and held their national convention, this White Parliament would pass the legislation and decide what was going to be done, who would receive what powers and who would be allowed to do what. Surely that is all we are doing now.

They are entirely different things.

There is no difference whatsoever. In the process of debating the constitution we are now deciding which powers are going to be dealt with and how they are going to be dealt with in future. Some of those powers will remain vested in what is now the White Parliament and which will then be the House of Assembly, and some of those powers will become part of the collective structures of the tricameral Parliament and of the executive authority as proposed. However, we are not debating the constitution now. We are debating the procedure which is going to be adopted to obtain the verdict of the electorate on this constitution. In this regard the hon. member for Rissik went on to say that the NP was not truly democratic and that when I spoke of democracy in my Second Reading speech, it was not true democracy, and he cited a whole series of examples as to why he could not trust us when we said that it was democracy.

What is a referendum? A referendum is the ultimate way of democratically ascertaining the opinion of the electorate. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout complained that in an election some votes were worth more than others. For example he alleged that rural votes carried more weight than urban votes. That is the case in terms of our system, but in a referendum every vote is equal.

We agree, but we differ about the rules of the game.

How can anyone accuse the NP of flinching from a democratic testing of public opinion when it is in fact holding a referendum which it need not in point of fact have held? We have already received a mandate at two elections and in all possible terms, however one wants to look at it, the essential question of the past elections revolved around constitutional development. And we were returned with vast majorities. Consequently we already have a mandate. In terms of the Westminster system, therefore, we could have felt ourselves completely at liberty to carry on.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is of the opinion that the proposals as embodied in the new constitution are a deviation from the NP’s 1977 proposals?

The proposals in the new constitution contain all the basic principles which have been NP policy since 1977.

Is there no deviation?

There are material differences, but there is no real deviation in principle. The hon. member for Turffontein stated that his joining the NP had necessitated his accepting certain new principles, and renouncing principles in which he had previously believed. The hon. member for Rissik got a kick out of someone being so honest. He then thrust out his chest until the buttons threatened to burst off his jacket and said that he still stood by the same principle he had always stood by. But let us put that to the test now. In the first place, they have since 1977 stood by the principle that the Coloureds and the Indians share the same territory as the Whites and that a homeland for those two groups was for that reason not possible. Do they still stand by that principle.

We say that it is not practicable.

With respect, Sir. Is this argument between the Minister and the CP relevant to this debate?

This debate has ranged over a very wide field and therefore I must allow the hon. the Minister to react to it. I cannot constrain him now.

Secondly, it has been a principle since 1977 that there shall be own affairs and that there shall be general affairs, and that co-responsibility over the latter affairs will have to be accepted. But those hon. members renounced this policy as well. In the third place, it was accepted that there would be mixed bodies, for example a mixed President’s Council, a mixed electoral college with decision-making powers and mixed Standing Committees. Today, however, they condemn this and they describe it by means of the oversimplified concept of a “mixed government”. Sir, the people who renounced these principles, the people who turned their backs on things which they once proclaimed with great conviction, are the hon. members sitting over there. In contrast, we on this side still stand by the same principles.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister, in view of what he said about one vote, one value, will he be prepared to amend the new constitution so that in general elections that dictum can also apply?

No. For elections other principles apply. Then voters elect representatives to render service to the community. The capacity of those representatives to do so is influenced by the extensiveness of their constituencies, and for that reason a balance must be struck between the same value for every vote and the capacity of an MP to further the interests of his voters in the best way possible. Of course those hon. members who represent urban constituencies have no idea of the problem, and I can understand that. However, we know how difficult it is to render an effective service to the people of an extensive constituency, with its many towns and town councils.

The hon. member for Umbilo wanted to know why we had changed our standpoint so drastically within the space of one year. A year ago, he said, we drafted a Bill on the old principles and at the time the then Minister considered it to be a good measure. Now, a year later, I am saying that it was not a good Bill and that we should therefore work out an entirely new approach. But, Sir, I said that the original Bill was not a good Bill. What we are now doing was not attainable a year ago. What has happened in the meantime is that we have succeeded in increasing the capacity of the department—by means of reorganization, increased employment and replanning—to such an extent that the department is now in a position to say to those White voters who do not yet have identity documents that the department will be able to issue sufficient identity documents in time so that we can make identity documents the basis for a vote in a referendum. Hence the new approach. A year ago the backlog was still too great, and we were therefore not able to do it.

The speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was for the most part irrelevant. Nevertheless he did manage to ask a few relevant questions towards the end. He asked whether referendums for Coloureds and Indians would be the same as those for Whites. When they are held they will take place in terms of the same legislation. However, this is part of the flexibility which is necessary. The situation, when such a referendum takes place—if it takes place—could of course be entirely different. We could even find ourselves in the position that sufficient numbers of identity documents had not yet been issued. In such a case it could perhaps be necessary for us to vote on the old basis of voters’ lists, because we had not made sufficient progress in issuing identity documents. That is only one difference I could point out. For that reason there must be flexibility so that one can in the correct way, according to the specific circumstances of the group that has to participate in the referendum, make provisions applicable by way of regulation.

†The hon. member also wanted to know where the counting of the votes would take place, and also where the polling stations would be. The polling stations will be arranged in consultation with the officials in charge and on a constituency basis. Our suggestion, our wish, is that there should be more polling stations than is usual. Particularly in the central business districts of the larger towns and cities, I think, it would be necessary because that would enable voters to vote while they are in town doing shopping, working in their offices, etc., instead of it being necessary for them to vote in the constituencies in which they are registered. Therefore we must have, I believe, in the central business districts of towns and cities, a larger number of polling stations than usual in order to avoid unnecessary pressure and dissatisfaction among voters. When the time comes, however, there will be negotiations on a constituency basis, and I consequently ask the various political parties to lend their support and to give their co-operation in this regard. Let us remember that the aim is to make it as easy as possible for voters to cast their votes and give their opinion.

The hon. member wanted to know where the counting of votes would take place. We have not decided yet exactly in what building or room in each and every constituency the counting will take place. All I can say is that it will take place at the seat of the 15 regional offices; not necessarily in the office itself but in that town and in that area.

When will it happen? Will it only be the following day?

Mr. Speaker, the logistics will still be worked out. I can, however, give the hon. member the assurance that the number of ballot papers used will first be balanced on a constituency basis. After that the ballot papers will be sealed and guarded. The “no” vote and “yes” vote agents of the parties, or some of their deputies, will be allowed to accompany the sealed ballot papers. They can even sleep with those papers should they like to in order to make sure that no one will tamper with them. We will win without the need to tamper with the ballot papers. There will be full security measures against possible malpractices. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Johannesburg North also posed quite a number of questions. He wanted to know whether the identity document numbers of those who voted will be fed into a computer in order to obviate the possibility of double voting. He added that if this was done there would come into existence a list of all people who had voted in the referendum, and he wanted to know what would happen to that list. Once again, listening to the hon. member, it was clear that he wanted to create the impression that the Government was up to some dirty mischief, to some underhand malpractices. [Interjections.]

My reply to the hon. member is that those lists will be open in the presence of representatives of the “yes” and “no” vote agents. There will be outside control over the complete exercise. When those envelopes are opened and when the lists, as the hon. member refers to them, are drawn up, there will be full and sufficient control over everything. The information in connection with who voted and who did not is in any event public knowledge. It is public knowledge because I have already announced—and if the hon. member has not heard it, I shall repeat it for his edification—that the ID numbers of all people who vote will be made available to the parties outside the polling booths. Just as we used the voter’s number in the past, so now we will use the ID number so that everybody will be able to tell who did or did not vote. The fact remains that by doing that nobody will be able to ascertain exactly how anybody voted. That aspect of secrecy is a very important one and, as I say, there is no danger of there being a breach of secrecy in any way.

Unless there is a court order.

Yes, unless there is a court order. The hon. member also asked how foreigners, persons under 18 years of age and so forth, are going to be prevented from voting. The answer to that is easy. It is because the identity document itself contains the information and, as a person presents his identity document and receives his ballot paper, the details will be checked. From that document it can then be ascertained whether such a person is under 18 years of age or is in fact not a South African citizen.

