Mr Speaker, I give notice that I shall move on Monday:

1. (1) the Select Committee on the Constitution be instructed, with a view to the successful functioning of the new constitutional dispensation, to enquire into the Prohibition of Political Interference Act, 1968 (Act No 51 of 1968), and related legislation affecting the composition of political parties and similar organizations and their participation in elections, and to make recommendations in regard to the revision, amendment or repeal of the legislation, due regard being had to the spirit and principles of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1983; and
2. (2) the order for the Second Reading of the Second Electoral Act Amendment Bill be discharged and the subject of the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on the Constitution for enquiry and report.

Mr Speaker, this motion merely seeks to change the committee that has to evaluate this matter. In essence it does not change anything. In consequence hereof, I shall not proceed with Notice of Motion No 1 on the Order Paper for today.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Select Committee on Irrigation Matters, as follows:

1. (1) On petition of the Agterkliphoogte Irrigation Board:
   • That—
     1. (a) the commencement of the approved redemption periods of the loans, ie 30 years for the loan of R156 000 plus deferred interest of R105 644,57 and 10 years for the loan of R47 000 plus deferred interest of R20 740,77, which previously commenced on 1 July 1979, be postponed to 1 January 1985; and
     2. (b) for the purposes of revised actuarial tables, with a view to the revised instalments payable as from 1 January 1985, no interest be charged on the loans for the period 1 July 1983 to 31 December 1984, which interest represents to a total of R17 323,59.
2. (2) On petition of the Blyde River Irrigation Board:
   • That the loan debt of the Blyde River Irrigation Board in respect of the Turbine Canal, which amounts to 91,83% or R138 696,98 of the Board’s total loan commitment of R151 036,68 as at 30 June 1983 and which includes current interest, be written off on condition that the Board may not in future increase its present (reduced) scheduling of 181 ha under the Turbine Canal without improving or extending the waterworks supplying the land with water, in accordance with the proposed increase in scheduling: Provided that—
     1. (a) the Board’s request, by implication, for the write-off of the loan debt which arose in respect of improvements to the Driehoek Canal and which amounts to 8,17% or R12 339,70 of the total loan debt of R151 036,68 not be approved; and
     2. (b) the debt in respect of the Driehoek Canal, which includes current interest, be redeemed with effect from 1 January 1985 in half-yearly instalments over a new 10 (ten) year period in the normal way prescribed by the Act and that for this purpose the loan be regarded as a new loan replacing the previous loan.
3. (3) On petition of the Smartt Irrigation Board:
   • That—
     1. (a) the loan instalments amounting to R9 314,58 as due on 1 July 1983, 1 January 1984 and 1 July 1984 and in respect of which postponement of payment has been granted to the Smartt Irrigation Board, be written off; and
     2. (b) in cases in which insufficient water is the reason why loan instalments cannot be paid by the Smartt Irrigation Board the writing-off thereof be considered and granted by the Minister of Environment Affairs and Fisheries in consultation with the Treasury.
4. (4) On Report of the Director-General: Environment Affairs on the proposed increase of the subsidy on the transfer cost of the Springbok State Regional Water Supply Scheme to the Springbok Water Board:
   • That, with reference to Resolution (3) in the First Report of the Select Committee on Irrigation Matters, 1982 (SC 5-82), the conditions attached to the sale of the Springbok State Regional Water Supply Scheme, as described in White Papers WP/L-73, WP/H-76 and WP/I 80, in terms of section 69 of the Water Act, 1956, to the Springbok Water Board be amended as follows:
   • That the transfer price be reduced to R10,6 million, based on the construction cost had the scheme been built over a period of five years for a supply of 2,6 million m3/year, and the cost involved be repayable—
     1. (a) over a period of 45 years as from the date of transfer;
     2. (b) at an interest rate of 10,66% per annum (the weighted average interest rate during the shorter construction period, ie five years, of the project); and

     3. (c) in annual instalments of R1 084 000 payable on 31 March each year, provided that additional payments will have to be made if the water consumption in any year exceeds 2,6 million m3, which additional payments are to be calculated as follows:

        

        and provided further that the provisions of section 161 of the Water Act, 1956, are mutatis mutandis applicable to any proposed adjustment of the instalments, as well as the provisions of section 160(4) and (5) of the said Act in connection with the earlier redemption by the Board of the transfer price.

A M VAN A DE JAGER, Chairman.

Committee Rooms

House of Assembly

21 June 1984

Report and proceedings to be printed and considered in Committee of the Whole House.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Select Committee on Irrigation Matters, as follows:

1. I. That it is unable to recommend that the prayer contained in the petition of the Cogmanskloof Irrigation Board be entertained.
2. II. That it has been unable to complete its enquiry into the petitions of A L Scott and R C Geddes, owners of land situated in the district of the Selati River Irrigation Board, and of Johanna A Grobler and G T Roux, owners of land situated in the district of the Ma salal Irrigation Board, and recommends that they be referred to the Select Committee on Irrigation Matters at an early stage in the next session.

A M VAN A DE JAGER, Chairman.

Committee Rooms

House of Assembly

21 June 1984.

Report and proceedings to be printed and considered.

Mr Speaker, I want to point out that I find myself in a strange position in that I am not quite certain who supports this legislation and who does not. I listened with great attention to the hon member Prof Olivier. He initially stated that the PFP would support the Second Reading of this measure, whereas the arguments he advanced were in favour of the negation of the measure.

I was pointing out problems.

I should like to reply to that. I want to begin by sketching the background and the historical events leading up to this legislation. In the first place this legislation is the result of a request from the Institute of Town Clerks and the Association of Administrative Secretaries.

Secondly it is a fact that in terms of the existing provincial ordinances the power to determine the salaries of chief executive officers of local authorities was in any event not vested in the local authorities, but in a higher level of administration. The fact that it is being proposed in this legislation that another authority be vested with the responsibility for determining the general salary structures of the chief executive officers of local authorities does not therefore mean that the third-tier government is being deprived of those powers. The argument that the legislation is in conflict with the principle of the delegation of authority to a local authority is therefore not a valid argument.

Furthermore it is a fact that this legislation incorporates decisions in regard to which agreement was reached, not only with the associations to which I have referred, but also with the Administrators of the provinces. The reason behind it is nothing sinister, it is just that it was not possible for the various provincial institutions—and I can understand this—to find a formal basis of co-ordination in respect of this specific matter. The fact is—and the hon member Prof Olivier will agree with me on this point—that the salaries of the other officials attached to local authorities are in any event, in the final instance, determined in terms of our labour legislation, that is to say legislation of the central Government. Town clerks were excluded from this.

Furthermore, the hon member will concede that there are three levels of administration in this country and that, when reference is made to the public sector, all three levels of government and administration are being referred to. The hon member will also concede that it is essential that there has to be a point of co-ordination in respect of the conditions of employment somewhere, in so far as these have to be controlled by the State. In my opinion there is going to be complete chaos if there is no point at which co-ordination occurs. That is why I am asking, when we assess this legislation, that we do so against the background of a need in regard to the existence of which we cannot differ with one another, viz that there should at least be co-operation between the various levels of administration of the country. Naturally, growing pains are going to be experienced with this legislation in future. I have no doubt about that. I want to give the undertaking, however, that when growingpains develop, I shall come back to this House. I have never held a dogmatic or ab solutistic view that only what I say can be right. What I have before me here is an agreed measure which I want to ask should be allowed to undergo a practical trial. I am convinced that after such a practical trial we shall be able to make adjustments and effect amendments.

Apart from the need for co-ordination, we are also obliged to bring about security and certainty in regard to one of the most important occupations in the constitutional setup of this country. I do not want to speak in unnecessarily flattering terms about the function and work of the town clerk, but hon members will concede that the role which the town clerk has to play in the government system of this country is one of the most sensitive roles that exists. I want to state with great emphasis that if we want to cause the concept of bringing Government as close as possible to the community and to the citizens to succeed, we shall only succeed in the implementation and application of that concept if the officials in charge are among the most outstanding officials in the country. No one will argue with me about that. The town clerk is the most important link, on the level of officials, between the Government and the citizen. At no level of government is there a more personal, intimate and sensitive liaison than in this very office. Therefore I want to say with all due respect to the hon member Prof Olivier—I am not saying this reproachfully—that the numbers involved in this occupation may in fact be small, but that the evaluation of the town clerk’s responsibility is far greater than those numbers. In this connection I associate myself with the hon member for Standerton, the hon member for Randfontein and the hon member for Mossel Bay. I should also like to thank them for their contributions.

It is wrong to argue that this legislation affects the conditions of remuneration of only a limited number of people, approximately 600. This legislation has a direct effect on the remuneration of all employees of local authorities.

That is correct.

The argument was advanced here that the legislation had a bearing on only a small group of offiicals—I am not saying that the hon member Prof Olivier said this—but that is not correct. The legislation, in its direct implementation, has implications for all the officials of local authorities. Because this is the case, and because there is a connection, the advisory committee is being constituted in such a way that the associations of the other officials whose position could also be affected by this legislation and by resolutions in terms of this legislation will be part of the advisory process and institutions.

I should like to compliment the officials of the department, who conducted negotiations with all the associations involved in this sensitive matter, on being able to bring those negotiations to a successful conclusion. In the old days, when I was still an MPC and later an MEC, this matter was already on the agenda, and we were unable to resolve it. Apart from the merits of the legislation, we have here an example of how one should really draft laws in the sense that when one has specific, identifiable groups of people who have organized themselves, one should co-operate with these people when their interests are affected.

The Bill does not cover only the approximately 600 town clerks, but indirectly the 7,5% differnce between the salary of the town clerk and the next highest level of remuneration for officials will have an effect on the other employees, of whom there are a few thousand. On that basis I ask for support for this legislation.

I come next to the advisory committee.

†If I am correct, I think the hon member for Umbilo also referred to this aspect, and I have high regard for his knowledge of local government,

*The hon member Prof Olivier also spoke about a body which was too “clumsy” and too “large.” There is one thing we must understand, however, and that is that this legislation is not in principle concerned with determining individual salaries. Basically it is concerned with a general salary structure for chief executive officers. It will therefore not require a routine activity from day to day, but will, when it is established, require a continuous process of negotiation. That is why the membership of this committee is not so large that it cannot function efficiently and effectively. But that is not the consideration. There are two elements we must always take into account, namely effectiveness and acceptability. If we were to consider this matter in precise terms only, the easiest method would be for only one person to determine the salaries, because we would then have “effectiveness”. We would then be lowering the level of acceptability of the decision, however, and the hon member will concede that point as well. For that reason a committee of 18 members, with a maximum of 22, is not in my poinion clumsy and ineffective.

The hon member Prof Olivier enquired about the private sector. Normally we do not bring in the private sector on the basis on which the hon member advocated it should be done. It is true of course that in terms of the industrial legislation there is a negotiating activity between two contracting parties and this is institutionalized, not on an individual basis but on a group or trade union basis, on a staff association basis. In terms of that legislation the employer and the employee are involved in such a negotiating activity, and precisely the same principle applies to the advisory committee. It is the employer and the employee, the one through his United Municipal Executive and the other through his staff association, not so? The same components that therefore exist in the negotiating process exist in this legislation, only in another way, in another form. Furthermore, it is also true, of course, that not only is the private sector narrowly defined, but everyone involved in this, because everyone pays the rates and taxes from which this remuneration has to be paid, is being involved in this matter. It is a fact that the town or city councillors themselves are people primarily drawn from the private sector, and those town or city councillors are placed there in the positions they occupy by the community by way of elections. When we then give the United Municipal Executive representation on the committee, we are in fact giving the private sector representation on it, because that is what they represent on the other hand, not so? In this regard, I therefore maintain that it seems to me we are creating an institution here which…

May I please ask a question? Will the hon the Minister not concede that, particularly in regard to his observation—which was correct—that this determination not only affects the town clerks but the other provincial officials as well, the comparability of the salaries paid in the private sector obviously requires that the private sector should receive representation on that committee?

I am arguing that they are already there, but let us take it a little further. The position in respect of salaries in the public sector in general is determined on the basis of recommendations by the Commission for Administration.

Yes, but that is the public sector.

Yes, but this is also the public sector, only on a different level. I want to say that the private sector has more say in these determination than they have a say in the determination made on the first level, and they have this say through the municipalities that have organized themselves into the United Municipal Executive. Surely those people are private sector people. Those are not people from the public sector.

The other point the hon member made was that he found it strange that the co-ordination—he conceded the point in regard to co-ordination—between the Minister of Cooperation and Development and myself must take place and that the legislation did not make provision for that. Unfortunately I do not always succeed in making sense of the arguments. On the one hand the hon member does not want me to carry this through to the top but on the other hand he is also asking, after I have in fact done that, whether I cannot do it throughout; in other words, according to the hon member for Jeppe, whether I would not simply make my so-called empire larger than I am making it now. I want to say straight away—I do not want there to be any doubt about this—that the liaison and the co-ordination of common needs in terms of services among Black, Coloured, Asian and White local authorities is on the agenda. There is no doubt about that. Therefore I do not wish to leave anyone under the illusion that there is not also a need for co-ordination in that respect as well and, in the second place, that it is one of the matters that will have to be investigated urgently. Nor am I simply saying this and leaving the matter at that. It is also on the agenda in my negotiations with community leaders of all the communities. It is not my intention to walk away from the real problems. There must be no doubt about that either. But I cannot do this unless we do one thing, and that is not only to be technically correct but also to bring the acceptability of things into line with reality. Within the parameters of that standpoint we are constantly effecting co-ordination among departments, and the hon member must take my word for it.

