Mr Chairman, in the absence of the hon member for Primrose I shall continue the discussion of the legislation before us, the Universities Amendment Bill. There are several points that I would like to refer to, raised by hon members of this House.

The first—I would like to associate myself and our party with that—is the view expressed by the hon member for Primrose that the full subsidy formula should be reverted to at universities as soon as possible. The funding situation at universities at the present moment is entirely inadequate as the hon the Minister is well aware. This matter needs to be addressed with fairly great urgency.

I also want to refer to the hon member for Sasolburg but I will wait because he may be joining us shortly.

I want to refer to the Bill itself. The hon the Minister will be aware of the fact that this is a very strange Bill. The Bill refers to a principal Act which is also very strange. It is what I call a hybrid. Both the Bill and the Act have general application on own affairs because the Constitution is quite clear that universities are an own affair.

Yes and no. [Interjections.]

We have heard the yes and no before as well. That is the reason why I call it a hybrid Bill and a hybrid Act. There are certain sections in the original Act and certain clauses in this Bill that are applicable to own affairs. I believe the hon the Minister and his department are going to have to look at this matter very carefully indeed because, like it or not, there are several provisions—this Bill refers to them—which now fall under the control of own affairs Ministers. I refer to paragraph (b) of the proposed new section 1 as contained in clause 1(a) of the Bill:

We have a very interesting position here. The matter of the quota clause has been raised and I am going to discuss that a little later in more detail referring to some of the hon the Minister’s statements on this. However, I want to ask the hon the Minister, directly according to paragraph (b) of the proposed new section 1 as contained in clause 1(a) of this Bill whether a Minister of own affairs can repeal section 25 of the Universities Act, or is the repeal of section 25 a general affair? [Interjections.]

I shall reply to that.

That is fine; just as long as the hon the Minister is aware that there is this particular problem.

Referring to the quota clause the hon member for Stellenbosch, who spoke first on this Bill for the NP, indicated that he thought “quota” was a misnomer; it was the wrong word to use. I just want to quote from Prof A Behr’s New Perspectives in South African Education. Prof Behr is acknowledged as probably the best historian of South African educational history at the present moment. He writes about the Universities Amendment Act of 1983 and says section 9 was amended to allow for the admission of certain students who were not White to so-called White universities. He quotes from the Act as follows:

That is the end of his quotation. Then Prof Behr carries on:

Then he again quotes from the Bill:

It is in fact as Prof Behr indicates and as is quite widely known a quota. There is a set figure that could be applied.

Now I want to take up the point of view of the hon the Minister and the NP on the matter of quotas. The hon the Minister on Monday stated the following in the House of Representatives:

I will come to that in a moment.

Then he carries on talking about the autonomy of the universities. The hon the Minister continued this argument in the House of Delegates on Wednesday when he said:

That is very interesting because the hon the Minister is again saying that it is there but nobody is using it. We return yet again to my question: Can a Minister of Education and Culture repeal that quota or does he have to know it is there even though he is not going to apply it?

The whole area of quotas and the containment of quota clauses is of major significance. My colleague the hon member for Bryanston indicated this and I wish to reiterate that it is the last remaining section in the Universities Act which is and can be applied to devise a racial character for universities.

In their opposition to the quota the University of Cape Town and other universities indicated what the problems were—and I will spell out three or four of them. Firstly, the quota system would not restore to universities the free right to determine on academic grounds who shall be admitted as students. The quota system will continue to deny the right of Black students to compete freely for admission. The system will transfer the obligation of denying admission to students who qualify on academic grounds from the Minister to the university. The system will add to bitterness, resentment and frustration. So one could continue—there are a number of quotes on this matter that one could use.

The point that I wish to make is that the hon the Minister is doing nobody any good by keeping this on the Statute Book. He really is not. He is not satisfying the outside world, he is certainly not satisfying the PFP and he is not satisfying the CP who already accuse him of having open universities. He might therefore just as well scrap it.

The PFP tried its utmost, it tried every possible device, in the standing committee to be allowed at least to propose an amendment to this legislation that the quota clause be deleted. However, we were unsuccessful because of the whole question of relevancy in the rules and regulations of this House. It was deemed not to be relevant to this amendment Bill that the quota system be discussed. The reason given was that the quota system was not really about admissions but about subsidies. Without disputing the decisions made, I really feel that was a semantic argument. We believe that the hon the Minister needs to look very carefully at the quota provision contained in parts of section 25 of the Universities Act, and have it deleted as soon as possible.

I now turn to the Bill itself. This Bill, in association with the South African Certification Council Bill, is of major significance. These Bills will have an effect on every single person in this country, whether parent, child or grandchild, because all of us know that with an education system like the one we have in South Africa at the present moment, a system geared and designed to produce certificates, everybody wants to know the value and status of those certificates. The Universities Act, the near abolition of the Joint Matriculation Board as an autonomous examining body and the application of the Joint Matriculation Board to perform other functions will, therefore, have an effect on a vast number of people.

As far as the legislation itself is concerned, the PFP is, as I have indicated, opposed in principle to the concept of own affairs. The PFP therefore voted against clause 1(a) in the standing committee because the effect will be to put into a statute the application of certain sections to own affairs Ministers. We distinguished quite clearly between voting against those sections applying to own affairs Ministers and supporting clause 1(b) in which the definition of “university” is altered to allow Black universities to achieve their full status on the Committee of University Principals.

The Committee of University Principals has its powers extended in line with previous decisions taken by this House in terms of the National Policy for General Education Affairs Act in order to give it powers to advise the Minister on various functions. We are happy with this, and we believe that the committee should give not only reactive but also proactive advice, and this is incorporated in the Bill. The Committee of University Principals can now advise the Minister on various matters on its own initiative.

There is another interesting matter, concerning which the universities themselves do not specifically have a role as far as I know—I want to address this to the hon the Minister—and that is the structure of the Department of National Education and that of other certification boards brought into existence which will fall directly under the hon the Minister. I know that the hon the Minister is trying to make notes on what I am saying, but I would like to refer directly to his department now. At present the department has 533 employees. Of those, 495 are White, 30 Black, 7 Coloured and 1 Indian. According to information received in April, the highest qualified Black person in the department…

Surely that is not relevant to the Bill!

I am going to come to the Certification Council, the Certification Council for Technikon Education and also this Bill, because this is relevant.

The point I am trying to make is that the highest qualified Black person—non-White person, if we prefer that phrase—is a library assistant. All of the universities in South Africa are turning out large numbers of highly qualified Black and other “non-White” personnel. The schools are turning out large numbers of matriculants, and I believe it behoves this hon Minister, his department and the Certification Councils that are going to fall under him to look at the employment of such people. I earnestly urge the hon the Minister to look at his employment practices. We are going to make the same point later in terms of other departments of the Public Service that vest in general affairs.

Must he dismiss the Whites, then?

The reason I have raised this point during the discussion of the Universities Amendment Bill is that many universities and the Committee of University Principals do have a largely colour-blind policy. The employment practices of many of the universities are colour-blind.

I want to return to the arguments of the hon member for Sasolburg, who is unfortunately not here. He indicated that he was extremely unhappy about the so-called racial composition of universities. The hon member for Sasolburg comes up with some extraordinary figures at stages. He indicated that there were 3 000 Black students at the University of Natal—25% of the total number of students—and was that not terrible! I am sorry he is not here, but he can read this later. One of the campuses of the University of Natal is the medical school. The medical school is by law only non-White. In fact, the University of Natal has for some time now been attempting to gain admission for White students to that medical school.

He does not know that.

What is the hon member for Sasolburg trying to say? He plays with figures in order to oment racial animosity. He really does that, because he does not in fact examine the criteria by which he uses those figures. He is indeed very careful to do that.

This brings me to the Bill itself. The Bill makes it quite clear that we change the definition of a student registered at a university to two particular types. The relevant provision states:

or that he has obtained exemption from that particular certificate. This relates to people coming in from outside. The reason why I emphasise these words is that we attempted in the standing committee to find another word for “exemption”, because the expression “matriculation exemption” has a particular connotation in education perspectives in South Africa. To use the word “exemption” as it is now used in a totally different sense is going to cause some confusion in the minds of a large number of people. The reason why I emphasise it here is that we were actually unable to find a satisfactory synonym in this particular context. However, I do want hon members and the public outside to note that the word “exemption” here has a totally different meaning.

I should like to turn now to the functioning of the Joint Matriculation Board. The Joint Matriculation Board is at the present moment a semi-autonomous body linked to the Committee of University Principals. It will in future be exclusively an advisory body to that Committee of University Principals. It may hold examinations but it is not obliged to hold examinations. This is a significant change which was brought about by the standing committee. However, here again, the PFP indicated particular problems with the Joint Matriculation Board and examinations. In a submission made to the standing committee the Joint Matriculation Board indicated that it was in fact not really happy to carry on setting examinations. I want to quote from that submission:

We think one of the unfortunate aspects of the Bill—we shall not actually be able to know this for certain until we see it in practice—is that the JMB is being deprived of its previous source of income gained from fees levied on those people who attained university exemption. In future its only two main sources of income will be, firstly, from the fees of those writing its examinations and secondly, from the Committee of University Principals. We have already been told that the JMB estimated, in 1985, that it would be in a position of losing R250 000 directly on its own examinations only. We have not had the opportunity of examining that figure, but if the JMB depended only on fees from those writing the examinations, it would suffer a loss of R250 000. The present Bill implies that the Committee of University Principals is going to make good that R250 000. I believe the Committee of University Principals is going to examine very carefully the whole aspect of whether the JMB will continue setting examinations and suffering such losses, or whether they will cease setting examinations virtually immediately. I believe the hon the Minister and his department are aware of this dilemma. Hopefully some satisfactory solution will be arrived at.

We do know that there is a body looking at the possibility of setting up an independent non-profit-making examining company. I trust the hon the Minister and his department will look at the efforts of that body with some sympathy because we believe that is the avenue that will be followed.

One comment I wish to make regarding the application of the Universities Act obviously pertains to the current controversy regarding whether a student at a university should be exempt from the application of the Group Areas Act or not. In this connection I put certain questions on the Question Paper for the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning to reply to. I would urge this hon Minister and the hon Ministers of Education and Culture to look at the whole question of university residences in a most sympathetic light. As is suggested in today’s paper, I would urge the Government to come forward with a recommendation that educational institutions be removed from the ambit of the Group Areas Act.

This party does not believe that the Universities Act can achieve the most satisfactory situation in South Africa until all those sections pertaining only to single racial groups are removed. This party does not believe that there are White, Coloured, Indian or Black universities in South Africa. We believe it is logical that the universities of South Africa are for the benefit and good of all South Africans, and until we reach that stage where we can rationalise the number of persons entering a university, until the hon members for Waterberg and Pietersburg recognise that the University of the North is their university as well as the university of a large number of other people, this party will not be happy about the situation of universities in this country.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Pinetown’s political views on education and universities differ radically, of course, from those of the CP. If I were to dwell on that hon member’s speech at any great length this morning, I would merely repeatedly have to refute his standpoints and put forward those of the CP. For that reason I provisionally want to leave that hon member’s speech at that and refer to the speech of the hon member for Bloemfontein East.

He took part in the debate yesterday and reacted to certain statements made by the hon member for Rissik. The hon member for Bloemfontein East’s judgment is, for some or other reason which I cannot fathom, leaving him in the lurch. The hon member did the same thing in a previous debate. At the time he, an opponent of the NP’s 1977 constitutional proposals, quoted differences between this and the NP’s standpoint so as to prove that in 1977 the NP was wrong and that his party had therefore disseminated a lie. In that way he tried to get at the CP.

Yesterday the hon member for Rissik expressed a certain amount of criticism about what was taking place on certain university campuses and in certain classrooms. He then expressed his deep concern about these matters.

The hon member for Bloemfontein East came to the conclusion, as far as this was concerned, that the hon member for Rissik had insulted the students, lecturers, rectors and everyone concerned. The hon member for Rissik, however, was referring to certain trends that were manifesting themselves at universities and expressed his concern about those trends.

I now want to mention an example to hon members. The hon member for Bloemfontein East is not here to listen to this now, but perhaps the hon the Minister would like to put forward his views on this. Amongst other things, we find trends such as the one about which an article appeared in Die Matie of Friday, 5 August, an article in which the chairman of the NP student branches said: “Ek is bly oor die oopkoshuisoorwinning. There is uncertainty among students about open hostels.” But he himself, as chairman of the NP at the university, expresses the NP’s standpoint, saying they are glad about the open hostel victory. In my view the big question is now: Do the hon the Minister and the hon member for Bloemfontein East agree with the statement by these students and the NP branch chairman, or is the hon the Minister prepared to repudiate the trend advocated by these students? [Interjections.] As far as I am concerned, that is the big question. Is he prepared to repudiate those students in public here and to say that open universities are not NP policy?

It is the rule and the custom in this House for hon members to refer to figures from the past and to quote their standpoints. Suddenly, however, the hon the Minister took exception—and the hon member for Primrose also took exception to that yesterday—to this side of the House referring to the view of a former Minister of Education in the NP, ie ex-Minister De Klerk. It is with appreciation that we referred to the standpoints of that hon Minister, and I now find it incomprehensible that exception should be taken to this.

Let me say this to hon members today: As is the case with the fathers of the majority of us sitting here, my late father did not have the privilege of sitting in this House. At the age of 17, however, during the Anglo-Boer War, he took up arms and fought to the very end.

On whose side? [Interjections.]

Definitely not on the side of the traitors, as that hon member’s forebears probably did. It is a great joke to the hon member for Heilbron. That is now the kind of insult we get. I shall nevertheless continue. [Interjections.]

They need not ask any more on whose side. He was one of the rebels in 1914, and they need not ask on whose side. In 1934 he refused to amalgamate. He remained with the purified NP because he was a Strijdom supporter. I now just want to say this: If I had remained in the NP to this day, I would also have taken exception; I would probably not have liked someone referring to that part of the history of my late father either. [Interjections.]

That is absolutely ridiculous!

It may be as ridiculous as the hon member himself is, but those are the facts. I would not have liked it either if they had referred to him and to his history. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Primrose also referred to the fact that universities are autonomous and can therefore decide for themselves whether they want to be open or closed. I just want to ask whether it is not true that legislation was passed by this House, by the Government, and that there is legislation on the Statute Book allowing universities to admit students of colour on the basis of a quota system. Is it now their own, voluntary decision? I know the previous hon Minister said that universities could decide for themselves about that, but as far as the quotas are concerned, they cannot actually move beyond the framework of the legislation. If they did, it would be unlawful.

He says there is no quota.

Is there no quota? Then the Government must amend the legislation. [Interjections.]

The fact of the matter is that by legislation those universities are limited to certain quotas. At a certain stage we did, after all, have to decide in this House whether the University of the Western Cape and the Black universities could admit White students. The argument revolved around the lecturers who lectured there and had to have an opportunity to continue with their studies at these universities. The argument also revolved around the fact that certain subjects were not provided at specific universities for people of colour and that non-White students could therefore study at White universities. [Interjections.]

It surely does not follow logically that universities should now be allowed to decide on this for themselves because they are autonomous. It is simply not true! [Interjections.] By law it is still the Minister who must prescribe the quota to the university. If, in spite of the legislation, he wants to tell universities that the quota system no longer applies, he must amend the Act. He must then be honest and legalise what they are actually doing in practice by opening up the universities to all race groups.

Hear, hear!

The previous amendment to the legislation on universities made provision for the rectors of the Coloured and Indian universities to have representation on this Committee of University Principals. This happened after the legislation was first passed by the House, legislation in terms of which those universities became autonomous. At the same time provision was made for the Black universities to nominate one rector from their ranks who could be a non-voting member. He could be present, actually only as an observer, but he had no vote.

This Bill—the hon member for Heilbron must listen carefully to this, because he disputed the fact yesterday—is now making provision for the rectors of all the Black universities to be fully-fledged members of the Committee of University Principals, with the right to vote. What is happening here is that this Committee of University Principals, which is already racially mixed, is now to be even more so owing to the fact that all Black rectors will now be granted representation. In terms of its standpoint, the CP rejected such a committee. If there is now to be further racial mixing, it goes without saying that the CP would also reject that.

Secondly—I want to argue the point with the hon the Minister again—this legislation introduced by the Government is fundamentally in conflict with section 14 of the Constitution which deals with own affairs. It is also in conflict with Schedule 1.2 where it is stated that education at all levels is an own affair. [Interjections.] Although the Government’s standpoint about education being an own affair is recorded in black and white, they immediately draw a line through it all by saying that this is made subject to any general law applying to certain matters. [Interjections.]

Now the hon the Minister does not want to debate the issue when I say that when one makes own affairs subject to general legislation, with that legislation being so binding as far as those own affairs are concerned that it becomes prescriptive and so restrictive that legislation on own affairs can no longer be made, unimpeded by any restriction on own affairs, own affairs are no longer own affairs.

Of course not.

Then no one can decide for himself any longer, because a Minister, a department and legislation of a general nature has already made the decision. Then no law can be made which is in conflict or which clashes with any provision or restriction laid down by that general legislation.

Previously things were different. Prior to the new dispensation the White education department, as an autonomous department, could decide for itself, lay down its own provisions, determine its own policy and do everything itself.

[Inaudible.]

That was, of course, possible in terms of White legislation which was not general legislation. If the hon member Dr Vilonel really cannot understand that now, he should rather go back to taking out appendixes. [Interjections.] That would probably be better.

He should pay another visit to the Vrouemonument.

It has become clear to me what the hon the Minister’s loophole in this context is. In terms of Schedule 1.14 of the Constitution provision is made for the fact that in certain circumstances an arrangement can be made between the heads of the education departments and the relevant Ministers about the sharing of facilities.

In connection with education the hon the Minister of National Education is now placing the emphasis on Schedule 1.14 of the Constitution and not on Schedule 1.2. The loophole built in by the Government now plays the dominant role, and the hon the Minister is now inclined to have recourse to Schedule 1.14 to get out of the predicament when, in regard to Schedule 1.2, one debates own affairs with him.

If the hon the Minister were to appear on a public platform in the future and pose as the great exponent of conservatism in the NP, and of the self-determination of White education, let him quote Schedule 1.14 and tell people that he uses that every time to get round the question of own affairs when that provision is raised. That is exactly what the hon the Minister is again doing now.

That is why I can now understand how it is possible, in regard to the question of open or closed universities, for the hon the Minister to say that it is a question of both yes and no. Actually it is yes and no, because that is the NP’s policy these days. If one asks them whether they are in favour of something or opposed to it, the answer is yes and no. One never knows where one is with them. [Interjections.]

They run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

No sensible person can understand the NP’s lie about education being an own affair at all levels when the universities are open universities, all councils and committees involved in education, universities and technikons are racially mixed and Whites do not have the sole right to make decisions.

How the hon the Minister can go on perpetuating the lie that education is an own affair at all levels is beyond comprehension. Since the advent of the new dispensation, White universities have had a racially mixed committee of university principals. The universities themselves are now open and racially mixed. Would the hon the Minister just tell me where there is still any sign of own affairs?

What constitutes the character of a university? [Interjections.]

A university’s character is determined by the students it has admitted.

Precisely.

Well, if a university is racially mixed, its character must also be a racially mixed one. It is as simple as that. [Interjections.]

South Africa is racially mixed!

Yes, under this dispensation it is racially mixed. Under the previous dispensation we had the policy of separation. [Interjections.] Oh yes, we had separation. Schools were separated, residential areas were separated, everything was separated. [Interjections.]

And kitchens?

It is only in that hon member’s kitchen where there is no separation. [Interjections.]

The Committee of University Principals has specific duties and responsibilities. It has a specific function to fulfil. [Interjections.] It is now fulfilling that function in regard to every university in the country. It makes provisions in regard to the financing of every university and prescribes how the financing should be done—and this goes for other aspects as well—and therefore advises the Minister about the steps that should be taken.

I now want to ask: Whose interests will a person of colour, serving on that Committee of University Principals, primarily be serving?

Those of the students.

That will be the day! He will primarily serve the interests of the students who are members of his own race group. He will intercede for them and champion their interests. [Interjections.] If a White person serving on that committee were to champion the interests of the Whites, and a conflict arose about the eventual advice to be given or the standpoint to be adopted, whose opinion would win the day? Would it be a matter of consensus? [Interjections.] No, Sir, consensus means that one no longer adheres to a principle or policy, but that one seeks a solution that would satisfy everyone. [Interjections.]

Under this new dispensation our experience has thus far been—hon members are free to have a look at this—that the NP has removed many Acts from the Statute Book which they said, with a great deal of fuss, that they never would remove. They have given in to the demands of people of colour, and here again the demands of people of colour are going to have the upper hand. The Whites will have to give in because they want to reach consensus, and so as to demonstrate to the world, too, how successful the consensus recipe is.

Within all these racially mixed councils, of course, consensus has to be reached—this whole dispensation being a consensus dispensation in which consensus has to be achieved! It is a question of agreement beyond the bounds of any principle or policy so as to put on a show for the outside world; and the principles or policies that normally suffer are those of the Whites. [Interjections.] That is why they have to give in; and as far as this is concerned the Whites are also going to give in the future.

FW, the one who gives in!

Surely the hon the Minister must concede that essential elements in education, including university education, are being entrusted to the Committee of University Principals in terms of this legislation.

No.

No?

No, that is precisely where you are so wrong.

Am I?

Yes, just read what its functions are.

Its functions involve fundamental aspects.

Frans, first read the Bill again.

No, I do not need to read the Bill again; I have read it a hundred times. The trouble with this hon Minister is that as soon as he is driven into a corner, according to him one has suddenly not read the Bill and has things all wrong. [Interjections.]

The committee’s function involves fundamental aspects. If that is not true, why has the Government created such a body?

What, then, are its functions?

Why does the hon the Minister want to entrust to a certain body, functions which have no value, are of no interest and are not of any fundamental importance either? Surely this is a waste of money, because money is involved in all this, is it not? Then the hon the Minister is busy with a game that cannot be allowed to continue in this country.

I am telling him today that matters of fundamental importance to education and university training have been entrusted to this Committee of University Principals. He cannot get away from that, no matter what he says. If there is nothing of fundamental importance to this committee in what is entrusted to it, then it is not necessary and the Minister can abolish it. He could then leave it alone and cause no further ripples in this country as a result of the NP’s power-sharing policy of integration.

It is also interesting—the hon the Minister must not start arguing again—that this legislation makes provision for the Committee of University Principals to advise the Minister of National Education, the Minister entrusted with general affairs, and his department when it comes to functions of fundamental importance. The Minister of Education and Culture—he is entrusted with own affairs—and his department are not advised about these aspects. He and his colleagues who are entrusted with the education departments of people of colour, are advised about the “best method" of co-operation between these four education departments.

Should it not actually have been the other way around? If own affairs were really own affairs, should the rectors of the White universities not, as a committee, have advised the Whites’ Minister of Education and Culture about the duties entrusted to them? Then he would have known what was of importance so as to prepare the schoolchildren in such a way that they could be admitted to those universities in terms of the requirements laid down by those universities. He is, however, only advised about a recipe for cooperation. I find it strange that the hon the Minister is again saying that I have not read the legislation.

This time you understand it.

Is that so? It is rather strange that I only seem to understand the legislation when the hon the Minister feels that I am right. When I have driven him into a corner, however, I do not seem to understand the legislation.

Frans, you are in one of the furthermost corners.

My challenge to the hon member for Vryheid still stands, ie that I am prepared to meet him in his own constituency, on a date, on a platform and at a venue suitable to him, to debate CP and NP policy. [Interjections.] Let me place that on record now for the umpteenth time.

At the very top of the list of co-operative endeavour—that is what this Committee of University Principals has to advise the Minister of Education and Culture about—there is the sharing of university facilities. That is the only real issue on which the committee can advise the hon the Minister as far as co-operation is concerned—how he can best share his facilities with people of colour. It is chiefly a one-way street from the non-White to the White universities and not the other way around.

Let me ask the hon the Minister whether that was not true—and in my opinion still largely is true—in regard to Medunsa. Only two White students have been admitted to that Black university, and then the Blacks were no longer prepared to study. Consternation prevailed.

Do you agree with them?

I am now asking the hon the Minister whether I am again wrong when I say that this is a oneway street to the White universities, because when there is the exception of a White student who wants to study at a Black university, he is not welcome there and there is no room for him.

If a Black student has the privilege of being able to say that he is intolerant of a White student and does not want to have him there, White students should also have the right. It must not simply be one White student somewhere who has the right, because every White student should then have the right to say that he chooses not to have non-Whites at his alma mater, that he chooses to have only Whites studying there.