May I please ask a question. In regard to identity documents, is it the intention that only S.A. citizens who carry identity documents can vote? I ask this because, of course, there are thousands of people with identity documents who are not South African citizens. How will they be excluded and, if they do vote, how is one going to tell?

I have just told hon. members but I shall repeat it. One has to be a South African citizen and one has to be over the age of 18 years and one has to have an identity document. Let me also clear up the question of an identity document. This identity document includes the old blue book and the new smaller green book but it does not include the old plastic wrapped card. When we refer to an identity document we are referring therefore to the blue book and the green book containing photographs and certain other relevant information.

The third question was: How are votes to be counted? It was said that justice must not only be done but that it must also be seen to be done. I want to ask the hon. member whether he really thinks that we intend to count the votes secretly behind closed doors without any control by either the “yes” or the “no” representatives?

Well, it is not in the legislation.

In view of the long tradition that we have in South Africa, did he really expect us to that? Was the hon. member perhaps just playing games in asking that question? I want to give the hon. member my absolute assurance that representatives of the “yes” and the “no” agents will be present continuously while the votes are being counted.

Why can this not be written into the legislation?

I come now, Sir, to a few of the themes which were touched upon. Actually, the first theme formed the subject matter of the interjection which the hon. member for Bryanston has just made. Apparently he does not think that the members of his party stated it clearly enough. What it dealt with was that we should have written all the particulars which are going to appear in the regulations into the legislation, and that we should not have done this by way of regulation.

†It is argued that the Bill should regulate all the details because the regulating power of the State President infringes upon true democracy in good legislation. In this regard, Sir, I am disappointed by the lack of understanding displayed in regard to the real purpose of the Bill. Hon. members should realize that this Bill is not confined to the referendum of 2 November 1983. It is an umbrella measure which provides for referendums in general and, as such, it must necessarily be adaptable so as to fit the varying needs of different circumstances at different times. That is the sole reason why this has to be done by regulation. [Interjections.] There is nothing sinister in the discretion vested in the State President in regard to regulations. On the contrary, the essence of the Bill is to provide a system that will enable the Government of the day to allow true democracy to assert itself by way of a referendum.

*Sir, the spectres of manipulation which the Opposition are conjuring up are straw dolls. Any government which abuses powers such as those granted by the Bill and produces a set of transparent regulations in which effective control is not inherent, will pay the price at that referendum which it has called. After all, the electorate does not allow itself to be manipulated. The Opposition has not been gagged in the Opposition Press. If we were to produce a set of regulations which would transparently benefit us, they would be able to escape from their present dilemma, which is that they do not have a good policy, and they would be able to destroy us purely on the basis of the fact that we have poor regulations and are not being fair to the Opposition. The hon. members should really display more self-confidence than that. Arbitrary actions, manipulation and the abuse of powers will be suicide for any Government that tries to do so with regulations.

Many references were made to a third referendum that was on its way. Many references were also made to the 1960 referendum. I should like to quote the entire Act regulating the 1909 referendum in Natal. This was promulgated by Her Majesty’s Government, strong adherents of the rule of law. I want to quote the entire Act and it is going to take me less than 10 seconds.

That was the Act.

Then the Government was still to be trusted.

Oh, I know the hon. member trusts the old colonial British Government more than his own.

Of course.

That is typical of the hon. member. This is the measure of his loyalty. This is what we will judge him by in future.

I have no loyalty to you.

The next objection was that many people would not be able to vote, that people would be disenfranchised. Let us consider for a while whether it is true that people will be disenfranchised. I want to compare this situation to something which frequently happens during our ordinary elections. Regularly in our history all people are disenfranchised and a completely new registration is ordered. No complaints are made when that happens. It is an attempt to bring our voters’ list up to date. A person may therefore have been on the voters’ list for 10 years, but when such a decision is made, all voters’ lists become invalid and completely new voters’ lists are compiled. Such a person then loses his franchise on the old voters’ list, but he is not being wronged, because he has the right to be included on the new voters’ list. What we are doing here is precisely the same. We are saying the old voters’ list will not be the basis of this referendum; the basis will be that everyone with identity documents will be able to vote.

We know that already there are approximately 200 000 more people with identity books than there were people on the old voters’ lists. Consequently we are immediately broadening the base.

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

I just want to dispose of this point of mine first.

We are going further than ever before in our history. I know of no election which was announced and in which people were still able to register after the date of the announcement of the election. With all elections that are announced it is the practice that as soon as the election has been announced it is conducted on a voters’ list that has already been closed. Here the date of the referendum has already been announced, but there is ample time for any person who still does not have an identity document to get one. Everyone is aware by now—it was given extremely wide cover—and the parties know that from today there are still 29 days left for everyone who still does not have an identity document to make application. We undertake that we will deliver that book before the day of the referendum.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is aware of the fact that many people in this country are wary about sending the original of his documents to Pretoria for their book of life and they may have reason for it? Is it not possible to relax it in the sense that for the purposes of the referendum photostat copies will be accepted?

I am sorry, but I am not prepared to have the integrity of the officials who are at present working 24 hours per day questioned by suggesting that they are not to be trusted with people’s documents. [Interjections.] The basis of the hon. member’s question is that people do not have enough confidence in the department to entrust their documents to the officials. [Interjections.] There is still a Committee Stage and a Third Reading of this Bill, when hon. members may ask further questions.

The second point I want to make therefore is that documents can still be obtained. It is not too late to register, to put it that way for the coming referendum.

The third point I should like to make, is that we are taking trouble to help that category of person with whom the hon. member for Green Point also expressed sympathy. I share that sympathy of his. The department is visiting every home for the aged in every constituency with the necessary forms and a camera. We take photographs of the elderly people and help those for whom it is difficult to get to a photographer, to acquire identity documents. I now want to make an offer to all political parties. In the case of voters who are bed-ridden and who cannot get to a photographer on their own, we will, as in the case of homes for the aged, do our very best within our means to visit such people, take a photograph of them, fill in the necessary forms and help them to obtain their identity documents. That is an offer.

I now wish to make a second offer. When there is little time left we shall accommodate those who are unable to get to a photographer themselves if they send us their old plastic identity documents. We shall transfer the photograph from their old to their new identity documents and use it for the purposes of the referendum.

Just that one photograph?

Yes, just the one photograph. Of course this applies only in respect of this particular category. For the rest, no South African citizen has any excuse. If he has received sufficient notification and if he values his right to vote highly, it is not too much trouble to fill in a form, have a photograph taken and send in the application in time. No one is therefore being disenfranchised. All those who do not yet have an identity document have ample opportunity to obtain one. All they have to do, is to avail themselves of the opportunity.

In this connection I also want to say that from today hon. members can receive a voters’ list for their respective constituencies. Secondly, that voters’ list is divided into two categories. Those who are registered in their constituency and who, according to our records, do not have identity numbers, are printed separately. Each hon. member therefore receives, upon request, a list which they can immediately follow up in their constituencies. As long ago as June or July we sent everyone on that list a card informing them that they did not have identity documents yet and that they should apply for one.

Are the voters’ lists available free of charge?

They have to be obtained in the normal way. Consequently we have already taken the trouble to send a card to every person who in our opinion does not have an identity document.

Thirdly, not all of those people are necessarily without an identity document. An unmarried woman, for example, may be registered under her maiden name and it is possible that she did not have a Book of Life or a number. She may have married in the meantime, however, applied under her married name and may have obtained a Book of Life. However, we count her as not having a Book of Life, although she is now a married person and may in fact do so. Consequently the figures which we mentioned are not firm figures at all. Personally I believe that many of those people already have identity documents, that many others have left the country and that many of them are dead. I think that most South Africans already have a Book of Life. We see our way clear to issuing the rest in time if application is made in time.

The next theme that was raised, was the question of complaints in regard to the distribution of agents. I have already gone into that.