The hon member referred to Clause 12(2) and I want to say a few words about it. That clause does not cancel contracts. The argument that clause 12 cancels existing contracts is not correct. A contract is not being cancelled in its entirety. It affects certain aspects of the agreement only insofar as they are in conflict with the determination in terms of clause 12(1). Consequently it does not affect the entire service agreement. The hon member can have a look at it.

Secondly, the hon member must take careful note of the fact that clause 12(1) does not come into operation automatically, but on a date determined by the Minister responsible for general local government affairs, a date which may vary from province to province, and in this connection I would refer the hon member to clause 12(3), which makes provision for phasing-in. Naturally we shall also discuss the phasing-in process with the advisory committee, and also with the provinces and all the other people. The hon member must also take my word for it that we shall, in the implementation of the Bill, look at the problems that are identified and deal with it in terms of those problems. Even when an employee is affected by clause 12(2) of the Bill, he himself may apply in terms of clause 13(1) to exceed the ceiling, even on appeal to the Industrial Court and he will have to take the existing agreement in consideration when he does so. Consequently this is not simply a summary, unilateral and final cancellation of a specific element in a service agreement without a person having any rights if he should feel aggrieved. As a matter of fact I can imagine—and this is quite acceptable to me—that there may be cases where employees will in fact be able to make out a case for an individual determination under their particular circumstances. Once again, as far as I am concerned and to the extent to which I will be dealing with this matter, if I am still there, the principle of fairness towards people will be maintained as far as possible but on a merit basis.

As far as the 92,5% principle is concerned, to which the hon member also referred, a reasonable difference between the salaries of town clerks and the next highest level of remuneration of officials is necessary to attract candidates to the highest posts.

†Let me say immediately—and I do not say this in a sense of animosity at all—it is not fair to make a general statement to the effect that town clerks are unqualified people. In fact I would suggest that because of the work of the Institute of Town Clerks, which is a professional institute, the professionalism in that particular group of employees has been increased tremendously over the years. The second observation I would like to make is that I have never believed that academic qualifications as such can alone determine the quality of officials.

I agree.

I am talking in general terms. I say this also to the hon member for Umbilo. I would even go further than that. The need for an improvement of the education or training for these officials has first been recognized by themselves. Therefore they themselves have created institutions and curricula for qualifications. Naturally I accept, without qualification, that the need will increase for more trained people and more highly trained people, and because that is so, the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs had a special subcommittee under the leadership of Mr Curry investigating the whole issue of the education and training of officials in local government. What I am going to say now, must not be misinterpreted. I believe at some time or another in future we shall also have to look at whether training or some form of tuition should not be afforded to councillors as well. [Interjections.]

Now you are saying something on which we are agreed.

I thought that we agreed all the time.

I say that we shall have to look into this not because these people are inferior but because a particular form of in-service training is required to enable them to execute the work of local government correctly and effectively, If the hon the Leader of the Opposition should request me that it should also be done in the case of certain members of Parliament, I would consider such a request.

*I hope there is appreciation for the spirit in which I am discussing the matter. This need is being identified by many councillors themselves.

The question as to what comprises a reasonable difference reminds me of that fictitious reasonable person that we hear about in law. Everyone talks about such a person, but no one has even been able to produce one. During the course of the negotiations it was debated whether it should be a difference of 10% or 5%. It appeared that 5% was too low and did not fit in with the key scale of the Public Service which was used simply as a norm for the purposes of the negotiations. A 10% difference would have a relatively deleterious effect on the town councils in the lower group. This is also a point which the hon member raised, and the hon member for Umbilo referred to it. The point is that the salaries of other officials would have to be too low. The percentage difference of 7,5% which was accepted in the negotations is also acceptable—this is the important point—to the South African Association of Municipal Employees, ie SAAME. I say in all modesty that this is a major break-through. I received a letter from the Association which I want to quote from for the sake of the record. The letter is dated 28 June and it was addressed to the Director General of my Department:

This we then did. Now follows an important passage:

I think the spirit of the letter also confirms the spirit in which the negotiations in this connection took place.

A possible point of conflict to which the hon member referred was the determination made in terms of this legislation and the legislation on labour. I should like to draw hon. members’ attention to clause 13 which resolves a possible conflict between the Minister’s determination and the terms stipulated for in an Industrial Court. In terms of this clause another officer may exceed the 7,5% upon application by his local authority or by that officer himself. In the second place this may also happen with the consent of the Administrator, as provided by section 13(1). This occurs in accordance with specified directives containing guidelines which must be taken into consideration in the decision as to whether an office may exceed that 7,5% or not. Finally there is the provision that the Industrial Court shall, on appeal, if the officer has recourse to that court, also apply those directives in terms of section 13(3) in assessing the application or appeal of the officer concerned.

Finally, and with this I want to conclude this aspect, there is the question of competition between the technical staff and the town clerks. In all sectors a degree of competition exists between the administrative and technical personnel, which include scientists. This morning we had to hold talks on the position of highly qualified and eminent scientists who cannot be compared with anyone in the normal administration situation and be dealt with accordingly. Consequently this inherent conflict situation exists in various spheres. It is precisely owing to their scarcity value that provision has to be made for acquiring the services of highly specialized staff. That is the motivation behind the whole thing. At present there have already been successful negotiations for the payment of higher salaries than those of town clerks in general for specific high posts. This is already being done in spite of the provisions contained in the ordinance. The Bill seeks to cause bargaining to take place within limits, and for that reason the Association of Municipal Employees, as I have already said, is also represented on the committee.

I come now to the hon member for Jeppe and now my problems increase. What is the hon member doing? I should like to ask him a question, if he would help me. I assume that he will understand that it will not be possible, if his motion is accepted, to dispose of this matter before the end of the session if this Bill has to be referred to a select committee. The hon member is nodding in the affirmative. If he realizes that, he will know that it will therefore not be possible for this legislation to be agreed to by the house before the end of the session. What the hon member is really asking for is that the Bill be referred to a committee under the new dispensation. Unlike the composition of the House of Assembly which consists of only one population group, the committee to which the hon member wants to refer the Bill will be multiracial. I cannot reconcile these two aspects. The hon member says his party is opposed to the legislation because it is another step along the path of multiracial government. That is why they are opposing it. In the same speech, however, the hon member moves an amendment to my motion that the Bill be read a Second Time, the practical effect of which will simply be to refer a matter which can be disposed of now by a White Parliament to a multiracial institution. Perhaps someone should explain the logic of such a situation to me so that I too can understand it.

One should also take cognisance of the spirit in which the hon member spoke. I want to accuse him of approving of Whites having the sole say over the salaries and treatment of other people, but that he has a philosophically fundamental objection if people participate in the determining of their own salaries and those of others. There are many reasons for people suggesting that the chances of attaining success with democracy in our country are few, but I maintain the the spirit displayed by the hon member for Jeppe makes it impossible for democracy to succeed.

I have a spirit of separate development.

The hon member does not have a spirit of separate development, because he is one of the people who bellow about and exult in separateness, but whisper about the development that is taking place. That is what is wrong with him. The presence of different races and peoples in this country makes solutions difficult. As a matter of fact, I know of no country that has ever succeeded in comparable circumstances. The fact of the matter is that there are Coloured people in this country; there are Asiatics in this country and there are black peoples in this country, and they are among us and with us every day. Nothing that I or any party in this country, including the CP, can do can cause that reality of South Africa to disappear like magic. How ever, we can take radicalism in this country to extremes. We can convert the potential conflict into real conflict, and we shall succeed in doing so far more easily with the terminology of the hon member for Jeppe. I condemn it in him and his party, just as I condemn it in the ranks of the Coloured people and Asiatics.

That is not the right attitude. You must talk to us in a conciliatory way.

But I am talking to the hon members in a conciliatory way.

You are, after all, seeking consensus.

Of course I am seeking consensus, but I cannot find it if I am not able to rectify the attitude of the hon member for Jeppe. I concede that it is going to take a long time. It is going to require the rod and it is going to require reasonableness. Surely the hon member for Kuruman knows that.

I want to go further. The hon member for Jeppe is opposed to this legislation and I assume that that is also his party’s standpoint.

Of course.

I assume that all the hon members of his party are committed to that standpoint. Is that correct?

You just carry on with your speech …

The hon member says, yes, that is his party’s standpoint. As I understand party discipline, people are committed to the party’s standpoints, and in particular to its principles. [Interjections.] The hon member spoke about a piece of gossip he had heard to the effect that MPCs had not been informed. I want to tell him, however, that his MPC in Waterberg …

I do not have an MPC in Waterberg.

The CP’s MPC there was informed. Surely it is easy to formulate standpoints in public on multiracialism, integration and separateness, but the hon member must not come and teach me this lesson. I want to suggest that the hon member for Jeppe should turn, in the first place, to the hon member for Waterberg because as far as I know he is the leader of the CP who would, as we know from experience, be closer to him than his own MPC? The MPC for Waterberg, Mr Ferreira, who is the MPC of the hon the leader of the CP …

The chief agent in Potgietersrus.

Yes, the chief agent in Potgietersrus …

We did extremely well there. [Interjections.]

Of course. Let us not squabble about that.

Order! Hon members must give the hon the Minister an opportunity to complete his speech.

Thank you, Sir. I want to indicate what happened here. The management committe of the TMA, which met on 25 May this year, decided to make represenations to the United Municipal Executive to the effect that the Administrators’ power be transferred to the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning.

Was it unanimous?

I am coming to that. I want to give the hon member for Koedoespoort some advice. The hon member should do what people do when they are in church, keep quiet. The hon member is getting himself into worse trouble all the time.

According to the minutes of the TMA, Mr Ferreira agreed with the following, and I quote:

The hon member for Jeppe alleged, however, that with this legislation I was building an empire for the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. There is an anomaly here which we have to contend with every day, namely that the representatives of the CP adopt a certain standpoint at one meeting and a different standpoint at another meeting, and the standpoint which they publish is the one with emotional impact.

The UME made representations to the department and I want to refer to paragraph 5 of their letter dated 11 june 1984. I referred to this during Second Reading Speech. Apparently the hon member for Jeppe did not hear it. It read: “’n Ander aspek wat oorweeg is, is of die Administrateur hoegenaamd betrekke moet wees in beslissing oor die vergoeding van die hoof administratiewe ampte nare”, and furthermore: “Die VMB sou verkies dat die take wat die Administrateur opgelê word, deur die Minister uitgevoer moet word.” I have already stated that I did not accept the recommendations of the UME in their entirety. Was that a way of expanding my own empire? What nonsense is this?

The amendment of the hon member for Jeppe reads that this Bill should be referred to the Select Committee on the Constitution. Why? If the hon member had moved that the Bill be read this day six months, it would have been in accordance with his rejection of the principle of the Bill. But that is not what the hon member wants. He wants to conduct a discussion on the principles of the Bill, because he moved his amendment before the Second Reading of the Bill was passed. It therefore does not tally with the standpoint of the hon member. The irony is that the CP is opposing the Bill here on the basis of a principle—hon members must listen carefully now—the grounds being that we are allegedly on our way to a multiracial Government. However, when the CP is confronted with what happens in practice on other administrative bodies and organizations, they support motions which are directly opposed to the standpoints of the hon member.

There are town clerks who support the CP, but who also support this request of the UME, precisely what the hon member is opposing.

There are many of them.

That hon member is alleging that there are many town clerks who support his party. If there are so many of them, then I would have thought … [Interjections.] This is another example of the dissension in the CP that is becoming apparent.

In general, the position of town clerks is referred to with appreciation, and hon members would like something to be done about it. When we want to do this, however, it is wrong.

†I should now like to refer to the hon member for Umbilo’s contribution. I want to tell him that he correctly interpreted the underlying principles of the Bill. I have enunciated the principles in the Second Reading. That is, firstly, that an advisory committee will be established. That is a principle of the Bill. Naturally we can argue in the Committee Stage about the composition of that committee. Secondly, a principle that has been accpeted in the light of all the information which I have given to the House is that the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning would be responsible to determine in general the salary structure for town clerks. That is a principle. Those are the main principles of this Bill. I would ask hon members’ support in this regard. In view of the fact that it had not been possible over many decades to find a solution to this vexed problem of the determination of salaries of town clerks, and in view of the fact that all interested parties subscribe to the principles and, I think, also the details of this Bill, we are bound to give effect to the wishes and points of view in this particular regard.

The Bill was not initiated by my department or by myself. It was not initiated by anybody on our levels to build an empire. The Bill emanates in its totality from a need that has been identified by the people most intimately involved with local government. Therefore I believe we are bound to support the Bill in this particular regard.

In one respect I think the hon member for Umbilo has put his point a bit strongly, but he is known for putting his point of view with enthusiasm. I would not want to take him to task for that. He referred to the fact that a town clerk should as a general rule be the highest paid official of a local authority. The point I am trying to make, is that from this general rule can be deviated, in terms of clause 13, to provide for special cases. There will be special cases—I concede the point immediately—such as highly paid engineers, and also the example mentioned by the hon member for Umbilo. Therefore I hope it is possible for all hon members to support the principle of this Bill.