White students who are dissatisfied do not go on strike and do not create consternation. Their opposition is merely by way of silent protest, and they are forced simply to accept the situation and be satisfied with what is happening on their campuses.

One cannot, however, get away from the truth that the two White students at Medunsa angered the Black students and that no one wanted them there. If the Black students could have their way, they would remove the White students altogether so that they were no longer there at all.

I now want to ask the hon the Minister whether the creeping integration in education is really acceptable to him. Is he playing a game in the NP with his power-sharing because he, as someone in the NP who wishes to conserve, can no longer stand up against it?

He just wants to become State President!

If I were still in the NP, in spite of my negative feelings towards that hon Minister, I would still have voted for him, because he does at least represent an element in the NP which does, in some small measure, want to conserve. My only problem, as far as he is concerned, is that he repeatedly allows himself to be taken in tow by the other hon members of the NP who are more liberal than he is. [Interjections.]

We therefore now have a situation—the hon the Minister has conceded as much—in which tertiary education has been opened up completely; it is a “yes—no” situation. The Committee of University Principals is a racially mixed committee. If education is an own affair at all levels, why does the Government not apply this in the sphere of universities and really make it an own affair? They must stop making a bee-line for every loophole through which they can slip out so as to realise their policy of power-sharing. I therefore cannot support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, the hon member succeeds extremely well in frightening himself. He has not succeeded in frightening me, but he has managed to do one thing: I now have a better understanding of why he is so afraid for the future of South Africa. He fears for the future of South Africa because he shies away from the challenge from which no South African can escape, viz that we in this country will have to learn how to get along with one another. There is no alternative.

The hon member for Kuruman admitted yesterday that people of other population groups will also be living in the state which they see as a sovereign White state. They are going to live there, have children there and die there. If the CP ever comes into power in this country, surely they will have to live with those people and find the answers to various questions, as we are doing now. For example, are they always going to have only municipal rights? The CP says they want to free all people, but how are these people going to become free?

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

No, I am not interested. I am replying.

Until one stage we believed that we could let those people exercise their political rights at higher levels via people’s governments. This does not work, since the people to whom we offer that solution do not accept it.

But do they accept this policy of yours? [Interjections.]

This happened despite everyone’s best efforts.

I now come back to the field of education. The hon member does not accept the challenge that we will all have to co-operate. Incidentally, he said almost acrimoniously that I was the great exponent of conservitism. I pay no attention to labels hung around my neck by whomever. I am an exponent of one thing only, and that is of what I believe. [Interjections.] Long before the split I said in a speech which the hon member for Rissik heard—I promised him that I was going to remind him of it—that there are such things as common interests and such things as own interests, and that as far as own affairs are concerned, we will have to make absolutely sure that own decision making triumphs. That was long before the split. However, I also said that we would have to find ways of co-operating in matters of common interest. In a subsequent private conversation, the hon member for Rissik scolded me in a brotherly fashion, since we still belonged to the same party, and said that he was not happy with what I had said.

The point I want to make is that those who are not happy are no longer here, but the NP has been saying for a long time what it is still saying today. [Interjections.]

That is not true.

Of course there have been policy changes, and of course the split in the NP also made it easier to let those policy changes crystallise out clearly because our earlier encumberance we had was removed when the split came. That is why the changes in policy effected by the NP gained impetus and are being crystallised out clearly now. It is easier for us now, since we are free of the battle of the final few years before the split when we continually had to reach compromises with those hon members opposite and what they advocated. [Interjections.]

Now you are reaching compromises with Rajbansi. [Interjections.]

South Africa’s future depends on the ability of all of us, the CP’s as well, to develop co-operative relations with people other than Whites. This is an inescapable fact—and I am looking the hon member for Barberton straight in the eye and asking him whether that statement is correct or incorrect.

Come, Cas!

He is honest enough not to say that it is incorrect, since he knows that it is right. [Interjections.] If the hon member does not like our way, he must begin telling us how he is going to develop cooperative relations. The CP never speaks of a confederation, a bloc of states, or a republic any more. They no longer speak of how they are going to deal with the interfaces between the various population groups.

[Inaudible.]

I now come back to the Bill. The CUP, as it is now to be extended, is an interest body which in fact has functions in connection with the interfaces between universities. It has no functions as far as the own affairs which take place within any university are concerned. That is the reply to the hon member. It is an interest body, and universities have interfaces.

I should like to mention a few examples. There may be, say, only R8 million available at a given moment. The country simply has no more, and we may have requests for R80 million from all the universities. We shall have to act as judge, but we cannot simply act as judge on an ad hoc basis. I cannot make that allocation, or advise the hon the Minister of Finance to do so, to the university that has the best MP, or exerts the most pressure. This must be done in a scientific and ordered way. There has to be a ratio, and fairness must prevail, even only amongst White universities.

One of the functions of this interest body—we are using it for this purpose, and are interacting with it—is to advise on those scientific norms and standards in terms of which we have to make the difficult decision concerning how to allocate R8 million when we have requests for R80 million. They will advise on that score, and it is in the interests of them all that a fair norm be set and a proper policy is pursued by me in terms of the power I have as Minister of National Education. That is what it is about, and it is essential that there be such a body.

However, a phase of development has taken place. At one stage, only White universities were autonomous in the true sense of the word. We then passed special legislation which also gives the University of the Western Cape and the University of Durban-Westville autonomy. The Black universities were also not autonomous initially. We established them, but they gradually became autonomous, and now we have reached a stage where we can say that basically all universities in South Africa have gained autonomy, although some Black universities are still more or less at the end of a transitionary stage. They now have to be included in that interest body. That interest body is not an authoritative body, however.

[Inaudible.]

I am now reacting to the hon members for Koedoespoort, Rissik, and Sasolburg. This body does not have the power of enforcement, and cannot make laws like a Parliament. It has the power to advise Ministers, and I have already stated why it advises own Ministers on matters of general, mutual interest, since it is not empowered to advise on own affairs. It also has the power to draw up joint statutes which are common to all universities, and therefore to draw up regulations concerning what is in the common interest of universities.

Like what, apart from finances?

In addition, it is subject to ministerial control. Checks and balances have been built in; a further clause containing checks and balances has been built in, viz the franchise clause which requires a two-thirds majority. From the time that this legislation we are now discussing comes into operation it also has the function of prescribing the requirements for admission to every course of study at a university, excluding post-graduate studies.

And that is not essential?

Of course, but for the same reason that there has to be one certification board, one standard must apply for admission to universities. It is therefore logical and consistent, and it is a practical, pragmatic, essential and sensible measure. If the hon member is afraid of it, I can tell him: We will implement it; he does not have to worry. [Interjections.]

The anxiety about racially mixed bodies is very distressing. It is distressing that there are people who, in this phase of our development, sitting in a racially mixed Parliament, participating in a racially mixed Parliament, can be so afraid of interacting with members and leaders of other population groups.

If we had a choice, we would not be sitting here.

There is no other way to promote the wellbeing of everyone in this country, including the Whites, than to develop meaningful forums in which we convene together and decide together…

And govern together!

… and arrive at an agreement on the recipe…

And govern together!

Yes, and govern together in this sense that the hon member will no longer demand for himself the exclusive right, because he is White, to govern over others in his territory even though they are not participating in the democracy. [Interjections.]

The hon members have been misinterpreting an interjection of mine which I made yesterday. I want to say it is a recognised and acceptable political method to quote political leaders, on whatever level, whether they were Ministers or Prime Ministers in the past—as proof of specific standpoints. I have no problems with that. Hon members may quote my father, as Minister of National Education, to me—20 times if they wish—and I shall debate the merits of the contents of their quotations with hon members. That is not what they do, however—the hon members must read the speech made by the State President at the Federal Congress—because they attenuate former political leaders as though they belong to them.

They do!

They belong to us as well. Those hon members should go and read how very earnestly the State President said that former leaders had each made a contribution and had each in their time provided authoritative guidance for which we have great appreciation and for which we are sincerely grateful and which at that moment, I believe, made a decisive contribution to help make South Africa a country with a future.

Do you think Jan Hofmeyr was a leader who made a contribution?

Order! The stream of interjections on the part of hon members of the CP is becoming too much now. If they do not contain themselves I shall eventually be compelled to prohibit all interjections. The hon the Minister may proceed.

To create the image, however, that all previous Prime Ministers, and the Jan de Klerks of the past, and a lot of other people, would all have been so afraid, anxious and small-minded as the hon members of the CP are in their arguments today is unacceptable and we take exception to it. Let us argue about today’s politics within today’s realities and with our own arguments. Let us not rely and lean too heavily on people who are not here to make their own standpoints known.

In addition the hon member for Koedoespoort discussed the question of a general law at length. He is committing a fundamental error of reasoning. Let me put it like this: The authority of general legislation in respect of education is limited to certain areas. There may not be general legislation which operates outside those areas. Those areas include the norms and standards of financing, certification and syllabuses. There is no general jurisdiction over all other matters which do not fall within the limits of what is defined as general affairs in regard to education. The Constitution deprives Parliament of the right to enact any legislation on education which falls outside the framework of what is defined as general affairs. There is absolute autonomy in respect of education on the part of each of the respective education departments for whom there are own affairs concepts.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister whether he would mention an example—apart from that which is limited by the general law—of what is of essential importance to White education and is not restricted?

We can conduct an hour-long debate on all the things my colleague, the hon the Minister of Education and Culture, does, and all the things he controls.

That is a very good question!

He has wide and comprehensive powers. They do not fall under this Bill, but we would do well to debate it on another occasion. [Interjections.]

Basically I think I have replied to the hon member for Rissik too. He tried to come forward with the typical politics of association. They were very annoyed with us because we associated them with the PFP because they all voted “no". They are now saying that because we and the PFP agree on a Bill, we are alike. That is an old argument and they are welcome to use it if they wish. Everybody enjoys himself in his own way. If the hon members enjoy doing so, they can continue to do so. [Interjections.]

That is also, in part, my reply to the hon members of the PFP when we talk about the question of the autonomy of the universities. The universities have a tradition of being autonomous and they value it highly. Basically the Government recognises that autonomy. In the past there were times when inroads were made upon that autonomy to a greater or lesser extent because it was deemed for specific reasons to be in the national interests. I do not want to react to the old argument raised by the hon members for Bryanston and King William’s Town, but I do not begrudge them the pleasure they derive from saying that we are rectifying a mistake that was made in the past.

†If they feel that way, let them. However, let me say that, as I have already pointed out, the Black universities did not initially enjoy full autonomy. Their autonomy is a recent development which necessitates a new approach. It is therefore not quite correct to say that the fact that they were not included at that stage was a mistake per se. Their stage of development was somewhat different. However, the big question now is: If we say that we recognise their autonomy, why do we not recognise it in the absolute sense of the word? That is an important question.

*First I want to tell the hon member for Rissik something. He asked why we were now doing things differently, and the hon member for Sasolburg said it was in the direction of multiracialism, etc. However, there is a different element involved here to the one they now wish to express in that way, and it is that there is a new approach by the Government in respect of quite a number of matters. That new approach is to admit that we perhaps we had our fingers in too many pies in too many areas. That is why we now wish to pursue a policy of deregulation. That is why we are pursuing a policy of privatisation.

You want to pull finger now! [Interjections.]

That is why we ceased to interfere in the field of sport—in that time when the hon members were still Nationalists—and said we recognised the autonomy of sports bodies.

What we are in the process of doing is to try to restrict the task of the State to what the essential task of the State is, and not, where we can help it, to be prescriptive to people.

When we are dealing with orderliness, or with fundamental matters such as group security, the State has an essential task to ensure that forces and powers are not unleashed which will destabilise this country, which will undermine groups, which will destroy self-determination and which will lead to a power take-over and to domination. When it comes to other areas, however, we have sufficient confidence in our communities to allow them to assert themselves.

Let us now consider universities. At universities, unlike schools, one is not dealing with children in their formative years. One is dealing with a finished product, a person who is already a cultural being and who is developed.

The first-year students as well?

I do not look down on first-year students, the way you do.

No, I do not look down on them; I am asking you: The first-year students as well?

I do not consider them to be children anymore. Most first-year male students have faced more danger than you and I together in our whole life. [Interjections.] When my son became a first-year student he had already faced mortal danger and was far more mature when he began university than I was when I completed my BA. It is therefore fundamentally different from the school situation.

†Each university—and on this I differ with the hon member for Pinetown—was founded primarily on a community basis and although there are differences in degree, each university is basically also still community directed in its activities. That is a fact. Each university has a council.

*To a large extent that council is elected on a democratic basis. If the hon member does not have sufficient confidence in the Tukkies council to preserve the basic community orientation of Tukkies as an Afrikaans university, it is because he doubts his ability to mobilise the entire ex-student corps of Tukkies and everyone who is fond of Tukkies, to ensure that the decision-making institutions of Tukkies itself are able to preserve its character.

We are in the process of doing that.

You tried to do it, but you lost.

No, not at all.

Yes, Sir, they did. [Interjections.] They tried to do it, but they lost.

I have said that universities have councils, and because we are dealing with adults when it comes to the students, and because we are dealing with own institutions, the autonomy of which is basically recognised, we must also allow those councils to accept the responsibility. We must not only give them that right; we must also allow them to assume responsibility. [Interjections.]

There is a declaration I now want to make about the universities. I am in favour of our Afrikaans-language universities in fact also being able to accommodate students of colour, without jeopardising their character and community ties. [Interjections.] I am in favour of that because we have always driven the non-White students who did go to White universities into the arms of a purely liberalistic philosophy. The Afrikaners are allowing opportunities to cause people to understand their school of thought and philosophy to pass them by.

Hear, hear!

However, I want to qualify this statement. Universities must not in this way allow their basic character, their community ties and the functions they have in regard to a specific community to be jeopardised in the process. [Interjections.]

As far as this matter is concerned, you have become a Prog!

If hon members are not happy with me as I am, they will just have to accept me as I am. They must stop reproaching me now and tell me why I am wrong.

I shall do so, yes. [Interjections.]

That is how one should argue in politics. [Interjections.]

I want to elaborate further on the question of autonomy. I want to come to the statement hon members make, namely that the universities should be open, that the quota should be scrapped, and that the universities themselves should therefore decide how open they are.

They are open; what we are concerned with is that ugly question of the quota.

As far as this matter is concerned, I want to repeat that the real position is that the legislation does not impose quotas—I want to say this specifically to the hon member for Koedoespoort—but is enabling legislation which empowers a Minister to do something. As hon members know, that power is not being used; no quotas are being determined. At present each university admits individual students by name, whom they select themselves. The number of such students that it admits is also determined in accordance with a policy formulated by the university’s own council.

The question of the way in which this quota will be dealt with in future is not my responsibility. I am now going to say a few things about it; I am not running away from it.

As the hon member for Pinetown said, this is basically a matter which falls under the Ministers dealing with own affairs. I know that my colleague, the hon the Minister of Education and Culture, who was unable to be here today, is giving constant attention to this matter. Hon members will simply have to discuss the matter with him in future debates, if they so wish. I want to come now to the hon member for Pinetown’s specific query in this connection.

†He asked whether an own affairs Minister could repeal the quota clause. In one’s approach to that one must distinguish between technical procedure, on the one hand, and the substance of the question on the other. I do not want to deal with the technicalities now; let us come to the substance. Regarding the substance, the position is as follows: The repeal of the particular section can only take place at the initiative of the relevant own affairs Minister, and then only with regard to the university or universities falling under him. He must take the initiative; in other words, nobody can repeal it if he does not want to repeal it, if I may put it that way.

The technicalities regarding exactly which route must be followed are different. [Interjections.] No, let me carry on. Should such a Minister decide that he wants to do so, he will have to comply with paragraph 14 of Schedule 1 of the Constitution, which I do not want to read out but which in essence provides that the State President will have to be satisfied. [Interjections.] The State President’s duty and satisfaction in this regard would, to my mind, be that the Constitution is being adhered to.

So it is not an own affair.

No, no. It is an own affair but the Constitution…

It is an own affair “but”.

… also provides that the own affairs Ministers shall be appointed by the State President. Therefore the State President has an involvement in own affairs. [Interjections.] It is stated specifically in paragraph 14…

*I think I shall have to quote it.

Are you giving us good news and bad news or bad news and good news?

No, I was asked the question whether an own affairs Minister is able to do this. If it is done, a Minister responsible for own affairs must take the initiative in the matter. It is he who has to take the initiative in regard to matters falling under him, and secondly, he must do so within the framework of the Constitution.

That applies to all own affairs decisions.

Yes, that is correct. I am quoting schedule 1, paragraph 14 of the Constitution as follows:

and the teaching at a university is certainly a service—

Are you dealing with Schedule 1, paragraph 14 again.

Yes. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister a question in order to understand this clearly. If Minister Ramduth in the House of Delegates wished to remove or repeal the existing quota for the University of Durban Westville, would the procedure be that he could suggest this and the State President could then say yes or no and then an amending Bill would have to go through all three Houses? Is that correct?

The last part of the hon member’s question deals with technicalities and I really have not prepared myself for that. I have not asked for special advice from for instance the Department of Justice. It might be a complicated matter. [Interjections.] Personally my view is that if paragraph 14 of Schedule 1 is complied with, then one House can repeal that vis-a-vis its universities only in its own House. At the moment that is how I feel, but I have not looked into that matter and I therefore do not want to make this an absolute statement.

We tried to avoid all that by providing for it in this legislation.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister directly, if the three own affairs Ministers agree, could he in fact repeal it?

By agreement obviously. By agreement they may say it can be combined in one Bill and put through the three Houses. That is practically possible as far as I know.

Is it a general or an own affair?

The hon member also referred to the question of employment policy in this department. The general employment policy was announced a year or two ago. I think I did it as the then responsible Minister. As far as this department is concerned I want to make it clear that we advertise vacancies whenever we can and we apply the yardstick of merit in dealing with those applications.

However, the hon member referred to the boards, councils and so forth of universities.

And the certification council?

The certification council will be constituted on the basis of four nominees from the four departments and the rest on the basis of merit and expertise. Why is the hon member asking me that? He knows it. That is what the Bill states. I can go no further than that.

What about the employees of the councils?

The same policy which applies to State departments also applies to semi-state organisations, if I may put it that way. The HSRC, the CSIR and others apply the same policy.

The hon member said there is no discrimination in universities, but I should like to ask him how many Black, Coloured or Indian members serve for instance on the councils of the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Rhodes and Natal? [Interjections.] How many deans of colour do we have at those universities? [Interjections.]

Would you like to see more of them there? [Interjections.]

Once again we hear the pure liberal point of view, but in the final analysis they do not go baldheaded into it, as the hon member for King William’s Town said yesterday. They find ways and means to do that and that is basically what we have against their approach. [Interjections.] This sort of thing then needs to be handled with affirmative action. We then need to say: “Although you can do it, you are not doing it, and therefore we are going to hammer you." This results in the sort of affirmative action which is capable of actually destabilishing South Africa.

Sir, I think I have held the floor long enough. I have replied basically to all the major points that were raised. The hon member for Pinetown, in conclusion, also referred to the question of examining bodies. He mentioned a new examining body that may come into being. He knows as well as I do that the new South African Certification Council Bill that was approved yesterday makes provision for recognition to be granted to such a body by the South African Certification Council. It is thus possible in principle. They simply have to comply with whatever requirements may still be laid down.

*I should like to thank the hon members on this side of the House, the hon member for Stellenbosch, the hon member for Bloemfontein East and the hon member for Primrose, for their participation. Once again they made constructive contributions and well-formulated speeches. I am really not going to try hon members’ patience by dealing now with the financing policy of the universities, for example the salaries of lecturers. I take cognisance of the representations they repeatedly make. I, of course, am in constant contact with the universities. We know that we are struggling, and there is a sympathetic ear. However, the Exchequer is not always able to accommodate the sympathy and at this stage our country has to economise. Within the framework of what can be achieved, however, I can only state the philosophy that I like to apply, and which in my opinion also reflects the philosophy of the Government. It is that universities have an indispensable contribution to make, and we dare not allow the universities in South Africa to be confronted by a situation in which they are no longer able to make that contribution effectively.

Question put,

Upon which the House divided.

As fewer than fifteen members (viz F Hartzenberg, F J le Roux, E M Scholtz, W J Snyman, L M Theunissen, C Uys, H D K van der Merwe, W L van der Merwe, R F van Heerden, F A H van Staden, J J B van Zyl and J H Visagie) appeared on one side,

Question declared agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I move:

As I have indicated before, this Bill envisages the establishment of a Certification Council for Technikon Education, alongside the South African Certification Council and the Certification Council for Teacher Training, which is still before the standing committee.

The council will consist of not more than 12 members, namely a chairman, four members of the Committee of Technikon Principals, not more than six persons who are experts in technikon education and the executive officer of the council. The chairman and members of the council, excluding the executive officer, will be appointed by the Minister of National Education. The necessary expertise will therefore be available to the council to perform the functions entrusted to it by this Bill.

The function of the Certification Council for Technikon Education will be to issue technikon certificates to candidates who in technikon examinations have complied with the norms and standards prescribed by the council.

†As far as it is necessary to achieve its object, namely to ensure that corresponding technikon certificates represent the same standards of education and examination, the council may lay down conditions to ensure that examining bodies comply with the requirements prescribed by the council for conducting examinations, the norms and standards prescribed by the council and with which a candidate is required to comply in those examinations, the teaching of certain essential subject matter prescribed by the council and other conditions as may be determined by the council.

The establishment of the council as proposed, will satisfy a long-felt need regarding technikon education. It is an important step towards complete academic autonomy for technikons.

Mr Chairman, the speech the hon the Minister has just made in reply to the debate on the previous legislation is, in my view, a very interesting one and I am certainly going to analyse it in greater detail. I listened attentively and with interest and appreciation to that speech.

Let me tell the hon the Minister that the Government can depend on PFP support for any steps it takes towards the removal of apartheid in South Africa. We shall also support the Government in all the positive, constructive steps it takes to improve race relations in South Africa and to provide equal opportunities for all South Africans.

When I mentioned the word “apartheid”, the hon the Minister became very fidgety.

Just as the CP has the mixing of the races on the brain, you have apartheid on yours.

There is nothing the PFP would appreciate more than South Africa being in a position to tell the world that there is no apartheid, racial segregation or racial separation enforced by law in South Africa any longer. That would be a memorable day as far as we are concerned, and we would proclaim it with pride, patriotism and enthusiasm, both locally and abroad, in the interests of South Africa. There is something I want to mention to the hon the Minister and the Government, because in the past two years I have, in many parts of South Africa… [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, permit me to congratulate you on the new post to which you have been appointed and to tell you that we are all very glad that the NP has thought fit to appoint you to the post of Deputy Chairman of Committees. You have the necessary ability and the necessary sense of humour to make a success of it. You can always rely on my wholehearted support… [Interjections.]… provided you regularly send me that packet of biltong that you have sent me over the past two years.

There is something I want to tell the Government in all seriousness and in all sincerity after my experiences over the past two years in which, in many parts of South Africa, I have made contact with Blacks, Indians and Whites of many political persuasions: By far the majority of all South Africans are prepared to accept reform which would bring about a just society in South Africa, remove racial discrimination from our society and create equal opportunities for all South Africans.

At the same time the majority of South Africans are absolutely adament that this should take place on a peaceful and evolutionary basis and are totally opposed to revolutionary change. They are opposed to the creation of unrest, to anarchy and to the possibility of South Africa developing into a state such as those we have seen in many other parts of the Third World, states in which anarchy, economic collapse, deterioration and corruption are the order of the day.

On the strength of that we can tell the Government that in many respects it is on the right road. Those who say that during the past year or two we have only had cosmetic or superficial changes, are wrong. Over the past two years the Government has come to light with fundamental reform measures, given effect to real reform and meant a great deal to South Africa.

I must add, however, that the way in which the Government has instituted the reform has, in many respects, been clumsy. As a result of the way in which it has been done, it has not had the results that would otherwise have been possible.

We in the PFP can be of some assistance as far as that is concerned; we can advise the Government on how to do this and on how to implement it efficiently and successfully. We would gladly do so; the Government need only approach us. We would very much like to assist the Government as far as that is concerned.

There is one thing about which the Government need never have any doubts, and that is that the majority of South Africans of all races are moderate and responsible people. They would support the Government if it were instituting real and efficient reform measures.

Would you not like to get round to the Bill now?

The Government need not pay all that much attention to what is happening to the right of me.

I am now coming to the Bill. Many of the debates actually covered a wide political spectrum, and it is a pity that we do not have more of an opportunity in the House to discuss that. I must now come back to the legislation, however, because I do not want to clash with the new Deputy Chairman of Committees at the very outset!