We then came to the question of whether counting should be on a constituency basis or not. Strong representations were received from the CP that we should do the counting on a constituency basis. I should like to motivate our reason for not being able to do so. Firstly, this is not as in the case of an election. Because a person votes according to his identity document, one does not vote in one’s constituency. Because one does not vote in one’s constituency, a count on a constituency basis will not reflect how the constituency voted. Let us take Pretoria Central. Pretoria Central includes large office buildings. If half of the people in those buildings do not vote in their own constituencies, but decide to cast their votes at the polling stations in Pretoria Central, i.e. at work, then the Pretoria Central results will contain far more votes than there are voters in Pretoria Central. The votes of those people will consequently not be reflected in their own constituencies either.

It has been said that a computer will rectify the matter.

No, the computer rectifies nothing. The computer is not going to reduce everything to constituencies. We are not going to work out the votes for each constituency. The point is that one can vote wherever one is. Because this is so, it is meaningless to say that the number of votes cast in a particular constituency represents the voters of that constituency.

It is even open to manipulation. The hon. members may feel that they would very much like to demonstrate that, say …

Vereeniging.

… no, let us assume the hon. member for Meyerton has a very strong following in Meyerton. Because they know that they are very weak in Vereeniging, they may perhaps tell their supporters that they should vote in Meyerton so that people will think that there are many CP supporters in Meyerton, while they know that they are going to lose by a wide margin in Vereeniging. Is that what the hon. members want to do? Do they want a manipulation? We can do that too. The PFP can do it in NRP constituencies in Natal to demonstrate that they have a strong following in, for example, Durban Point. I know, Sir, this referendum is concerned with serious matters and not with party politics.

If the hon. members want to know whether they have a strong following, why do they not all resign? Then we can ascertain how strong their position is.

Will you accept a challenge?

I was elected in my constituency on the platform on which I still stand. Therefore I have no reason to consider resigning. In the case of that hon. member his sense of honour should tell him something else.

Our sense of honour tells us that we stand by our principles. [Interjections.]

In addition, mention was made of the voters of South West Africa. I should like to refer to what the hon. member for Meyerton had to say in this regard. [Interjections.] Sir, I can stop replying. I do not know whether hon. members are interested in the replies I am giving. The hon. member for Meyerton said—

There are two aspects which emerge in this connection. The first is: What do we actually intend doing? In regard to the voters, the inhabitants of South West Africa we intend following the same pattern which now forms part of our Electoral Act. What this amounts to is that the proclamation and regulations will be worded in such a way that South African citizens whose normal place of abode can make it possible for them to be included on a voters’ list for the House of Assembly in terms of the Electoral Act of 1979, will be able to vote in the referendum. Surely that is a very fair arrangement. Or is the hon. member advocating that all South West Africans should vote? I deduced that he said that all Whites in South West Africa should vote.

Yes.

I shall reply to him in that regard. My reply to that is “no”. They vote in South West Africa and we vote here. If the hon. member wishes to argue in that way, should we not then say that when South West Africa decides its future, South African citizens should also be allowed to vote there? I really do not think that that was a carefully considered request.

What about 1960?

In 1960 South West Africa was represented here in the House of Assembly. In 1977, however, everything changed. I do not wish to take this matter any further, but the fact remains that South African citizens who are registered here or who are able to vote here in terms of the Electoral Act because their normal place of abode is here, will also be able to vote in the referendum. We cannot open polling stations in another country. Such people will have to come to this country in order to vote. If they are able to vote there and their Electoral Act provides that they cannot be registered in South Africa and in South West Africa, surely they cannot come and vote in this country. The important aspect of this matter is the hon. member’s view in raising this matter. The hon. member said that economically, militarily and otherwise South West Africa was manning an important border for us, as though we were being unfair to South West Africa now. He said it as though we should allow them to vote here because they had been so good to us and because they were helping us to such an extent. However, there is another side to the coin as well. After all, it is we who are waging the struggle for South West Africa at the UN. After all, it is our children who are fighting on the border and our Defence Force which is manning the border. There are South West Africans who are also doing so, and we are pleased that they are doing so, but basically it is after all we who are doing it. Surely the RSA has for a very long time now been enduring a whole barrage of condemnation for its standpoint on South West Africa. Surely it was we who were prepared to allow South Africa to endure the incalculable disadvantage of world-wide economic sanctions for the sake of South West Africa.

I want to tell the hon. member that he must not try to make political propaganda about South West Africa in the referendum. Is the hon. member aware, apart from the things I have just enumerated, that the cost involved in making South West Africa safe, the cost to the South Africa taxpayer is R450 million annually? Last year R216 million was paid into the Central Revenue Fund of South West Africa by South Africa. South West Africa’s share of the customs pool amounts to R250 million. The losses of the SA Transport Services in South West Africa amounted to R70 million. In addition we have granted drought aid to an amount of R65 million to South West Africa. The direct and indirect assistance to South West Africa by South Africa during the past 10 years up to the 1982-’83 financial year amounted to almost R5 000 million. The hon. member should not argue that because South West Africa has made such sacrifices for us, we should allow South West Africans to vote in our referendum. He wishes to intermingle South West Africa’s politics and our politics. That is a grave mistake the hon. member is making.

Is it true that the Whites of South West Africa have addressed a request to the effect that they do in fact wish to participate in the referendum?

I have received no official request in this connection. I have not received a letter or anything else, and I do not know where the hon. member gets that information from.

I read that the NP congress of South West Africa had such an item on its agenda.

I was not notified of it and therefore I know nothing about it. My reply to the NP of South West Africa will, however, be precisely the same as the one I am now giving the hon. member. It is a friendly reply. We are not angry with the South West Africans. However I cannot see on what basis such an argument can be presented.

Another aspect which emerged in the debate was that Black people should be included. We on this side have no objection to Black people or Black communities being involved in referendums on matters which are of importance to them.

†The administration and the organization of such a referendum will not take place in terms of this measure. It will take place in terms of other laws and will be administered by other departments and other authorities.

*This Bill deals with the area served by this department and with the target groups involved in the new constitutional dispensation.

The last point which was raised was that voters were supposedly confused and were a little uncertain as to what they should do. I want to repeat that information will be given on the television service, that the Government will make an effort, as polling day approaches, to provide information on how to vote, on what the requirements are, and we shall render as much assistance as possible. In addition the parties have the duty of keeping our voters informed and giving information to as many of them as possible and getting them to the polls.

Finally, reference was made to the question of numbers. The various replies given on various occasions, sometimes on the basis of how the question was put, perhaps included a few people from another target group. Sometimes the numbers referred to Whites, Coloureds and Indians. Sometimes the numbers given included 16-year-olds and sometimes not. Until recently we did not have the means to distinguish between the 16- and 18-year-olds and the 18-year-olds and over when we referred to population projections and to how many people still had to receive identity books. The figure of 137 000 was a bona fide estimate and the new figure of 158 000 was once again a bona fide estimate based on a whole series of inputs. But this figure, whether it is 137 000 or 158 000, is actually an erroneous figure. My department and I are absolutely convinced that many of those people already have identity books. I referred to that a moment ago, to married women taking out a book in their new name, and to many of those people perhaps having died without their deaths having been registered. There are also many of them who left the country and there are also many of them who have books but who did not fill in their identity number when they filled in their RV1 cards, with the result that we do not know whether they are the same person.

The great challenge facing us is to bring in those outstanding applications, during this month which lies ahead and to launch a campaign, as a State, but also as a political party so that we can at the end of the month say to those voters who have not yet applied: “But you should have applied and you should have known.” I should like to ask the parties to help us do this.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Today we have listened to the hon. the Minister’s explanation of the attempt which the department is going to make in connection with identity documents, but I want to ask the hon. the Minister once again whether it is not true that most people in South Africa will be able to participate in this referendum if all the information which is kept in the population register can be introduced into the existing voters’ lists in terms of the 1982 amendment of the Electoral Act? Does the hon. the Minister agree that one would in that way enable more people to participate than is going to happen in terms of this system?