In conclusion, I believe it is important that we should also take into consideration that one of the scarce elements in this country is trained personnel, in many fields. I do not believe that we are always using the available manpower resources to our best advantage. Therefore I should like go suggest that in terms of the Bill which stands to be amended now we accept the principle of a pool of scarce highly trained personnel to be shared by local authorities, instead of each local authority having its own personnel, irrespective of the work load for the particular field of study. They should be shared by more than one local authority. Then, I believe, we will be using highly trained scarce manpower much more effectively than we have done up till now.

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

Question affirmed and amendment dropped (Conservative Party dissenting).

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr Speaker, I move:

I just want to explain briefly that since this particular piece of legislation is actually one of a trilogy of measures, I shall take this opportunity of explaining it in greater detail, so that we need not devote so much time to the others.

In terms of the guidelines for a new constitutional dispensation for Whites, Coloureds and Indians announced by the hon the Prime Minister on 30 July 1982, the following general standpoint was stated:

1. (a) The Government accepts the principle of maximum devolution of powers and decentralization of administration to the local level of government, and of minimal administrative control over local authorities.

I want to state here today, because I want to prevent any misunderstanding, that if we are achieve the maximum devolution of decision-making to the lowest level, we shall also have to accept that local authorities as such will not be able to use those institutions to sabotage Government policy at the national level.

That is where the danger lies.

Of course. That is where the danger lies, and that is why we have to take cognizance of this. The hon the Prime Minister went on to say:

When we talk about local authorities, confusion sometimes arises. We think that the only form of local authority which exists is a town council. Surely that is not correct. After all, there are various stages of development within the system of local government in all provinces. The third standpoint is:

The Prime Minister has also given the assurance that interested parties will be consulted before any changes are made in order to implement the guidelines.

The Government subsequently provided the necessary mechanisms, as it had undertaken to do, by means of which the investigations and negotiations could take place.

†Mr Speaker, one example of an instrument that was created to enable the Government to negotiate with a widely representative body on provincial and local government level, is the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs which we approved last session. In terms of the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Act, 1983, the co-ordinating council was established and came into being on 1 January 1984. It is in fact regarded as the highest and most important forum for discussing local government affairs and formally advising the Government thereon. The historic first meeting of the co-ordinating council took place in Cape Town on 30 January 1984. At its first meeting the council unanimously decided to form six subcommittees of investigation into the following matters: Uniform municipal voters’ qualifications (Chairman: Administrator J C G Botha, Natal); the demarcation of areas of jurisdiction of local authorities (Chairman: Mr O A W van Zyl, President of the Transvaal Municipal Association); criteria for viable local authorities (Chairman: Administrator W A Cruywagen, Transvaal); the joint provision of regional services (Chairman: Administrator E Louw, Cape); training of municipal personnel (Chairman: Mr D Curry, President of Association of Management Committees); and control over local authorities (Chairman: Administrator L Botha, Orange Free State). Let me just say in passing, Sir, that every political view represented in this House is represented on that co-ordinating council, including that of the CP.

That is the most important one.

I want to say to the hon member for Brakpan that the most important thing is that people of different political beliefs who are confronted with the realities and the problems should be able to find one another. That is the most important thing. I want to say, in all kindness to the hon member for Brakpan, that it answers well for the future of our country.

†The reports of the subcommittees were discussed by the full council on 10 May 1984, and the recommendations of the co-ordinating council were thereafter submitted to the Government for consideration. The subcommittees consisted of members of the co-ordinating council and also—this is important—of other experts in the field of local government who are not members of the co-ordinating council. The approximately 120 members of the six subcommittees spent almost 10 000 man hours on the investigations and submitted reports, with valuable information, the contents of which every member who contributed can truly be proud of. On behalf of the Government I would like to thank all the members of the investigating teams for their contributions towards finding acceptable and practicable solutions to various difficult and sensitive matters on local government level.

Represented on the investigating teams were persons representing all three tiers of government, the three population groups in question and the points of view of all political parties represented in Parliament. In this respect I would especially like to thank those members who differ politically from the Government but who were nevertheless willing to make a positive contribution.

Mr Speaker, although the investigations were carried out within the framework of the Government’s constitutional guidelines, and although various members of the investigating teams did not agree with some of those guidelines, the members placed the interests of South Africa first and made use of the democratic process.

The Bill under consideration emanates directly from tne reports of two of the investigating teams to which I referred previously, namely, the investigations into the demarcation of areas of jurisdiction of local authorities and the criteria for viable local authorities.

Other legislation concerning municipal voters qualifications and the joint provision of regional services, which is also the product of the investigations carried out by the council, also appear on the Order Paper today. These three Bills could therefore be seen as a mutually supplementary trilogy.

All the reports submitted to the co-ordinating council were well received by the council and contain valuable material. The reports will probably to a large extent form the basis of the directives which will be issued in terms of the provisions of the proposed new section 17A.

*It is a well-known principle in our legislation that certain norms, guidelines and standards are laid down which decision-makers must take into consideration in exercising a discretion. A good example of this is section 49(3) of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1983. In this section, for example, guidelines are laid down which must be taken into consideration in the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies. On a similar basis, guidelines will be laid down in terms of the proposed section 17A which will have to be taken into consideration when decisions are taken about the delimitation of the areas of jurisdiction of local authorities.

In the respective provincial ordinances, provision is at present made for local authorities to be established by the respective Administrators and for the borders of local authorities to be extended or changed by proclamation. The Administrator can also combine two or more municipal areas in terms of the ordinances. From the nature of the case, such acts are usually preceded by a commission of inquiry which will henceforth take into consideration, in terms of section 17A, the directives concerning norms and guidelines.

As hon members know, one of the most important reasons why there is opposition in some circles to the idea of separate autonomous local authorities for the various population groups is the fact that it is feared that non-viable local authorities will be forced upon the communities.

I want to give the assurance once again that it is not the intention of the Government to establish non-viable local authorities. It is, in fact, the purpose of the proposed statutory amendment to eliminate this possibility.

By laying down norms and standards which the Administrator and an investigating committee will have to take into consideration before proceeding to the establishment of a local authority, irrespective of the population group for which it is being established, it will be possible to ensure that such authorities will in fact have the necessary viability, or that the necessary steps will be taken to render them more viable.

I do not want anyone to be under the mistaken impression that only the Coloured and Indian local authorities established in future will have to comply with this legislation. The norms and standards which will be laid down in terms of a directive issued under the proposed section 17A will be applicable to all—White, Coloured as well as Indian local authorities. This will also ensure that a rationalized and standardized approach to local authorities will be followed when these are established. The rules will apply to all. Furthermore, it is a fact that not all local authorities have attained the same level of development.

In the Government’s guidelines, as announced by the hon the Prime Minister, the following is pointed out: In each of the provinces, there is a range of local authorities—suitable for communities ranging from small to large—which can be extended to the other population groups.

In view of the accepted principle of the devolution of power, which I discussed earlier on in my speech, it is necessary that local authorities should be graded into different categories for the purposes of exercising authority. The category which is referred to here will be based—and I want to emphasize this—on the ability of a local authority to perform functions and exercise powers effectively, and not on colour.

For this reason, it will also be essential that there should be uniform standards, norms and criteria for this, which may be of assistance in allocating functions, assigning powers and determining the degree of control which will be applicable to every grade of local authority. From the nature of the case, the powers of the various levels will not be the same, but they will be the same for all the population groups at the same level of development. That is the most important consideration.

The committee of co-ordinating council, under the chairmanship of Administrator Cruywagen, which investigated criteria for viable local authorities, identified a full range of criteria in their report which could be used in taking decisions with regard to: The question of whether a particular community is viable enough to justify the establishment of a local authority of a particular grade, and the grading of local authorities ranging from small to large.

The following are some examples of the criteria: The existence of an electorate; the availability of community leaders; the existence of a geographical area for elections, which must if possible be a delimitated unit; and the availability of basic services such as water, health services, roads and streets, sanitation or sewerage systems and some form of power supply.

The things to which I have just referred are just a few examples. In its deliberations, the committee further refined the criteria with regard to the various gradings of local authorities. Hon members will understand that it is not possible to embody all these particulars in the Bill itself, and that is why the proposed section 17A is worded in such a way that directives can be issued in this connection.

I want to say at once that “directives” does not mean rigid directives, but directives containing general guidelines.

It has frequently been said by members of the Government that local government will become a more important level of government under the new constitutional dispensation than it is at the moment, and I want to confirm that.

I am convinced that this Bill provides for procedures which will ensure that vigorous local authorities can be established and which will help to establish community government at a local level, which will have to serve as a basis for a democratic state system.

In accordance with the Government’s constitutional guidelines, it leads to a broadening of democracy, and specifically in two respects. Firstly, local authority rights will be extended from the White population group to the other groups, and secondly, government will come closer to the people. I believe that there should not be any political differences about these principles, and that the legislation will be supported.

Mr Speaker, the hon the Minister referred to this Bill as being one of a trilogy of Bills. I was going to refer to the three Bills collectively, but I would have thought that he would avoid the use of the expression “trilogy of Bills” because he will recall that four years ago his colleague announced a trilogy of Bills which would bring into being a new deal for Blacks in local government, and after four years we still have not had those trilogy of Bills passed. I think it is an unfortunate title, but nevertheless we are talking of three Bills which in a sense hang together.

Not only do the three Bills hang together; they also have to be read in the context of the Constitution Act, especially its schedule and, as the hon the Minister has pointed out, they have to be read in the context of the guidelines announced by the hon the Prime Minister at a NP congress. So all these things have to be seen collectively.

I should also like to make a few comments of a general nature before we discuss the Bills in detail because that could perhaps both improve and shorten the arguments which we are going to use later on.

The first Bill, the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Amendment Bill, deals with the critical issue of local government bodies and their classification. The Local Government Bodies Franchise Bill deals with the votes and how they are going to be exercised. The Regional Services Councils Bill deals with the critical point namely the services which are going to be provided in local government and regional areas. These are critically important matters.

It is for that reason that first of all I take issue with the hon the Minister at the procedure which is adopted and the tempo of the procedure in this matter. I do not want to detract from the work that has been done by the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs. I shall deal with that later arising out of the comments the hon the Minister made.

We are dealing with perhaps a critically important and a highly sensitive area of government in which at the moment there is a void in our Constitution. We have the situation that whatever confidential discussions have taken place before, as far as the public is concerned, there were announcements about these Bills on Friday, last week. A few of us were privileged to have explanatory memorandums some of which were amended or withdrawn but without the Bills. The Bills were published for public information on Tuesday morning running through till six o’clock Tuesday evening, and on Thursday we started debating them—and we are debating them now. Two and a half days have elapsed since the public of South Africa first saw the intention of the Government in the form of legislation until the time on which this House started taking final and binding decisions on the public of South Africa. We say that is wrong. Discussions have taken place in camera, but I am now talking about the public and the people of South Africa. They have not had an opportunity. We are getting ’phoned from right around the country by local authorities who ask us to send them copies of the Bills because they do not know anything about them. We do not believe that the 500 local governments have had copies of these Bills and have had time to comment on them. I am not talking about the co-ordinating council now because I want to deal with it separately. The representatives of the people at local government level did not see these Bills until Tuesday. I do not believe that members of the provincial councils have seen them.

Until yesterday.

It may well be that the Administrators and certain people selected from those councils have seen them, but the members of the provincial councils did not see these Bills until yesterday, as the hon member has said. I do not believe that ratepayers’ associations and the people who are going to live with local government have had a fair or reasonable opportunity to consider these Bills and to express their view on it. What has happened, has happened behind closed doors. The co-ordinating council and the Minister have sat behind closed doors in order to try to formulate this legislation. We believe it is a wrong and unfair procedure.

While this legislation is going to affect Whites, it is going to affect Coloureds and Indians in a special way. We say that Coloureds and Indians in general and the political parties involved have not been directly consulted on this. The hon the Minister will say that there are 10 representatives of Coloured and Indian councils, management and liaison committees on the co-ordinating council, and this is something I will deal with separately. However, the political representatives, the parties, the people who are going to represent Coloureds and Indians in this Parliament in only seven weeks time, have not had a mandate and have not been involved directly in the formulation of this legislation. It has been traditional and appropriate that important matters of a constitutional kind should go to the Select Committee on the Constitution. We have done that with all the other constitutional legislation. As the hon the Minister, who is chairman of that select committee, knows we spend days, months and years analysing Black local government and Black development boards, but when it comes to this legislation we find that it is not going to be referred to the Select Committee on the Constitution. We say this is a slight to members of Parliament. Whatever wisdom there was behind the closed doors of the co-ordinating council, this Parliament has to accept final responsibility. The hon the Minister is aware that when those first Black Bills came, the Government thought they were fine. However, when we started discussing them in the select committee and heard evidence from experts and people directly involved, suddenly it emerged that what seemed an easily acceptable concept, was not quite as good as the drafters of that legislation thought. We believe that these three Bills should be referred to a select committee of the House. On that select committee there should be an interplay of views between the members of the various parties. We believe that that committee should have the right to call for evidence from people who are directly involved. Our first criticism is therefore that in terms of Parliament and the people of South Africa, this Minister is once again adopting what I call a bulldozer approach. He knows what the work load is at the moment. There is no way for us to now get back to our constituents in local government to discuss this legislation. These Bills have been introduced without having gone to a select committee of this House. I want to make it quite clear that I am not denigrating the work of the hon the Minister’s co-ordinating council.