Unfortunately we cannot support the Government as far as this technikon legislation is concerned. In the course of the debate we shall be giving our reasons.

It is going to be very important for South Africa, in the years ahead, to give technical training to a large number of people and for their technical training to be of a very high standard. It is obvious that in order to maintain economic growth in South Africa—specifically in the light of the rapidly growing Black population of South Africa—job opportunities must be provided for the population. This can only happen with a rapidly growing and developing economy on the one hand. On the other, as a result of the unavoidable effects of sanctions against South Africa, it is going to be necessary for us to have recourse to import substitution. In South Africa we shall also have to develop the technology that we have thus far imported from abroad. This all means that we shall have to give a great deal more attention to, and spend a great deal more money on, technical and technological training in South Africa.

As far as that training is concerned, in future technikons will have to furnish the major contribution. I wish to contend that we have enough universities in South Africa at the moment. South Africa does not need any more universities or any more university-type training. South Africa needs technikon training, and not only will we have to improve the standard of technikon training in the years ahead, but we shall also have to increase the number of technikons. I think we should aim for approximately 30 technikons, if not more, by the year 2000.

The development and success of technikons in the future will depend on whether the Government has the necessary insight to realise that it will only be possible for technikons to develop and achieve the standards required of them if they are given the prospect of being autonomous, in other words if the whole prospect of autonomy is also open to them in the future.

The concept, the whole system, of autonomy for tertiary institutions gives them the encouragement they need for rapid development and for achieving optimum standards. As far as tertiary institutions are concerned, autonomy gives rise to independent research, the development of teaching methods and systems, the determination, development and planning of courses and syllabuses, independent examination procedures, internal examinations and certification done by the institutions themselves to give status to the individual institution. It results in the kind of competition between various institutions which is so important. It means that in striving for higher standards examples are set, examples which other institutions can emulate. The concept of academic freedom should also be maintained in tertiary institutions. Institutions which were free and autonomous could decide for themselves who they wished to train and who they were going to admit as students to their campuses. They could decide for themselves about the appointment of their staff and about what could be taught at those institutions.

That is all of vital importance. Autonomy is an absolute prerequisite for technikons, too, if it is our earnest endeavour that our technikons should achieve the necessary standards and have the ability to furnish South Africa with that service in the future.

Now we come to the problem with this legislation. It will not and cannot bring about autonomy for the technikons. I do not have the exact words of the hon the Minister’s second reading speech before me, but in that speech it was stated that this legislation would engender, encourage and promote autonomy. This legislation definitely will not and cannot do so. It will, in fact, have the very opposite effect. It will jeopardise, or have a negative effect on, the whole process of technikons achieving autonomy, on their ability to do so and on the momentum involved in their doing so. That is unfortunately the case, and that is why it is not possible for us to support this legislation.

What is this legislation doing? It is creating another bureaucracy—South Africa is a country of bureaucracies—with enormous powers to prescribe certain standards and norms to all technikons for the training which they provide, for their examinations, their certification, etc. This even applies to the subject matter presented by the technikons for certain subjects.

I am not opposed to all aspects of this, but the result could be that it is not a uniformly high standard that would be prescribed to all technikons, but rather a uniform standard, which would result in technikons not having the independence and the necessary competition to ensure that there is a forceful, active and energetic pursuit of high standards at the various technikons and effective encouragement of one another for the achievement of those high standards.

What are the prerequisites in your policy for achieving that?

There are certain suggestions that we would put forward—we also did so in the standing committee—whilst we do agree that there should, in fact, be negotiation and consultation between the respective technikons and that there should be maximum co-operation and co-ordination between them. There must be a mechanism whereby the representatives of the respective technikons can get in touch with one another to discuss problems and reflect jointly on their policies and the tasks that technikons have to perform and whereby they can co-operate in achieving their objectives. Such a body could, of course, co-operate very productively with a view to ensuring that every technikon in the country furnishes nothing but the best service.

If this were to take place by way of a body created by the technikons themselves, for example a certain portion of the Committee of Technikon Principals, on which they could co-operate on a voluntary basis and furnish a contribution to technikons as a whole, this would have a more positive and constructive effect on the whole family of technikons in South Africa.

Then this would not be seen as a bureaucracy, a governmental bureaucracy, which is being forced on the technikons. Then it would not be seen as an agency of the Government and the Minister wanting to prescribe to the technikons how they should regulate their affairs and what they should do. Then it would be much successful, particularly in promoting the whole idea of autonomy. Unfortunately the Government has not thought fit to accept our recommendation, but we know…

What about the De Lange Commission’s recommendation?

… that since it has now on record in black and white, in one, two or three years time the Government will eventually get round to that, just as it has with most of our other recommendations concerning its legislation.

It will probably be asked why the PFP’s approach differs in regard to the SA Certification Council for schools on the one hand and the Certification Council for Technikons on the other. Well, if hon members examine our speeches on the SA Certification Council and listen attentively to what we have to say in this debate, they will see exactly what the difference in approach is. There is a world of difference between the two aspects, and that is why there is a difference in our approach to them.

There is something else I just want to add. Since the composition of the council and the way in which it will be constituted are the issue, we again want to object to this council—as we mentioned previously—being a bureaucracy and being constituted on the prerogative of the Minister. It is therefore clearly a Ministerial agency.

What is happening here is that six members of the council will be appointed by the Minister on the basis of a list of names submitted to him by interested bodies. Ultimately, however, the prerogative is his, and for that reason the council will be seen as a Governmental or Ministerial institution. It will not be seen as a council which is truly independent and representative of all the interested bodies. That is a disadvantage, because it detracts from the credibility, acceptability and independence of the council. It means that this council is not autonomous. [Interjections]

I am not saying the hon the Minister is going to do so, but he could appoint people he knows to be “reliable”, in line with the Government’s wishes and requirements. He would therefore be appointing people who would act as he would expect them to act and would listen to the advice of the Minister and the Government. I am not saying that is going to be the case. Who knows? I mean, the hon the Minister is making rapid strides, and recently he has evidenced a number of characteristics which are quite acceptable. It would therefore not necessarily be the case.

If the Government wanted a council which would have credibility and which would be acceptable and successful, it is essential for that council to be independent and autonomous. It would then be essential for that council to be composed of people nominated by the most important interested bodies.

Technikons train people for industry and the business world. Technikons train people to work in factories, for example, or to work in engineering. That body, as an employer, has the utmost interest in the quality and type of training furnished at a technikon. That is why they ought to have the right to nominate their representatives to serve on the council.

Each of them serves on each technikon’s council!

I am now speaking about the Certification Council. I am now talking about the body that is going to take the most important decisions, as set out in the Bill, involved in laying down the standards and norms of education, examination and certification.

If the hon the Minister wants the council to be a success, it must be one consisting of people who are nominated, because then that council could accept full responsibility for the work it does.

There is something I have been debating with the Government inside and outside the House for a long time now. They have too many fingers in the pie. There is not a single pie in South Africa in which the Government does not have a finger or is not trying to get a finger! [Interjections.] As a result the Government is setting itself up as a target. For everything that goes wrong, the Government is blamed. It is setting itself up as a target.

The Government is setting itself up as a target for everything that goes wrong in this country instead of concerning itself with the really important matters and allowing South African society—all of us in South Africa—to look after everything else. Surely that is how one progresses in a democratic country. Then there would not be this problem.

Hon members know that if someone is given a traffic ticket somewhere, he does not blame the town concerned; it is the Government’s fault. [Interjections.] It is because the Government wants to be the target.

The hon the Minister said that the Government now wanted to take a back seat. In other words, the Government wants to pull its finger out of the pie. [Interjections.] The time has come for the Government to pull finger in all respects, but chiefly to pull its finger out of all the pies in South Africa.

What I am saying in this connection is that at this level of education it would be in the interests of South Africa, of the Government and of all of us if the Government would cease to participate, be involved or intervene and leave it to those people. They are responsible people. The principals and officials of technikons and the captains of industry and its officials who have a major interest in the products furnished by technikons, are amongst the most responsible people in South Africa, and also amongst the most knowledgeable, with a direct interest in what happens there. The Government can, with the utmost faith and confidence, leave these matters to their discretion and responsibility and take a back seat so as to get those troubles off its shoulders too.

I know it is too late now. I do not think the Government will accept our representations in this connection, but I do want to ask that when the Government again gives attention to this whole aspect or similar aspects in the future, it should please accept this principle. It must learn to trust sound judgement, the responsibility and the abilities of other South Africans and the community at large; it should trust them to deal with these matters and know that it is not necessary for the Government to have a finger in that pie too.

After everything I have said, I do nevertheless think that in certain respects this could perhaps be a step that could lead to an improvement in technikon education at a later stage. I do hope, however, that the Government will also give attention to the representations we have made in this regard.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Bryanston has been trying to express his opposition to this Bill for quite a few minutes now. Before I get to that and before I react to his objections regarding the Certification Council for Technikon Education I should like to make a single reference to the political remarks the hon member made at the start of his speech. I hope you will allow me to do so, Sir, because it is basically a reaction to something he started.

I do not want to say much about it, but it did strike me. The hon member for Bryanston observed inter alia that he believed that the majority of South Africans were opposed to anarchy and the disruption of society in South Africa, and in favour of an evolutionary process to full democracy. I agree with him. I also believe that the majority of South Africans have that aspiration.

Surely that is not our problem. Our problem is not majority in the present situation. Our problem in fact is very often a small group that wants to bring about anarchy and has a vested interest in disrupting the situation in South Africa. He knows that as well as I do. That is the matter we should address today. Surely it is no use our dreaming about this and creating all these idealistic illusions for ourselves, without also addressing the real facts regarding that aspect.

I think it is terribly important if the hon member therefore says that the Government is engaged in bringing about a real reform in South Africa, and that it is not merely cosmetic. I want to tell the hon member that what he said was correct and I thank him for saying it. He should at the same time also tell a few of his colleagues in his party who continually deny that the Government is engaged in real, substantive reform in South Africa. I think it is that hon member’s duty, as part of the right wing of his party, to put this standpoint across to them.

Wait a minute, do not create difficulties for me!

But I want to get round to the Bill itself. The hon member does not support the Bill; he is opposed to it. He tried to motivate why he and his party were opposed to it. I must say that the hon member really tried in all earnest, for a good 20 minutes—and in all fondness and with all due respect, struggled very hard—to make a point concerning the reason for his being opposed to this Bill. He knows as well as I do and everyone who served on the standing committee what the arguments regarding this particular aspect were. The arguments revolved around the question of autonomy and independence. We cannot get away from that. From the outset we made it clear to one another on the standing committee—all members of the standing committee agreed on this point—that the ideal was that we must bring about the greatest possible degree of independence in respect of the technikons. From the outset all the members of the standing committee were unanimous about this. In considering the way in which independence was to be achieved quite a few arguments and questions were of course broached.

The hon member for Bryanston, however, in his argument before the House, created the impression that technikons today were already autonomous and independent. We all know that is not the truth. If that is the implication of what the hon member had said, it is important that we place on record that is not the case. [Interjections.] No technikon in South Africa today is either autonomous or independent. I shall deal in a moment with the process in terms of which one may achieve that independence, but at present no technikon in South Africa is independent, not even as far as examinations are concerned. If the hon member wanted to create the impression that technikons of today had full independence with regard to internal examinations that is once again not the truth.

I advocated it!

The hon member advocated it, but he also created the impression in his argument that it was already the case, and that is not true. [Interjections.] In a specific attempt to arrive at that independence, with regard to full internal examinations, certain steps have to be taken. That is the question we had to address on the standing committee; surely the hon member knows that. The legislation before us is the result of the discussions which took place there.

Furthermore the hon member accused the Government—he allocated a large part of his speech to it—of creating another bureaucracy by introducing this certification council. That is rubbish, and the hon member knows it. Let us look at the Bill itself. It makes provision for our introducing a certification council consisting of a total of eleven members. Four of the members are appointed from the Committee of Technikon Principals. They will be existing office bearers of the CTP. They are therefore not new people who are being dragged into a new structure; they will be people who have been appointed by the CTP to serve on the certification council. Six members are appointed by the Minister. Now I ask whether it is possible for six people to form a bureaucracy.

Wait until the personnel are appointed!

An executive officer will be selected, who will also form part of the certification council. Furthermore the hon member knows that clause 5 provides that the functions of the council are going to be carried out by a committee system. [Interjections.] I am convinced that the members of that committee are going to perform their task on a part-time basis. [Interjections.] Surely that is quite clear. That is the implication. The statement by the hon member that a new bureaucracy is being created is therefore completely untrue. Surely it is rubbish. If that were true, why did the hon member not have the same objection in the case of the South African Certification Council? If his argument is correct a bureaucracy is also being created in that case; a larger one in fact because more members will be serving on that council. When we discussed that legislation, the hon member did not have the same objection.

We voted against it.

No, the hon member did not vote against the establishment of the South African Certification Council. Nor did he vote against the fact that there should be a certification council.

We voted against the constitution of the council. [Interjections.]

Yes, the hon member did indeed have difficulty with the specific constitution of that council, but he did not object to the fact that such a certification council should exist. He did not oppose it. The hon member for Bryanston is now opposing this legislation on the ground of the fact that a bureaucracy would now be created. My point is that he should have made the same objection in the case of the South African Certification Council. [Interjections.]

As far as the Bill as such is concerned I think it is important to make the point that when we considered this Bill, the same considerations were to a large extent relevant as those in the case of the South African Certification Council Bill. In his introductory speech to the debate on the South African Certification Bill the hon the Minister made the point that the original purpose was to include the certification of technikon education in a general certification council. In his speech he set out the reasons for deciding to create a separate body for the certification of the various facets of education.

That is why I say that the consideration of this Bill—the establishment or constitution of a certification council for technikon education—has the same underlying reasons as the legislation already dealt with. That is why the aims of this legislation are broadly speaking the same as those of the legislation concerning the South African Certification Council, viz to ensure the same standard of examination and education by issuing certificates. In debating this Bill it is therefore not necessary to deal with all the arguments again and that is why I am not going to do it.

There is one aspect concerning the certificate which I should like to discuss. I should like to mention this because there might be some confusion concerning this aspect, since we amended the principal Act on the standing committee in order to make provision for one certificate to be issued by the certification council, in this case and not various certificates by various examination authorities or technikons. Seen from the point of view of the aspiration to autonomy, I think it is a specific aspect with which we have all experienced difficulties. I concede that point to the hon member for Bryanston. Of course we would have preferred not to have had that specific provision in the Bill, ie the one making provision for the one type of certificate, precisely because one would not wish to place any obstacles in the way of autonomy or independence.

Another consideration also applied in this case and that was how we could demonstrate visibly and clearly and ensure that a certificate that was issued—one which, in the case of technikon education, is certified on the basis of the provisions and norms laid down by the Certification Council for Technikon Education—represented the same qualification. That is why this particular need was satisfied by incorporating them into the Bill. Ultimately, however, this does not detract in any way from the ideal or aspiration to independence.

That is why I think it is important that we dwell for a moment on the whole question of autonomy and independence. As has already been said, there is in any event no question of complete independence at any technikon today. The ideal situation would be to achieve that. How does one attain that ideal? There are various ways in which it can happen. If one considers the history of universities an example of a method that can be adopted becomes apparent. The various universities grew through various stages from university colleges—with the University of South Africa as the parent institution—until autonomy was accomplished by means of private legislation piloted through Parliament in respect of each of these institutions. That would be a course which could be followed by the technikons. The important question, however, is how one is to arrive at that. Today we are dealing with an imperfect situation as far as technikons are concerned, especially in view of their present lack of independence as far as examinations is concerned. Hon members of the PFP know as well as I do that we had witnesses before the standing committee who pointed out that the present state of affairs regarding examinations was unsatisfactory, precisely as a result of the limitations which exist. Therefore, to try to eliminate restrictions in respect of examinations, the certification council is a step away from the present limitations. At the same time it helps to pave the way to complete independence.

The valid question, however, remains the following. If we were to do nothing about this situation now, if we did not establish the certification council, how are we going to alleviate the present position of technikons? Surely there is no solution that can suddenly be applied overnight in order to overcome this problem. After all, no technikon is in a position to acquire full independence tomorrow. Not a single one. That is why it is in a certain sense a step on the way to the eventual stage of complete independence. At least, that is the objective.

I do not think it is possible to predict at this stage how long this process will last. We cannot say at this early stage that it can be achieved within the next two or three years—not even in the next five years. I do think it is possible to maintain that certain technikons have made such progress in this direction that they will be able to attain full independence within the foreseeable future. How they are going to achieve that independence is not, I believe, possible or even necessary to spell out at this stage. I do believe, however, that it is very clear that the department and the hon the Minister are open to discussion during this process.

Furthermore it is of course important to take into consideration that nothing in the Bill under discussion is going to handicap or impede that process of development. This measure in fact brings about a greater possibility for development. That is the case because I think it is possible, by means of this legislation, to promote the process of internal examinations. After all, that is an important step on the road to independence. That is why I think one can support this measure, also because of this specific aspect of autonomy. I also think that this House ought to express an opinion accordingly.

Another statement made by the hon member for Bryanston was that we were now taking a step which we would have to amend in two years time. According to him we were now creating a bureaucracy which would have to change in two or three years’ time. That is true. The standing committee recommended in its report that the whole question concerning the certification council, the process of technikons becoming independent, independent examinations and a uniform certificate should be reconsidered by Parliament in the foreseeable future. That, as recommended by the standing committee, should in fact be done in order to ensure that we do not reach a stage which would serve as a ceiling or a cut-off point, but rather that the development of the technikons will be maintained. That is why it is important that we accept this legislation at this stage in this spirit and with this intention in order to ensure that we can continue on that path.

A final aspect that I wish to deal with, is the question of the constitution of the council. I think it is important to point out that the standing committee has in fact also made specific provision for the Minister to issue invitations, in respect of the constitution of the council, to persons and bodies that feel themselves to be involved, to submit names of people who could possibly be appointed to the certification council for technikon education. I think that it is equally important in this case—in certain respects perhaps even more important—for bodies in the private sector as well, that are in the long run to a large extent served by students who have completed their studies at technikons, to play an active part in the process of the submission of names in respect of the appointment of members to the certification council. It is after all trade and industry—the private sector in general—that are in fact affected by this, and the fact that we have made provision in the legislation under discussion for the Minister to issue the relevant invitations by means of a public notice, is I believe an important visible indication to the organisations and bodies in the private sector that they ought to make use of this opportunity, and in so doing also ensure that they also acquire a say in the norms and standards that are laid down.

In its entirety, I believe, this measure in its present form deals with the problem regarding certification for technikon education. Obviously it is not satisfactory in all respects. That is true. It is however the best method, and the best means of ensuring the complete development of technikon education. I therefore believe it is important that we all let it be known here that we look forward to the day when we shall reach the stage of full independence for all technikons. This is an essential step in the process of making progress towards that goal. I therefore gladly support this measure.

Mr Chairman, as far as the amendment of the hon member for Bryanston is concerned, I just want to say that the CP does not support it. We do not support it because…

Phew!

Is the hon member glad?

Yes, he is glad.

I thought you were saying that you were going to support it.

Well, Sir, I am glad that I put the hon member for Bryanston’s mind at rest. I do not support it.

But the reason why I do not support it is not because I do not support the principle that the technikons must also grow to full autonomy, independence and so on. I think the tail the hon member attached to the concept of full autonomy by means of the last few sentences speaks for itself. It should put the hon member’s mind at rest that we will not support it.

The hon member for Johannesburg West gave a good and clear interpretation of the evidence given before the standing committee. As far as his reasoning regarding the matter of autonomy is concerned, I agree with it. The spirit and attitude in the standing committee was such that no one denied that there had to be progress and growth and that, as that growth took place, the technikons would take their special place in our society. The hon member for Johannesburg West was correct in his interpretation as far as that matter was concerned.

The CP views the technikons as a very important part of the education family in South Africa. When we refer to man, we frequently refer to him as, to use the learned term, homo sapiens. That is quite correct. In most cases we should be homo sapiens. But very early on man not only distinguished himself as homo sapiens, but also as homo faber. Man, with his skills, his powers of perception and his ability to formulate ideas about things, learned to use his hands in order to be better able to convert nature into culture technically.

Homo what?

Homo faber, if I remember correctly.

F-a-b-e-r.

I do not know whether my Latin lecturer taught me the correct pronunciation.

Homosexual too. [Interjections.]

The hon member on this side is a bit naughty. [Interjections.] I do not know whether the hon Chief Whip of the Official Opposition heard him, but I shall not pursue the matter.

I will talk to him later.

Oh, the hon member will talk to him later? Well, I thank the hon member.

That might be dangerous. [Interjections.]

One can say: “Is that not how one colleague ‘aids’ another?” [Interjections.]

It is very interesting how man made himself certain implements out of stone. Consequently in prehistoric times there were already technikons of a certain kind. If I remember correctly, on the campus of the University of Pretoria there were signs that from the earliest times people made stone implements there. Initially they were very clumsy, but subsequent stone implements were very precisely and neatly made. Hundreds of thousands of years ago—however long ago that may have been!—our forefathers made exceptional stone implements.

Obviously iron, bronze and copper were discovered, and during the past few decades technological developments have been nothing short of phenomenal. Consequently we view the technikons as very important in the education family. When we are governing—it will probably not be much longer before this happens—we will give particularly great attention to technikon education. [Interjections.]

You are full of jokes today.

I can understand the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning sitting opposite laughing a little, but it rather surprises me that my colleagues to my right, the hon members of the PFP, are laughing. I think everyone—including the hon the Minister—will agree that our chances of governing are better than those of the PFP.

It is an improvement of nought to nought.

The hon the Minister must not be so optimistic.

When we come to norms and standards in connection with the technikons, it is obvious that they are very important. Because we are talking about technikons here and one has the idea that the technical aspect is more at issue here, I think it is important all the same—the Bill indicates this and this is also my own view—that we are not only dealing here with people who are do skilled work with their hands. In the development of students at technikons the spiritual and cultural aspects must not remain in abeyance. In the same way that we want to have a formative effect on students at schools and universities, we also want to do so at technikons.

When we are dealing with technikon students and the milieu being created there, we must not have the idea that they are only technical people. Among these students and in this educational milieu there is an equally great interest in their spiritual development. I think even those persons who are intimately involved in technikon education will agree with me that the growth potential of the technikons in South Africa has not yet been fully realised and that they have not yet reached full maturity. I think there is still a great deal of room for growth in the technikon community.

It is very important that we do not merely make a general statement in this connection. The technikon campuses themselves will have to reach a stage where their esprit de corps and pride will be the same as what we want at our universities. I would not like technikons merely to be a shadow of other tertiary institutions, like universities, or for them to stand in the shadow of universities. A technikon must play its role independently in its own right in our society today. In this connection I want to think back to my old rector at the University of Pretoria, Prof C H Rautenbach. When he spoke about the function of the university, he always mentioned the following three elements: Tuition, research and education. These three elements must also be very important in the education at our technikons.

After these few general remarks I just want to sketch the CP’s fundamental standpoints on education in general—I did not have sufficient time to do so the other day. I also want to indicate where the technikons fit into this pattern.

Order! The hon member must curtail his references to general education and concentrate more on the technikons.

Mr Chairman, we are dealing here with a certification council. One cannot determine norms and standards, if one does not at least fully explain the basic philosophy of one’s party to the House…

Order! The hon member will be aware that I have given my ruling in this connection.

Then I shall not pursue the matter, Mr Chairman.

[Inaudible.]

Yes. I shall not take this booklet away. If I cannot state my standpoint here, I shall do so elsewhere.

Order! The hon member may have misunderstood me. I said he could refer to education in general, but he should do so very briefly and he should place more emphasis on the technikon aspect. That was my ruling.

In the series of debates we had on education the hon the Minister asked the following question regarding the matter of co-operative ties: How do we want to co-operate with regard to the technikons—consequently it does have a bearing on this Bill—and all the other institutions? I just want to say that we state very clearly in our programme of principles that the party will strive for inter-State cooperation in the field of education, particularly with regard to standards of education.

The hon the Minister should nevertheless be aware that from 1948 to 1982, when I was suspended, we had a policy of separate development. That was the period when we said that we wanted to emancipate the peoples in Southern Africa. At that stage we had specific ways to talk to the emancipated peoples, in the field of education too.