Yes, it is true that theoretically, merely as a figure, one would then have a larger number, but that same total is attainable if people apply now for their documents. We would then in the former case have the disadvantage, though, that people would have to vote on a constituency basis. The moment people vote on a constituency basis, an average of 3 000 postal or special votes per constituency have to be dealt with because people are no longer living there. Then we have to go through all this red tape, all this waste of time and energy. Officers have to drive out to see a person two or three times to enable him to vote although he lives right next door to a polling station. However, he may not vote at that polling station because he only moved in six months ago. This is what we are saving the voters and what we are saving ourselves. What trouble are we saving ourselves from? We are saving ourselves from the need to expend all that energy and to state our case instead, to start the voters thinking and to receive a well-considered opinion from the voters rather than to take documents to closed doors because someone is not home. In addition we need not waste a lot of unnecessary money, nor the productivity which this country needs, and which could be better utilized.

That is what we are achieving with the new system, and the only sacrifice anyone has to make is merely to take the trouble to apply for that identity document in order to have the wonderful right of being able to vote.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say the following in this regard. We have no reached a stage in which I think we need never again conduct elections on the basis of RV1 cards, compiled from the voters’ lists. Because we have now, in the case of the Whites, reached the stage at which everyone who wants an identity book can obtain one, I am now able to state with great certainty that by the beginning of the next session of Parliament I think we shall be able to replace the present system with a uniform system, in a system in which all voters’ lists in future will be compiled solely from the population register. Then the only instrument for changes of address, and also in regard to where people vote, will be the notification of a change of address in the population register. I am saying this today because I want hon. members opposite to prepare themselves so that they are not again able to say they did not have a bridging period.

Surely that has already been accepted in principle.

It only has to happen. It has already been accepted in principle, but we have now reached the stage in which we can begin to apply it. That is why I think we should forget about the RV1 cards. We should rather wipe the slate clean, and regard this new process as a completely new reregistration. Instead of sending people around from house to house, we now have a voters’ list which can as it were be consulted at a glance, and on which the names of at most approximately 150 000 people out of the total possible number still do not appear. That is a minor challenge for us to accept.

I want to request the respective parties—we can have our political squabbles if we like—to help to make a great success of this new experiment. It is in any event still an experiment. However, let us devote all our strength and energy to making a success of this attempt. After all, it will save our country a great deal of money, and it is also a step forward, a step into the future, it is modernization, it is an improvement, it is sound and constructive innovation.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the Question,

Mr. Speaker, our admiralty law as it stands at present is derived from two laws, viz. the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act of 1880 and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1951. The former Act imported the English admiralty law and jurisdiction into those of our courts that have no civil limit, viz. the Supreme Courts. This Act imported the statutory law of England relating to admiralty affairs, as it stood in 1890, into this country and therefore not only that Act, but also the Admiralty Courts Act of 1840 and 1861 and the preceding Acts are applicable. It imported not only these statutes, but also the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court of England. Thus the following appears in section 2(2) of this Act—

Therefore this court was given a very wide discretion.

The situation as it stands has two drawbacks. The first is that our admiralty law has not kept pace with developments—on the one hand, the developments in English statutory law, and on the other, the conventions that applied in maritime law—and since admiralty, law and particularly maritime law, have an international character, if a law does not keep pace with international developments it cannot be of much value. A further defect was that the admiralty court in South Africa, although consisting of the same body as the Supreme Court, was deemed to be a separate court. This resulted in the untenable situation that although one body was involved, that body had to implement and deal with two systems of legal principles. This meant that in one case they could apply Roman Dutch law and in the next, the English Admiralty law. This could have resulted in two different decisions on the same set of facts. Therefore legal reform is an urgent necessity.

It is important to take a brief look at the special characteristics of admiralty law. In the first instance, as has already been pointed out, it is a law with a very strong international character. In the old English case of Luce vs. Lyal in 1759 the following is stated—

Perhaps this statement goes too far, but in order to be effective and acceptable, admiralty law must, as far as possible, be internationally acceptable and effective. The legislation complies exceptionally well with this requirement because all the international conventions applying to maritime law are incorporated and put into effect here.

Another special characteristic of maritime law is the extra-territorial operation of admiralty courts. Thus, despite having a plaintiff and a defendant both of whom are peregrini, and a causa debendi that took place outside the territory of jurisdiction of the court, one can nevertheless adjudicate the matter in that court. However, to guard against the abuse of this jurisdiction it is provided in the Bill that the court has a discretion to decide whether the court is indeed competent to adjudicate that case.

I suggest that in spite of this discretion, this legislation and the sound proposals embodied therein will mean that our courts will in future be used to a far greater extent by foreign parties to implement maritime law.

A further special characteristic of maritime law, which forms the basis of the effective implementation of admiralty law, is that of the actions in rem or the so-called maritime liens. These rights, too, are duly specified and enunciated in the Bill. The action against an associated ship in particular is being expanded considerably in terms of the bill. This goes a great deal further than the law relating to associated ships in the USA and in England. Whereas in those countries an associated ship is only deemed to be the ship belonging to the same owner—therefore a company must own at least two ships—with this Bill we in South Africa are going a great deal further. The position in the USA and England at present could create considerable opportunities to circumvent the law. For example, various companies can be founded—one for each ship—and in this way the matter can be circumvented. However, the definition of “associated ship” is now being stated in far wider terms so that two ships belonging to two companies will be deemed to be associated ships if the companies have particularly close links with one another.

That is exactly what I said.

What is also of importance in this regard is the order of priority relating to payment of a fund in a case where liens have been exercised. This is duly regulated in this Bill and in this regard, too, we are quite a long way ahead of other countries. This is based on a 1967 convention which has not yet been given statutory force and effect in the countries that signed the convention. We are hereby giving statutory effect to that convention.

†This Bill retains and in some cases modifies and extends the traditional admiralty jurisdictions and claims. However, there are also many new heads of jurisdiction. Some of these involve fields in which there are more frequently litigated than traditional admiralty causes. Examples of these new areas of jurisdiction are claims relating to maritime insurance, claims regarding the forfeiture of a ship or cargo in it, claims for the pollution of the sea or seashore by oil or any similar substance. Indeed, the great pollution disaster which we had a few weeks ago with the Castillo de Bellver emphasizes the necessity for such a measure. It is indeed a pity that we are only passing this Bill now and not before the great disaster occurred.

Another novel introduction in this Bill is the discretion which it gives the court to consider hearsay evidence. This is indeed needed because of the international nature of many claims in the admiralty court and because many cases in the admiralty court are done on urgent application. In such a case it is very often very difficult to find good evidence on short notice.

With this Bill I believe South African admiralty law is not only making up lost ground but that it is actually leading the world with an exceptionally well-compiled and integrated law and rules of procedures of admiralty law. I believe a special word of thanks is due to the man who was responsible for the formulation of this Bill. He was also to a great extent the instigator of this Bill and he has for many years played an eminent role in legal practice. He was also for many years chairman of the South African Bar Council and of the Natal Bar Council. I am of course referring to Mr. Douglas Shaw, QC. I should like to thank him most sincerely for the part he has played in bringing this Bill before Parliament.

It is, of course, a great privilege for me as a Natalian to point out that this is the second Bill brought before Parliament this session that was compiled and instigated by a Natal lawyer. The previous one was instigated and compiled by Mr. Justice Didcott, who was responsible for the computer evidence legislation. I can only say that it is perhaps time that the lawyers of other provinces follow these good examples.

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that I rise on a Justice Bill, and I sincerely hope it will be the last. [Interjections.] I do not profess to know the first thing about the subject under discussion.

It is quite usual for you not to know the first thing about any subject.

No, but I must also confess I do not practice in front of the mirror for hours before I rise here to speak. [Interjections.] I merely wish to record the apologies of the hon. member for King William’s Town. He unfortunately had to leave early this afternoon and has asked me to give this Bill my blessing on behalf of this party and to say that we are supporting it. We have indicated to the Government Whips that we will support all the stages of this Bill. I also wish to apologize if we had any part in bringing the hon. the Minister all the way back here this afternoon at rather short notice. I think he was in the Orange Free State attending a party congress. Did he get an Army helicopter to bring him down? It is always interesting to know how Ministers get around the countryside. In any event, he managed to get here, which is quite something. I do sincerely want to say that we regret that he had to be called back at such short notice.