Let us look at the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs. It was not free to come with whatever recommendations it liked. It had to come with recommendations within the framework of the Prime Minister’s guidelines. In other words, it was a prescribed investigation and not an open-ended one. The hon the Minister has said that its investigation was prescribed by the guidelines already declared by the Prime Minister. Furthermore, it was a pressure cooker operation. The hon the Minister has referred to the 10 000 hours. The council only met in January this year, but by 10 April had already finished its work and reported. That is not the way to get sound, solid and sensible local government operating in South Africa. Those views should have been kicked about by the local authorities themselves, while there should also have been a feed-back from the public. However, this matter has been dealt with in a confidential way and we still do not know whether this legislation reflects the report of the committee. We do not know whether the Cabinet accepted all their recommendations. We do not know what minority views were expressed. All we know is that they worked darned hard, and that we concede. Within the framework of the limitations, the secrecy and the confidentiality and the almost slave driver pressure-cooker activity of the hon the Minister, they produced a report which allowed him to come to reflect Government policy in this House. I believe it was unfair on that body to treat them in that way. I pay tribute to them for their efforts, but not for the way in which the Minister has bulldozed them into enabling him to come to the House with legislation.

In the third place I come back to the Coloureds and the Indians. The hon the Minister said in his speech that all three groups were represented on the coordinating council. If one puts an elephant and a mouse together, one can say that both the elephants and the mice were represented. However, on what basis were they represented? Considering the 4:2:1 formula and the tremendous importance of local government for Coloureds and Indians, have the Coloured and Indian points of view on local government really been taken note of by the Government? I believe not. I am fascinated by a report in this morning’s paper on the annual conference of Assomac. This was the organization that was allowed to send 10 delegates to the co-ordinating council. The only formal representation of Coloureds and Indians on that body, as far as I can see, were the 10 representatives of Assomac. In the report there is reference to a statement by Mr David Curry, the president of Assomac, that at their conference yesterday the three Bills the Minister has introduced into the House were unanimously rejected. They may have been consulted, but what kind of consensus is this? The only people who have formal representation on the co-ordinating council unanimously rejected the Bill and then the hon the Minister says they were all represented. There is a fundamental difference between consultation and representation on the one hand and genuine negotiation on the other. I know that the hon the Minister is a clever manipulator …

That is not very kind.

Well, I mean he is a manipulator or an operator getting things going. All I want to say is that he must be careful not to be too clever in this regard, because in the end it will not depend on his cleverness but on whether genuine consensus has been obtained between the people who are going to be affected; and I do not believe that these Bills represent the genuine consensus of the people affected.

The Coloureds and Indians are coming to this Parliament and on 18 September the new Parliament is going to be constituted. In terms of the Constitution local government will be a matter of own affairs except in so far as it is prescribed by a general law. What is happening? Before the Coloureds and Indians have a chance to come into the House and determine that general law, the Minister comes along to the White Parliament and says with reference to the “We will, in advance of your arriving here, determine the general law that is going to prescribe your rights”. What kind of consensus-seeking is that? We have waited and waited. These things cannot be applied before 18 September. We believe that, if the hon the Minister genuinely wants local government to be based on consensus between the various communities affected, he should put this to the new Parliament, he should put it to the Coloureds and the Indians and he should put it to the new parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution. The hon the Minister of Internal Affairs is doing precisely this in respect of the Prohibition of Political Interference Act. We believe that the correct procedure is to lay this legislation open and let the local authorities, the ratepayers and the various people affected by it look at it and react to it and then to see that this legislation is introduced in the new Parliament and put to the Coloureds and Indians so that they, with us, can determine to what extent this general legislation should supersede their right to own separate administration. We believe the procedure the hon the Minister has adopted is not only wrong but will also be dangerous because right from the start it is undoing the concept of consensus when it comes to constitution-making.

I want to make a further point. I noticed that the hon the Minister was, in a sense, defensive in his speech. [Interjections.] Whenever he becomes aggressive, he is actually being defensive. This concerns the whole question of the devolution of power. Each one of these three Bills represents a further centralization of power in the central Government and in particular in that hon Minister. That is the position. This particular Bill gives the Minister the right to make determinations when it comes to the question of delimitation and amalgamation of local government.

Our next objection is that this measure imposes, from the central Government, a uniform system of franchise throughout South Africa for local government, whether the local communities or the provinces or the States want it or not. It imposes a centralized formal uniform system of franchise on all the people.

I now come to the provision of regional services. Here once again, if one looks at the provision of regional services and councils, everything can only be done with the approval of the Minister. The hon the Minister let the cat out of the bag. His concept of devolution is not devolution in the strict constitutional sense in that there are clear demarcations of authority which should be written into the Constitution. One of the best recommendations of the Economic Committee of President’s Council was that local government authority should be autonomous in so far as that autonomy is written into the Constitution.

You are not talking about autonomy now but about sovereignty.

I did not use the word “sovereignty”. I am using the word autonomy. I do not suggest that the states of Texas and Georgia, for example, are sovereign states outside the United States of America, but they are autonomous in those areas of government which have been demarcated to them in the Constitution. That is what should be happening here. The hon the Minister is not writing this into the Constitution as a formal right of local government. The Administrators and the local government bodies will be his agents. They can only do things which he wants them to do and provided it does not offend the policy of the Government. We believe that within the areas of government given to local authorities, they should be autonomous. There should not be a rigid pattern right throughout South Africa requiring that every local government matter depends on the whim of the central Government, in particular the Minister responsible for it. The hon the Minister does not understand what the devolution of power means. What he likes to have is a series of agents who can carry out his will and who can only, under pressure from him, operate within the framework of his policy.

The pressure is the other way around.

I hope that happens more and more. If the hon the Minister carries on like this and rushes things through against the wishes of a significant sector of the community, including the Coloureds and Indian communities, the pressure will be greater.

When it comes to ordinary legislation, power should be devolved, but when it comes to the Constitution, there should be clearly demarcated areas of authority. Certainly in terms of the policy of the PFP there should be a separation between authority at national level and the authority at the level of the provinces and the states. It is on that basis of separation of authority and autonomy within a single South Africa that a solution should be found. But to talk of the devolution of power and then introduce three Bills which make the Minister and the central government even more powerful in respect of local and regional government as they have been in the past, is to make nonsense of these words.

Fourthly, the Constitution—I want the hon the Minister to listen carefully to this—does not impose apartheid, segregation or own affairs in toto in local government. It provides that local government is an own affair, except in so far as there is a general law. In other words, the discretion to move in the direction of the CP and to have more apartheid, or the discretion to move in the other direction, rests with the Government of the day because they can change the general laws. It therefore lies in their discretion to move in one way or the other. When one looks at these three Bills, especially the Local Government Bodies Franchise Bill, it is not even as “verlig” as the recommendations of the President’s Council. The President’s Council went far beyond this legislation in trying to find a means of bringing together separate local elements into an “oorvleuelende liggaam”. I am afraid that this legislation looks more as though it was written by the hon member for Waterberg than by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. In fact it takes separation even further—we will come to this when we discuss the Local Government Bodies Franchise Bill—than the recommendations of the President’s Council. When one adds to this that in the one area where it would have been permissible to involve Blacks in some form of joint decision-making and compatibility with the other groups, namely in the area of regional services, that Blacks, while they can receive and pay for the services, will be excluded from any say whatsoever in the councils which have to provide those services.

We find these three Bills—we will deal with each of them in a different way—unacceptable, and we will deal with each one separately.

As far as the Bill now before us and the question of the Minister issuing directives are concerned, I have an amendment on the Order Paper and I hope he will in due course accept that amendment. [Interjections.] The word “directives” is unqualified, and my amendment seeks to qualify it.

[Inaudible.]

All I am saying to the hon the Minister is that in terms of the current wording the Minister has total discretion as far as a directive is concerned. My amendment seeks to qualify the areas in which he may do this. If that is read together with the second and third Bills, and in particular the second Bill, it is quite clear that some of the criteria are going to relate to the franchise system and the group separateness of local authorities. In delimiting local authorities he will have to take into account the franchise system, and the franchise system will have to take into account the boundaries of the local authority.

While the acceptance by the hon the Minister of my amendment in the Committee Stage moderates his absolute power in respect of directives it still leaves him in a position to state the conditions and criteria on grounds—especially if one reads the next Bill, the one relating to the vote—which we find totally unacceptable. For all of these reasons we will not be able to support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Sea Point advanced a few arguments which might possibly sound fine if one only considered them superficially. But the statements he made were devoid of all truth. I should like to react to the general statements on the approach adopted with regard to these three Bills.

Before I come to that, I first want to make another point. The hon member for Sea Point had recourse to fairly harsh language in his reference to the hon the Minister. He referred to the hon the Minister’s “bulldozer” approach. He said the hon the Minister was a “clever manipulator”. [Interjections.] I think it is unnecessary to use that sort of language.

Then he is a stupid “manipulator”.

I think that is quite inappropriate.

Order! The hon member for Bryanston must withdraw the word “stupid”. It is unparliamentary to use that word with reference to another hon member.

The word “stupid”?

Yes.

In that case I withdraw it.

The hon member for Johannesburg West may proceed.

The point I am making is that it was unnecessary for the hon member for Sea Point to have used such harsh language. Of course the hon member will not fully agree—we appreciate that—with the points of departure and guidelines being adopted in connection with these matters. We have known that for a long time now.

In the first place let us consider what was put before this co-ordinating council. The points of departure were put to the South African electorate and agreed to in the referendum. I want to ask the hon member for Sea Point what, other than this, should have been put before the co-ordinating council. Should it have been his party’s policy or any other opposition party’s policy, which clearly did not pass the test when the matter was put to the people?

The hon member made a remark about the submission of this Bill at this stage. I concede that the hon member had a reason for doing so, because one would certainly have liked a longer period of time in which to debate the Bill. But let us first consider the factual state of affairs. The co-ordinating council began its deliberations in January of this year. It immediately appointed six subcommittees to carry out the various facets of its terms of reference, and on 10 May these subcommittees reported back to the co-ordinating council. In my opinion they dealt with a phenomenal amount of work in such a short period of time. Approximately 120 persons were involved in the deliberations of the subcommittees and approximately 10 000 man-hours were spent on this work. In that limited time they therefore covered a wide spectrum in their deliberations.

And Parliament is only getting two or three days.

With reference to the hon member for Bryanston’s interjection, it is significant to note that we are dealing with a fairly technical field here, and in my opinion most of us here are not, off our own bat, qualified to pass judgment on it. But there people who served on the co-ordinating council and the subcommittees who were extremely competent and skilled in this field. According to the evidence, the majority of these people reached consensus on the recommendations now before us in the form of legislation, irrespective of the differences which may have existed between them as regards the Goverment’s political approach to these matters. This is a model of co-operation, irrespective of the mutual differences that may have existed. But this is not; however, the spirit evidenced in the charge levelled here by the hon member for Sea Point on behalf of the Official Opposition. His charge does not reflect a spirit of co-operation, regardless of differences, a spirit to which the work of the co-ordinating council attests.

How do you explain Mr Curry’s attitude.

Let us consider the matter to which the hon member Prof Olivier has just referred and also consider how the co-ordinating council was constituted. The hon member for Sea Point said that it seemed to him as if the co-ordinating council was not fully representative, and that voices that should have been heard on it were absent. Although hon members are aware of the constitution of the co-ordinating council, I think it is necessary for us to place it on record again. It is important to note that the constitution of the co-ordinating council is representative of all the various spheres, viz the interests of the Whites, Coloureds and Indians, as far as local government is concerned. Of course we had to confine ourselves to those bodies that were representative of the respective groups, because we could not, after all, consult the 500 town clerks in South Africa or all the municipal authorities on this matter. One can therefore understand the hon member for Sea Point saying that there were municipal authorities which were unfortunately not conversant with the legislation now before this House. But the fact remains that the representative bodies of the municipal institutions had the opportunity to serve on the co-ordinating council, to make their inputs and to pass judgment on behalf of those persons they represented. That is, after all, what is really at issue.

Let us now consider the constitution of the co-ordinating council. The council consists of the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning as chairman; the four Administrators; the four MEC’s entrusted with local authority affairs; the Director-General of Constitutional Development and Planning; the Director-General of Internal Affairs; an official of the Department of Finance designnated by the Minister of Finance; the secretary of the United Municipal Executive of South Africa; the secretary of the National ad hoc Committee of the Association of Coloured and Indian Consultative, Local Affairs and Management Committees, and 12 persons nominated by the United Municipal Executive of South Africa. There is also one member nominated by the Institute of Town Clerks of Southern Africa, one member nominated by the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants SA, one member nominated by the Institute of Municipal Engineers of South Africa, ten members nominated by the National ad hoc Committee of the Association of Coloured and Indian Consultative, Local Affairs and Management Committees, two members nominated by the Association of Management Boards of Rural Coloured Areas, two members nominated by the Executive Committee of the South African Indian Council, and any other person or body who in thé opinion of the Minister can make a significant contribution. I am sorry to have had to take up the time of this House unnecessarily, but I think it is important to have it placed on record that this is the constitution of the co-ordinating council and that it is therefore, in essence, representative. As a matter of fact, Mr David Curry, to whom the hon member for Sea Point referred, was the chairman of one of these committees.