We have the situation in South Africa that many people from Swaziland and Lesotho for example come to South Africa to sell their labour here in White South Africa, although the NP says that there is no longer a state for Whites only. They also sell their technical expertise here. One also has large firms from other countries that send people with technical skills here, frequently in fields where we do not have the technical skills. Yet it is not a problem for the hon the Minister that the citizens of Swaziland and Lesotho come here and sell their labour to us where it is needed. I cannot understand the problem of the hon the Minister. He maintains that with our view of Southern Africa there will not be the possibilities and it will be impossible to find the formulae according to which the various independent states will be able to talk to one another about these things.

That is why the legislation makes provision for such states in fact to join these councils!

That is correct, but now I want to put a question to the hon the Minister. If he can do this with totally independent states, then there is surely nothing wrong in principle with the CP’s approach that we want more states in South Africa than the NP sees at the moment and that one can adopt the same procedure with them? I have no problems with that, and I cannot understand that the hon the Minister can even think that when we are in power we will not also look into this in our interstate relations.

Mr Chairman, may I put a question to the hon member? The crux of the question is: What place does the CP give to the Blacks, Coloureds and Indians and their educational institutions which are not situated in own states, but which are inside the state which the CP as Whites wants to control alone?

That is the point on which we differ politically and where the NP deviated from the old standpoint. Our standpoint is still what it was prior to 1981, namely that the persons are linked politically to their own national states. Although the people live here, they can nevertheless…

And consequently they will not have control over their own institutions?

No, of course they will have control over their own institutions. But what we are discussing here are the co-operative ties. I think it can succeed just as well, if not better, under the CP’s dispensation as under that of the NP, because under the NP’s dispensation they eventually lose control of it. This is the political argument we will have to iron out.

Morgenzon will only have one representative!

No, Sir. I can just say that in the near future that hon member will no longer be part of the political picture in South Africa.

I want to quote another education personality who spoke in this House in 1980, and now I am referring to Mr Sybrand van Niekerk. He had very good fundamental points of departure regarding the matter of standards and norms of education. I am quoting from Hansard, 21 May 1980, col 6904, where he said the following, inter alia:

I am only quoting this one paragraph because my time is limited. If hon members read the entire speech they will realise that in education, where not only ethical and aesthetic norms differ, one cannot force people into the same structure, like the hon the Minister wants to do now. I shall not pursue this matter for the time being.

In principle we are not opposed to a certification council; I agree with it 100% in principle. We are not opposed to co-operation between the respective peoples either, because I realise just as well as the hon the Minister does that White South Africa does not have enough people to do the work. We have neighbours. Obviously when you employ a Black, a Coloured or an Indian, you wants him to work well for you. You have to pay him for the work he does. We have no fundamental objections to that, and we want this very much, but the moment there is a power-sharing situation, as the hon the Minister’s colleague put it, we lose that power.

As I said a while ago, we would also very much like the respective technikons to develop to fully-fledged autonomy, but we oppose this Bill because it forms part of the political power-sharing of the Government, and we cannot go along with that. According to clause 4, both the composition of the council and its functioning enslave the education of the Whites as well as that of the other ethnic groups.

I want to get back for a moment to the hon member for Pinetown regarding the entire question of the argument he put to the hon member for Sasolburg. Man, including the individual who is going to attend the technikon or the other schools, is not only a cultural being. Man’s entire existence is more than just culture. He is a psychological and biological being.

It is also true that mankind is not only divided into ethnic groups around the world, but also into specific race groups. People in the international world would very much like to get away from the fact that one is racially-orientated or, to put it another way, racist. One hears about the Caucasian group, and I myself use the term very frequently. The Caucasian group has a totally different origin, and for centuries and millenia it had a totally different existence and milieu in which it lived and worked to the Negroid group. That is why I want to tell the hon member that when one maintains the question of identity in South Africa, identity is not only cultural differences between peoples. There are additional differences.

That is why I want to tell the hon the Minister, if one wants to use the Latin: Sum ergo sum. This can be put another way. Unfortunately the hon member for Bezuidenhout is not here, because someone once asked Ben Gruion: “What is a Jew?” To which he replied: “My people do not need a definition. I am what I am.”

The liberals of the world are intelligent: I always say this. Among the Progs one finds some of the clever hon members. That is why I cannot understand why the members of the PFP do not have an understanding of identity. [Interjections.]

That’s what I’ve been trying to say all week!

I accept that the hon member says it time and again.

But we do not need laws.

If we do not need laws, why do we have a Parliament? Why do we draft laws at all? [Interjections.]

I wish the time would come when we take over the Government and many of the hon members who are sitting here now, would become members of the opposition, so that we could debate this basic reality in South Africa again. Very frequently I find it easier to talk to Black people about these things than to members of the PFP. [Interjections.]

But the State need not interfere!

I want to make another statement here today and now I am addressing the hon the Minister. We are living in a time in which the Afrikaner liberals are reigning supreme in South Africa. At the moment they are at their strongest and most influential in the history of our people, but that time is passing.

I repeat that the Afrikaner “establishment” has acquired and taken control of the institutions of the Afrikaner. The hon member for Bloemfontein East said I spoke about the universities in a derogatory way, because I said that the people who had gained control over this Parliament and our educational institutions were people who, like the PFP, did not really understand the struggle for identity.

Surely you are not seriously accusing us of not understanding this.

That is what makes the hon the Minister so incomprehensible to me. He is in that party, but still yearns for the past—for what we represent. Many of my colleagues have written off the hon the Minister, but I cannot write him off because I know him better. [Interjections.]

Yesterday the hon member for Primrose quoted Voltaire and said that I was living in a nightmare but the NP created that nightmare in every facet of the pattern of living in South Africa today. They created it. They are ambiguous in this legislation and cannot reply to the questions asked by the hon member for Pinetown here. In his election manifesto the hon member for Primrose said—he was talking about crowding out:

But I maintain there is crowding out in our own education—in this certification council.

Crowding out is already at issue here. What did the hon the Minister say this morning? I had to force him by way of interjections…

I do not understand that kind of thing. Really not!

Yes, but the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning does not want to understand it either. His big problem in life is that when he could talk to intelligent people, he did not take the opportunity to do so. [Interjections.] I want to get back to the hon the Minister of National Education now.

Who are you talking to now?

I am not talking to the hon member now. I am talking about the Ministers. [Interjections.] What did the hon the Minister say—specifically during the election in Primrose, because I checked up on the hon member for Primrose… [Interjections.] I would like to understand the hon members of the NP when they talk about these things.

When the hon the Minister replied to the previous debate, I had to force him to give a reply by way of interjections. Sometimes we have to make interjections to force the NP to state its standpoints. This is not because we want to be noisy, but sometimes we cannot do otherwise than get replies from the hon the Minister by way of interjections.

The hon the Minister spoke about power-sharing, co-operation, joint responsibility and so on. When I said “joint government”, he kept quiet, and I repeated “joint government”. Eventually he said that it was joint government. Now I want to ask him what he said in Primrose. [Interjections.] The question was put to him there, and I am putting the same question to him regarding education. The question was asked:

What was the hon the Minister’s reply? He said:

Quite right! [Interjections.]

That is what one finds so tiresome about this Parliament.

You are playing with words.

The hon the Minister told the people outside that Coloureds and Indians were not ruling over the Whites.

No!

But a while ago, after my interjection, the hon the Minister said they were joint rulers. Now he says… [Interjections.]

Joint responsibility is a form of joint government, is it not? [Interjections.]

I agree with the hon the Minister. He is right when he says that now, but when we held an election in Primrose—the hon member for Primrose attacked me yesterday—and we said that joint responsibility meant joint government, he said this was not the case. Here he says it himself in the manifesto.

But they are not ruling over us. [Interjections.]

The question was: “Regeer die Kleurlinge en die Indiërs dan nie oor die Blankes nie?”

That is correct. [Interjections.]

Who are they then ruling over? They are ruling over us along with the NP.

How can it be a joint government if they do not govern?

Order! I think this point has now been made repeatedly. The hon member must now return to the Bill.

I agree with you, Sir. It has been made, and in other words there is joint government as far as these matters are concerned, too.

Yesterday hon members said I was always worried, but I am worried. The NP has a candidate in Klip River who is affiliated to Die Suid-Afrikaan, and the milieu in which this magazine is written is simply shocking. It writes, for example:

I am not saying the NP candidate there agrees with all these things, but our concern emanates from the fact that in the concessions the NP is making to the Progressives, they are finding themselves in an intellectual milieu in which all our values are eventually going to be destroyed. All the values are going to be destroyed.

Mr Chairman, I do not know whether it is time for you to interrupt me…

I did not intend to, but seeing that the hon member insisted that I do so, this is an opportune time to suspend business.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr Speaker, I am merely rising to move—

Agreed to.

Mr Speaker, I move:

Agreed to.

Order! Before calling upon the hon Leader of the Official Opposition to move his motion, I wish to make the following announcement.

It has come to my notice that judicial decisions of the Supreme Court are pending on the validity of certain provisions of the regulations made under the Public Safety Act, 1953, in connection with the state of emergency. According to my information the relevant provisions are contained in subregulations (1) and (3) of regulation 3 and in regulations 7 to 12 of the regulations promulgated under Proclamation No R.109 of 12 June 1986, as amended.

Subregulations (1) and (3) of regulation 3 authorise the arrest, without a warrant, and the detention of persons by or on the authority of members of the security forces for periods up to 14 days, and the further detention of such persons by order of the Minister of Law and Order.

*Regulations 7 to 12 deal with certain orders that may be issued by the Commissioner of the South African Police, and the promulgation of such orders; a prohibition in respect of films, representations and sound recordings of scenes of unrest, persons concerned therein and the conduct of the security forces in connection therewith; the making, possession or dissemination of subversive statements, as defined in regulation 1; and the seizure and confiscation of publications that contain subversive statements or are of a subversive nature.

In terms of the sub judice rule, no reference to the court proceedings in question or to the legal force of the said provisions of the regulations will be permitted.

The co-operation of hon members in this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Mr Speaker, I move the motion printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows:

1. (1) the economy, unemployment and inflation;
2. (2) sanctions and international relations; and
3. (3) unrest and security,

May I say at the outset that I appreciate the fact that the Government has made time available for this debate to take place. Having said that, however, and given the state of emergency and the serious situation in which the country finds itself, the time set down for this debate of three and a quarter hours is totally inadequate. I want to submit that if in future Parliament is going to have an extended session in the second half of the year, the Standing Rules simply must be amended so that proper debate on current issues can take place during the second part of the session.

The second point I want to make concerns the wording of the motion standing in my name. To an extent this has been determined by the Standing Rules of Parliament. The Rules do not allow a motion to be moved which is the same in substance to one which has been resolved during the same session. In these circumstances I am precluded from moving a second motion of no confidence in the Government. However, the final phrase of my motion calling on “the Cabinet to resign forthwith” reflects in no uncertain terms the fact that we in these benches and we believe the overwhelming majority of ordinary citizens throughout South Africa have no confidence in this Government. [Interjections.]

I am pleased that the State President, who is not only head of State and head of the Government but also leader of the NP and the NP in the Cape Province, is present with us today because I have to address him in a number of these capacities, and in particular his leadership of the NP. [Interjections.]

Let us make no mistake. None of us should underestimate the seriousness of the situation in which this country finds itself today, or the extent to which the dangers and the problems confronting this nation have intensified, even in the past two months. What we and this Government are doing right now will determine not only the pattern of living of the citizens of this country but also the prospects for peace for many years to come. One thing is certain and that is, if we continue upon the present road which the Government is taking, we will be entering a long, dark tunnel of increasing siege, conflict and repression with reducing freedom and options for democratic alternatives in South Africa. That is the prospect we face if we continue on our present path. The causes of these problems are not cyclical, superficial or transient. They are deep and fundamental and they require deep and fundamental cures. It is because of the very deep concern which we in these benches have for our country, our nation and the direction in which we are heading, that we have taken the initiative in asking for this debate today.

Let us look at the current situation. Firstly, in spite of the tremendous economic potential of this country, we have a spluttering economy which is in the grip of the worst recession in its history. It is an economic situation characterised by unemployment, bankruptcies, inflation, underutilised capacity, disinvestment because of pressure from outside, and disinvestment because of lack of confidence within this country. That is the one scenario.

On the international front pressure is building up, not just from South Africa’s traditional enemies—not from the communists on their own and not from the Third World—but from our major traditional trading partners in the West. Economic sanctions, which were only the size of a ripple a year ago, are now rushing towards us like a tidal wave.

Thirdly, let none of us underestimate the impact which the state of emergency is having on our country. The state of emergency with its Draconian emergency regulations and police orders, its bannings, its mass detentions and its erosion of the rule of law, is perhaps producing a facade of peace and order, but is doing nothing to help solve the fundamental problems that are tearing the society of ours apart.

The court actions to which you have referred from the Chair, Mr Speaker, have highlighted both the incompetence of the Government in framing regulations and the awesome and arbitrary powers conferred on the Government and its agents.

The horrendous figures tabled by the hon the Minister the other day of over 8 500 people detained in jail, each one of them being there without any charges having being brought against them and without having an opportunity to defend themselves, do not tell the full story of the many thousands more who have been apprehended, interrogated and detained. Moreover, it says nothing of those thousands of other people who are still missing and unaccounted for as far as the official figures are concerned.

Added to that, we have the muzzling of the Press and the control and selection of information by the Bureau for Information. From the information which is flowing into the PFP’s monitoring committees around the country and to our centralised missing persons’ bureau, it is quite clear that the briefings supplied by the Bureau for Information are not only totally inadequate but distort the real picture of what is going on in South Africa.

I have a simple illustration to give to this House. There was a news report over the SABC three weeks ago which read as follows:

The hon member for Albany investigated this and he has provided me with a first-hand eyewitness account of that event.

The facts according to those eyewitnesses are that on a Sunday afternoon two Black soccer teams, the Fast Boys versus Celtics, were playing on the township field. Four municipal policemen—not security policemen—who had evidently been drinking in the she-been all afternoon decided that they were going to go downtown and sort out the Comrades. They walked onto the soccer field where the game was in progress and started pushing the players around. When the players retaliated a policeman drew his revolver and started firing. One player was killed and, when his mother ran onto the field, she too was shot and wounded in the arm. The crowd then beat the policeman to death. The Security Forces were at no stage in evidence, and yet the Bureau for Information and the SABC said that 300 people had attacked the Security Forces and killed two policemen. I believe that this kind of misinformation has been repeated hundreds and hundreds of times to the disadvantage of the people of South Africa. [Interjections.]

Ironically, the two bright spots on the South African political scene over the past two months have been instances in which decisions have been taken contrary to the thrust of Government policy. Those were the only two bright spots. The one was at the indaba in Durban where representatives of kwaZulu and Natal are considering how to abandon apartheid and self-determination in favour of joint decision-making on a non-racial basis. I am pleased to hear that the Department of Information sends foreigners down to Natal to go and see what is happening there, to see how in Natal, at least, decisions are being taken which run quite contrary to the self-determination philosophy of the present Government.

The other bright spot was the decision last week of the legislative assembly of kwaNdebele. They decided to abandon the concept of independence, of self-determination, in spite of the tempting offer of Moutse land which the State President had previously made to them.

The Government may advance many reasons and blame many persons for the sad state of affairs that exists in our country today. It will be the Communists, the revolutionaries, the enemies of South Africa and the superficial, double-talking and misguided politicians in the West.

These may all be contributory factors but three facts are beyond dispute. The first of these three facts—if the leader of the NP would give some attention… [Interjections.] Yes, the National Party; hon members must not get too sensitive about it! [Interjections.] There are three facts which are not in dispute. The first is that, whatever the reasons, this Government has failed. [Interjections.] It has failed to cope with the situation, to put right the wrongs and to find solutions to the problems facing this nation. [Interjections.] Nothing the Government can do in blaming other people can hide the fact that today it is a dismal failure. [Interjections.]

The second fact is that, quite apart from its policies, it has been the actions of the Government and its Cabinet Ministers that have very often aggravated the situation in South Africa. Look, for instance, for a moment at the issue of sanctions. While the battle has been raging in the West between those who have been pushing for sanctions on the one hand, and those who have been opposed to sanctions on the other, it has time and time again been the actions of this Government and the Ministers of this Government which have pulled the rug out from under the feet of those people who have been fighting against sanctions. [Interjections.]

There have been the hesitancy and the ambivalence surrounding the whole process of reform. There have been the frequent acts of repression and—the State President will understand this—there was the disastrous Rubicon speech last year which accelerated the whole slide in the direction of sanctions in the West. [Interjections.] There was the State President’s public repudiation of the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his “verligte” interpretation of the obvious consequences of power-sharing. He dared to suggest that power-sharing could possibly one day lead to a Black State President, and he was publicly repudiated.

There was the proclamation three months ago of the nationwide state of emergency. This strengthened the perception that the Government was unable to solve South Africa’s problems by any democratic means. There was the way in which the State President, only a few weeks ago, used the President’s Council and his majority on the President’s Council to force through security legislation which had been voted down by two out of the three Houses of this Parliament. [Interjections.]

Then there was also the manner of the State President’s public rebuff on television of Sir Geoffrey Howe. [Interjections.] I want to say—and the State President will understand—that this may be good White-constituency politics in South Africa, but in doing that he undoubtedly played right into the hands of the pro-sanctions lobby. That was the effect of that on South Africa, irrespective of what it did for the NP.

So, helped along by events inside of South Africa, the sanctions wave has been building up. Whatever the past, sanctions, regrettably, are becoming a factor which all of us will have to contend with in the future. We in the PFP—I think in particular my colleague on my left, the hon member for Houghton—have argued against sanctions both inside and outside South Africa.

For how long? [Interjections.]

Sir, I want to hear when the hon the Minister went and faced foreign audiences and argued against sanctions as this hon lady here has done! It is all very well sitting cosily here; let him get out front and go and argue the case. Then we will see what happens. [Interjections.]

The PFP believes that sanctions will extend the life of apartheid, and not shorten it. That is why we are opposed to them. We believe sanctions will make it more difficult to find a solution to our problems, but I should once again like to say to the Government that, whatever the impact of sanctions may be, we as a nation must not allow sanctions to deflect us from the task which we South Africans alone can perform, which is the task of dismantling apartheid and finding a basis on which we, the citizens of this country, can live together in peace. [Interjections.] That should dominate our thinking, irrespective of the difficulties which sanctions put in our path.

There is a third fact which is beyond dispute, and that is that, while we may blame everybody else, the fundamental cause of South Africa’s present crisis has to be found and resolved right here inside our country. It will be argued—and we have heard it from the other side of the House—that these problems flow from the multicultural and multi-ethnic nature of our society. Yes, we have those problems. It will be pointed out that they flow from the process of bringing together in a new productive entity the First and the Third World components of our nation. Yes, they are problems.

However, I am of the opinion that the major cause is to be found in the fact that, in spite of the many positive things that have been done in South Africa, the NP Government, and together with them the majority of White citizens who constitute an economically privileged and politically dominant group, have not faced up to the fact that the elimination of apartheid requires more than the rearrangement or the modernisation of the status quo. The elimination of apartheid requires a vast social, economic and political restructuring of our society. [Interjections.]

Not only the laws of apartheid have to go, but the legacies of apartheid and its impact on the way in which people live in our country will have to be eliminated. Not only must race be eliminated as a basis for separation, but race must be scrapped as the determinant as to who will have political power, privilege and opportunity in our country. [Interjections.]

The reality is that the issue of apartheid and getting rid of apartheid has less to do with physical separation and more and more to do with political power and the rights and the privileges that flow from it. We in these benches believe that apartheid will only have been eliminated when political power is shared by all of the citizens of this country. [Interjections.] That is going to be the touchstone of the elimination of apartheid.

It is against this background of the urgent need to resolve the issue of the sharing of political power in an apartheid-free South Africa that the recent federal congress of the NP was so utterly distressing. [Interjections.] I believe it was a watershed congress in the life of that party. [Interjections.] It was the congress at which the NP retreated from the boldness of reform to the comfortable, orthodox ideology of Dr Verwoerd. Back we went again. Yes, it was modernised slightly, updated—according to the State President’s model—and adapted here or there, but essentially the apartheid ideology of Dr Verwoerd, in the guise of separate determination, dominated the decisions at that congress.

It is quite obvious to us and any outsider that there is a power struggle going on in the NP. [Interjections.] The succession stakes are on. [Interjections.] It is written large over the faces of hon members over there. [Interjections.] In the context of the obvious power struggle that is going on in the NP that congress was a triumph for the hon the Minister of National Education. But if it was a triumph and a victory for him, in the context of the battle for the future of this country it was a setback for the millions of South Africans who have come to realise that a prerequisite for peace and stability in this country is the dismantling of apartheid in all its guises.

Mr Speaker, we have read the speeches and we have seen the glossy books that have been prepared and sent out to us. There was reference to power-sharing and to consultation. There was reference to joint decision-making in the speeches and resolutions. If one looks back, however, to that congress and its decisions it becomes clear that those were all secondary to the concept of self-determination. In fact, Sir, that congress was drenched in the concept of group self-determination. Allow me, Mr Speaker, simply to read out two of the resolutions that were passed at that congress. The first one reads as follows:

Self-determination is the basis which must be extended. The second resolution passed contained the following paragraph, which I quote as follows:

We really thought that was the limit. They had now passed a resolution aimed at expanding the concept of own affairs—all by means of administration on an agency basis.

*Mr Speaker, these policy standpoints make it quite clear that the new constitution envisaged by the National Party, will be based on separate racial structures, and that the building blocks used in their construction will be those of apartheid. This is the basis, the foundation, the building blocks of the National Party’s new envisaged dispensation! Besides, the present Constitution was not designed to bring South Africans closer together; this Constitution created an even greater division between South Africans through the extension of the concept of own affairs in our society.

On the constitutional level we are thus moving apart, but on the other levels, we are moving closer together. [Interjections.] No, Mr Speaker, under these circumstances it was not surprising at all that the State President, as the Leader of the National Party, was applauded enthusiastically when he said: “So lank as ek die leier van die land is, sal daar nie aan die beginsel van die Groepsgebiedewet getorring word nie”.

And the very next day Piet Badenhorst went and tampered with the whole lot!

The State President was applauded for saying this! [Interjections.] I hope that there are hon members sitting on the Government side who were ashamed of that applause. [Interjections.] I hope there are hon members in that party who were ashamed of the applause under those circumstances. [Interjections.] Mr Speaker, this is the same national leader who only six or seven months previously said: “South Africa has outgrown the outdated concept of apartheid". Now it is being said, however, that the principles of the Group Areas Act, must not be tampered with! [Interjections.]

In his speech before the congress, the hon the Minister for National Education went out of his way to explain that group self-determination was not apartheid. He tried to explain that repeatedly. Of course, there are circumstances in which self-determination does not necessarily amount to apartheid. When self-determination is based, however, on race classification and enforced separation, it is nothing but old-fashioned apartheid. When it is furthermore enforced by the politically strong, upon the politically weak, it is not only apartheid, but also White domination (baasskap). Therefore we are dealing here with a combination of apartheid and White domination.

†Mr Speaker, at that congress the State President mentioned some of the instruments to be used for the establishment of the future dispensation in South Africa. Among the foundations on which the National Party’s latest constitutional plan is based, the State President referred to things such as independent separate national Black states and autonomous city states. The latter was suggested by Mr Theo Gerdener and rejected years ago. That is old-hat stuff, Mr Speaker, aimed at nothing but the perpetuation of apartheid in all the executive bodies in South Africa—concepts such as own affairs and, worse even, separate racially based local authorities for Coloureds, for Indians and for Blacks in South Africa. It is no wonder that this Government has been utterly unable to get any meaningful negotiations on a new constitution off the ground. It is not surprising at all, and here I am not talking about the confidential, cosy chats which I know the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning has with various Black people. I am talking of the tough around-the-table negotiations that must take place openly and obviously between leaders—including the Government—on behalf of their constituencies.

The State President is beginning to understand that no Black leader with any sizeable constituency in South Africa will take part in negotiations which are designed to promote the modernisation of apartheid or the entrenchment of race as a basis for government in South Africa. It just is not on, Mr Speaker. That is why we in the PFP desperately want to see the present political logjam broken. We want to see negotiations get off to a meaningful start. We say the constitutional guidelines which the Government have drawn make it impossible for even moderate Black leaders and organisations to take part in the negotiation process. By its retreat in Durban last week the NP has made it more difficult for South Africa to live in peace.

We in the PFP have a different perspective, we have a different vision for South Africa. Let there be no misunderstanding about this. We are committed to promoting and securing civilised values in our country. These values include the fundamental right of every citizen to lead a full life, free from restrictions based on race or colour or religious belief; the concepts of civil liberty, the rule of law, and truly representative parliamentary democracy; the freedom of religion and the freedom of people, either individually or collectively, to maintain their cultural heritage; and the protection of people of all groups in our country from domination and repression. [Interjections.]