We, too, are very proud of the fact that Mr. Douglas Shaw of Natal has had much to do with this Bill. We are very grateful to him for the time he spent with both the hon. member for King William’s town and the hon. member for Umbilo in outlining exactly what this Bill was all about. We also approve most strongly of the hon. member Mr. Schutte’s remarks to the effect that gentlemen from Natal have initiated two Bills that have come before the House this session. There is nothing like a little parochialism from the Garden Province, even though it is hardly a garden with the drought it is suffering.

As I said at the outset, I do not profess to, and certainly do not know anything about this subject, but I wish to assure the hon. the Minister that this Bill has our blessing. We welcome the legislation and we sincerely hope that it will be the forerunner of much more legislation of this type which, as the hon. member Mr. Schutte indicated, would have served us well had it been passed before the tragedy we recently had off the Western shores of the Cape. Had we had this measure a little earlier, although the tragedy may not have been averted, things certainly could have been a little different. The application of the bill might then have served a good purpose in that event.

Mr. Speaker, at this late hour on a Friday afternoon we are discussing maritime legislation. It is ironical that the hon. the Minister under whom this falls probably has a smaller dam in the Free State than the Roodeplaat dam. Therefore it is probably equally appropriate that I, as the only former sailor in this House, should be discussing this matter [Interjections.]

Were you admiral, cook or able seaman?

I was an ordinary deckhand.

*I should like to say to the Law Commission that this house appreciates the work they do. This is specialized legislation. You know, when it is a matter of our patent law and the journal of patents, and our labour law with our tribunal—which is now called the labour court—then we are talking about specialized law. This, too, is specialized law, but in this case it is unnecessary English law. I do not believe that any hon. member in this House realizes that the legal system of South Africa, while based fundamentally on Roman Dutch law, is with regard to two aspects, viz. part of our commercial law and this admiralty law or maritime law, based on English law. I think that this is unnecessary and it is time for us to bring this within the purview of our own legal system. I think that the Dutch background which forms part of our legal system has sufficient experience of seafaring and the maritime law.

I wonder how many hon. members know where the words “admiral” and “admiralty” come from. They were originally Arabic. In Arabic, “amir” means ruler or commander. “Al” is the article “the” and “bahr” means “sea”. Thus the word “amir-al-bahr” came into being. It meant a sea captain or a leader of a group of seamen. Later the word was abbreviated as “amiral”, and that is where our words “admiral” and “admiralty” come from.

The seafarers of Sicily took over the word from the Moors. During the Seventh Crusade the crusaders learnt the word in Genoa. At the same time the Latin word “admirabilis”, meaning “praiseworthy”, came into being. Anyone who commanded a fleet or flotilla was truly worthy of praise. They were the people that would sail around the Cape and conduct trade near and far. This is how the words “admiral” and “admiralty” came into being.

It is also very interesting to note that maritime law and maritime insurance also came into being in Sicily and Genoa. The term “average” came into being there. Therefore one could only encounter “averaging” in Genoa, where one could insure a cargo.

I believe that is as well that we should incorporate this history in new legislation, that will give new prestige to a specialized division of South African law.

Admiralty law grew in importance for South Africa as the sea-route around the Cape became more important. In due course our territorial waters were expanded. This had to do not only with fisheries but also with pollution, as an hon. member has already pointed out. In future, too, we are going to hear a great deal more about the exploitation of minerals on the sea-bed around our coastline. I regard this as of cardinal importance and for that reason I whole-heartedly support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting to listen to the hon. member for Roodeplaat. It is very clear that he went into this matter in depth. He gave us a very interesting lecture. He must excuse us if in future we refer to him as the hon. sheikh of Roodeplaat.

The hon. member Mr. Schutte expressed thanks and congratulations with which we should like to associate ourselves. In particular we want to thank Mr. Justice Shaw, who assisted in drawing up the measure. We were also impressed by the words of Mr. Justice Shaw. They remind me of the great author George Bernard Shaw, from whom the hon. judge clearly inherited some of his talents—he, too, was able to write well. At one time someone wrote a note to George Bernard Shaw that read: Just send me one of your beautiful words, for which I include £1. In reply he received a note saying: “Thanks.”

The Afrikaans and English-speaking people of this country are to a large extent descendants of seafarers, but history has weaned us from the sea. However, we are now returning to the sea. Because all seafaring nations ply the same oceans, the development of the law of the sea has been unique. As a result maritime law has practices, conventions and a reasonably international character, if one could call it that, although each State has also retained its own characteristics. However, in our case development has fallen behind. In England, apart from the ordinary courts, there were also the so-called courts of admiralty with their own procedure, their own jurisdictions and their own judges. This system was introduced into South Africa except that in our case the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts was not excluded. In the admiralty court the English maritime law was applied, whereas the Roman Dutch law was applied in the ordinary court. Litigants had a choice. This, of course, was an extremely unsatisfactory situation because it involved uncertainty as regards the implementation of the law and uncertainty as regards jurisdiction. There have been previous efforts to achieve security of justice but they have not been entirely successful. On four occasions the South Africa Law Commission under Mr. Justice Viljoen prepared draft legislation for comment and improvement. The Bill at present before the House is the end result of the hard work of these men and it has been modernized. This will meet a long-standing need.

In conclusion I just wish to convey my sincere thanks to the hon. member Mr. Theunissen for the excellent speech he prepared.

Mr. Speaker, I think I should perhaps begin with the hon. member for Jeppe. The hon. member for Jeppe is a person of many talents, but the correlation is, of course, that such a person must also suffer many mishaps. I think that in this regard the hon. member once again proved Murphy’s law: “a jack of all trades has many accidents”. In any event, the hon. member presented the speech of the hon. member Mr. Theunissen very well and I do not think we can find any fault with it. In fact, adv. Shaw is still a member of the Bar. I hope that the inference is not being drawn that the hon. member for Jeppe has in the meantime provided promotion. Adv. Shaw is probably one of our leading figures in the Bar and would certainly have adorned the Bench if he had so desired, and when I say that I am saying a lot. I hope the hon. member takes cognizance of that.

The hon. member for Roodeplaat referred to the fact that the Free State can hardly claim to be knowledgeable about maritime law. This may indeed be so, particularly if one takes into account the amount of water rising in the Free State and, in fact, flowing away to be used elsewhere to keep the PWV area, for example, going. Bearing in mind the vast quantity of water that finds its way there, it is high time the Free Staters took note of what becomes of their water. If we may be permitted to address a gentle warning to the hon. member for Roodeplaat, he would be well advised to read the fine print in this Bill. Then perhaps we would not need to deal with these problems. I thank him sincerely for his contribution.

†That brings me to the hon. member for Umhlanga. The hon. member rather emphasized the contribution of the citizens of Natal. It seems to me we should not over-emphasize the contribution by any particular province, since Poulsen’s prophecy is always applicable. It says if anything is used to its full potential, it will break. As far as Natal is concerned I think we should probably note that the lawyers from that province have made magnificent contributions towards legislation.

*In fact, the hon. member Mr. Schutte gave a full exposition of the course of the history of this matter up to the present. Interestingly enough he also referred to the important developments relating to an action against an associated ship. The hon. member Mr. Schutte is not present at the moment. He did, however, apologize for his absence. Because the provision concerning an action against an associated ship is, I believe, one of the most important provisions in this legislation, I must dwell on it for a moment. In an article in the Financial Mail the extension of this power was referred to inter alia as a legal bombshell. It was also stated in that article that the Western World was watching and studying this legislation carefully because it had so many far reaching implications specifically with a view to preventing people from escaping claims with regard to shell companies. As the hon. member Mr. Schutte correctly indicated, it could easily happen that one vessel caused an accident at sea, giving rise to the hypothec. The vessel of the guilty party is then destroyed as a result. This provision could also be relevant to oil pollution in cases where the vessel in question is destroyed. However, in terms of this legislation it will now be possible to arrest an associated ship.