I also want to react to another statement by the hon member for Sea Point. He said we were introducing this legislation, were placing it before Parliament, and that was that. What do the particulars of these three pieces of legislation involve in essence? They are establishing a framework for further development. Not one of the three pieces of legislation before this House are final, detailed directives. They merely empower the Minister to introduce directives and guidelines. They also authorize the putting into operation of regional service councils, etc. They are therefore establishing a framework for further development. The fact of the matter is that we have evidence of the fact that the co-ordinating council reached consensus over a wide field with regard to this framework. It therefore serves as a point of departure for further development with regard to these aspects, and it is not a final directive for the Whites, the Coloureds or the Indians with regard to the eventual form it must take in practice. It is a very important point of departure.

In conclusion, with regard to what the hon member for Sea Point said, if he is concerned about the fact that the Government is pushing through its approach “against the wishes of other people”, as he put it, let me say that the approach was, after all, tested in the most democratic way imaginable.

What about the Coloureds and the Indians?

The hon member for Sea Point is falling into the trap he himself set. He is saying that if we had adopted the PFP’s approach we would have had a unitary approach to this matter. He himself is therefore not prepared to put forward anything other than his own approach when it comes to this matter.

Bring in the Coloureds and Asians as well. [Interjections.]

The hon member has therefore laid down his own approach as a prerequisite for the evaluation.

You were not listening properly.

No, I was. I even made a note of the hon member’s words.

I now want to get back to the legislation before us. I think it is important for us to look at the relevant details, and I firstly want to refer to clause 1. Clause 1 contains a consequential amendment providing that in regard to the insertion of the new section 17A, for which clause 2 makes provision, this will be implemented by the Administrator-in executive committee and not by the Administrator in his personal capacity.

As far as clause 2 is concerned, the hon the Minister has pointed out its importance in his introductory speech. I should like to point out that this provision is, in fact, merely a continuation of an existing procedure, whilst also providing that the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning may, after consultation with the coordinating council, make regulations with regard to the criteria, norms and standards which shall be taken into consideration by the Administrator-in-executive committee. This applies to decisions on the above actions with regard to the establishment of local authorities, the areas of jurisdiction of local authorities and the various categories into which local authorities may be graded. I think that what is important here is that the Minister must, in any event, draw up these guidelines, which lay down the norms and standards, in consultation with the co-ordinating council. This is what is important. It is the crux of the provision in clause 2. He must do so in consultation with the co-ordinating council and must therefore reach consensus, over a very wide field, with each of the various bodies represented on it, before he can lay down any guidelines. This includes the Administrators of the various provinces. They themselves serve on the co-ordinating council. With regard to this aspect it is consequently a very desirable extension that the Minister now have an opportunity to lay down these guidelines after consultation with the co-ordinating council.

On the whole we can say that there are three significant implications in this Bill to which I should briefly like to refer, one of which is that the Administrators, when considering the establishment of local authorities, should give attention to the norms and standards laid down. This applies to all three the population groups. This assures the greatest degree of uniformity one can achieve between the three different population groups, thus also ensures that such authorities will have the necessary viability. I think this is the first important and significant implication. The second is that uniform standards and norms should be applied with regard to comparable functions, comparable powers and comparable control measures. It is consequently important for different categories of local authorities to be determined, for the ability of local authorities to exercise these functions and powers effectively to be assessed and for them to be classified accordingly. This is the second important implication. The third is that in addition to the uniformity thus being ensured, the position of local authorities as the basis for a democratic system of government is being confirmed and regulated.

I think this measure brings the importance of third-tier authorities strongly to the fore. This Bill, and the two following upon this, fill one with excitement because they not only give substance to certain aims with regard to the implementation of the new dispensation, but also give local authorities their rightful place in the system of government of South Africa.

Mr Speaker, to begin with, I just want to refer to what the hon member for Sea Point said at the outset, namely that he objected strongly to the fact that this Bill was only published on Tuesday, and that we already have to debate it in this House today. Surely this is legislation which intimately affects the taxpayer in his environment and situation. Nevertheless, very little time was allowed between the publication of the Bill and the discussion which is taking place in this House today. I want to bring this to the hon the Minister’s attention. What is more, the provincial caucus of the CP, as far as I know, was not informed about this legislation.

Do you want me to attend the caucus meetings of the Opposition parties?

I think it was nevertheless desirable that the hon the Minister should have sent an official to inform them about this legislation.

The hon member for Sea Point said that the hon the Minister, within the framework of this legislation, was either moving to the CP side, or to the other side. According to him, it was going to be more to our side. I want to differ with him, and I think the hon member for Johannesburg West also differs with him. It is our opinion that the hon the Minister, with this legislation, is moving towards the leftist-liberal side.

The hon member for Johannesburg West conceded that the time question could possibly be an objection. He referred, in addition, to the composition of the co-ordinating council, and I shall come back to this very point during the course of my speech, because the composition of that co-ordinating council, which plays such an extremely important advisory function in the sphere of local government, is in fact a major reason for our objection to this legislation. The hon member for Johannesburg West said that within this framework there were also political implications at local government level. I want to say that our objection in particular arises from the specific political implications it is going to have at the third level of government.

If one assesses this Bill against the background of the general political development in South Africa, one finds here on the third level of government precisely the same features as on the first level of government precisely the same features as on the first level of government. One finds the same tendency, the same movement, namely the tendency and movement towards greater political integration, and in this case, too, at the third level of government.

I want to draw a very valid comparison in this connection. If we look at the pattern on the first level, we find that we were initially to have had three Parliaments with the sovereign power situated in this House of Assembly, but ultimately it became a tricameral Parliament. Initially the respective Houses were to have been situated at various places. On a number of occasions the hon the Minister of Transport Affairs kept on emphasizing that the respective Houses would be situated far away from one another, but we now have a decision which was taken this week that two of the Houses are going to sit under the same roof. [Interjections.] Initially there would merely have been ceremonial joint sittings, but now joint sittings on the occasion of the Second Reading of every general Bill have been accepted.

We found in this legislation on the third level of government the same features of those tendencies on the first level. First of all, we found that the Government began carefully with only the Council for the Coordination of Local Government Affairs, which would be integrated and would merely give advice, but now that advice, in terms of the Bill, is becoming far more important advice, as appears from the proposed section 17A. At the same time mixed decision-making powers are also being created, and this indicates ultimate integration on the third level of government, particularly, too, in view of the Bills following this one.

A second tendency that is discernible in this Bill is the further erosion of the powers of the provincial councils. Incidentally, the hon the Minister kicked up a great fuss about the MPC of the hon member for Waterberg and the standpoints which he allegedly adopted. I want to congratulate the PFP on a kindred spirit who has now been elected in Rosettenville in the form of the NP member. I want to ask the hon the Minister whether the statements made by that MPC for Rosettenville in respect of the participation of Black people in this dispensation represent the opinion of the NP. [Interjections.]

Chris agrees with them, but FW does not agree with them.

That is not the truth.

The hon member says it is not the truth. Then he must go and talk to Die Vaderland, because there were reports to that effect in that newspaper. [Interjections.]

Initially the demarcation of the areas of jurisdiction of local authorities and the categorization of towns and cities was a purely provincial matter, but now this is being shifted and centralized in the hands of the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, as provision is being provided for in the proposed section 17A, in terms of which the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning is being empowered to promulgate criteria for the viability and potential degree of autonomy of communities on the local government level after consultation with a mixed co-ordinating council. At the same time it is the policy of the Government to bring about a devolution of power to local authorities. If the process continues to a sufficient extent now, I think that precisely nothing will remain of the powers of the provincial council. That is precisely our objection. In this connection it is interesting to look at the motivation which the hon the Minister himself advanced last year when he brought the principal Act to this House. He said, inter alia, that it was “to improve communication between White councils and Coloured and Indian committees and in that way also improve group relations”. On that occasion the hon the Minister said that the Government had taken cognizance of Recommendation No 20 of the President’s Council, which read as follows:

That was the motivation advanced by the hon the Minister for piloting through that measure. Since the Coloureds and Indians have now repeatedly indicated that they are not interested in independent and full fledged local authorities, I want to ask the hon the Minister what the Government is going to do in this connection. Is it simply going to maintain the status quo or is it, for the sake of good relations, going to accommodate them in terms of Recommendation No 20 of the President’s Council? The hon the Minister himself stated the objective of the Government with this legislation in his Second Reading speech last year on the principal Act. I am quoting from Hansard, 1 June 1983, col 8297, as follows:

Which has now become section 17:

Coloured leaders are now refusing point-blank to allow this to happen. I quote further:

Co-responsibility has, after all, in the terminology and concepts of the NP become joint decision-making, mixed multiracial decision-making as it is contained in the principal Act which we are now amending and the two Bills which follow this Bill and which deal with government at local authority level.

The proposed new section 17A(1) empowers an Administrator, in accordance with directives laid down by the Minister after consultation with the co-ordinating council, to make ordinances, to establish or dissolve local authorities or to combine two or more local authorities, to define or alter the area of jurisdiction of a local authority, or to classify local authorities into various categories according to grades, for example health committees, village councils, town councils and city councils. These matters were always purely provincial matters. According to the hon the Minister, however, this is self-determination within an “own” community context. I want to ask him what meausre of self determination now remains for the local community if the provincial Administrator has to act on directives from the Minister, and he in turn after consultation with the coordinating council, a mixed council which is not directly elected by the voters at local government level. The situation we are getting here is in fact a centralizing of power, a form of elitist government, and that the actual decision-making is forced upon the local authority level from above. At the same time there is the question here of an erosion of powers of provincial councils, and we foresee this culminating in the total disappearance of provincial councils.

Let us consider the composition of the coordinating council, a matter which the hon member for Johannesburg West also dealt with. I am not going to discuss it in detail again, because he has already done so. Apart from the ex officio members appointed by the Minister, we find, as the hon member said, that in regard to the other members it is only specified in respect of the 12 members of the United Municipal Executive that they shall be White members. All the other members of this co-ordinating council may be drawn from the ranks of the other population groups. If we therefore take a careful look at the numbers, we see that except for the ex officio members, the situation could develop that this extremely important advisory body, which has to advise on matters as set out in the proposed section 17A(1), may consist of 12 White members and 18 Coloured or Indian members. If we add to that the inability or the unwillingness of the Government to implement the Prohibition of Political Interference Act…

What clause are you discussing now?

I am simply referring to the situation which could develop. Since a compromise has now been struck with Rev Hendrickse in that the Government has not discharged its duty but has referred the entire matter, for the sake of convenience, to a select committee in the new dispensation, it is obvious that a party such as the Labour Party could ultimately gain overall control at local government level.

I want to give this Government a serious warning. This integrationistic direction which the Government has now adopted at local government level is eventually going to turn it into a storm centre as the various population groups strive to acquire political power at this level. Once one has embarked on a integrationistic course, full political integration on this level is unavoidable. Hon members opposite would do well to take another look at the first submission made by the TMA to the President’s Council. Inter alia, it also dealt with the direction which is being indicated here with this amendment. [Interjections.] At the time the TMA said:

Do you not, for the sake of the truth, want to quote their last report as well?

I am referring only to the first report because it was, after all, their report, and we were in full agreement with it. [Interjections.] They went on to say the following:

That is, in my opinion, precisely the situation into which the Government is going to plunge this country with the amending Bill we have before us, for in terms of this measure there is going to be an increasing intermingling of Whites, Coloureds and Indians on all levels of government, and in this case, too, at local government level.

In conclusion, I want to state that the disentangling of mixed government, which was started by the then National Party in 1948, will be continued by the Conservative Party when the spirit of Waterberg, Soutpansberg and Potgietersrus has prevailed throughout South Africa. I concede that it will not be painless and that it will certainly bring strife and conflict in its wake, but the Conservative Party has irrevocably committed itself to this course, and therefore we cannot support the Second Reading of this legislation.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Sea Point made certain statements. The hon member for Johannesburg West replied to him very effectively, and I shall also return later to certain of the standpoints the hon member adopted.

However, I want to deal briefly with the allegation by the hon member that the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning was “bulldozing” this measure through Parliament. As I know the hon the Minister, the hon member for Sea Point can expect to be “bulldozed” when the hon the Minister replies to him. We are looking forward to that.

The hon member devoted most of this time to complaining about the way in which this matter had been handled and never actually got around to the contents of the Bill. He did not actually state his party’s standpoint on the contents of the legislation, but we accept that. The hon member referred to the total discretion which is supposedly being given to the Minister now. This standpoint of the hon member clearly emanates from the political philosophy of the PFP. Their entire approach is determined by the political spectacles they always don when they consider a matter. [Interjections.]

I now come to the remarks of the hon member for Pietersburg. I do not know whether he was ever a town or city councillor.

I was.