We believe that these values can best be achieved and maintained in an open society free from apartheid and free from legislative restrictions based on race. We believe that they can best be secured through a constitution under which the structures are not based on race classification or compulsory race separation but on the principle of voluntary association.

We know, however, that whatever model we may have and whatever model the Government may have, no constitution is going to succeed or survive in South Africa unless it is the product of negotiation among the leaders of all sections of our people. It is the failure of this Government in this critical time in our history to get meaningful negotiation off the ground that is jeopardising the future of this country. [Interjections.]

So I say to the State President: The NP, under its various Prime Ministers and State Presidents has been in power for 38 years. I say to the NP they have overstayed their welcome.

Hear, hear!

The NP must get out and make room for someone else!

Mr Speaker, if I heard him correctly, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition said that the majority of Whites in South Africa would not be prepared to abolish apartheid measures. If that is so, let me put this serious question to the hon leader: If it is indeed the case—and my party does not believe that it is—what solution has he put forward in this debate? Not only has the speech that the hon leader made here contributed nothing towards changing the ideas of that section of our population which he says is opposed to the abolition of discriminatory measures, but it has, in fact, antagonised them even more.

With your double-talk you will, too; one moment a Black president, then no Black president.

I find myself in agreement with only one statement made by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, and that is that we in South Africa must resolve our own problems ourselves. Certainly, that is a serious statement which goes to the heart of our dilemma, and one would have expected the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition to come forward with some constructive, positive proposals as to how we in South Africa must ourselves resolve our problems.

We must first get a decent Government.

However, the hon leader did not do it. Still, that does not mean that I am precluded from dealing with that subject.

*Let us look, for a moment, at what the Government has done to counteract sanctions. We are conducting a ongoing campaign throughout the world, but the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition did not say a word about that; and indirectly he attributes the causes of this sanction campaign against us to action taken by the Government. [Interjections.]

Let us look, for a moment, at what the Government has done in this connection, and perhaps we could then ask ourselves what the real causes of this sanctions campaign are.

Firstly the State President, I myself and our colleagues in the Government have repeatedly warned South Africa that the outside world cannot solve our internal problems. I well remember that when a conservative leader or a conservative government in a Western country held an election, on each occasion the State President’s first words were that those leaders or governments could not solve our problems. It remains our responsibility to do so for ourselves.

What is more, we have constantly warned our people not to underestimate the danger of sanctions, that we should prepare ourselves for such sanctions and that we should not have them catch us unawares. For anyone with a thorough knowledge of international affairs it was clear, at an early stage, that sooner or later this campaign would lead to coercive measures against South Africa. That is what we are now experiencing.

There were then opposition members who said that we were scaring the people—that is how the PFP saw it—so that we could form a kind of phalanx against the outside world to cover up our own transgressions or inability to change. The CP, on the other hand, said we were scaring the people in order to sell the country down the river. That was more or less the kind of reaction we had.

From the Government’s point of view, we have always wanted, and still do want, the country to make as much progress as possible in the technological field, and as Minister of Defence, the State President did adopt timely measures to counter the arms boycott imposed against us years ago. We wanted to complete important projects such as the Sasols, Koeberg and others in time. We also launched stockpiling programmes. This Government’s record in regard to what provision it has made and the steps it has taken to ward off coercive measures or make us as viable as possible deserve the thanks of this House. [Interjections.]

Abroad our embassies and our representatives have, for years now, been waging a campaign against sanctions. Our representatives abroad are on the forefront of the interviews and discussions being conducted with various governments—virtually day and night. Our ambassador in Canada, for example, has appeared on Canadian radio 53 times in 12 months; he has appeared on Canadian TV channels 72 times…

He has nothing to sell!

… and he conducted 168 Press interviews and made 44 speeches. Our ambassador in Washington appeared 28 times on various American radio stations and 92 times on television. He conducted 90 Press interviews and made seven speeches to select audiences.

The more you say about apartheid, the worse it looks.

That sounds like you on SATV.

As far as the Government is concerned, every Minister, under the State President’s leadership, has done his best to ensure that every high-ranking visitor or decision-maker coming to South Africa was informed, at first hand, about the Government’s programme, about the necessity for renouncing violence and about how a constitutional dispensation that would guarantee peace and stability could come into being. In this regard we also made trips overseas to inform governments at the highest possible level—the State President’s visit to Europe when he was still Prime Minister two years ago is proof of that. The State President still corresponds—he has increasingly been doing so in recent months—with the foremost government leaders in the world.

When the seven most industrialised countries of the Western world met in Tokyo at the beginning of May, for example, a personal letter was addressed to each of those heads of government or heads of state by our State President, letters in which he spelled out how much had already been done in this country to implement the reform programme. It was clearly spelled out for them in those letters how essential it is that there should be an end to violence so that further progress could be made in the process of negotiation. In the letters they were also asked whether they could not endorse certain fundamental democratic principles to bring home to the ANC that the kind of regime it advocated would not be tolerated. It was also made clear to them that the campaigns of Western countries and the sanctions campaign could have only one outcome. The effect would be to dissuade even moderate Black leaders from joining us at the negotiating table. It is therefore not true that the Government has done nothing to counteract the problems we are faced with.

I ask the House to contrast what I am now going to say with the general tenor and content of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s speech today in this House, in his own country. I quote what Pres Reagan said this year on 22 May:

In a Press interview with the New York Daily News on 10 July Pres Reagan said:

Then he went on to say on 22 July in a speech to the World Affairs Council in Washington:

Pres Reagan was referring to South Africa. Now contrast this with the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s negative attitude:

I ask hon members again: Contrast the view about change in this country held by the leader of the most powerful country in the world, ie the USA, with the negative image presented here today by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition. I could go on. There is Mrs Thatcher who says:

With regard to the Soviet element in this sanctions campaign, she says:

This is a realistic, objective view of one of Europe’s leaders. Contrast this once more with what was said by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition.

Let us now look at an African leader. I have already quoted one of America’s and one of Europe’s leaders, but now I come to Pres Houphouet-Boigny. In an interview with Le Figaro on 21 June he says, and I translate:

Contrast this once more with the tenor and content of the speech of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition.

Let us just look for a moment at the reasons for the sanctions campaign. On the one hand it is said: “Release Mr Mandela”, “unban the ANC" and “unban the PAC”.

Reagan and Mrs Thatcher said that!

That is the chief demand that is now being made, and I shall be saying something about that if time permits. Let us now, however, look at the actual reasons. What are the actual reasons?

†I suggest that the real reasons are ignorance on the part of the outside world, malice, greed, hypocrisy, mistrust, a feeling of guilt and concealed political objectives. [Interjections.]

Where are your guilt feelings?

Let me say it quite frankly. A few days after Australia’s decision to prohibit the sale of Kruger rands in that country, their gold coin came onto the market. Within days! Everyone knows it takes months to prepare for something like that.

[Inaudible.]

Australia knows that if our coal is boycotted, thousands upon thousands of White Australian workers will have jobs and thousands upon thousands of Black South Africans will lose their jobs.

What is moral about that vote-trading in the American Senate—aid for the Contras of Nicaragua in exchange for sanctions against South Africa? Where is there any morality in that?

†The American legislators are buying their votes with the jobs of our people, particularly the Black people of South Africa. [Interjections.]

*I have here in my possession—it is very interesting—a confidential document prepared for the mini Commonwealth Conference, held from 3 to 5 August, at which Mrs Thatcher adopted such a strong stand against sanctions. The Commonwealth secretariat drew up this confidential document and I just happened to obtain a copy.

†It is very interesting to see the degree of morality displayed in this document. It says:

With reference to a ban on the import of coal, uranium, iron, steel and wool from South Africa, the following is stated:

The document continues:

Is it a coincidence that the selection of sanctions against South Africa is based almost entirely on products and raw materials which would ensure profits for those countries that support sanctions? I find nothing moral in this attitude. [Interjections.]

*A second demand that is made is being that the Government should implement reform and remove discriminatory measures. The Government has stated clearly, and proved over a period of months and years, that it could bring about the changes of its own accord, in terms of what we ourselves regards as fair and just and in accordance with our own credo. It cannot, therefore, rightly be said that sanctions should be imposed on us in order to bring about change. That contention is nothing short of a lie, because reasonable observers, including Pres Reagan, acknowledge that tremendously dramatic progress has been made. The Government is prepared to do so, and several hon colleagues, including the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, have repeatedly said as much. The Government is ready to do so and it conducts ongoing negotiations, but today this is minimised here by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition.

The fact of the matter is that many of the Black leaders are too fear-ridden to come forward because they would be necklaced. They and their families are murdered. [Interjections.] Their vehicles and their houses are blown up. That is why the Government insists that the employment of violence to achieve political ends should be renounced. What the West is doing is trying to promote Moscow’s cause here by encouraging those who commit violence, and those who want to achieve their political aim by means of violence, to continue with their violence and to refuse to negotiate.

Red peril!

It is a fact, and it cannot be denied. We have the documentation that the communist element in the ANC stated categorically that peaceful negotiations would be a betrayal of their revolution. They regard the PFP merely as pawns or stooges which can be discarded at some convenient moment in the future. [Interjections.]

*Against this background I must honestly say here today that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition should really think twice. He can still have a change of heart, because he will be replying to this debate at a later stage. I want to suggest that he withdraw his motion and move a motion more or less to the effect that: The House calls upon all South Africans to unite against the sanctions campaign from abroad and expresses its appreciation to the Government for the steps taken to counter sanctions and to establish a realistic basis for a process of negotiation to bring about a new constitutional dispensation which will ensure the fundamental democratic rights of all the communities in this country.

As far as the motives of the countries abroad are concerned, I cannot improve on the words of the poet Boerneef. Perhaps without intending to do so, as far as I am concerned he powerfully and succinctly summarised the whole overseas campaign against South Africa and the motives underlying it in the following verse:

[Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs ended on a thunderous note but even against that background I move as an amendment:

1. (1) relations among the peoples in the Republic;
2. (2) the economy, unemployment and inflation;
3. (3) sanctions and international relations; and
4. (4) unrest and security,

After listening to the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it appears to me that my speculation at our congress in Bloemfontein was not wide of the mark. There can be no doubt that the Government is seriously considering an election but will have to find the right recipe and the right time to launch such an election successfully for itself. In 1977 one could speak of the Carter election and in 1986-87 it can be a sanctions or Commonwealth election or something of that nature. [Interjections.] I think the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated that this matter was at least receiving serious Government consideration at the moment.

I should like to ask the hon the Minister, however, whether he really thinks President Reagan is a friend to South Africa. We know President Reagan makes a very friendly, courteous impression on television but the man who finds the internal policy “repugnant” for which this Government has stood for years and then sounds only a friendly note when he sees a slight movement in that direction, is not a friend to South Africa at heart. Least of all is he a friend to the White Government of South Africa. I want to contend…

If he is not a friend, we have no friends.

With certain people for friends, one does not require enemies. A friend who wishes to force one to abandon a fundamental principle which one has advocated for years, to reverse it and head in the opposite direction, is no friend to one’s country.

I want to ask whether Dr Chester Crocker is a friend to South Africa. These are the people with whom the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs conducts a great deal of discussion. Dr Chester Crocker has been recorded as saying in reply to a question that he is in favour of a majority Government in South Africa.

Pik too!

The follow-up question was whether he was in favour of a Black majority Government in South Africa and his reply was affirmative. Are these friends to South Africa? These are the people to whom we talk. I do not think the hon the Minister will hold it against me for saying that he is greatly inclined to be a bogeyman speaker in politics. I was with him in the caucus when he explained with much gesticulation how aircraft were prepared for take-off over South Africa and the dangers to which we were exposed and there we sat bickering about mixed teams and matters of that nature. Then mixed teams became a reality and we still have nothing. We are being shouldered further out of international sport than ever before.

I think the hon the Minister is very susceptible to foreign pressure. It has obviously become a cliché in those ranks to say we should make it possible for our friends overseas to defend us. I do not think we have succeeded in this.

I differ with the hon Leader of the Official Opposition as regards the motivation of his motion. In saying this, however, I wish to contend simultaneously that it has become fashionable in the NP when receiving criticism from two directions to think it can take the gap between the two and them claim to be right. Because two bodies are criticising it and the two differ with each other on policy, it regards itself as being right. This would be tantamount to the ANC’s alleging that, as the NP and the AWB criticised it and they differed with one another on certain points, it was right. It would practically amount to that type of logic.

It is ironic that the PFP is requesting the Government to resign because that means the abdication of the political right of the Whites which was equally responsible—I do not claim it was exclusively responsible—for the resultant internal political instability. The announcement of reform exerted greater pressure; there was no satisfaction; there was no feeling that, as reform was imminent, they could make peace; the pressure and internal instability merely increased. It did not exorcise the revolutionary spirit in South Africa. If the reform plans and announcements of the NP Government and all its actions could not curb the revolutionary spirit in South Africa, the PFP policy of White capitulation will not do so either.

The Government has created uncertainty about the safety of foreign investments. I am no authority in the financial field but I asked people on the stock exchange whether the disinvestment campaign had resulted from our not having a Black government and their desire to force us in that direction or whether they actually feared that a Black Government was coming. There were six of them around the table and they said the last was the reason for disinvestment. They feared a Black government.

The State President was once given that information by foreign representatives. He asked them—I think it was a very good question—to do him the favour of investing their money in Black Africa if they withdrew it from this country. The answer is obvious. They will not do this because Africa under the sway of the Third World does not represent the democratic control of the Western world. The direction politics is now taking in South Africa is that of a Black take-over in the country. [Interjections.]

We contend this not only causes political instability within South Africa but also foreign mistrust regarding investments in the country.

I wish to say something to the Official Opposition. The PFP will make the greatest contribution to conflict in South Africa unless the White community in this country capitulates like a pack of cowards. If there is a White community, however, which, as hon members claim, does not merely pay lip service to the principle of self-determination and which will make a stand and say its members are not sell-outs of South Africa but a community claiming self-determination which will not permit its people to be shot like a flock of tame ducks, the policy of that party will lead to the greatest confrontation in South Africa. [Interjections.] That is a fact. The hon members of that party speak only of Black revolt and Black threats. Let us tell them, however, that there is slumbering White resistance against the direction advocated by those hon members and the course the Whites see the Government following now. [Interjections.] Hon PFP members are well aware that their policy and that of the NP offer no guarantee against Black dominance.

The hon member for Houghton said—and I think I should give her credit for this—that they had no guarantee that minorities would be protected if Black people seized power here. I think she has read what Winnie Mandela said so I shall not quote that lady here again. According to those people—people who would support that party—Black is the decisive factor. Black has to dominate South Africa. In the view of those people there is no room for a White party.

I contend this party has no guarantee against a Black majority government and that also applies to the NP. We should like the NP, together with its newspapers, to spell out to us how they will ward off a Black majority government in South Africa in the light of their announcements of reform. [Interjections.]

I wish to make a few comments on dealing with sanctions. Hon members on this side of the House allege one cannot accept sanctions as a principle or a policy.

Secondly, sanctions boomerang—this is a fact. Thirdly, we say sanctions can lead to greater self-sufficiency and our people are to be complimented on the degree to which South Africa has reacted to the threat of sanctions. I am also prepared to say we welcome the steps taken by the Government to counter them. This also applies to private initiative.

I referred to America and Dr Crocker. Dr Crocker once said:

The reason I am quoting him is this: If by this he is admitting that South Africa has a strong economy and that we can survive without them, we need not permit ourselves to be blackmailed from that side. We need not let them prescribe to us. We can tell them roundly: “Stop your threats and blackmail regarding our internal policy.”

The hon the Minister referred to Britain. Britain did not react to South Africa like a Mother Christmas. Her action was not prompted by goodwill towards South Africa. We know only too well that at least 2 500 British companies have investments in South Africa. It is obviously to the advantage of her country, her government and her people for Mrs Thatcher to see that the interests of those people are not harmed by sanctions.

The same applies to Sweden. The Prime Minister of Sweden is not prepared to declare himself in favour of sanctions. The point I want to make is this: We need not go into shock at the threat of sanctions even if we know they can inconvenience South Africa.

I may pursue this at a later occasion but I now wish to refer to the visit of the Eminent Persons’ Group to South Africa and the threats included in the Nassau Accord.

I have the report with me. It reached me from London within four days and I think it is a very, very interesting report. It carries the title “Mission to South Africa”. It includes the Commonwealth Nassau Accord and that document was drawn up in October. They subsequently sent it to our revered State President and it was delivered by diplomats representing Canada, Australia and Britain.

After this they wrote a letter to the State President in which they referred to the document and then politely asked whether they might come to South Africa. The State President then reacted to this.

The handling of this created a certain impression on me and I feel the reaction towards these people who sent this document to our Government should immediately have been: “Go back where you belong. We want nothing to do with you.” Why do I say this?

In this document they drew up—and it is a terrible document—their demands appear as follows:

Those are certainly demands. They further require:

They are putting demands:

These are demands. In addition they mention dialogue which supposedly must take place:

Nor is that all, Sir. There is subsequent reinforcement of this “love letter” they want to apply to South Africa. I shall not take up hon members’ time by enumerating all the demands and threats but they have a programme of action. This programme comprises an arms embargo against South Africa, discouraging of sporting links with South Africa, further economic measures against South Africa, an embargo on Government loans to South Africa, embargo on the sale of Kruger Rands, on trade missions … oh, a whole list of actions which covers two pages. In their letter to the Government these people then had the arrogance to say:

They sent these things—a stark threat, an ultimatum—with a following letter that they should be given the opportunity of coming to discuss matters with South Africa and of achieving their objective. The objective they want to attain is the complete dismantlement of apartheid, the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC.

What was the reply to this? I say one should immediately have told them where they could go. How does one negotiate with someone after one has been handed such an ultimatum?

My Whip tells me my time has expired; I shall have to pursue my argument on some other occasion. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, in the short time at my disposal I do not intend crossing swords with the hon member for Waterberg, except to say that we in this party believe that those initial suggestions made by the EPG were, in fact, eminently reasonable. We think it is a great pity that the Government did not accept them. I want to say further that if the Government had not gone ahead with those reckless raids across the borders of neighbouring Commonwealth states at the very time when the EPG was preparing its final report, we may not have been facing sanctions today. The hon member for Waterberg may think that “kragdadigheid” is always going to win the day but there is one guarantee I can give him, and that is that South Africa will be in for the bloodiest conflict should his party ever come to power.

Hear, hear!

I want to say to the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs that freeing Mandela unconditionally would, to my mind, have done more good for South Africa in the outside world, apart from setting a climate for negotiation inside South Africa, than all the speeches made by the South African ambassador to Canada and all the scintillating letters which the State President has been sending flying all around the world. [Interjections.]

The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs can talk his head off; no matter what he thinks about the lack of morality in the implementation of the sanctions campaign, the fact remains that sanctions are upon us despite the warnings which we on this side of the House have been giving the Government over the past seven years about the dire danger in which this country stood, if we did not dismantle apartheid, and if we did not desist from our more oppressive actions such as detention without trial and moving communities forcibly. However, it is too late now; sanctions are upon us. Nothing that the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the hon member for Waterberg says—nothing, in fact, that any of us can say—is going to help as far as that is concerned.

However, my main object this afternoon is to raise matters with the hon the Minister of Law and Order. [Interjections.] I should like to ask him first of all why he was so coy at the end of the first half of this session when I asked him for the names of the persons who had been detained in terms of the emergency laws. He said it was not in the public interest to disclose those names, knowing quite well, as I presume he must know the laws he has put on the Statute Book, that within 14 days of the session he would have to table those names for all hon members to see. Last Monday he complied with the requirements of section 5A(7) of the Public Safety Act and he tabled the names of some 8 500 people who were being held in terms of the emergency. People who are shocked by that should realise that what we have seen is but the tip of the iceberg. That is all, because out of sight and not in print are the names of thousands more unfortunate people. Some may be fortuitous omissions. There are so many people in detention; I dare say it is impossible for the hon the Minister to list them all. There are all the hundreds and hundreds of people who have been held for less than 30 days and then released, and all the hundreds and hundreds of people presently in detention who have not yet been there for more than 30 days.

An educated guess by the PFP monitoring group estimates the number of people detained as at least 12 000. [Interjections.] That means that more people have been detained in the eight weeks of the present emergency than were detained in the eight months of the last emergency. So far over 230 people have been killed in unrest-related incidents since the declaration of the state of emergency. [Interjections.] What an indictment that is of the Government’s inability to rule this country unless it uses draconian powers which, incidentally, have done little or nothing to bring peace and stability to South Africa! [Interjections.]

The Government locks up every dissident in sight—trade unionists, teachers, students, civil and church leaders, the lot, all to no avail. Among the thousands held are a great many young people. I have a list here which contains the names of many young people under the age of 18, and that I am sure is simply a sample because during the last emergency over 3 600 detainees were juveniles under the age of 18. I have no doubt that the pattern has been repeated this time. I wonder what the Government thinks happens to young people who are hauled into jail, held without charge or trial and subjected to all sorts of indoctrination from their peers who are held in cells with them.

What also worries me is that hundreds of young people are not kept in prison where at least there is some discipline and some regulations under the Children’s Act to see that these kids are kept apart from other prisoners. They are also kept in police cells and the prison officials, who have some idea of how to handle juveniles, have no access to these children, and there are many very ugly stories about assaults on juveniles who have been held in prisons.

I have a story here of a 12 year old boy, held for 34 days, who emerged from the Heilbron police cells having had electric shock treatment and, what is more, when he tried to go back to school, found that he was unable to be readmitted because he had missed the date of reregistration. Can hon members imagine that? It is like Russia, where they put people in jail and then charge them for parasitism because they do not have jobs! That is the sort of thing that is now happening in this country.

To have a state of emergency and the wide powers that have been given to officials and to the police is bad enough, but the situation is compounded by the manner in which those powers are being used. I have previously emphasised the spiral of violence which is caused by unenforceable orders about the manner in which funerals may be conducted. We have the spiral of more people attending than allowed, police confrontation, shootings by the police, more funerals and so it goes on.

I have here a letter from a Black Methodist minister who tells the following story about the funeral of a 19 year old student. I should like to quote from the letter:

The preacher ends by saying:

Furthermore, Sir, there is also the undeniable fact that despite instructions the Police do not always inform the relatives of people who have been held, and in the rural towns access to detainees is made extremely difficult for their relatives by the simple device of moving detainees away from their home bases. Thus Queenstown detainees are taken to Montagu, Grahamstown detainees to Port Elizabeth or East London, Mossel Bay detainees to George, and so on, making visits virtually impossible.

I want to raise very briefly now the manner in which this school crisis in the Black townships has also been handled by the Police. I want to know what consultation took place between the DET and the committees set up in the various townships before those absurd regulations were framed to control the Blacks’ schools—SRCs and PTAs to be abolished, students to wear identity discs, no unauthorised people on school grounds, troops to be present on school grounds and Casspirs to patrol outside and every student to reregister. What sort of normal education can be restored in the Black schools under conditions such as those? I have to say from personal experience, when I visited a Black school in Soweto recently…

You made an utter fool of yourself that day!

I made a fool of the Police. I made a total fool of the Police, Sir. [Interjections.] One goes into a school and asks the principal whether one may look around. Of course, he is dead scared, so he does not say anything except “no comment”, and one walks out into the grounds to be faced by a platoon of armed soldiers, who tell one they have been told to hold one until the Police arrive. One then spends another 35 minutes waiting for the Police, until I say to the soldiers: “Look, you had better tell them I am a busy person; I am in a hurry and they should get here at once”. [Interjections.] Finally, Sir, a little chap arrives, most unhappy with the job he has been given, and we are told by him we can all go. That is all of us—Mrs Mandela, myself and a number of journalists. What sort of behaviour is that, Sir? Just imagine that sort of behaviour, Sir. That one should come out of a schoolroom to find oneself confronted by armed soldiers! Soldiers with guns! [Interjections.] What sort of normal education can…

[Inaudible.]

Nonsense! [Interjections.] The hon the Minister says I made a fool of myself.

You simply tried to cause your usual old drama!

If the hon the Minister would shut up for a moment I shall tell him why he made a fool of himself. He is constantly making a fool of himself with these ridiculous regulations which continue to be thrown out by the courts of law, demonstrating the incompetence of the Ministry of Law and Order and the arrogance with which these regulations are formulated. [Interjections.]