I do not wish to go into the definition now, but at the same time I do not wish to indicate that every vessel in our territorial waters can now be exposed to danger as a result of suits of this nature. All we are really saying is that our courts have acquired the jurisdiction in this regard to arrest an associated ship on the basis of those suits against the owners of other vessels who try to escape the consequences of their actions or those of the guilty parties in control of the vessels. I believe that this is a very drastic change. It also opens up a very interesting new field. I do not wish to dwell on this at length, but I do want to point out that as far as the actions of the past are concerned, it will be for lawyers to determine whether there are not already reports of cases in that regard, too, available in this country. However, I shall leave it at that. As far as the future is concerned, the position is crystal clear. Particularly with regard to thoughtless oil pollution of our territorial waters by irresponsible parties, we shall be able to make very effective use of this particular provision.

The hon. member suggested that we should have dealt with this Bill at an earlier stage. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is a very good thing that Parliament is affording us the opportunity to dispose of this measure this afternoon. Hon. members support it and approve of it, and this is emphasized—as the hon. member for Umhlanga put it earlier—by the fact that only an hour or two ago we were somewhere else. Thanks to the right air currents and so on—without helicopters, I wish to stress—we were able to arrive here on time to be able to deal with this legislation this afternoon.

†I should like to address myself now to the hon. member for Sandton. He posed a number of questions, and also gave his views on the question of the applicability of clause 6, a clause which stipulates the law which should be applied in respect of the various claims. It would, of course, have been the ideal situation if we could have uniformity in this regard. It would have been ideal if our courts of law were able to apply only the Roman-Dutch law. Until this legislation is agreed to, however, only British admiralty law will be applicable. The commission could have approached the problem in this way. It could have said: Well, we have the English law in regard to admiralty matters so let us stay with that law in regard to these matters, or else they could have said: Let us stay with the Roman-Dutch law which is the law of the country. That choice was available if we wished to achieve uniformity. However, in regard to the first alternative—and this is a matter of which we must take cognizance—we would have abdicated the supremacy of this Parliament if we had opted in favour of the complete application of English law.

Did I not say I was not in favour of that?

Yes, the hon. member did say that and I want to emphasize it. It was one of the few sensible standpoints adopted by that hon. member thus far during this session.

That is not what you say in private!

Let us take for instance, Sir, the case of a collision claim. The rule of apportionment is applicable according to British admiralty law. However, it may be changed by the British parliament in such a way that the last opportunity rule becomes applicable. Did a ship have the opportunity of avoiding such a collision? In such a case South African admiralty courts would have been bound by a decision of the British parliament and such decision could even been made retrospective. [Interjection.] On the other hand, if the option had been exercised to apply Roman-Dutch law all the way, in relation too to those claims that existed in 1890, we would have had to go back to Roman-Dutch law as it had developed over the centuries in order to establish what law was applicable in regard to those maritime claims that had come down to us over the centuries through English law. In that case we would have abandoned the wealth of resources available to us in English law.

Yes, that is exactly what I said.

Yes, Sir, but if the hon. member will forgive me for saying it, I should like to say it better. I am just pointing out to the hon. member that there is another way of putting it. Of course, Sir, another big difficulty is that works on Roman-Dutch law applicable to admiralty claims are not readily available, especially as many of them are in Latin and are not so easily accessible to all practitioners these days, a fact that I regret. It is therefore impracticable in respect of such claims to apply Roman-Dutch law.

Fundamentally, therefore, a workable solution was to regard all new matters as matters that should be dealt with by way of Roman-Dutch law as we understand Roman-Dutch law today. All South African lawyers have access to there principles and therefore clause 2 is selfexplanatory. However—and I want to emphasize this fact—the starting point in any court of law will have to be: Are there in the first place statutes in force in South Africa that may apply to a particular problem? There is, for instance, the Merchant Shipping Act that was passed by this Parliament. This legislation deals with salvage, collisions, the limitation of liability and certain aspects of the carriage of goods. There is also the new legislation relating to the prevention of the pollution of sea by oil. This is a case in point. Whereas any claims would be adjudicated upon in terms of that Act, admiralty jurisdiction is created through this new Bill and elaborates, for instance, on the problem of action in rem of a particular object or an associated ship.

*The hon. member for Sandton asked me a question about the implementation of clause 4. Clause 4 prescribes that for the present we shall rely on the provisions in the Supreme Court Act as well as the rules relating thereto. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that we shall indeed make use of those rules on a temporary basis in order to ensure that the Bill can be put into effect as soon as possible without it being necessary for us to wait for rules. In the meantime we shall proceed to prepare new rules in terms of the new dispensation. In fact, I have already received a draft. It has been circulated and Adv. Douglas Shaw is also being consulted in this regard. In this instance, too, he is the chief formulator. We shall deal with the drafts in the near future and in the meantime—the hon. member will be pleased to hear this—we are arranging seminars—in fact, one has already been held—in order to acquaint those concerned with the concept embodied in the Bill. We hope that in due course we shall be able to present the rules, too, at such seminars.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage

Clause 3:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

1. 1. On page 8, in line 13, after “arrest” to insert:

This amendment merely seeks to effect an improvement.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 10:

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

1. 1. On page 16, in line 17, after “not” to insert:

The purpose of the amendment will become apparent when we come to the next clause.

I am prepared to accept the amendment moved by the hon. member.

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

1. 2. On page 16, in line 21, after “proceeds” to insert:

Clause 10 provides that any property arrested or any security given in respect thereof or the proceeds of such property shall not vest in a trustee in insolvency. These provisions are necessary because clause 11 specifies a different order of priority. The aim of the amendment is merely to ensure that stay of proceedings cannot be effected by insolvency either.

I am prepared to accept the amendment.

Amendments 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 11:

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

1. 1. On page 18, after line 47, to add:

This amendment has been agreed upon with the drafter of the Bill and with the legal draftsmen of the department. I will therefore not speak to it.

Does the hon. the Minister have any objection to the amendment?

No.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill, as amended, reported.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Amendment Bill provides for assistance to dependants and pensioners in the mineral industry. I supported this Bill at Second Reading and in the Committee Stage and we shall certainly support it at Third Reading as well. These persons last received an increase in 1981, and this increase of 12% and 16% respectively is to be welcomed, although all of us would probably have liked to see a bigger increase. Taking into consideration the inflation rate, which exceeds 10%, an increase of 12% and 16% after two years is perhaps somewhat inadequate. We accept the explanation which the hon. the Minister gave in this regard during the Second Reading debate, but we should like to ask him to consider the position of sufferers from industrial diseases on a regular basis while he is the responsible Minister and to grant the necessary increases where possible.

†I should like to ask the hon. the Minister a few questions arising out of his Second Reading speech. Firstly, when will the administration of the principal Act be transferred to the Department of Health and Welfare? As both the hon. the Minister and the commission of inquiry accept that the conditions in this period of waiting are unsatisfactory, I think that the sooner that happens, the better. Secondly, when will not only compensation but also the diagnosis of these diseases, the certification and the prevention of occupational diseases, be accepted under the control of only one Minister, who would in my view appropriately be the Minister of Health as recommended? Thirdly, has the interdepartmental working committee consisting of knowledgeable people from the Department of Health and Welfare, the Department of Manpower and the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs been established? If so, has it made progress in establishing a statutory framework for a uniform national dispensation in respect of occupational diseases?

Mr. Speaker, in a time of escalating prices it is perhaps true that those who are dependent on any pension for their income are always worst off. Therefore I wish to endorse the remarks made by the hon. member for Park-town and to say that any step aimed at improving the financial position of such persons is to be welcomed.

I think the pension increases provided for in this Bill, for the dependants of deceased sufferers from industrial diseases on the one hand and for the sufferers themselves on the other hand, could not have come at a more opportune moment. The contribution which has been made to the economic development of South Africa by these people with whom we are actually concerned here must never belost sight of. I think that the mining industry as a whole, in which these people have played a very important role, forms the foundation of South Africa’s economic growth and development. I want to elaborate on this specific aspect because I want to ask the hon. Minister a question in this connection which may have been asked many times in the past, but which I think should be asked once again.

I have said that the mining industry as a whole has played a very important role in the economic development of South Africa and that the people involved in this industry have played a very important role in this connection. The gold production of 664 tons over the past financial year has been instrumental in adding R8 807 million to the gross domestic product. The revenue received by the State from gold mines alone was R1 700 million. This industry in which these mine-workers are involved is constantly expanding to the advantage of South Africa.