Then I am even more surprised that he adopted such a standpoint, because I thought that a man with experience of local government matters would debate these matters more sensibly. Since I am now discussing the standpoint of the hon member for Pietersburg, the standpoint of the CP, I want to compare their standpoint with regard to these three Bills to something. Most hotels have a so-called “masterkey”. When a key is lost the master-key can be used, because it fits the locks of all the rooms in the hotel. The approach of hon members of the CP amounts to the same thing, because they also have a political master-key, and it fits every piece of legislation or matter being discussed. They allege that everything is power-sharing or integration. [Interjections.] To a certain extent I envy them. One need not take cognizance of the contents of a matter. One need merely say that something amounts to political integration and that is why one is opposing it. One need not discuss the merits of the case. The master-key is used every time.

The hon member for Pietersburg said that we were again moving in a liberal direction here, towards political integration. He said this legislation also indicated the erosion of the powers of the provinces. I want to point out to the hon member that the representatives of provincial administrations were intimately involved in this decision-making and recommendations. The hon member for Johannesburg West indicated what persons and organizations had been involved. The hon the Minister also referred to them in his introductory speech. The relevant MECs and the Administrators were involved. By implication, the hon member is therefore accusing them of recommending to the hon the Minister and the Cabinet the erosion of their powers. Is that what the hon member is implying?

Mr Speaker, will the hon member concede that matters such as the establishment of a local authority, the determining of the area of jurisdiction of a local authority or the categorization of local authorities, were initially powers exclusive to a provincial council?

The hon member is missing the point. The co-ordinating council is an advisory council which makes recommendations to the Minister, which are then taken further by the Administrators.

I am discussing section 17A.

I know what is stated in that section. But I do not agree with the hon member’s standpoint at all. His standpoint is not correct. As I have already said, the Provincial Councils were intimately involved in these recommendations. In addition the provincial authorities are retaining their function. They will still do this “job”, if I may call it that. All that is happening is that guidelines are being laid down in terms of which the matter must be dealt with. But they are still retaining the function.

To ensure that they apply integration.

The hon member for Kuruman is always worried about integration. Those hon members sitting there—I am referring to the hon member for De Aar and the hon member for Waterberg, for example—look so worried and concerned, but on behalf of this side I want to tell them today that we shall protect their identities for them. They need not look so worried. Even the hon member for Sunnyside can smile for a change. We shall ensure that he retains his identity. [Interjections.]

I now come to the composition of the coordinating council. Sir, can you imagine that the hon member for Pietersburg, a knowledgeable member … [Interjections.] He was not speaking out of stupidity. [Interjections.]

You are under the wrong impression. [Interjections.]

I am open to conviction. If hon members on this side say that I summed him up incorrectly, I shall accept what they say because they have known him longer than I have.

†Sir, I bow to their superior knowledge.

*The hon member for Pietersburg was extremely worried about the composition of the co-ordinating council because there was the danger—the proverbial red lights were flashing when he spoke—that the majority of members could perhaps be people of colour. The hon member is so obsessed with colour that the first question he asks himself when he considers the constitution of such a council is how many people of colour will serve on it. In any case, the hon member’s deduction is incorrect. He is referring to the possible optimum number of representatives of other colour groups. Surely this will not be the normal practice. He knows that very well. He is now playing a political game and I accept this. Today I want to admit candidly that those hon members are experts when it comes to conjuring up political spectres. I want to give them credit for that because they are succeeding 100% in conjuring up political spectres. [Interjections.]

We are still going to conjure up political spectres in Welkom as well.

The hon member is now discussing the Welkom constituency. As far as politics is concerned, I do not think the people there are always active enough, and I am inviting the hon member there to instil a little more liveliness into proceedings there. It may benefit politics in general there. The CP is too passive in Welkom and I would welcome it if we could have a little action there.

You have West Indians there, but no Indians.

The hon member for Parktown is complementing the CP beautifully, because both those parties are now in opposition, one of them for one reason and the other for another reason. But at a certain level they have found each other, and now the hon member is trying to create an impression, but it will avail him nothing. [Interjections.]

I should now like to make a few observations on the legislation before us.

Does that mean that the hon member has thus far not been discussing the Bill at all?

Mr Speaker, may I address you on this? I was replying to the speeches of hon members on the Opposition side, and if they have not yet discussed the legislation then that also applies to me.

The amending Bill is a logical consequence of the mechanisms which are going to be created to ensure that the new dispensation will be established in a meaningful, balanced and economically viable way as far as local or community government in the country is concerned.

Joint government.

The hon member should calm down a little. Perhaps he could learn something from what he is going to hear now.

That will be difficult.

I admit that it could be difficult for him, but I do feel that the hon member may benefit by this.

The addition to the principal Act is a practical task that is being entrusted to the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs. The principal Act established the council and the council has been functioning since January this year. The hon member for Johannesburg West has discussed the composition of this council. Two committees of the council made recommendations on the areas of jurisdiction and boundaries of local authorities and on the criteria which should be adapted in this connection. The grading of towns will also be dealt with in this connection.

The council’s task is to advise the Government on local government affairs. I want to refer briefly to the task of the co-ordinating council. I shall merely summarize it to refresh hon members’ memories. In the first place the council will determine what activities should be co-ordinated. In addition it must make recommendations on the creation of institutions to perform the same activities as local authorities. It also has to try to bring about uniformity with regard to all activities, and must ascertain what activities may be entrusted to whom or from whom they should be taken. The council is also responsible for the introduction of legislation, and must also try to give the public a better understanding of local government. It must also discuss sources of revenue, and must undertake investigations, studies and research with the Minister’s approval. In addition it must hear representations with regard to local government and must consult people and institutions. These are some of the most important tasks of the co-ordinating body. Obviously these are important tasks in the purposeful and balanced functioning of a sound local authority system.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14hl5.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr Speaker, when business was suspended, I was reacting to the hon member for Pietersburg. His argument was that the powers of the provincial authorities were being eroded by this legislation. I want to tell the hon member that I greatly appreciate the service being rendered by local authorities. Over the years these bodies have done very good work, and I think all hon members in this House will have great appreciation for the work they have done. But I want to point out that the fragmentation of control over certain services does have disadvantages, so much so that years ago legislation was introduced when hon members of the CP were still on this side of the House, and shared in the passing of those measures which resulted in the Minister acquiring certain powers.

Do your own work. Do not always say we were also involved.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Langlaagte becomes agitated when one refers to the past. [Interjections.] I want to point out to the hon member for Langlaagte in all honesty that his past is far more attractive than his present or his future and for that reason he should not be so sensitive about the past. [Interjections.]

I said that legislation was passed to ensure that there would be uniformity with regard to certain matters and that that uniformity would be maintained. In certain cases it is important for there to be uniformity. We may live in different provinces, but we are living in the same country. We may retain provincial boundaries for rugby purposes…

What is going to happen tomorrow?

I do not think there is any doubt about that. The hon member has asked what will happen tomorrow. [Interjections.] Sir, these hon members now want to play rugby.

Order! The hon member took a very long time to get round to the legislation. He must not allow himself to be led astray now. [Interjections.]

Yes, Sir, unfortunately I cannot also play rugby because we have to dispose of this matter now.

I said that in certain cases legislation was essential to ensure uniformity. For example, the hon the Minister of Transport Affairs has authorizing legislation to promulgate traffic regulations if a province does not do so, if he receives instructions to that effect from the National Road Safety Council. There were cases where it was essential for them to be promulgated so that there would be uniformity. The provinces have strong representation on the co-ordinating council and they can make their influence felt there.

The hon member for Sea Point also had something to say about the centralization of power. It seemed to me the hon member was moving towards the NRP’s policy of “local option”, because he was concerned about the “local option”, which could now shift towards the central government. The hon member must discuss this matter with the hon members of the NRP to see whether he could possibily stand closer to them as far as “local option” is concerned.

The autonomy of local government is important, but it is also the duty and responsibility of the central government to ensure that this level of government will take the national interest into account in the execution of its important task. Surely this is the cause after all, there is no getting away from the fact, no matter how important the work of local authorities may be—and I admit that it is an important task—that the work of those people can ensure that communities live and work there happily and satisfied, and this is actually the basis for a happy community. But the fact remains that those authorities must also take account of the national interest, because after all this is also in the interests of their survival.

Judicious co-ordination and the laying down of realistic guidelines can make a tremendous contribution to a new and stable Republic. The new constitutional dispensation cannot be launched successfully if the urban communities are not provided with a sound foundation to keep them happy. There is a trend towards ever increasing urban development, and the greater part of the population also resides in those urban areas. This legislation even affects people outside the urban complexes. That is why the way in which this matter is being dealt with now, the framework which is being established and the mechanisms contained in the legislation to make provision for this, are very important, because they can also make a very important contribution to the success of the new constitutional dispensation. For that reason, even if some members have doubts about the way in which this is being done, as they have indicated here, this legislation is also important when it comes to the national interest and when it affects the interests and the survival of this country. I believe that experience will show that this can make a major contribution towards achieving those objectives as well.

Mr Speaker, I rather suspect that the hon member for Welkom must be, in spite of the speech he made, a little heartsore as an ex-provincial man for haying to support a Bill like this, a Bill which in effect quite obviously is diminishing the powers of the provinces. I know the hon member over many years as a good provincial man and, as I say, I am quite sure that he really has not got his heart in this although he made a good job of indicating that he had. As a member of that party, of course, he had to support his Minister. Well, that is the way it goes. This is the way it is.

The hon member also commented upon the question of the hon member for Sea Point’s bulldozing speech and his saying that these Bills were being bulldozed through. Frankly, I support the attitude of the hon member for Sea Point because there is no doubt in my mind that to put the three Bills that we are dealing with now before this hon House and for them to be dealt with in such short order is quite ridiculous. I am sorry, Sir, but this is how I see it. We have dealt with a lot of Bills during the course of this session but very few of them are going to have a greater impact on a great number of people than these Bills. I regret to say that to expect us to do justice to them in the very short space of time that is available to us is being unfair and unreasonable. I may add that I endeavoured to get the opinion of some erstwhile colleagues of mine in the Natal Provincial Administration, and they only got these Bills yesterday. They have not had an opportunity of even studying them for me to get some attitude from them. This is most unusual in Bills of such magnitude as we have before us.

Do you want to have two half-hours?

I want that hon member to shut up. [Interjections.]

One gets the feeling that owing to Coloured and Indian opposition to these Bills and that in the new Parliament these matters will largely be in the realm of own affairs, the hon the Minister is rather anxious to get them through now, particularly in the light of what one understands of the attitude of the Indian and Coloured communities—that they are not in favour of these Bills.

The hon member for Johannesburg West made an issue of the 10 000 hours that had been put in by the co-ordiating council, and I appreciate the work done by those people. I understand that they worked jolly hard and that they made a fair job of it as they see it, but if it took them 10 000 hours to sort out what they had in their way of thinking, why must we be expected to do it in about 48 hours? It just does not make any sort of sense.

Do you want 10 000 hours to discuss the Bills?

No, I do not want 10 000 hours to discuss them. I just ask for a reasonable time to discuss the Bills. If the hon the Minister considers the time at our disposal as reasonable let me tell him that we are not even in the position to have proper consultation with certain of the people who will be affected by the Bill. Since this is the case, I have grave worries as to the future that we are going to endure in the new dispensation. I say it is true that these people did work hard and quite frankly, in the time which we have in hand to deal with these Bills, we are going to have to work a jolly side harder as far as I can see.

The hon member for Johannesburg West said that one of the joys of this particular series of Bills was going to be the fact that they would give conformity, as though conformity and uniformity were virtues in themselves. Again I cannot help but feel that in a country such as ours certain variations among the provinces are not only desirable but in fact on occasion even necessary. Anybody who has had experience with the Administrator’s conferences will know that this was in fact generally accepted at Administrator’s conferences, and the hon member for Welkom will remember quite well the number of occasions when the attitudes of the Orange Free State and Natal who are diametrically opposed politically were identical as against the attitutes of the bigger provinces, because the circumstances in the provinces were different. This is why I say uniformity is by no means a virtue in itself.

The Bill before us, although small—it is a very small Bill with virtually one major clause—is very large in its implications.

I am sorry to say to the hon the Minister that it would be totally unacceptable to us in its present form since it means that in every aspect of creating, altering or amalgamating local authorities there would have to be the approval of the Minister.

Are you talking about the Bill under discussion?

Yes, this particular Bill.

It is not in that clause.

Yes, it is, and I shall explain to the hon the Minister in a moment. In the Bill in its present form it would mean that the Minister will have to approve every amendment to a local authority for amalgamation or whatever. I believe this to be cumbersome and an affront to the provinces. It is certainly unnecessary. However—and this may gladden the hon the Minister’s heart …

Do I understand the hon member correctly that he is in fact saying that in terms of this particular clause the Minister must approve the establishment of every local authority?

Yes. The hon the Minister will see what I mean in a moment. That is why I, like the hon member for Sea Point, have an amendment on the Order Paper. The concept of general directives from Parliament being imposed on the provinces is not new. We cannot object to the merit of general directives in principle because this is a long established principle. In particular in the education departments and in respect of hospitals, the provinces’ actions are governed by general parliamentary directives. If this was what the Bill demanded, this principle could not be faulted as a principle. However, this can easily enough be resolved as far as the principle is concerned if the amendment I have put on the Order Paper is accepted.

Do you have one on the Order Paper?