Sir, I am going to obey your order, and I am certainly not going to go into any of the cases which are presently sub judice. There are other cases, however, which have been decided and which are not sub judice. Of course, the hon the Minister, when he loses a court case, always changes the rules of the game. Everybody in Government always complains that whatever reforms they introduce, the opposition parties and people overseas are always moving the goalposts. Whatever demand they give in to, the goalposts are moved and other demands follow. I simply want to point out that what the Government does, of course, is to change the rules of the game. Whenever the Government loses a court case, all it does is either change the relevant regulation or it comes back to Parliament and amends the law. That, of course, is precisely what the hon the Minister did in relation to the decision regarding the delegation of authority to the divisional commissioners in Grahamstown and the Witwatersrand which was invalidated. The Minister changed the rules of the game and made them retrospective. What sort of constitutional behaviour is that?

Then there was of course the famous Didcott judgment in the case of Mawu versus the Minister of Law and Order, in which this hon Minister really made an idiot of himself. Mr Justice Didcott said so in no uncertain terms when he declared several sections of the definitions clause of “subversive statement” contained in the emergency regulations to be invalid. He referred to them as being, and I quote“… unintelligible” and “a jumble of words." The court narrowed down the interpretation of the remaining sections and also gave the detainees the right of access to lawyers.

What is demonstrated by all this is the total incompetence of the Department of Law and Order. It also demonstrates that the regulations were drawn up by men drunk with power. They were men on a high who paid scant regard to clarity of language and none whatever to the law of natural justice. We in South Africa can be duly grateful that the judiciary is at least taking us a few steps closer to re-establishing the rule of law in South Africa by means of these court decisions.

What I want to know, is what it is costing the taxpayers of this country in legal costs in all these cases which the hon the Minister loses. In these cases, of course, he also has to pay the legal costs of the applicants. That is what interests me.

You are paying these costs.

Yes, I am paying those costs, the hon member for Yeoville is paying them, and even the hon the Minister of Justice may perhaps be paying part of them. [Interjections.] My main point, however, is what this is costing the taxpayer. Millions upon millions of rand are involved every time these cases are decided.

What has happened? The state of emergency which was declared on 12 June 1986 has, I believe, taken South Africa from the ranks of countries with Western democratic values into the ranks of Third World countries in which people go missing and their relatives are left in agonising uncertainty and anxiety. The hon the Minister of Finance should not think that by his allocating this miserable R3, 5 million—out of the Housing Fund, mark you!—to detainees families, the Government are going to assuage the anxiety and the anguish felt by these people. We have to lift the state of emergency and free detainees so that they can earn their living in the normal way once more.

Mr Speaker, I do not intend to go into the particulars of the speech made by the hon member for Houghton. In any event, her speech was not compiled in such a way that I could reply to it in full. After all these years she knows exactly which aspects she must emphasise in this kind of speech, and she also ensures that it is given to the Press so that the necessary sensationalism can be extracted from it. So there is no point in my trying to reply to it sentence by sentence.

The hon member referred to two issues, however, which I should also like to refer to in passing. She pointed out that in the past two and a half months—ie during the state of emergency—230 people had died. But who killed these people? More than 70% of those people were killed by their own people. [Interjections.] Why does the hon member not also tell the world that? No, nothing is said about that! More than 70% of those people were killed by their own people.

The hon member also referred to the extremely high court costs to which she had to contribute. [Interjections.] I wish the hon member would tell us in this House where the Legal Resources Centre gets its money from. [Interjections] How do they manage to get hold of costs amounting to a few hundred thousand rands when they need it in order for them to proceed with a case? They have huge sums of money in order to proceed with cases—on behalf of squatters and people who do not earn a cent! [Interjections.] Does the hon member also pay for that? As I have come to know the hon member. Sir, she would not contribute a cent to that, because she did not even pay the workers in her hotel properly! [Interjections.]

But I have no intention of confining myself to the hon member. There are a few other aspects pertaining to this debate which I should like to single out and emphasise because they are so easily omitted when we discuss these matters. In this regard I should like to exchange views with the Official Opposition for a while, about where they stand in this regard—they who introduced this motion against the Government today.

It is general knowledge that there are basically two main parties who are causing and exacerbating the unrest and the unrest situation in our country. These parties are the UDF and the SACP-ANC alliance. Those are the two main parties: The UDF, with its approximately 700 affiliated organisations, which has since its establishment been very clearly inspired and to a great extent organised by the SACP-ANC alliance. I should also like to know where most of their funds come from.

There is no doubt about who has made up the controlling body of this organisation since its establishment, and about the statements of its leaders over the past few years. It is general knowledge that the other main party, the alliance to which I referred, is completely dominated by communists. It is generally known that 19 SACP members were elected to its national executive committee during its national conference last year. It consists of 30 members. At this conference former SACP members were reelected and four new members were elected to the committee. They were Joe Slovo, Pahad, Maharaj and Reginald September. The communists are the dominating factor in the ANC.

Besides these two main organisations there are still a large number of other organisations, at home and abroad, that played a significant role over the last few years in the situation which we are experiencing in our country. The extent of the atrocities for which these people are responsible, is apparent from a few figures I quickly want to give hon members. During the past few years, since about September 1984, 1 697 people have been killed in unrest situations in South Africa. This is the figure up to 22 August 1986. In the process 5 367 people were seriously injured or wounded. In addition 42 members of the South African Police and/or other security forces were killed in the process, and 698 wounded. What is important is that nearly 50% of the people who were killed and/or injured or wounded, were killed, injured or wounded by their own people. The hon member put all the blame at the door of the Government, but these people were killed or injured by their own people. [Interjections.]

Notwithstanding the RSA Government’s declared standpoint that it is prepared to enter into discussions with any body which renounces violence as a means in the process of change and/or development, and notwithstanding the calls made upon these bodies by Western governments to renounce their policy of violence, they encourage the violent revolutionary climate in South Africa with the purpose of taking over power in that way.

They continue to have four main objectives which they are striving to achieve. Firstly, the acquisition of international support for the ANC, and the complete isolation of the RSA; secondly the intensification of armed and violent actions under the leadership of Umkhonto we Sizwe; thirdly the mobilisation of the masses to gain support for the revolution and to offer resistance to the apartheid regime; and fourthly the expansion of its underground networks to control the masses.

Recently the ANC has declared repeatedly that the intensified armed onslaught on the RSA falls within the framework of its planning. Recent proof of this was the latest land-mine incident in the Nelspruit area. They consider the Security Forces and especially the White farmers in the rural areas as being among their principal targets, and between 1981 and 31 July 1986 the actions of the ANC against soft targets have shown a very interesting increase and have taken an interesting turn. In this regard I wish to quote a few figures. In 1981 the ANC acted against Whites in 9,8% of the cases and against non-Whites in 2,4%—the total for the soft targets was therefore 12,2%—while 87,8% of the attacks were directed at so-called hard targets. Those are the security forces and other organisations. In 1986 80,7% of the attacks were against soft targets—46% against Whites and 34,3% against non-Whites—while only 19% were directed at strong targets. These are inter alia the people we are dealing with in this regard.

I do not want to dwell on the successes we have achieved against these terror gangs and terror organisations. I merely wish to refer to two recent statements by the SACP-ANC alliance. They declare that it is their priority to provide the population with arms. They say:

Those are the people who are behind those things the hon members are discussing today, and they realise it.

In a recent policy document of the SACP which the Government has in its possession and which is already public knowledge today, the SACP says:

Against this background calls are continually being made on the population by these involved to join and to intensify the armed struggle and to expand it countrywide, so that eventually there can be a wide-spread people’s war.

Now the Official Opposition and the CP inform us by means of the motions which were moved that the Government has failed to deal with these serious problems. Once again I have very briefly outlined what we are dealing with today. Now it is said that we are not doing enough about it.

What has the Government done in this regard? May I identify it for the House? In the first place the Government has made the State’s organisation under the direct leadership of the State President more effective and organised it in a sophisticated way into a system which can successfully give attention to this onslaught against us. That applies to security as well as the social sphere.

Furthermore this system functions on a daily basis with the necessary coordination and continuous planning. All Government departments are involved in this. Certain branches of the private sector are actively also involved. What is especially important—it seems to me the Official Opposition is not aware of it—is that the vast majority of the population in fact support the steps which the Government has already taken in order to remove the threats to our country. That is our experience. We are actively supported by the vast majority, and that is why one is dumbfounded when one listens to this motion and this debate. The poor Official Opposition are living in a fool’s paradise.

I should like to furnish this House with a few further particulars. The Official Opposition says we are not taking any positive steps. Do the following figures look like positive steps or not? Since the declaration of the state of emergency the number of incidents has decreased by almost 59% throughout South Africa. My time is limited, but I should like to furnish a few items of information. Arson has decreased by 62%; stonethrowing by 63%; petrol-bombing by 55%; and hand-grenade incidents by 66%. I can continue in this way down the list. The physically discernible cases in our country have decreased by almost 59%. Is that not the real and successful action on the part of the Government?

There are further aspects which we are concerned about in this regard, the school boycott, the non-payment of rent in certain areas and the restoration of State administration in certain areas. These are all problem areas which will have to receive ongoing, serious attention from the Government and in which we will have to achieve greater success. And we shall do so.

Having said all these things to oneself, and having identified the problem areas for oneself, one asks oneself where one stands with the Official Opposition and their friends in this regard. [Interjections.] The Official Opposition opposes this Government in every possible sphere, but they do not lift a finger against our enemies. The closest they came to it was in the speech made by the hon Leader of the Official Opposition in the Cape Town city hall in June this year when he spoke out strongly against the use of violence in general. Apart from that, however, not a finger is being lifted.

Let us consider some of the actions of the Official Opposition. Let us take the Cape Times which is such an advocate of the public’s “right to know” and which insists that the public be informed. The Cape Times calculatingly and unlawfully published an interview with Oliver Tambo, for after all, the world must know what Oliver Tambo has to say. For that calculated act they recently had to pay a fine of R300. In the Tsenoli case, when judgment was given against the State in respect of certain regulations, the same newspaper reported it on the front page. I have it here in front of me. The Cape Times published it in such detail because “the public have a right to know”. Four days afterwards a full bench in the same division declared in the Kerchoff case that judgment was wrong. They gave precisely the opposite judgment, and then there was not a word about it in that newspaper. [Interjections.] Who has the right to know?

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Those are the two very judgments that are now pending appeal. [Interjections.]

Order! I wish to point out to the hon the Minister that both those cases are pending appeal.

I abide by the ruling you gave at the beginning of the debate, Sir, but I am talking about the conduct of this newspaper. [Interjections.] They are the friends of the hon members of the PFP, and that is why they enjoy every judgment against the State, but they and their friends will not emphasise the other judgments in favour of the State. That is the so-called right to know. [Interjections.]

Let us go a little further. The Official Opposition should now tell us where they have tried to make a single contribution in respect of the school boycott in order to get these children to return to school.

You locked up the one man…

I include the hon member for Houghton. What does she do?

I told you… [Interjections.]

She goes and visits her bosom friend. Mrs Winnie Mandela, in Soweto. She was ushered into Soweto by twelve members of the Press. A few TV crews, a few other journalists and the whole circus went with her when she went to visit the Phefeni Senior Secondary School.

I didn’t call the Press. [Interjections.]

She knew she was not welcome there.

That’s my job.

The school principal said she was not welcome there, and did not have permission to be there.

[Inaudible.]

Yet not a finger will be lifted to help get those children back to school.

You locked up…

What contributions do those hon members make in any area to persuade those Blacks to pay their rent?

You lock up…

She talks about who pays tax. More than R200 million rent is overdue, and the PFP does not lift a finger to try to call those people to order or to inspire them to pay their rent. [Interjections.] I asked the hon members of the Official Opposition what they are doing and what they have already done to render assistance in certain areas where the State administration has been forced to a halt by some of these organisations so that we had to make other arrangements. What is the PFP doing in order to establish the State administration there again properly, in the interests of all the inhabitants? [Interjections.] They do not lift a finger. They just want to go and break it down again. [Interjections.] They make no contribution at all, neither by word nor deed. Where are their monitoring activities?

Of the people who died during the past two and a half months, 70% were gruesomely murdered by their own people. Where are the PFP’s monitoring activities. [Interjections.]

It is your job to… [Interjections.]

It is your own job!

If a policeman, however, contravenes a much less important aspect of the law, then it is as if the PFP’s monitoring team is out to get him and front page reports appear in the newspapers of their friends. Where is the PFP’s monitoring team when it comes to those other matters? [Interjections.]

Don’t blame others for your mistakes.

[Inaudible.]

The UDF wants to hold meetings. All hon members know what the UDF is and what they represent. Under these circumstances the State says that we shall not allow the UDF to hold meetings. They are nothing but riotous gatherings that are going to be held. Who are those who immediately shout their disapproval? The people in the PFP! [Interjections.]

Freedom of speech!

Their official spokesmen! [Interjections.] Their Mr Van Eck and their monitoring teams—the hon Chief Whip of the Official Opposition is shaking his head—are the prompters and patrons of the UDF. They are the people who say that the UDF should hold meetings, but with what purpose? What is supposed to happen at these UDF meetings which they hold in Cape Town? [Interjections.]

They talk about us and say that we are not making the necessary arrangements to keep this country’s security under control. Whose opinions do they endorse?

Why don’t you…

Who is the hon member for Houghton’s number one man in South Africa. [Interjections.] It is Nelson Mandela.

Let him go!

She admires him with everything she has. He is the only man who, according to her, can counteract the present unrest situation in South Africa and negotiate on peace.

That’s right!

She does not say same of her bench-fellow, the hon Leader of the Official Opposition. [Interjections.]

Nelson Mandela is…

The man who she admires as being the only leader in South Africa, is Nelson Mandela. Three-quarters of the hon members of the Official Opposition do not agree with her. Three-quarters of them do not have that admiration for him. Three-quarters of them do not say that he is the only who can negotiate peace in South Africa. Those are the hon member’s friends, and then the hon member wants to come and speak to us about combating the unrest situation in South Africa. No, those hon members should clean up their own backyards.

If one exchanges views on these matters with a view to the motion which is now before us, surely one cannot but ask oneself what the Official Opposition wants in South Africa. Does the Official Opposition in South Africa want an orderly dispensation for South Africa, yes or no? [Interjections.] Surely I cannot believe that they want it, for who do they associate with? With whom do they weep? With whom do they shout? Whose cause are they furthering?

You destroy the rule of law!

Surely it is not the cause of the South African state what they wish to further in that regard. No one is going to tell me that all hon members of the Official Opposition are unanimously able to say that they support that kind of orderly dispensation in South Africa. That is if one were to judge them by their practical conduct. [Interjections.]

We stand for the rule of law.

If the hon members say “yes”, one can ask them how they justify their own conduct, how do they justify their own sympathies, whether direct or indirect, in supporting organisations in South Africa—we are now referring to lawful organisations in South Africa—which are inter alia responsible for the kind of situation we have in South Africa?

Which one?

The UDF is one, and all its affiliates as well.

That is not unlawful.

One asks the hon members, if they are so concerned about the security situation in South Africa, in terms of which they do not lift a finger, why are they not doing anything positive against the interests of these left-wing radical parties? Why are they not doing anything? [Interjections.] The hon Leader of the Official Opposition can tell us. Surely they know they are not lifting a finger against any of the left-wing radical parties.

Who are the greatest supporters of left-wing radical party meetings here in Cape Town? Surely they are the leaders of the PFP… [Interjections.]… the majority of them sitting over there. Surely they are the ones who hold meetings here in Claremont and all the other places. These people then have the temerity to reprimand us in a motion. No, in contrast to that this Government, under the leadership of the State President, stands for the orderly and just existence of everyone in the Republic of South Africa. That is what we stand for.

We, and the majority of hon members in this House and of the population of this country, reject the PFP and everything their politics represent. [Interjections.] Furthermore, this Government will not allow left-wing radicals to dictate to us in South Africa. I re-emphasise the standpoint of the Government. We do not negotiate with the perpetrators of violence, we fight them with everything we have.

Mr Speaker, since the hon the Minister of Law and Order has just dealt with these matters, may I address him on one or two points which I believe are of cardinal importance in the continuation of the situation in respect of the state of emergency. Some of his personnel are not carrying out the regulations under the hon the Minister’s hand. The detainees’ diet is incorrect and the bedding and blanket situation is unsatisfactory. I must also warn the hon the Minister that there is a tension being created between the special branch and the uniformed branch of the Police Force. The situation there is unhappy. Detainees who have been released and with whom I have had discussions are in fact full of praise for the uniformed branch of the Police Force at the police stations where they have been detained in regard to their attitude towards the detainees and the manner in which they handled them. So, that is in their favour.

However, I would ask the hon the Minister to look at the other matters because there is no doubt about it that the system which is being used and whereby the local security branch is being asked who, in their opinion, should be detained causes the net to be cast far too wide, and people are brought in who are not, by the remotest stretch of the imagination, radical. It happens that people who should not have been detained are brought in purely on the opinion of a specific person, due to some personal situation between the people involved. That, of course, is the whole weakness of the system.

Another question I want to ask the hon the Minister is whether he has seen fit to increase the number of judicial review boards to cope as expeditiously as possible with the people who are detained under the Internal Security Act because that is another inherent problem.

This motion has been moved by the hon Leader of the Official Opposition and I must therefore respond to him as far as that goes. I must say that all we heard was a liturgy of woes, doom and gloom and pessimism in the normal manner. The problem with that party is that they want to commence their journey at their destination. The journey that they are going to take will mean that they choose a road, starting at the destination and leaving all South Africa’s fellow travellers behind. Theirs will be a one-way journey from which there is no return.

That is exactly where you are going!

It is a one-way journey with no return ticket and they simply will not moderate their approach in order to take far more people along with them in a decent approach to opposition to that Government. They weaken their position and they strengthen the NP’s position by doing so.

Do you think we must moderate in order to get votes?

We think the PFP must moderate in order to take the people of this country with them in their efforts to reform. They should not go off on some wild expedition. Hon members had only to listen to the hon member for Houghton this afternoon. That hon member suggested that the UDF should simply be allowed to hold a meeting. It is only a meeting to create anarchy. Then the law and order system must prevail and certain people must be arrested, and so it must go on. The hon member for Houghton knows very well we do not have the manpower in the Police Force to do that. The blame for that can be laid at the door of the Government, that is quite true. They have maladministered the Police Force and they have not produced a police force to take care of the needs of the country. However, the hon member for Houghton would exacerbate the position simply by saying the normal law and order system must prevail while she knows full well that it cannot. She says that simply to get herself an opportunistic political platform.

This party is on record as saying very clearly that the dangers facing South Africa from a hostile world have been brought about by Government policy which has weakened South Africa’s ability to resist and neutralise attacks. They have weakened that ability by producing in South Africa the most dangerous weapon of them all, namely the weapon of discontented masses, particularly in our urban townships.

Outside this House there is a debate raging among political scientists, editors, academics and within the ranks of the NP itself. The debate is not about apartheid or integration. Both those topics are regarded as being irrelevant. They are opposite sides of the same coin. There is no future in either.

This debate is about federalism, pluralism and confederation. The danger under the policy of the Government today is that they have not and are not forging the links through which a common loyalty to South Africa will be generated. That is the problem because they have not yet set aside the basic Nationalist concept where they find their security in isolation. They will not take their fellow South Africans along with them. They will get nowhere unless they bring Blacks into this Parliament. The number of Black South Africans in the urban areas is calculated at something like 10 million. That is a fictitious figure conjured up by somebody as well, but let us say that is true. Census figures say that at least 50% of the Blacks are under the age of 18. That cuts the figure in half. Many of them have tribal rights in the various independent national states and homelands, and they will have to be given a choice as to whether they wish to exercise their political rights there or in South Africa. The way the Government approaches the question of Blacks is always to look at numbers instead of looking at the concept of equal partnership in government and carrying on along the road towards that form of partnership in some system other than majority rule.

The Official Opposition has made it abundantly clear that they accept majority rule. For years they denied it. They said it was not majority rule they were in favour of and that everyone knew that they stood for minority protection. They not only accept majority rule, but majority rule with the acceptance of the participation of the Communist Party in this marvellous utopian society where the lamb and the lion will lie down together.

Stop playing with words.

That is the approach of the PFP to the solution of the country’s problems.

You are putting words into our mouths. You know that is wrong.

Of course it is true. It is admitted from their platforms. There is such confusion in that party’s mind. Only today we heard from one hon member that local option was the thing and that the Government should give us local option, whereas their candidate in Claremont says that local option is racist and the hon member for Pinetown asks what we have to say about the fact that Frank Martin rejects local option. I now want to ask that party a question. If tomorrow the Government were to tell those schools that have asked for local option, as well as the Cape Town City Council, that they can have it, will they howl hypocritically and say it is racist but then happily go along with it as they did with the tricameral Parliament, or will they admit that it is a good mechanism along the road to participation? [Interjections.] What are they going to do? I am asking that party because one gets two stories about everything and the public have the right to know. [Interjections.]

The situation in this country requires clarification on both issues, and the issue as far as that party is concerned has to be put to the voters. Everybody knows the NP’s point of view, as well as their past and their attempts to get out of it.

On this agenda there is a whole list of problems which we, as a party, believe have been brought about largely by the Government’s inability to cope with the realities of South Africa. They have been warned repeatedly, but they have always known better and now we have reached the stage where we have sanctions. I must say that we in this party believe that we will not get out of sanctions easily. They will keep moving the goalposts and they will not let us out of sanctions until a hand-over of power has taken place. This will not necessarily be a benign, utopian majority rule situation; a hand-over of power is the only thing that will get us out of sanctions.

I must now ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition a question. Two weeks ago in Dr Van Zyl Slabbert’s column which is always a very good and interesting column, he said the following:

As if to say that was the desirable situation. Is that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s view—that the Whites in this country should negotiate themselves out of power? If it is, then I believe that once again they are offering the people in this country no hope at all. Moreover, they take absolutely no cognisance of the in-built conflict about which the hon leader of the CP spoke this afternoon. It is to the resolution of conflict, and not its creation, to which must apply ourselves, and the extremes on that side as well as the willingness to participate and to apologise for organisations which have in mind only the take-over of power, is what people fear from that party. There is no future in it for any group—not only the Whites but the Blacks, Coloureds, Indians and all South Africans as well. There will be no future in a system like that. We have to develop a system which suits our circumstances, no matter what the world says—even if the world has another view—because as far as we are concerned, majoritarianism does not hold any hope for anybody anywhere. It is a system which has been brought about by development in the First World and it certainly is not going to function in Africa. It has not functioned in Africa for anybody. [Interjections.]

The State President recently addressed the nation at length on the occasion of the National Party Federal Congress. Everyone expected that at a federal congress something important would be in the offing. However, it really was another flop. It was a bit of a fix, and it is wearing off already. One can see it already. Those hon members came it all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but their friends over here have been at them and already they are beginning to wilt. The State President gave way to party gain instead of statesmanship. That was what the country needed. It needed a statesman-like approach. Unless that party boldly use this state of emergency to further the aims of reform, then it has been a wasted opportunity. When the President’s Council comes along with its recommendations about the Group Areas Act—our bet is that they will recommend local option; we hope they will not propose grey areas—the Government must not tamper with real local option but implement the recommendations in the way in which it should be done.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for King William’s Town attacked the Official Opposition more than he attacked the Government. It was a good thing that he referred to the question of the maintenance of groups in South Africa and the respect one should have for the group as such. I want to tell the hon member that to a great extent this is what is at issue.

This is also what we largely disagree with the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition about. He says that as long as the NP talks about group identity, group interests and self-determination, no Black man of note will want to talk to us. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition would have had an argument if this side of the House had dominantly put the group interests of the Whites first. But the group interests of the Blacks in South Africa are of just as much importance to us as those of the Whites.

It is with regard to this point that in my opinion the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition made a big mistake by proclaiming abroad that this was merely a continuation and fulfilment of the old traditional policy of White dominance which we had in South Africa. I think it is fatal to the future of South Africa to proclaim that incorrect and distorted image of the country abroad. It is a pity that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the entire party have constantly said that kind of thing since I have arrived in this House. They are far removed from the changes which are taking place in South Africa. These changes pass them by; they do not see them, and are still proclaiming the same old, confused and incorrect policy. [Interjections.]

After I had listened to this debate today, it was clear to me that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition could not give replies to guarantee stability and security in South Africa. He cannot give every group in the country a place in the sun in South Africa. The hon member for Waterberg is even less able to do so. They cannot offer every group in South Africa a place in the sun! To come here and move a motion of no-confidence…

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

No, I am not replying to questions now; I have little time.

After I had listened to those hon gentlemen, I could not do otherwise than move the following amendment:

[Interjections.]