I want to quote only one example. In Randfontein, the constituency which I am privileged to represent in this House, another new mine is to be opened next year at a cost of R675 million, a mine which will earn R5 700 million in foreign exchange for South Africa over a period of 30 years, in terms of the present gold price. I am only pointing out the important role played by the mining industry, before coming back to the position of the mineworker with whom we are actually concerned here.

It is also a fact that the mining industry is playing a decisive role in the economic development of our neighbouring states. I want to quote only one example. In 1981, Mozambique earned R52 700 million from the mining industry in the Republic. The same applies to many other neighbouring states. However, I shall confine myself to that one example.

Another important role played by the mining industry as a whole is that it is an important source of revenue for South Africa at a time when our expenditure on defence is increasing year by year. There is good reason for mentioning this. This is not the first time that the mining industry has actually come to the financial rescue of South Africa at a time when we have been militarily threatened. As far back as the Anglo-Boer War, the eight producing gold mines of that time were responsible for the fact that the total cost of that war, which amounted £100 000 a month, could be borne. Therefore I believe that the mining industry will play an important role in this respect in future as well.

The mining industry plays an important role in South Africa. One cannot isolate the mineworker from the mining industry. It is indeed the mineworker who maintains the mining industry in the interests of South Africa. That is why I think it is necessary that the interests of these people should always be protected by the State. This is indeed part of the purpose of this Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Amendment Bill, and it is universally welcomed.

Finally, since we are concerned here with the certification of people suffering from occupational diseases, I should like to refer once again to a problem which I know has been mentioned in this House on countless occasions. The bureau is to some extent distrusted by the mineworker. This is not because the bureau does not serve its purpose, because, as the hon. the Minister pointed out during the Second Reading debate, the modus operandi of the bureau cannot be improved. The methods they use are the best in the world. However, distrust exists for two reasons. The first is that the best certification methods in the world cannot always diagnose pneumoconiosis. It is impossible and it can only be done after death. The fact there are post mortem certifications gives rise to discontent among mineworkers.

The second aspect is that although there is sometimes no impairment, there are certifications resulting in payments being made from time to time, while on the other hand, in cases where there may be serious impairment, there may be no certification, with the result that no payment is made. This causes great confusion among the mineworkers. I believe that the only way of solving this is to accommodate a mineworker in this respect when he has been working for 25 or 30 years. He is doing risk work, and the chances that he has not contracted any disease after such a period are slight. I know that this suggestion is a hardy annual and that it is not quite relevant, but I have taken this opportunity of raising it in this House once again.

Mr. Speaker, the CP takes pleasure in supporting the Third Reading of this Bill. We are satisfied that the benefits which will accrue to certain mineworkers in terms of this Bill are reasonable and well-earned.

Like the hon. member for Randfontein, we also support the idea that the mining industry is in fact the backbone of our economy and that without its mining industry, South Africa would be in a much weaker position. The workers have done their job and they have done it well. Without them we would not have had a flourishing mining industry. Therefore we not only agree with this Bill, but we also thank those who have done this important work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the NRP to say that we too support this measure. I would just like to point out, as has already been pointed out, that the increases of 12% and 16% are a bit low in the light of the fact that the last increase was over two years ago. We know what inflation has done during the past two years. While we welcome these increases, we do believe that people who suffer from these diseases are falling behind other pensioners in the country. They are certainly falling behind in respect of the pensions paid to social pensioners.

Having said that, I would just like to repeat what the hon. the Minister himself said during his Second Reading speech. He said (Hansard, col. 10942)—

I think it is very important that we remember this because we are not necessarily talking about a welfare case. We are talking about a person who could in fact be a very well-off individual who by virtue of his occupation has contracted a disease which has caused him serious damage and who is now going to be compensated. I believe that in the past a large proportion of this compensation came from the State, whereas today there is a fund set up by the employers which now pays these pensions. The point I want to make is that if we feel that these pensioners’ incomes are not keeping up with inflation then we have got to look at the contributions that are being made by the employers, which in this case are the mining companies, towards the fund. In fact, I look upon this as a form of insurance. We know from the Nieuwenhuizen report that it was suggested that this should be tied to the Workmen’s Compensation Act, but for various reasons the hon. the Minister has decided at this stage that this is not such a good idea. The point I want to make is that I do believe that the contributions to a form of insurance fund for these occupational diseases need to be looked at so that the necessary funds will be led into the fund so that when a person does suffer damages as a result of these diseases he is given his due and fair compensation. This is an appeal I make to the hon. the Minister. Our mining companies, as we have heard from the hon. member for Randfontein, have contributed thousands of millions of rands to our economy and I believe that if it is money in the fund that is required, that this should come from the employers to ensure that these people do not suffer the hardships which we know they have suffered over the last two years. We support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I take pleasure in thanking all the hon. members of the Opposition who have spoken in support of this Bill. Since I represent a constituency in which at least 80% of the voters are employed by the mining industry, the support I have received for the mines in this highest assembly of the country today has been most gratifying.

Of course, this particular Bill only affects certain workers in the mining industry, namely those persons who were certified before 1 October 1973. By no means all mine-workers qualify for this pension, therefore, because the pension fund has subsequently been changed, as I said during the Second Reading debate, and a one-sum benefit is now being paid out to those people. Only persons who were certified before 1 October 1973 qualify for this pension. There are also a small number of other persons, such as mining inspectors and Alexander Bay workers who worked on mines which have been closed for many years, who qualify for this particular pension.

I just want to mention, for the sake of interest, that the number of persons who qualified for this pension in 1973 was 12 226, and that by March this year, this number had dropped to 5504. This means that the State’s contribution will not be required for this pension much longer. Therefore this pension is also being transferred now to the mines account, which actually represents the employers, and which is rightly responsible for the pensions that have to be paid. The amount is calculated according to a certain formula, such as R1 per risk shift which is worked in the mining industry, which I regard as a very good arrangement. Then there is also the research account, where attempts are being made to combat this occupational disease as far as possible and, if possible, to eliminate it completely.

Finally, I wish to endorse the remarks made by previous speakers who have asked whether this percentage could not be a little higher. Since more than two years have passed since the previous increase was granted to these people, and it is now only 16%, this works out at only 8% a year. We know that the rise in the cost of living has been considerably more than 8%. That is why I asked for an increase of 25% during the Second Reading debate. Since we know that the Government and this House as a whole are very sympathetic towards the worker in South Africa, and since assistance is being rendered to many sectors that are experiencing problems, I feel that this is really a case where it would be justified if the hon. the Minister could perhaps consider granting a higher percentage to these people as well.

Mr. Speaker, allow me first of all to thank hon. members who have participated in this debate. I thank them for their contributions. Unlike some of the earlier discussions in this House, this debate has taken place in a very positive spirit. For this, too, I convey my sincere thanks to hon. members.

I want to thank the hon. member for Jeppe in particular. He said that the benefits in terms of this legislation were fair and well-earned. Therefore I should like to thank the hon. member for Jeppe for having expressed his appreciation for the attitude of the Government towards the mineworkers.

We have now come to the end of the debate on this piece of legislation. I said at one stage that I believed it was an historic era which was now dawning for sufferers from occupational diseases in South Africa because we were now on the eve of a new dispensation. The hon. member for Parktown made the statement in this House—actually, it was made by all hon. members who participated in this debate—that it was a pity that it was not possible to grant higher percentages than 12% and 16%. Some hon. members also asked why the one-sum benefit has not been increased as well. I just want to point out that in the light and in the spirit of the report of the Nieuwenhuizen Commission, and in the light of the White Paper published by the Government, this should not be regarded as the final step or the final answer, but as an interim measure which has been taken while this entire matter is still being considered by the Government. Consideration is in fact being given to the possibility of including all future sufferers from occupational diseases under future legislation. I want to point out once again that this is a new era which is dawning for all sufferers from occupational diseases in South Africa. Since we have now brought about a special dispensation for the workers in the mining industry—in fact, a dispensation which I can honestly say is unique in the world; a truly sophisticated dispensation—it is true that this dispensation and the benefits it offers can now perhaps be extended to all other sufferers from occupational diseases in South Africa. In that respect, I believe, this is indeed an historic event.