Yes, on yesterday’s Order Paper. If mine is not acceptable, the hon member for Sea Point’s amendment would also serve the same purpose. Either of those amendments would remove this question of the Minister having to approve every amendment as a consequence of a directive. In the Bill as it stands, it states clearly that that power shall be exercised by the Administrator in accordance with such directives as the Minister may after consultation with the co-ordinating council determine by notice in the Gazette. In my opinion that clearly means in every instance. However, if it is a general directive, the Administrator would not have to send each one through for approval.

I believe that the principle and the object of this Bill is to remove from the Administrator the right to establish, dissolve, split, combine two or more local authorities etc, and to all intents and purposes to hand that right over to the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. It means in effect that without the approval of the Minister, who must consult the co-ordinating council although he does not have to accept the recommendations of that council, the Administrator has no authority to act. As the Bill stands—I want to repeat it because it is a vital point as far as we in these benches are concerned—it means that in every instance the directive of the Minister must be obtained for that local authority change. In fairness, I must say that I am given to understand that this is not the intention of the hon the Minister, and this is why I suggest that we change it to general directives which would resolve this particular problem. If this is the Minister’s intention, he should accept the amendment.

This Bill is of course part of the new Constitution and the promises made that there will be no forced excision of local authorities and that no race group will be forced to set up local authorities. I am fairly convinced that this is part of the motivation, although the hon the Minister has not made much of an issue of this at all. I do believe however, that this is one of the primary objectives be hind this Bill. Certain local authorities which are economically unviable may well be hived off. This is why I feel that the concept of a general directive is not objectionable. What I primarily object to, is that it applies here to every chance of a Local Authority area.

I appreciate the purpose of this Bill and personally I do not envisage the Minister in terfering with local authorities when it comes to additions to and substractions from White local authorities in the normal way or even to amalgamations and that sort of thing However, I cannot help but feel that as far as the Indian and Coloured communities are concerned we are going to have some problems.

I really do believe it is a pity—I am afraid I must refer to it again—that the hon members on the Government side did not give more serious consideration to our proposals way back in 1978 when the Government was getting on with its thinking on the new Constitution. I have here a copy of the document that was signed at that time. It was signed by a number of people whose names may be of interest to hon members. The main recommendation was:

They recommended further:

It is very interesting to note by whom that was signed: Mr J N Reddy; Mr Kathrade; Mr J B Patel; Dr Mayet, since deceased; Mr Moolla; Mr Patchai; Mr Norman Middleton; Mr D C Young; Mr Trifflin; Mr De Vries; Mr Harrison; and Mr Dugmore of the PFP at the time. That was a committee set up by the province of Natal to try to find an acceptable system of local government. So, I cannot help but feel that, if, when this was passed by the provincial council and made an ordinance in embryo, it had been looked at with a little more sympathy and approved by the State President at that time, there would today probably have been many more independent local authorities for the various non-White communities. I may add that, of those that have been set up, not one is subsi dized. They are all free and they all stand on their own feet. I believe that, if this had been handled correctly and with sufficient sensitivity, many more could have been set up. In fact, there were, I think, another five in the pipeline.

So, to conclude, I regret that we cannot support this Bill in its present form at Second Reading. However, with a general-directive amendment, the situation may very well be different at the Third Reading.

Mr Speaker, I shall react to a few aspects which the hon member for Umbilo raised. I think the hon the Minister will probably look at the question of general directives in detail. I think the hon member for Umbilo has one basic problem, viz that he is still discussing matters as an MEC of a province—he occupied that position previously. He is overlooking completely the matter the Government is in earnest about, viz to bring about the maxi mum devolution of power right up to the lowest level. Since the co-ordinating council has had the opportunity to discuss the matters in this Bill with local authorities, he consequently has a problem in accepting certain recommendations of that council. I think I should react to this further, since the hon member referred to it on a previous occasion as well. It concerns the so-called 1978 proposals the Natal Provincial Council presented at that time. The names of the late Mr Harold Dugmore and Mr Harrison were also mentioned. The fact of the matter is that these two gentlemen had no mandate from the Natal Municipal Association to adopt any standpoint in this committee; on the contrary, to place the matter in the right perspective, I want to point out that the Natal Municipal Association held a special congress where the so-called proposals the provincial administration had in mind at that time were rejected by a majority vote.

I should also like to react to the standpoints of the PFP and the CP. It is interesting to take note of their standpoints, since I believe that it did not take a prophet to predict that those would be the standpoints adopted by these two parties. The fact remains that both parties are opposing this legislation, although their standpoints are divergent.

In the Third Reading debate on the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Bill the hon member for Hillbrow, inter alia, made certain remarks in his speech, and I quote from Hansard of 24 June 1983, col 10178:

What the hon member said here in respect of matters that fall outside the jurisdiction of the co-ordinating council makes it necessary to look at the objectives of this council. I want to refer to four objectives of the council. Firstly, it will make recommendations regarding the activities to which preference should be given in such co-ordination. The second objective is to make recommendations with regard to the co-ordination of the actions of local authorities in performing certain activities. The third objective is to make recommendations with regard to creating institutions for performing activities similar to those performed by local authorities. The fourth objective is to make recommendations regarding the establishment of uniformity, in so far as it is practically possible, in the way in which such activities performed by local authorities should be performed. I believe that the co-ordinating council has acted within these objectives in respect of what we have before us.

I now want to refer to the standpoint of the CP, which was also quite predictable. I want to read how the hon member for Pietersburg concluded his speech in the Third Reading at that time, and I quote from Hansard, 24 June 1983, col 10195:

The standpoints of the PFP and the CP are therefore divergent.

What is the point?

The point I want to make is that the daydream of the CP regarding heartlands …

You must be careful, we will come and say that in Newcastle.

The hon member is most welcome to come there.

When one is dealing with the realities of local authorities, the daydream of the CP disappears.

I want to refer to what the constitution of the CP provides regarding the local authorities of Coloureds and Indians outside the so-called heartlands. I want to refer to one paragraph of the constitution, and I am sorry that the author, the hon member for Rissik, is not here today, but possibly one of the other hon members can assist me.

Of course, it is not a falsification.

You are the biggest falsification.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon member for Virginia permitted to assert that I am the biggest falsifier?

Order! Did the hon member for Virginia say that?

I said that he was the biggest falsification, Sir.

Order! The hon member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir.

I refer to paragraph 2.2.3 in which it is stated that the group or rural areas of the Coloured and Indian communities located outside their respective areas of jurisdiction, the co-called heartlands, form part of and remain under the control of the RSA. Surely that is nothing but White supremacy. That is their dilemma. They can argue whichever way they like. That is the master-key to which the hon member for Welkom referred. That is the dilemma in which they find themselves. Perhaps it would be a good thing if the next speaker on that side were to spell out their standpoint in this debate or in ensuing debates in respect of the local authorities of Coloureds and Indians situated outside these heartlands of theirs.

I want to refer to another aspect. I want to quote from another document in this regard. The hon member for Pietersburg referred to the TMA again today, and I want to ask him whether he agrees with certain standpoints I am going to present. [Interjections.] I would very much like to have the attention of the hon member for Pietersburg. It is probably difficult to pay attention when one is in a corner. I quote:

I want to quote another passage from the same document:

That is the important thing. The hon member for Pietersburg tried to make out a case for the standpoint of local authorities in respect of second-tier government. I continue to quote:

These quotations do not come from an information document of the NP. However, it is the standpoint the United Municipal Executive adopted on occasion when they gave evidence before the Schlebusch Commission. It is therefore the wish of local government to be directly linked to first-tier government. If other hon members on that side wish to discuss the matter further, I should like them not only to quote selectively, as the hon member for Pietersburg has done before, from documents which reflect their standpoint onesidedly.

And an outdated standpoint at that.

Yes.

In his Second Reading speech the hon the Minister referred to the historic first meeting of the co-ordinating council held in Cape Town on 30 January 1984. On that occasion the council decided to form six subcommittees which were to investigate various matters and report on them to the council. We have heard that the reports of the subcommittees were submitted to the council on 10 May this year, and subsequently to the Government.

We now have a trilogy of related legislation arising out of these reports, of which the Bill being discussed at present is one, and the other two are the Local Government Bodies Franchise Bill and the Regional Services Councils Bill.

I think the important thing here is that consensus has been reached on difficult and sensitive matters that required joint action by all three the population groups, as well as people who have different political standpoints. Where could one find better proof of where political consensus was not a prerequisite for the constructive solution to our common problems in South Africa? Constitutional structures can only create opportunities and provide the framework within which action can be taken. However, it will depend on the attitudes of the participants themselves what degree of success will be achieved. It is not the structure, but the way in which the structure is used that will be decisive to peace and prosperity in Southern Africa.

On behalf of this side of the House, I wish to associate myself with the gratitude and appreciation expressed by the hon the Minister to all the members of the co-ordinating council. Allow me, too, to express my gratitude and appreciation to the chairman of the council, as well as to Dr J E du Plessis and his team of top officials. I should also like to address a word of congratulations to Dr Du Plessis on his promotion as member of the Commission for Administration.

This statutory amendment arises out of the investigations of two of the committees of investigation of the co-ordinating council viz, firstly, the delimitation of geographic areas of jurisdiction of local authorities and secondly, the determination of criteria for viable local authorities.

The purpose of the Bill under discussion is to grant the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning the power to lay down criteria for determining, firstly, the viability, and secondly, the potential degree of autonomy of communities at the local government level. It is of the utmost importance to note that the Minister is compelled by the proposed statutory amendments to consult with the co-ordinating council even before the directives are issued. The Government is in earnest about making local authorities viable wherever possible, and subject to effective financial measures being taken, and to introduce local authority institutions for different population groups.

Furthermore, it is a declared standpoint of the Government that the rights and privileges of every section of the population should be maintained and extended, at the local government level as well. Out of this arises the Government’s basic guideline of the maximum devolution of power and the decentralization of administration to independent local authorities so that individual and group interests of minority groups in our multinational society can be protected.

The terms of reference of the committee under the chairmanship of the Administrator of the Transvaal was that there should be an investigation into determining criteria for viable local authorities which could serve as a basis for decision-making about, firstly, the establishment of new local authorities and, secondly, the grading of local authorities into different categories for the purposes of exercising authority. In order to comply with the Government’s standpoint that autonomous, viable local authorities should be introduced for the various population groups, the concept “viable” is of central importance. For example—the hon the Minister referred to this briefly as well—the number of people in a community is not a criterion for viability, but the quality of the leadership corps could be an important criterion. In addition, basic services have to comply with a minimum standard. I am thinking of water, electricity, sewerage, roads and health services. Another aspect is that trained personnel is another prerequisite for viability. Finally, the local authority must also have a minimum number of sources of revenue.

The aspects I have mentioned in regard to the concept “viable”, are not meant to be a complete list. What is important, however, is that norms which are laid down should be applicable to everyone—to White, Coloured, as well as Indian local authorities. The proposed statutory amendments in fact aim at proving that the Government intends, and is in earnest about, establishing viable local authorities.

Another fact is that all local authorities have not reached the same level of development. Different categories therefore have to be created so that the devolution of power can take place according to the ability of each local authority. I hope that the classification of local authorities by the United Municipal Executive—the hon the Minister referred to that in the previous legislation—which are grouped together in 15 groups, inter alia, to determine the salaries of town clerks, will also be taken into account in any further proposed classification which could possibly arise out of this legislation.

The committee which investigated the delimitation of gegraphic areas of jurisdiction of local authorities, under the chairmanship of Mr Olaus van Zyl, the president of the TMA, was also instructed to investigate, firstly, the procedures which should be followed in the delimitation of such areas; secondly, the criteria which should be taken into account in the decision-making on delimination; thirdly, the position of areas that do not form part of a group, for example, trading and industrial areas. Fourthly, there is the possible inclusion of peri-urban and rural areas which require services similar to those usually provided by a local authority; and finally, the redelimitation of areas of jurisdiction and the desirability of establishing a suitable institution to give continuous attention to this.

When the Administrator acts in terms of section 17A(1) to determine or alter the area of jurisdiction of a local authority, similarly, the co-ordinating council will act on a directive of the Minister after considering the factors already mentioned. I agree with the hon the Minister, and I am convinced that the provisions of this Bill will establish procedures that will ensure that vital local authorities will be established, and on behalf of this side of the House I take pleasure in supporting this amending Bill.

Mr Speaker, with all respect to the hon member for Newcastle, I think he has missed an essential feature of the entire argument, philosophy and ideology of this party and its approach. I want to state immediately that nobody in these benches is opposed to the maximum devolution of power to local authorities. Nobody is opposed to the necessity for local authorities to be financially viable. Nobody is opposed to the training of staff necessary to run local authorities either. However, dealing with the co-ordinating council, the hon member for Newcastle quoted me as saying that we are opposed to building the vertical walls and structures of apartheid. That is precisely the point. If we were devolving power and giving training and viability to local authorities, there could be no objection. However, the trilogy of Bills that has been referred to makes provision for the devolution of power to a certain extent within the vertical structures of apartheid so that now a White or Coloured or Indian local authority will be retained. It is within that structure that we differ philosophically.