I say this because the motion of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition is nothing other than a misplaced sense of humour on the part of the Official Opposition. They and the leader of the CP want the Cabinet to resign. [Interjections.] If the HNP could talk today I suspect that is what they would want too.

This is almost like the row in connection with Fiela se Kind one reads about in the Press. The producer says she wanted other actors, but the public who saw the production were satisfied. They applaud the actors on the stage. [Interjections.] The public is satisfied and think it is the best there is.

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition has come along and moved a motion of no-confidence, demanding that the State President resign and the Cabinet be dissolved, whereas his former leader walked out himself. Some hon members on this side of the House thought he should leave; others thought he would leave, but no one said he had to resign. [Interjections.] The new hon Leader of the Official Opposition has already had to have the cobwebs dusted off him and then he has the temerity to call upon the Cabinet to resign. He himself was discharged once before.

Then there are also the CP and the HNP. Let us look at those two political parties. They cannot get along with one another, and who will play first fiddle if they do manage to get along? [Interjections.] Whose policy will be followed? [Interjections.] The problem with those two parties is that the one wants to go back to the ox wagon era, while the other also wants to go back to the ox wagon era, but it wants to put wheels under the oxen. [Interjections.]

You are the ox pulling that wagon.

The CP and the HNP have no status among responsible Black people. Among the Black masses there are those persons who do not know about them, who laugh at them or who ignore them. They do not have a message for the Blacks any more than they have one for the Whites in South Africa.

That is why I say this motion is inappropriate at this time when we must in fact build greater confidence in the future of South Africa. The reform process is under way, and that process which this Government started and has persevered with did not deserve such a motion. It is strengthening the hand of the enemies of South Africa, and if one looks at the three spheres which have been singled out, it appears that those three are in fact the consequence of pressure from outside—not so much pressure from inside the country, but pressure from outside. One can ask oneself why we should play into the hands of the enemies of South Africa.

†If our economy had been allowed to develop to its maximum potential without outside agitation to withdraw investment capital, things would have been completely different. Over the past 15 months something like R2 500 million worth of American capital has been withdrawn from South Africa.

Why?

If that had not happened surely we would have had greater expansion than we are experiencing today. Like the rest of Africa, we have unemployment and we have socio-economic problems due to overpopulation. However, it is also correct to say that four million Whites cannot provide all the entrepreneurial skills we need to provide enough work for the many people entering the market daily. However, not a single Black labourer in South Africa will say that he would rather work in another African country than in South Africa. [Interjections.]

We are not prepared to apply sanctions against any other country. We are prepared to co-operate with the rest of Africa, especially our next-door neighbours. Well-informed nations should know that sanctions against us will adversely affect neighbouring states.

Mr Gavin Relly said just recently that sanctions would create revolution; they would not resolve anything. [Interjections.] Instability and insecurity are aggravated largely by outside interference, whether it be the ANC or well-intentioned liberals; whether they take the form of bombs and terrorist attacks or organisations which are trying to deplete our financial resources from outside, they are all trying to create havoc and dissention.

It is difficult to understand the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s motion of today, as the three issues he has selected are more the result of outside interference than of what we are facing internally. [Interjections.] Instead of denouncing these outside influences the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition is only prepared to blame the National Party. [Interjections.]

I believe that we in South Africa—whether we are supporters of the NP, the PFP or even the CP—should display a united front to the outside world. I believe that we are capable of solving our own problems, and because I am convinced that the National Party is in the process of doing exactly that, I express my greatest confidence in the Cabinet.

Mr Speaker, the speech of the hon member for De Kuilen and the events of the past few weeks emphasise one fact beyond all doubt. That is that the Government is jumping about in a panic.

Hear, hear!

In Durban the State President said his policy was one of power-sharing and own of division of power. On the contrary it means that his policy is one of integration, and of separation. It also means his policy is the same as that of the PFP as well as that of the CP together. [Interjections.]

Yes, just imagine!

Now this is a policy of political integration at every tier of Government—and in all respects—but of separation in residential areas and schools. And this, Mr Speaker, is the myth of the century! At his congress the State President explained the CP’s policy by means of an analogy with small states like Monaco and Lichtenstein, but in the meantime he applies the PFP’s policy. [Interjections.] The State President announces a super-Government for South Africa, on which everyone will be represented. This involves joint decision making for everyone in an undivided South Africa. In the meantime all universities have been opened to all population groups by now, in spite of the fact that education at the tertiary level is an own affair. I now want to ask hon members on the Government side—and I ask this of the hon the Minister of National Education as well—when last the Group Areas Act was applied in South Africa in regard to people of another colour who have moved into a White residential area illegally.

They do not know!

When last was the Group Areas Act applied? In my constituency there are five cases of non-White families who have moved into White residential areas unlawfully and who, in spite of continuous appeals by various bodies—since last year already—are still living there unhindered without any steps being taken against them. The State simply does not act against them.

On instruction from the Government, of course!

Absolutely no steps are taken against those people, Mr Speaker. I ask that the governing party should tell us when last action was taken in such cases. Just after the State President said that he stood by the Group Areas Act, the hon the Deputy Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning came up with the announcement that he is going to make blocks of flat and areas within White residential areas available to non-White groups. After the State President announced his super-government, his statutory council and his council of state, he himself now says he is going to create structures by means of which he is going to involve Blacks in them—involve them in all these superstructures. I therefore want to ask the State President and the Government where they are going to create those structures. With what are they going to create those structures?

In the Eastern Cape the UDF openly sends pamphlets and circulars to every household, circulars in which they are warned that their names appear on a list and that the comrades are going to visit them. Those people are being blackmailed to pay an amount of R50, as well as R10 per child per month. Then the hon the Minister tells us in this House that the uncollected tax and rent for these people is in arrears by R200 million. I ask what has happened to the structures that once existed there. Surely there were structures in those areas. But they have been destroyed due to this Government’s policy. Now I ask where and with what are they going to create their new structures. Where are they going to create structures by means of which they are going to draw those people into all these new bodies? [Interjections.]

What is even worse, however, is that it also proves how the Government can make conservative sounding noises while it applies the policy of the PFP in the meantime. I am, of course, now referring to what the hon the Minister of National Education came up with yesterday. He honestly said that in the last years of the 70’s and the early years of the 80’s, when he gave written confirmation and announced with commitment at meetings that power-sharing was not contained in the proposals of 1977—it definitely was not correct because those proposals embodied power-sharing.

Unreliable!

He honestly admitted yesterday that power-sharing is in fact contained in the proposals of 1977. It therefore means, Mr Speaker, that the voters of South Africa should not have believed a single word of what the hon the Minister said at that time.

Admit it now, FW!

Now, Mr Speaker, he says it himself. People should not have believed him. They should not have believed him. Either he misled them or he did not know what he was talking about. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

Mr Speaker, today the Government states that own affairs will protect the interests and the group interests of the Whites. Like as the hon the Minister of National Education, they are going to say in the future: “We are sorry; it did not work and it cannot protect the interests of the Whites.” That is why we now have the situation in which the State President, who on one occasion said he was seeking a unique solution for South Africa, now ever so pathetically says at his congress that we are in a unique dilemma… [Interjections.] … to such an extent that the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs desperately longs to be back in the laager. I hope he has already found oranges which he can eat in the laager. Out of compassion for the hon the Minister, his hon Deputy Minister has written a peace song—at a cost of R500 000!—to which this hon Minister can listen for the purpose of making peace with the oranges in the laager. [Interjections.]

All this ambiguity and all these admissions of the Government have only one effect, and this is: The Government is a past master at creating political uncertainty. That political uncertainty is responsible for the economic condition in which South Africa finds itself. It is also responsible for the fact that foreign pressure against South Africa is increasing, and it is responsible for the fact that the internal security in South Africa has regressed as much as it in fact has.

Now the hon member for De Kuilen wants to give the outside world the blame. The outside world, however, has been there throughout all the decades.

You are playing into their hands, man.

The golden era in South Africa’s history was the time before the hon member crossed over to the NP, and when he still attacked the NP of that time because it applied self-determination, independent coexistence and separate development; then South Africa experienced its golden era. This pressure from the outside world was also present then, but the outside world’s threats of sanctions achieved exactly nothing. The ANC, the SACP and all the others were there as well, but they did not make an impression in South Africa either, because independent development brings satisfaction to the various peoples. It was at that time that South Africa developed into the giant of Africa in all respects.

It was from that day onwards, when the Government moved away from that, that South Africa landed in the mess it is in now.

The State President says he is going to protect and guarantee group interests worth more than just paper guarantees. While he says this, however, the Minister of Justice is busy drawing up paper guarantees, viz a bill of rights. [Interjections.] This is precisely what he is busy doing.

It is those things which are causing the uncertainty in South Africa. The Government makes noises to the right, but then they do exactly what the PFP wants them to do. [Interjections.] That is why I say there is just one way in which we can bring about peace again, in which we shall be able to have economic development in South Africa again, and in which we shall be able to defeat the outside world again, and that is by means of partition and international borders between the separate groups in South Africa—as the State President explained at the NP’s congress, but does put into practice! [Interjections.] Only in this way will there again be stability and harmony between the various peoples, and co-operation in South Africa.

Why is the Government jumping about in such a panic? Why do they jump to and from backwards and forwards? There are three possible reasons for this. The one is the election which the Government owes the people, because it does not have a mandate for this power-sharing. It does not stand in its twelve point plan, and nowhere else either. [Interjections.]

You voted for it in 1977. [Interjections.]

In 1977 the hon the Minister told the voters that there would be no power sharing. Then the Government did this, and when it drew up the twelve-point plan in 1981, it misled the people, did it not.

You admitted this during the referendum.

I never admitted it, and the hon the Minister knows that. [Interjections.]

There are a few reasons why the Government is jumping about like this now and becoming panic-stricken. The first reason is the election and the second, the internal tension in that party. It is only the middle group of the hon the Minister of National Education that believes in power sharing and the distribution of power, but the left wing only believes in power sharing while the right wing only believes in the distribution of power.

There could also be another reason. When the State President is the way he is now, he is at his most dangerous—then he is planning a big concession to the left-wing elements. This is probably going to happen after the election. Before the election they are very conservative, and it is a pity that South Africa cannot remain in a permanent state of elections. The cause of the Government’s anxiety is apparently all three of these things.

There could possibly be a fourth reason. That is that the State President has come to the realisation that he has run into trouble. I therefore want to tell the State President that if he has come to the realisation that he is in trouble, he should stand up and return to the fundamental principles of the golden era of South Africa.

I want to tell the hon members of the NP, who already know that they are in trouble, the laager is right here—the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs is looking for the laager—and the stronghold is at the CP. It is here where the fundamental principles of the golden era are carried on and where the fundamental principles of hope and prosperity for South Africa are treasured and developed.

We tell the hon members if they want to do something, they should come back to us.

Here is the stronghold and here they will be received with understanding, because we know they have gone a little astray, but we shall lead them back to the right path.

Mr Speaker, I wish I could agree with the hon member for Lichtenburg that the Government leans over towards the PFP when it is in trouble. I wish also that I could agree that the Government seems to be preparing for a dramatic move away from the right. However, I cannot agree with him on either of those two statements. I think his approach is totally different from mine, except that we agree on one point and that is that this Government should resign because it is incompetent and incapable of leading South Africa.

I think the interesting part of this debate up to this stage has been the way in which the Government, and particularly the two Ministers who participated, have evaded the issues and failed to address themselves to the subject-matter of the motion. We had the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs making one of his rare appearances in this House and he simply came along with a catalogue of telling us that double standards were being applied towards South Africa by other countries. He told us that a double morality was being applied, and mentioned the number of telephone calls that he and our diplomats were making overseas. He also told us about the letters they were writing and statements they were making. We know all about that but what I would have expected the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs to tell us on the question of sanctions, was what had made him throw in the towel. What made him say at Witbank that sanctions had to be brought in and that we had to have sanctions? Somewhere along the line there was a conscious decision when the Government knew that it was not going to resist the sanctions lobby and that we were going into the laager and into a siege situation. He stood up at Witbank as Minister of Foreign Affairs and said to South Africa and to the world: “Let them bring on sanctions!” What sort of bravado was that, and what was the substance and his substantiation for it?

The hon the Minister of Law and Order also made a number of allegations and asked a number of questions. He attacked the hon member for Houghton and said that she tried to attract the Press for the sake of sensation. I want to say to him that it is his rotten laws that attract the Press and sensationalism and which do damage to South Africa. He asks us what we have done to try to alleviate the situation and to try to help the unrest situation in South Africa. He should look to the mediation which has taken place in various parts of South Africa. As far as the school situation is concerned he can look at the township of Lamontville outside Durban. The PFP played an active role there in mediating and trying to get the children to go back to school. I could tell him of other instances such as in Mamelodi outside Pretoria and in Alexandra and other townships around South Africa where the PFP have played a significant role in trying to mediate and trying to produce a situation of stability and peace. This of course has also happened in Cape Town. However, I do not have time to deal at length with those matters.

I want to get back to the motion to which these hon members did not address themselves. I believe the motion sets out three critical spheres which face us in South Africa in which the Government has failed abjectly and has plunged this nation into the greatest crisis in its history.

The motion to my mind also correctly castigates the Government for failing to set in motion meaningful negotiation for a new constitution or to present a realistic vision of the future. In simple and very direct terms it presents a damning indictment which summarises a whole series of acts of omission and commission on the part of this Government which has always through decades put sectional party political interests before the real interests of South Africa.

The result is there for all of us to see. We see our economy at its lowest ebb in history; we see our international standing in tatters; we are placed in a situation of almost total isolation from the international community; and, internally, we are divided as never before. We are a strife-torn country where in many parts effective law and order can only be maintained from the inside of a Casspir under a state of emergency. That is the tragic situation that we see around us in South Africa at the present time.

I believe this Government is deeply into the process of wrecking what should be a great country with a great potential. I hold that against the Government and I shall always hold it against them. When one looks at what they are doing to South Africa one sees that they are wrecking a potentially great country because of their obsession with party political interests. The tragedy is that all that is happening at the present time in South Africa was totally predictable and could have been avoided had the Government in its arrogance not been so obsessed with sectional interests and so oblivious of the needs of our times in South Africa.

One could spend hours talking about the opportunities lost by the Government. One could talk about the warnings which have been given to the Government over decades as to the path that they were following and the consequences which this could have for South Africa. However, that would be a futile exercise because we are all now the victims of the inadequacy, stupidity and pigheadedness of this Government.

We have been through a series of crises and one wonders what the Government has learnt from them. We have heard of reforms and there certainly have been reforms but we should know that the bottom line in regard to any reform in South Africa at the present time—and the Government knows this—is how and when we will accommodate the aspirations of all the people of South Africa in the real political processes in this country. That is the bottom line. What is meant by this is that there should be real negotiation across the board in this country to mobilise the vast mass of South Africans of all races who constitute the middle ground and who seek a united, peaceful and prosperous community life for all.

The Government talks about talks. Each year we have some new vision or method by which they say they will negotiate but each time they abort those efforts by imposing impossible restrictions and by being far too selective as to with whom they are going to negotiate and the methods which they will follow. We in Natal are doing what the Government should be doing all over South Africa at the present time and we have been doing this for over three months at the Natal Indaba. There we are actually sitting around a conference table discussing the joint future of the people of that province—albeit it at second-tier government level. Within that limit there is an open agenda and the invitations to participate in those deliberations were on the widest possible basis.

It is a pity that some organisations to the far left and to the right declined the invitation but the fact is that Blacks, Asians, Whites and Coloureds representative of the vast majority of the people of Natal have now for more than three months been working out a common future together.

It is not for me to try to anticipate what the results of our deliberations will be but I do believe that we will achieve consensus on a form of non-racial second-tier government. This will provide an exciting basis for breaking down the barriers of division and making peaceful co-existence a reality in that part of South Africa.

I know that the expectations as to the results of the indaba are extremely high. The business community and ordinary people of all races in and outside Natal see this as a potentially exciting breakthrough in our quest for peace, stability and prosperity in that part of South Africa.

I want to test the Government on some aspects of this matter, whichever hon Minister is going to follow me in this debate. I want to do this because I detect an ambivalence on the part of the Government to the indaba process and I believe it is important that we have clarity on the Government’s attitude. While they are participating in those deliberations as observers and have publicly given muted support to the indaba process, what are they going to do with the results?

At the recent NP federal congress in Durban references were made to the indaba, particularly by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. Understandably, he said that the Government would have to await the representations of the indaba before it gave a decision as to its attitude towards them, but he went on, and I quote his words, to give his “assurance that all the people of Natal would be consulted before any decision was made”. I think the Government should spell out what they mean by that. Will they test the opinion of Natal by way of a referendum? Will there be a single referendum or one for each of the four racial groups?

At that congress the hon the Minister also—I quote a report of his speech—“stressed that such an indaba recommendation would have to be tested against the principles of the National Party”. I want to know what the hon the Minister means by that. If the recommendations do not conform with the principles of the NP, will the people of Natal still be consulted on them by means of a referendum or in any other way? If there is a conflict regarding the recommendations between the principles of the NP and the will of the people of Natal, what will the Government’s attitude be?

It is important that these questions be answered. Unless there is open-ended negotiation in South Africa such as we are involved in Natal, and if the Government does not respond to these things, I believe the Government will be failing South Africa and should resign.

Mr Speaker, I shall respond in a few comments to the hon member for Berea’s reference to the speech made by the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs at Witbank earlier this year. On that occasion the hon the Minister did not say he welcomed sanctions. I do not think he invited sanctions. [Interjections.] What he did say was that, if he had to choose between suicide and sanctions, he would definitely prefer sanctions. Does the hon member for Berea agree with that? [Interjections.]

That is not the choice!

It appears that the hon member would prefer the hon the Minister to choose suicide under the circumstances. The hon member is as well aware as we are on this side of the House that many of the efforts regarding sanctions are rooted in an entirely one-sided image of this country which is being created.

Those are not the options!

I should like to refer to the hon Leader of the Official Opposition. I gained the impression involuntarily this afternoon that he had some interest in not intending his speech and motion for this House as much as for the people outside and I am not referring only to those within our borders but actually to those beyond. [Interjections.]

Why?

Just let the Cabinet resign; then we’ll tell you how we feel!

I wish to put it to the hon Leader of the Official Opposition: Does he not have an interest in having certain statements or insinuations made by him here this afternoon or questions put by him published abroad in particular? Has he not also, in fact, made preparations in this regard for the very purpose of publication overseas?

What questions are you referring to?

In the final analysis it hinges on one point, which is the one-sided image created abroad of the current state of affairs in South Africa. This afternoon the hon Leader of the Official Opposition was guilty of and participated in the creation of that image. He is as well aware of this as I am but I think he did it consciously and with premeditation in order to attempt promoting that image and to ensure that certain publicity on this would be disseminated abroad by making insinuations here which could be expanded into statements overseas.

What insinuations?

I should like to ask the hon Leader for whose benefit he spoke. Was it for this House and in the general interests of South Africa and the majority of its people? [Interjections.]

Decidedly!

Did his speech have a different purpose on which I should prefer not to enlarge any further now?

Perhaps the hon Leader of the Official Opposition should have been here this morning when the hon member for Bryanston made a speech in a very responsible way. I recall the hon member Prof Olivier’s making similar references earlier this year recognising that the Government was concerned with quite substantive reform in the country. [Interjections.] This morning the hon member for Bryanston reaffirmed this and said we were not concerned with cosmetic reform and gimmicks.

If one was listening to the hon Leader of the Official Opposition, however—after all he is the spokesman and the speech he made this afternoon will be quoted abroad; not that of the hon member for Bryanston—one retained the same one-sided image and the Government was merely being trampled upon and errors highlighted. The result was the oversimplified image.

The hon member for Berea said this side of the House was not responding to certain statements contained in the motion. Permit me a few comments on constitutional reform and constitutional negotiations included in the motion. As regards this statement in the motion, I wish to ask whether the Government is solely responsible for initiating negotiations. The answer is obviously negative. It is not the sole responsibility of the Government. I think the Government has had outstanding success over past months and especially the past two years in attempting to prepare a climate for negotiation from its side. Nevertheless it is not only its responsibility to launch negotiations. How can hon members expect a favourable climate to be created for negotiations if one considers the utterances of Bishop Tutu and other Black leaders under present circumstances? Do they expect this to be conducive to creating an attitude of goodwill among Whites, in favour of negotiation? What did the hon Leader of the Official Opposition have to say on this? He maintained silence; we heard no word. [Interjections.]

At the same time I wish to make the point that when Bishop Tutu reacted to a recent speech of President Reagan’s with pronouncements such as “to hell with the West”, I gained the impression that he was not really reacting for local consumption either but for the political market in America in an attempt to get at President Reagan there under these circumstances.

The hon member for Houghton is not present at the moment but she mentioned the outing she undertook with Mrs Winnie Mandela. I spontaneously thought of asking her whether she agreed with Mrs Mandela’s utterances of not long ago. [Interjections] About matches…

She repudiated…

Her words were "… and to overthrow the system and the Government of South Africa with our necklaces.” [Interjections.] Does such conduct and do such pronouncements contribute to the creation of a climate of reform in the country? We do not hear this. The fact that it has to be a reciprocal step and that one has to prepare a climate on both sides is not addressed. We do not hear this from the Official Opposition.

Negotiations dealing especially with the composition of a legislative authority are a very difficult matter under the circumstances. Anyone viewing the existing situation in South Africa realistically has to acknowledge that there has been more polarisation in South Africa over past months. This is especially the case in consequence of this action too. We had a clear indication that the Government was creating a preparatory climate but opposed to this there was a revolutionary climate on the other side intent on furthering polarisation.

As regards this statement in the motion, I think the Government is definitely on the right road if it pays attention to development centring on the executive authority in respect of constitutional reform. This is contained in motions relating to the National Council. At this stage it is easier to progress in that sphere with constitutional reform than, for instance, with negotiation on the legislative authority. This is as it appears to me on viewing the realities. That is why I think the Government deserves praise for the very steps it is taking to promote this process actively. We may therefore look forward to the process which may start with the institution of the National Council.

What is taking place is actually a natural part of the dynamic process of reform and negotiation. It is important for us to view it like this and realise it is not necessarily linked to specific contributions or a lack of these but forms part of the natural course of the process through which South Africa is passing at the moment. It is important for us to view this realistically and appreciate it is not necessary to lose one’s head or to misinterpret the situation.

I should like to refer to another aspect of the hon Leader of the Official Opposition’s speech. There is clamouring from abroad, at least from certain quarters of the Western world, apparently to take sides against the White in South Africa. This is also the source of the concept frequently used in reference to the “White minority regime in South Africa". If this were a point of departure, it would be a fatal mistake as no solution is possible in this country without the contribution and consent of the majority of White people in South Africa. That is a fact. The sooner the hon Leader of the Official Opposition and the other hon PFP members realise this and co-operate in creating a climate in that process instead, the sooner will we be able to move closer to a solution.

The question is whether the PFP is not, in fact, consciously or unconsciously participating in the process of disruption on the road to constitutional reform. What is its position in this respect? The hon Leader of the Official Opposition decidedly made no contribution; I was more inclined to be disturbed by the approach revealed in his speech this afternoon. [Interjections.]

It would be unfair to the country to create the least impression that the entire Black community of South Africa was opposed to a peaceful road to reform and peaceful solutions for this country. Just as the AWB in no way represents the views of the majority of Afrikaners or Whites in this country, the Comrades or the activists in no way represent the views of the majority of Black people in this country. [Interjections.] The Official Opposition is contributing, however, to the creation of a one-sided image that only the Comrades and the activists count—internally as well as overseas. It serves no purpose to create that image. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, if I may, I would like to say that I think this is the most remarkable debate from the point of view of the Government. One would think that we were actually living in normal times and that the Government had achieved tremendous successes; that everything is going well in South Africa and that there is not a question of the Cabinet being in the dock for what they have done but, on the contrary, that somebody should praise them. I cannot understand what the attitude has been this afternoon. The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke about sanctions. We certainly know that there are sanctions, but nobody on the Government side has actually told us whether we did everything in our power to prepare for sanctions economically and whether we are able to deal with the situation that has come about. When one looks at the speeches of the other speakers on Government side one by one, one might almost say they take some sort of refuge in the problems of South Africa. They seem to say to us that we have problems and that the PFP must stand with them in dealing with those problems. They are not prepared to accept the reality and say who is actually largely responsible for the problems in South Africa.