The hon. member for Parktown also wanted to know from me when the whole matter, the function modules, would be transferred to the Department of Health and Welfare. I may point out to the hon. member that various discussions have already taken place, and that letters have been sent to the Commission for Administration, to the Treasury and to the Department of Health and Welfare. In addition, as I have already said, extensive consultations have already been held at the level of officials. The Department of Health and Welfare will now decide on a date when this will take place. Of course, one would like it to take place as soon as possible, because it is quite true that from a functional point of view, it is much more appropriate that this matter should fall under the Department of Health and Welfare rather than the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs. However, as I said in reply to the Second Reading debate, it is necessary to act with circumspection in order to avoid making mistakes. One must not encroach on the existing rights of certain sufferers from occupational diseases. Bringing about a uniform dispensation, therefore, requires planning, as well as consultation with employers and employees. It is not a matter which can be finalized overnight. The hon. member will also understand that because of the sensitivity of a matter such as an occupational disease, the steps and measures that are taken must inspire confidence in the people involved.

The hon. member for Randfontein also sympathized with sufferers from occupational diseases. He emphasized the importance of the mining industry in the South African economy. What the hon. member said in that connection was quite correct. We must always bear in mind that since we are dealing with such an important primary sector in the South African economy, several parties are involved in this industry. In my opinion, one of the most important parties in this industry is in fact the mineworker. One’s conduct should be aimed at preserving the confidence of that worker, therefore, so that that industry will always be assured of a skilled labour force and of good and reliable workers. The State and the whole of South Africa are partners in the mining industry which has such an important effect on our entire economy.

The hon. member for Randfontein also referred to the question of gratuities after a certain period of service. As I have said on a previous occasion, the principles of this legislation only relate to compensation for occupational diseases, while a gratuity forms part of a package relating to conditions of employment and has nothing to do with the health of the worker.

I would just like to make one correction in passing, and this is in connection with the allegation which has been made here that the cardio-respiratory function of a sufferer from an occupational disease must have suffered at least 40% impairment before he qualifies for compensation. This allegation was made by the hon. member for Brakpan. I want to make it quite clear that in terms of this legislation, any person who contracts pneumoconiosis, even if it is only 1%, receives compensation. I think the hon. member was confused by the fact that there are two degrees. The one degree is up to 40% and the other degree is over 40%. The hon. member was apparently under the impression that a sufferer from an occupational disease only qualifies for compensation at 40%. That is not correct. Even if only microscopic lesions are present, such a person is suffering from pneunoconiosis and he qualifies for the compensation.

I want to thank the hon. member for Jeppe once again for his kind words. He said that the Government was adopting a very reasonable and sympathetic standpiont towards the mineworker.

The hon. member for Amanzimtoti made the point that the industry itself should actually contribute to this fund. I agree with the hon. member. That will be more in line with the realities and then the persons who are to a large extent the ones who derive advantage from this will be making a contribution in respect of the position of the sufferer from occupational diseases.

Finally, I want to say that the hon. member for Carletonville made a very interesting point. He spoke about the beneficiaries before and after October 1973. It has been said that a sufferer from an occupational disease or a person who has contracted pneumoconiosis does not live to an advanced age. I do not want to take up the time of this House unnecessarily, but I just want to mention the following figures for the sake of interest. Of the persons who were certified before October 1973 and who are still living, 807 are over the age of 83 years. 1 925 are between the ages of 73 and 83 years, and a further 1 940 are between the ages of 63 and 73 years. This just shows us that the fact that a person has contracted pneumoconiosis does not necessarily mean that his life expectancy is reduced. There are many people who do live to an advanced age. It is also true that many of those people die prematurely. I thank hon. members for their support.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

At this late hour on a Friday afternoon I take pleasure in introducing this measure, which will certainly prove to be uncontroversial.

The Rand Afrikaans University is about 15 years old this year. I think one may briefly point out on this occasion that the university has indeed shown dynamic growth over the past 15 years and that people in Johannesburg and elsewhere in South Africa may be proud of this institution and of the way in which this university in the big city has become an asset, not only to Johannesburg, but to South Africa as well. I believe one can say that the RAU has fully taken its place today among universities in South Africa. It is fully able to compete on merit with any university in South Africa.

The only thing is that they cannot play rugby yet.

In making that interjection, the hon. member for Verwoerdburg seems to be referring to the rugby which is played by the University of Pretoria, but I think that is a matter which we should leave at that for the moment.

I have said that I think the RAU is fully able to compete in every sphere, academic as well as non-academic, with regard to its staff as well as its students, at the university level as well as in public life, and I think we may rightly say that we are grateful to have such a university today.

With regard to the Bill which is before the House today, I want to point out that the university council has decided to restructure the top management of the university so that the university will have a registrar at the same level as the vice-rectors. In this way, the posts of register (academic) and registrar (finance) are being replaced by the single post of registrar. In order to bring section 10, which regulates the composition of the senate, into line with this, the amendment in this Bill is being proposed.

Mr. Speaker, the PFP takes pleasure in supporting the Second Reading of the Bill. As a Johannesburg city councillor at the time when the university came into being, I also had a small share in the establishment of the university, as well as taking a great interest in the building of that university. I also served on the bursaries committee of the university for quite a number of years. Therefore I have been associated with the university in a small way.

In recent times, my association with the university has been a political one, because I am persuading the students there that the PFP has the right solution for South Africa. [Interjections.] I want to congratulate the Rand Afrikaanse University on having the best student audience on any campus in South Africa when one goes to talk to students about politics. They listen attentively, ask intelligent questions and their behaviour is among the best in the country.

It is in a spirit of goodwill and congratulation that we support this Second Reading.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Bryanston for his support of the Bill. If he had supported previous legislation, we would have passed far more Bills by this time and we could have adjourned earlier to go and campaign for the referendum.

I want to endorse the remarks made by the hon. member for Johannesburg West and to say that the amendment which is being proposed in the Bill is a great improvement on the existing Act. I think it is essential, especially in view of the greater autonomy which our universities have obtained in terms of certain Bills which have been piloted through Parliament in the course of the session. I think it is a good thing that the descriptive term which used to be added to the designation of registrar should fall away. The new style of management at universities—as hon. members know, universities are becoming major financial institutions these days—means that vice-rectors are being appointed to take charge of certain functions, and for this reason, it is a good thing that the registrar should again become the person who is generally responsible for the university. I think it is a good thing, too, that the style of management of universities should be brought more into line with the style of management which we find in large private undertakings which work with large amounts of money, as do universities. The designation of “registrar” will now enable departments to be subdivided, for example into a directorate of administration, a directorate of academic studies, etc., which will be more in line with the implementation of functional management systems, particularly with regard to the problem of who is responsible for what.

I therefore take pleasure, Sir, in supporting this legislation, especially since it may contribute to a more functional division of duties within the university, as was also the case with legislation relating to other universities and tertiary institutions which was passed earlier this year.

Mr. Speaker, I take pleasure in supporting this legislation. I do so as a person who had an active share in this establishment of this alma mater, in the days before the hon. member for Johannesburg West was involved in it. I am referring to the time when there was a controversy about whether the institution should be located at Gilloolie’s Farm or in Johannesburg. I very strongly advocated that it should be located in Johannesburg.

Sir, I really take pleasure in congratulating this institution on its 15 years of existence, on the measure of progress which has already been made and on the contribution which has been made to cultural development and life in the heart of Johannesburg. We wish to convey to the university our very best wishes for the future, and we hope that it will be equally successful in years to come. We take great pleasure in supporting this measure, therefore.

Mr. Speaker, I venture to suggest at this late hour that the passage of this Bill will be quickest thing since the discovery of Epsom salts. [Interjections.] With these few moving words we of the NRP support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank hon. members for their support.

In response to a remark made by the hon. member for Bryanston I just want to say in the same light-hearted spirit that he has indeed made considerable progress in the campus of this university. Where he used to have two supporters, he now has four! [Interjections.]

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Bill not committed.

Bill read a Third Time.