I understand the hon the Minister of Finance has been waiting to enter this debate. If he is a man, he will get up when he has to speak and say: “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” He should say this because it is his policies and his administration which has largely contributed towards getting South Africa into trouble. [Interjections.] Do hon members know why? I will tell hon members something. The hon the Minister of Finance has got the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs into trouble. At the very time that South Africa needs to be strong, when we should have a thriving economy, we have just the opposite. We have a high inflation rate. It was announced yesterday that it is running at 18,2%. We have a high unemployment rate and no one can say—the hon the Minister of Finance admits it himself—that the high unemployment rate has not contributed towards the unrest. Moreover, he has let down the hon the Minister of Law and Order. What has he done?

We have a situation where there is a lack of growth in South Africa, which means that the aspirations of our people cannot to any degree be fulfilled because we are in the dilemma of not having adequate economic growth.

There is an absence of confidence in South Africa—not only internally but externally as well—as a result of which we are unable to obtain the investment we need in order to solve our problems.

We have a debased currency in international terms and we have had to have a debt standstill. All of these things are now being ignored, however. The Government pretends that everything in the garden is rosy and that if there is anything wrong, it is somebody else’s fault. [Interjections.]

Take the hon the Minister of Finance, for example. Some people are very polite about him. I think Dr Wassenaar is about the most polite businessman I have heard on the subject. However, the hon the Minister has the audacity to address the federal congress of the NP and to come forward with some stories as to why we are in trouble. He is still dealing with the increase in the oil price in 1973 while the rest of the world is dealing with the problems of a falling oil price. That is the hon the Minister of Finance! [Interjections.]

Permit me to go further. He is still dealing with the change in the financial system which came about as a result of the old Bretton Woods system disappearing. That was more than a decade ago. It may be that the members of the federal congress of the NP are naive but the businessmen of South Africa are not. They are not naive and they will not be taken in by this. I could go on quoting the reasons he gave. It is an unbelievable situation. How naive he must have thought his fellow Nationalists at that congress were!

He then went on to talk about changes in South Africa. I was amazed that he did not mention the rinderpest! [Interjections.] He did not mention it. I am absolutely amazed at that. [Interjections.] He was referring to the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning when he spoke about a drought of good ideas in South Africa, in which respect he also serves as a good example. What the Government does is to hold up the problems that exist and say: “You see, these are the problems,” but they never admit that they are the cause of the problems.

Take the unrest situation, for example. The hon the Minister said that a climate of unrest emerged which was not conducive to economic growth. That is the understatement of the year. That was what he told the congress. However, what he did not tell the congress—what in reality he should have told the congress—is the following: “My Government and I have been aware of the fact that there has been a very substantial population growth in South Africa, a population growth which for example in the Black community from 1980 to 1985 ran at 2,8% per annum, and my Government and I have managed to maintain an annual employment rate of 0,7%.” I would like to ask any intelligent person whether he can fail to see that when one’s Black population increases at the rate of 2,8% per annum and one’s employment rate increases at the rate of 0,7% per annum, one is in fact sitting on a time bomb. I want the hon the Minister to get up and tell us in his reply that he was unaware of that until last year when he started adopting measures to alleviate the situation. The truth is that the Government has been sitting on a time bomb and has not dealt with the problems that have existed. Now that the problems have materialised, it is going to the public of South Africa and saying: “Now you must back us in order to solve these problems.”

I want to tell hon members that the reality is that we in South Africa have been led astray by false prophets with false doctrines which have been inefficiently managed, as a result of which our economy is in a mess. [Interjections.] The fact that our economy is in a mess, is beyond question. Not even the hon the Minister would have the audacity to stand up after me and say that our economy is not in a mess. Not even he would do that. However, he is a contributor to that state of affairs.

Let us look at what has happened in South Africa. At a time when we could have borrowed money overseas in order to build houses for people, he did not do it. His predecessor did not do it either. I am grateful that he is realising it now because he now has a plan of which he heard—I am sure he heard of it in this House—of employment in order to improve the quality of life. Where did the hon the Minister hear that phrase? It sounds familiar, does it not? He suddenly discovered this, years later.

We can go a step further. This Government removed exchange control for now—residents, removed the financial rand and allowed money to flow out of this country. [Interjections.] It allowed it to go out of this country in respect of equity capital. What did the Government do? They replaced it with short-term loans, encouraged people to borrow on short term and then said that was a replacement of capital and that it was perhaps even better. Then, Sir, they found themselves in trouble.

Now all those false prophets and ideologies have had to be thrown overboard! Now even the hon the Minister has to say at this federal congress that we will now perhaps have to steer away from some of those grandiose, open market ideas—those ideas that we were like America, that we had a currency like the dollar and that we could open everything up.

However, let me tell you, Sir, he is doing things wrongly even now. I want to ask the hon the Minister and the people who represent the farming community of South Africa whether they think it is right that people should be able to buy the land and the farms of South Africa with a financial rand at 18 and 19 cents when no South African can compete with them.

It is a crime! [Interjections.]

We are selling our heritage because there is a feeling of desperation, and we are doing it wrong again. [Interjections.]

We are in a mess! Fair enough, that is a reality but what can we do in order to put it right? I want to point out one of the things which is fundamental to this. If you will allow me, Sir, I should like to quote from the report of the Bureau of Economic Research of the University of Stellenbosch. It says:

Do you know why there is uncertainty and no confidence in South Africa, Sir? It is because people do not know where the NP is leading them. [Interjections.] Therefore, what we need to know is where the NP policies are finally going to lead South Africa. Where is the blueprint? How do they see the end of the road?

The hon member for Johannesburg West raised the constitutional question. I want to tell the hon members that if one wants to deal with the business community of South Africa with certainty and with confidence, then one has to give them what is called here “an acceptable risk factor”. They do not expect guarantees—they would love to have guarantees but they do not expect them—but they need to know where we are going. The Government has to spell out for them where they are going, so that they can remove the uncertainty from our communities and so that there can actually be a restoration of confidence. The restoration of confidence is what is vital for South Africa.

Having dealt with the mess, I should like to deal with what we should do to try to solve it. I believe we must do three things. Firstly, I think the Government has to spell out its ultimate political objectives. It has to say what constitutional structure is in fact its goal. Is it a federation or confederation? What is it in fact that is their ultimate goal? [Interjections.]

Secondly, I believe that in the economic field we have to have a plan, a plan with time limits. People must be able to say that they will do things within a certain period of time. I should like to suggest a four-year plan to 1990 within which we set ourselves some specific objectives.

The third thing which I think is vital in South Africa—and which I will enlarge on if I have the time as we go along—is that I believe that we have to create an economic triumvirate of people drawn from the public and private sectors who have the ability, who are the best in our country and who are, in fact, given the power to take over the handling of our economy, to deal with it and to put South Africa right. We do not need people who have to look over their shoulders in respect of petty politics; not people who are ambitious in politics, but people who want to put South Africa right. We can serve them with advisers, economic counsel and everything else, but we have to take the power to take the economy out of the hands of the politicians and put it into the hands of a powerful triumvirate in order to run this country on sound economic lines. [Interjections.] If we do not do that we are going to find ourselves in a situation of not being able to solve our economic problem.

We need a four-year plan in order to say to people that by 1990 certain things will be achieved in South Africa. We need to mobilise all the human and natural resources of South Africa; we have to say to people that by 1990 we will have achieved certain goals in regard to job creation; we should be able to say to them that we will have built so many houses by then and have done so much by then; we have to have a plan so that we able to prove to people that their aspirations can be fulfilled within a period of time. We have to deal with the economy to adapt it in order to meet the threat of sanctions, the threat which is no longer just a threat but a reality. There needs to be a programme of internally oriented industrialisation which will adapt itself to the need to satisfy local demand by local production.

Those are things we have to do. We have to reassess our priorities once again in regard to State expenditure and the allocation of what are now going to be limited resources. We need to look at fiscal reform in great detail once again. We need in fact not just to talk about deregulation and bureaucracy; we have to do away with bureaucracy and have a new era in that regard. We also need to look at monetary policy in a different light and we need to apply it in the light of the failures which the Government in the past have had in its administration. Our budget, instead of being planned on a yearly basis, should be a four-year budget so that we know exactly in what direction we are moving during that period. One certainly may have to adapt it as one goes along, but we have to set objectives for that.

Four years may seem to many a short period, but the reality is that there are many people in South Africa who are in a hurry and, while certainly not everything can be achieved in that period, it should be possible not only to set targets but to satisfy reasonable expectations to attain them.

I do not believe there is any need for pessimism in South Africa. There are lots of grounds for optimism, but there will really be grounds for optimism if we can put the running of the economy into capable hands, if we apply the right policy and if we get stuck in and do a good job. There is a future for South Africa but we are not going to achieve it if we are not going to be prepared to allow the country to be run by the most able people that we have in order to apply the correct policies economically, because if one does not solve the economic problems of South Africa one cannot solve the political problems. One cannot solve the political problems without solving the economic problems because the two go together. That is why I make the appeal not only for the utilisation of the right people from the private sector but for us to have a proper plan in order to achieve our goals. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, in response to the hon member for Yeoville I should like to use the word “remarkable”, a typical word he always uses. Nowadays it is truly a remarkable experience to listen to that hon member. Today I truly found some of his utterances even more remarkable than his usual performance. [Interjections.]

When this Government does the best for this country and we start using certain terminology and certain universal ideas one needs to apply when one wants to revive the economy by the use of multiplier and labour intensive industry one hears that it was all his idea and that he thought of it first!

He is number one.

I wonder if anything is left in the dictionary of economic vocabulary and plans that we have not had by way of three, four, six or sixteen point plans from the hon member for Yeoville. [Interjections.] Whatever we do would somewhere in the past have been mentioned by that hon member. However, the art of governing a country is not in preparing a check-list or a washing-list of what is to be done, because we know all those things. The art of government is to know which of those to choose at the correct time. [Interjections.] That is the art of governing. In this respect, the State President and I can rely personally and officially on the best possible advisers in South Africa—and the hon member for Yeoville is not one of them! [Interjections.] Everything this hon member says nowadays is “the reality”. He declares everything he says as “the reality”. He does so every time! Even if he tells us things that are subject to absolutely penetrating debate, then according to him it is “the reality”. That I find truly remarkable.

Give an example. Come on, give an example. You are unbelievably loud-mouthed and arrogant, Barend. [Interjections.]

Oh, I just love it, Sir! Every time that hon member crosses swords with me he loses his cool. [Interjections.]

I am losing my cool?

When he read a certain statement in the newspaper concerning what I had allegedly said about GST, he immediately jumped onto the bandwagon and issued a statement himself. He really ranted and raved, just as he ranted and raved during the first part of this year. He really made an utter fool of himself. He accused me of having jumped the gun as far as the Margo Commission was concerned.

And you did! [Interjections.]

You did not deny it.

There, he is confirming his own foolishness by saying once again that I did.

You did. You are now going back on your own words.

All I can say, Sir, is that when it comes to the Margo Commission, when it comes to dealing with what can possibly happen in regard to our tax system, and when it comes to an analysis of what is wrong with our tax system, I am in rather a better position to know something about it intimately than the hon member for Yeoville is. [Interjections]

When it comes to mistakes, you take the cake. I grant you that. [Interjections.]

Before I continue my reply to the hon member, there is another remarkable thing I should like to comment on briefly and that is the impression that the hon member for Berea created when he talked about the indaba. Any objective listener would have thought: “My goodness, that particular individual or his associates are completely and solely responsible for the initiative, for the invitations, and for the conducting of the indaba.” [Interjections.] In the meantime, what are the facts? The hon member talked about “we, we, we, we”. Just who are “we”? [Interjections.] That particular initiative was taken by an NRP executive committee and Inkatha.

Thank you.

So the hon member is either a member of Inkatha, or he is a covert member of the NRP. [Interjections.]

Ask him whether he sent out the invitations.

If the hon member wants to associate himself with that initiative, well and good. Nobody can blame him for that. However, it is only fair then that he gives due credit to the people who really started it. [Interjections.]

Coming back to the hon member for Yeoville, that hon member intimated here that we in the Government have tried to create the impression, as far as this economy and the possibility of sanctions are concerned, that everything is normal and that we can just carry on doing things in a normal way. As far as this economy and the possibility of further sanctions are concerned, certain sanctions have been a reality—this time a true reality—for more than 20 years, and we in the Government have made it our duty for more than 20 years to acquire real knowledge and experience as far as sanctions and the abnormality that they create in this country are concerned. [Interjections.] Moreover, if one is to be truly objective, one must concede another remarkable thing about the South African economy, namely, that despite sanctions for more than 20 years…

Despite this Government.

… we have done exceptionally well.

That is far-fetched.

[Inaudible.]

I will come back to that remark and prove the truth of what I am saying. I never interrupted the hon member, so can the hon member please show me the same courtesy.

I am going to interrupt you. [Interjections.]

We have been living in abnormal times for a very long time. The hon member ridiculed the fact that I had alluded to the oil prices of 1973. Let me put it bluntly: Anybody who believes that the oil crisis in 1973 did not have a profound direction-changing influence on the economies of the world is out of his mind, or has again lost his cool, or he prefers not to take cognisance of it. It is an obvious fact because the OECD countries’ growth rates turned down dramatically after the oil crisis. The nature of their economies was changed dramatically. The recent upswing in the American economy was completely different from all the other upswings experienced in America since World War II. All of these things came about as a result of various world-wide developments and had to have an influence on us. This affected us adversely. Here again anybody in his right mind will accept the devastation that was brought about in this country’s economy by the drought.

This is 1986.

The drought is still prevailing today and we will continue to experience its ravages for many, many years to come.

There is a second point I want to make. Was there not a time recently—we are facing it again—that our minerals did not fetch good prices and that their volumes did not perform according to expectations—my colleague here, the hon the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs is in a better position to talk about that—as a result of the change in the nature of the economies of our main trading partners? Is that not a fact? Is it not also a fact that in 1980/1981 we had a bit of breathing space with the exceptional rise in the gold price? However, look at what the gold price is now at this stage. It is the generator of more than half of our foreign exchange and should that exogenous factor not have a profound influence on our economy as well?

Another point is that our trading partners managed to lower their inflation rates after the oil crisis and we were not able to do so. That must have had an influence on our exchange rate and one cannot avoid that fact. Let us look at the hard core of our inflation. I want to reiterate what I said earlier this year in a debate in this House. A very prominent economist in South Africa told me that according to his factual and scientific analyses the South African inflation rate is exceptionally low compared to that of countries with comparable economies. If our economy had performed according to the norms of other countries and according to what had happened in other countries under similar conditions—when their exchange rates went down and when other problems besieged their economies—our inflation rate would have been higher. I am not quoting myself or one of the officials in the department. I am not quoting the Reserve Bank …

Tell us who it is.

I am quoting a prominent economist in this country who knows his subject. I am not prepared to tell hon members his name because I am referring to a private conversation in my office.

Let us look at sanctions. Especially after the oil crisis our oil reserves were in severe danger of being cut off. How many times has the State President not told us that at one stage we had fuel for only eight days left in South Africa.

That is good planning, is it not!

The crisis is not yet over. What happened then and how did we respond to the possibility of sanctions? We stockpiled minerals and essential commodities to the tune of billions of rand. We have kept them there for more than a decade. What is the result of that together with the premium we pay for the basic right to defend ourselves because we are denied the bargain basements of the world? What do we pay for our nuclear capability which we need to develop in order to generate our electricity in the future according to that new technology? What is the effect of these billions of rand lying sterilised? It is a gross underutilisation of capital, and any economist in his right mind—unless he is prejudiced because of his political and personal views—will agree that if billions of rand are sterilised and one has that degree of underutilisation of capital, one has a hard core of inflation in one’s economy that one cannot merely eradicate with the stroke of a pen.

A second point is that there is an underutilisation of labour in this country. There is no question about it. We are continuously being attacked by the right-wing parties for the fact that we closed the wage gap without achieving concomitant increases in productivity. That is a fact, and it does not only apply to the closing of the wage gap. There are many people of a lighter green shade who also do not earn the money that they put in their pockets. In other words, there is often a discrepancy between productivity and remuneration.

Such a combination of a gross underutilisation of capital and an underutilisation of labour will, therefore, bring about a hard core of inflation. Despite what was announced last night, which must have fallen into the hon member’s lap like manna from heaven, one will find that there is a tendency for the inflation rate to go down if one analyses what happened this year to the inflation rate as measured against the consumer price index.

In this instance you can’t be sure.

When one compares the performance of the past four months with that of the first three months of this year, one will see a declining tendency. [Interjections.] If the hon members of the Official Opposition are not prepared to listen, I shall address my own hon colleagues. Based on those calculations, the figure right now is only 13,8%. These are the facts. [Interjections.]

*The hon member for Yeoville accuses us and says that we must now admit that we have been solely responsible.

Not solely, but to a large extent.

I refuse to do that. There is no human being this side of the grave who can look around with the wisdom of hindsight and say that he or the team in which he plays has an absolutely faultless record. Where we have made mistakes, we are not ashamed to admit it.

Your record of mistakes is above average.

I will never argue that I am above average; I am not conceited. [Interjections.] I can, however, say that my advisers are well above average, particularly if the quality of Opposition political and economic speeches is taken into account in that comparison.

Why do you have such a high temperature, then?

Order! The hon member for Yeoville must give the hon the Minister a chance to complete his argument. The hon the Minister may proceed.

I wonder if we could not arrange for him always to be granted an extra five minutes of speaking time so that he can shut up at other times.

The hon member said that we had a debased currency.

That’s right.

What is a debased currency?

The rand!

Did the Americans not exercise every bit of political clout they had to get the value of the dollar down? Less than two years ago, the American dollar was worth DM3,44. It is now worth DM2,04. Are the American politicians on record as saying that they have a debased currency? No, they are not.

What is their inflation rate? It is 4%!

As it is now and in terms of its true value, our currency is certainly undervalued; there is no question about it and everybody accepts it. To say, however, that it is a debased currency is disloyal.

It is debased!

The financial rand is worth US 18c. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Yeoville also said that the Government allowed equity capital to leave the country and replaced it with loan capital. Did I hear the hon member correctly?

I can prove it.

I challenge the hon member, and I have challenged him before…

Have a select committee.

I entreat the hon member to keep quiet, just for a while. [Interjections.]

But you don’t…

Order! I have already called on the hon member for Yeoville not to make any further remarks. As he does not seem to want to adhere to my request, I now rule that he may not make any further remarks in this debate.

What are the facts? I challenge the hon member for Yeoville or anyone else to make an analysis of the loan profile of the public sector regarding those loans which the Department of Finance cover by a State guarantee. My predecessor in this post did the same. What I am trying to say is that, even if it were short term to the extent that the hon member argues it was, the money which did come back did not go towards State or public sector loans. [Interjections.] That is a basic untruth which the hon member is repeatedly stating in this House. I challenge him to analyse the public sector debt in terms of his own statement and he will find that he has made a mistake.

*We are now being criticised by the CP, too, because we have extended the use of the financial rand. The truth is that, unlike the last time we had the financial rand, we said this time that if a foreigner brought a financial rand into this country and wanted to invest in productive investments which would create employment, he could come in purely with the financial rand. However, if he wants to come in to buy existing property which will therefore not necessarily create employment at once, we are not going to allow him to “buy our heritage from under us”, as the hon member put it. We have provided that in that case, he has to bring in 50% of that money in commercial rand and 50% in financial rand. In the process, foreign exchange will come in which we need very much. We have been severely criticised for this in certain media. However, we have adhered to this standpoint, because on the one hand, we want to prevent people from simply buying up our farms, and on the other hand, we want to bring in foreign exchange.

We have also come in for a great deal of criticism about the question of our exchange rate. The hon member for Yeoville said, “We have a debased currency.” May I just give hon members some particulars about what we have already paid this year? Where other countries can go to the IMF if they have a problem, we have to pay back to the IMF our loan of a few years ago, and at the present stage of this year, we have already paid back R500 million to the IMF. We have to pay back another R200 million during the rest of this year. We have paid back 5% of our foreign debt which is inside the net. We have also paid back R800 million in foreign debt this year. We have to pay back about another R200 million. We shall then end this year with a surplus of approximately R5 billion to R6 billion on our current account. Last year we ended our year with a surplus of R7 billion.

The simple truth is that when one has to manage one’s country’s economy in such a way as to pay back large amounts of money to foreign creditors, as I have just indicated, one cannot develop the full potential of one’s economy. I want to say to the hon member, and to other people who criticise us, that we have not deliberately kept down the growth rate of the economy, after all. Under the extremely difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves, we have done our utmost to manage our economy in the best possible way.

Finally, there is one thing we can agree on, and that is that when it comes to the solution of our economic problems, we can never view our economic problems in isolation from our political problems. We shall never be able to solve these two problems in isolation, because the one actually feeds the other. That must be our common goal.

Mr Speaker, in the minute or two available to me I should like firstly to thank all the hon members who have participated in this debate, as I shall not be able to deal with them individually. I would like to say that I think we have had a strange, unusual response from the Government. They had notice of the motion and they were aware of the issues that were going to be raised, yet most Government members spent their time explaining why they had failed rather than telling us how they were going to succeed. We have had explanations of why they were wrong and how they failed. We have been told that we must get used to the tough going. We have been told about how we have to get used to things being bad, rather than about what they are going to do to make things get better. I think the hon the Minister of Finance really stretched it too far when he actually tried to draw an analogy between the American Reserve Bank trying to bring down the price of the dollar when it was far too high, and the situation with the South African rand when the financial rand is trading at 19 American cents. What kind of analogy is that? How can one compare those two situations?

I should like to deal with one or two further points. I see the hon member for Johannesburg West is not here, but I must say he was different in his style. I would say that his was the political poise and line for pro-Government media this evening and tomorrow.

Yes.

The attacks he made had no relevance to my speech. He said there must be innuendos, although he could not find them. The hon member might not like my style of speaking, but I do not deal with innuendos; it comes straight as it is.

Hear, hear!

The hon member should read my speech and he will see what I was saying. But he had to look for an innuendo. He asked who I was addressing. I was addressing hon members on that side of the House. [Interjections.] I was doing what the hon member for Houghton and other hon members have done. We are going to hammer and hammer and hammer away until this Government sees sense. [Interjections.] We have done it before. We did it on sport, on trade unions, on power-sharing and on pass laws, and we are going to carry on until those hon members actually see the light of day in a number of other respects as well. [Interjections.]

The one hon Minister with whom we will have difficulty is the hon the Minister of Law and Order. [Interjections.] He has apologised for having had to leave, but I want to say that I understand the hon the Minister’s point of view. It is a very blinkered one. It is a policeman’s point of view. He sees the solutions to South Africa’s problems in terms of law and order, and in terms of bannings and detentions, instead of realising that security does not finally come out of the barrel of a gun or a Casspir or bannings and detentions. Security for South Africans comes when all South Africans can share a common loyalty to the State and when South Africans will stand together to defend the Constitution because they respect it. [Interjections.] That is where security lies.

The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs was subdued and he had every good reason to be subdued. [Interjections.] In a sense, with all his failings, he is carrying the can, together with his department, for the sins of omission and commission of the whole of the Cabinet. No department is feeling it more than the Department of Foreign Affairs in trying to justify to the outside world what is going on in South Africa. [Interjections.] It is an almost hopeless task. The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs read extracts from Mrs Thatcher’s and Presidents Reagan’s and Houphouet-Boigny’s speeches. We agree with him. There is no dispute on that. However, I want to know, if the hon the Minister was so pleased with Mrs Thatcher’s attitude, why did the State President send Mrs Thatcher’s emissary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, away with a flea in his ear? If she was so good, why was Sir Geoffrey so bad? I should also like to know whether the hon the Minister congratulated Mr Reagan on his speech or whether in fact his Government sent messages of disapproval.

They don’t interfere.

Did they send messages of disapproval?

On certain matters with which I disagreed. [Interjections.]

Why did the hon the Minister not read out those aspects of Mr Reagan’s speech? The hon the Minister says that the foreign service officers are fighting for us. Yes, they are, but surely the foreign service officers, the diplomats in his service, must have come back time and time again and said: “Stop pulling the rug from under us while we are trying to sell South Africa.” Surely they have said that to him time after time. [Interjections.]

The reality is that these are peripheral problems. The key problem lies in the political arena. It lies in getting negotiations going on a new constitution.

Hear, hear!

The hon the Minister knows what the snag is. He said it before the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut and the Afrikaanse Sakekamer. He said that not even moderate Black leaders will come to the negotiating table until Mr Mandela is released. That is what he said and he must tell it to his hon colleagues. [Interjections.]

This Government has not answered the accusations levelled against it in this motion. The Government has been here for 38 years; it has used up five Prime Ministers and it is now busy with the State President. We say they have been here too long. [Interjections.] They are no longer serving the interests of South Africa; they may be serving their own interests but not those of South Africa and they must therefore go. [Interjections.]

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