We know that local government is the first tier of government, and that it has the important function of looking after local authorities and people. Local government is intimate government because one is cheek by jowl with the people one is administering all the time. In terms of the present Constitution that local authority is administered as a specific function of a provincial administration. The trilogy of Bills to which I have referred and the changes that are taking place provide for a new structure of first and second tier government in South Africa. I want to say immediately in support of my colleague the hon member for Sea Point that his points were well taken. Whilst I admit that the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and planning has consulted a large number of people and that he has had discussions with the co-ordinating council which is representative of various organizations, this Bill has such far-reaching effects upon the entire structure of everyone involved in local government that it is my opinion that these Bills should have been published for information and comment, as is often done. All the Opposition parties, the public at large and everyone who is or is to be involved in local government would then have had the opportunity to study the legislation and to comment upon it. That is what we would have liked to see.

In the second instance, because of the late stage of the session, there has been very little time to study this matter in detail, and I wonder whether in view of the changes that are to take place in terms of the new constitution, we should not have referred this legislation to a standing committee at a later stage on which all three of the Houses would have been represented. Only this morning the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs gave notice of a motion to refer the Prohibition of Political Interference Act to the Select Committee on the Constitution with a view to the successful functioning of the new constitutional dispensation. I think it would have been far more advisable to have approached all three Houses at a later stage with this legislation and explained the ramifications of it to them because it is, after all, going to effect Coloured, Indian and White controlled local authorities.

There has been a series of Bills in this House over the past two years, particularly since the Constitution was changed in South Africa. We have just dealt with a Bill that deals with the remuneration of town clerks and we are now dealing with a Bill that deals with the co-ordinating council. We still have to deal with the Regional Services Councils Bill. What is happening here, as I see it, is that little parts of the jigsaw are being fitted together. There is a little bit over there and a little bit over here. Therefore I ask the hon the Minister: When are we going to get the full picture? When are these little parts of the jigsaw going to come together so that we in this Parliament and South Africa will know exactly what the Government has in mind and what we are trying to achieve? Are we now trying to achieve the abolition of provincial administrations as we have known them since 1910? Is that the objective, because that seems to be the direction in which we are heading. With every inroad that is being made and as the powers of the provincial councils are being whittled away, so their powers and functions are diminishing. Slowly their powers are being taken away. Is the final picture then the total disappearance of provincial councils? As the hon Minister is now gaining control over regional areas, the salaries of town clerks and the establishment or disestablishment of local authorities, is there now going to be a Minister of Local Government?

But you supported the Bill that deals with the salaries of town clerks.

I am just using that as an example to illustrate my point.

But you are arguing that I am misusing power.

I am using this argument as an example to illustrate my point that the hon the Minister is now going to control those various functions.

But you supported it.

I am not saying whether I am for or against it at this moment. I am asking the hon the Minister to please give us the total picture. He must put these little parts of the jigsaw together. He must tell us: This is what we propose, these are the steps that we intend taking, this is what is going to happen to provincial administrations, and this is what is going to happen to local government. Then we shall know exactly what is happening.

We appreciate the role of the co-ordinating council and we also appreciate the work that they have done so far, but when it boils down to a question of policy—and the Government can have policies of a certain kind in terms of their ideology—it is the local authorities that will have to carry out those policies in the end. I believe that very often there are going to be clashes because local authorities will be administering those authorities in a way which is in conflict with the policies of the central Government. There can, for example, be areas in the North Eastern Transvaal that are controlled by the CP and which do not go along with NP policy and there can be central areas in the cities that are controlled by the PFP which also do not go along with the ideologies of the NP.

We will not allow them to control us.

What I am asking now is whether those local authorities will be able to act within the framework of their own policies or will they now under the new structure of local government be under control of this hon Minister? In other words, will they be under the control of a Minister of Local Government established by Parliament? That is what I am getting at in order to get the total picture to see where we are.

As the situation exists in South Africa today, the four provinces differ greatly in many respects in regard to administration. There are different franchise eligibilities in the various provinces as to who can vote for local government and who cannot. There are different systems of management, consultative committees, executive committees and structures, and we have respected those differences. What the hon the Minister is doing now is removing those differences so that there will be some type of uniformity of control, of government, of administration and of local franchise within the four provinces of South Africa, which will then also cover the various local authorities that will be controlled by the separate groups.

I want to make this point in passing. It is all very well giving viability to Coloured and Indian local authorities but how on earth can one escape from giving that same type of control to Black local authorities? Let me concede immediately that it is not under the direct control of this hon Minister, but somewhere within the Cabinet, through the Cabinet Committee—and I do not know what their recommendations are—surely there must be some sort of co-ordination about how the Black local authorities are going to fit into the entire structure of local authorities, of regional areas, of regional services etc. I shall illustrate this point in a moment.

The history of Coloured local authorites, particularly in the Transvaal as I know it, shows that they were initially established as consultative committees so that they could learn the first steps of local government. They then matured and the management committee system was introduced. From the system of management committees they moved to local government status, but they have not actually achieved that final step. In this connection one can refer to Lenasia which has a management committee system. They cannot be viable because they do not have the financial resources to be viable, and therefore they are dependent upon the mother local authority. We have to bear that type of development in mind. If an area like Lenasia is to become an independent local authority, it must have the viability which will enable it to exist on its own and to run the affairs of its people on its own.

One can also look at this on a regional basis. The hon the Minister says through the regional councils and other bodies there will be advantages which will flow from regional services, and of course, we go along with that. The capital employed in providing services like abattoirs, sewerage, recreational facilities, places of entertainment, sport complexes and so forth and even burial places would be enormous. A single local authority cannot generate that type of capital, but the capital can be generated if one incurs one’s capital expenditure to provide those services on a regional basis.

Let us look at the Witwatersrand and at two regional services which are provided there. Let us first of all take water as an example.

Where is that in this Bill?

I shall tell the hon the Minister exactly where it is in the Bill. The Bill provides for two areas to be joined together and it also provides for areas to be transferred from one local authority to another, and this is exactly that I am talking about. When two areas are joined together, this is what must be borne in mind: It is unthinkable if the Rand Water Board supplies the whole of the Witwatersrand with water or if Escom supplies the whole Witwatersrand with electricity, that one could leave out Soweto, where there are nearly 1,5 million people.

In all fairness to you, we shall discuss the relevant Bill in a moment.

Yes, but that is not the point. The point is that in terms of the bill a new section 17A is inserted which provides:

This is exactly what I am talking about. I am telling the hon the Minister how areas cannot be joined together. I therefore say if the hon the Minister thinks that he can establish regional areas without including an area like soweto in the area of the Witwatersrand, it will not be possible. That is my argument on this point.

I should like to ask the hon the Minister how this Bill is going to work. I have just mentioned some of the aspects with which we have to deal. One of the aims of the Bill is to have powers conferred upon the Administrator to establish or dissolve any local authority, to determine the areas of jurisdiction and to classify local authorities according to the directives of the Minister.

Let us take the Johannesburg area of which I have a little knowledge. There is an area like Lenasia where the Indian folks live and which falls under the Johannesburg city council. For the Coloureds there are the areas Protea, Bosmond and Riverlea. All those areas fall into the category of areas which are not viable. They fall under the city council of Johannesburg and they are administered financially by that city council. Is it the intention of the hon the Minister, when it comes to the creation of new boundaries in terms of the proposed section 17A, to take Lenasia, Riverlea and Bosmond out of Johannesburg and to make them separate local authorities on their own? The hon the Minister should bear in mind the viability of such a move.

All the proposed section provides is that those powers will be exercised by the Administrators in accordance with directives.

That is why I am asking the hon the Minister why he wants these powers. I want to know what he is going to do with these powers. I should like the hon the Minister to tell us how he is going to use these powers. I should like to know what those criteria are going to be.

I realize that the Bill is aimed at directives, and other hon members have also referred to this. I understand that the hon the Minister is prepared to accept the amendment of the hon member for Sea Point which deals with the criteria, standards and norms. I have here Local Government Ordinance No 17 of 1939 which gives the Administrator of Transvaal certain powers in respect of municipalities. Subject to the provisions of the ordinance the Minister may declare any town or village to be a municipality under the jurisdiction of a town council constituted. He can assign a name to it and describe the boundaries of it. He can also alter or adjust the boundaries from time to time. When the Administrator does this, he has to do so in the following way: In terms of the provisions of the Commission of Inquiry Ordinance of 1960, he must appoint a commission consisting of one or more members to inquire into the powers conferred on him and report on the advisability of the Administrator. We had an example when Sandton wanted to be incorporated into Johannesburg. We then had a commission of inquiry under Mr Van der Spuy, which took evidence to decide whether Sandton should be incorporated or not. In other words, this is a very important matter. What is going to be the point of such a commission of inquiry appointed by the Administrator going into the question of boundaries if they are going to be subject to a directive of the Minister? This type of commission will be rendered absolutely useless, because this legislation takes away their powers completely. What is a commission going to do if in terms of the Minister’s directive area A and area B are to be amalgamated or when area C is to be excised from area A? What the hon the Minister is very clearly doing, is making direct inroad into the control of the Administrator of a province. He has watered down the power of an Administrator. Quite frankly the next step is for him to declare himself the Minister of Local Government, to take over the work of provincial councils and to run local authorities. We must get a clear picture of this.

Taking all these arguments into consideration, with regard to lack of proper consultation, with regard to the lack of any authority given to a standing committee of the new Parliament, with regard to the lack of information regarding Black local authorities and with regard to the lack of putting the whole jigsaw together by telling us where we stand, we have no option but to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr Speaker, it is very clear to me that the hon member for Hillbrow does not really understand what this Bill is about. I shall try to explain to him what it is all about in a moment.

However, I should first like to comment on a point about which all three Opposition parties complained, viz the short time available for studying this legislation. To a certain extent, one could agree with the Opposition parties that it is a pity that there is so little time available to devote to such important legislation. However, one must see what is happening now in the context of the times. For example, we would have been able to spend much more time on the Constitution last year. In fact, if we had done it as one would have liked to have done it, and like the Opposition parties wanted us to do it, we would still have been considering the Constitution of 1983. That is the case as regards matters of this nature as well, since one could practically discuss them in perpetuity. As long as one keeps considering, however, nothing happens. We are living in a time in which rapid change is taking place in South Africa and we cannot wait until tomorrow, the next day, or until next year before we can do things. This legislation is a sign of this. The time is ripe now, because there are many people who are becoming involved in the democratic process. The time is ripe for these things to be put in operation. That is why we must get stuck in and do things now, even if it is at a rapid pace and even if this rapid pace means that less consultation takes place. Just to summarise that point, I want to say that we would indeed like to spend more time on this. We would like to leave these matters for people to comment on and consider for two years. However, we do not have that amount of time. We cannot stand still on one spot. We cannot work on one problem for ever. We have other problems to tackle and we need time for that as well.

I now come to the hon member for Hillbrow. I should like to assure him that the directives the Minister envisages issuing will not be so specific that they will say that Lenasia should become an own local authority, for example. All these directives have to do with is laying down general criteria that have to be taken into account when the functions of the creation, constitution, separation or abolition of local authorities are performed. They are just to say which standards have to be complied with.

Give us an example.

I shall point out a specific kind of example to the hon member. In South Africa we have the South Africa Bureau of Standards, the SABS. That institution draws up specifications for any kind of item that has to be manufactured. When a factory begins manufacturing items of that nature, it has to comply with the specifications of the SABS. But that does not mean that the SABS owns that factory. That is all we are dealing with here. We are empowering the Minister to lay down specifications which the committee of which the hon member for Hillbrow spoke, the committee that has to investigate the matter, has to bear in mind. Those directives are the criteria with which to assess what it is dealing with.

Give us an example of the criteria.

For example, in the Constitution we have criteria that are used by the commission which delimits constituencies. That is something that has been in the Constitution for years. A delimitation commission is not simply let loose on the country. There are specific, prescribed criteria which that delimitation commission has to bear in mind and use as guidelines when they delimit constituencies. What is going to be established here, is something similar. When the Administrator appoints a commission to investigate a particular local authority matter, that commission will do its work on the basis of these guidelines. For example, the guidelines will say that before a local authority can be created, it has to have certain kinds of financial sources. This is concerned with general guidelines of that nature. There are a number of criteria that can be laid down. When such a commission eventually undertakes its investigation, it can determine whether a particular area complies with those criteria and can therefore be turned into a local authority. The commission can also determine what kind of local authority it can be turned into.

The hon member for Hillbrow, as well as the hon member for Umbilo, spoke about the uniformity which is being introduced by this. It is true that greater uniformity will probably be brought about, but this is also important. It is not wrong to have diversity as well, but diversity can assume such tremendous proportions that it could create complete confusion and chaos in due course. Whilst the possibility of diversity is therefore being retained, it is simply being placed within a particular spectrum by these criteria. We must know that today a large number of people are on the brink of sharing in local government—the sooner, the better. These are two groups of people who have not shared fully in local government before. It could therefore be predicted that there will be a tremendous expansion in the extent of local government. It is therefore essential to establish the standards so that when those local authorities are established they will at least comply with those minimum standards so that we can know that the authorities being created will work.

As other hon members remarked as well, local authorities are some of the most important facets of the whole government structure. If things go wrong at that level, it will mean tremendous problems in all kinds of other spheres in the country.

One again I wish to emphasize that the fact that the Minister will be able to lay down criteria and guidelines by way of directives does not mean that the Minister will in fact be in control of that whole process. The Minister is merely able to draw certain outlines within which that process has to take place.

I wish to associate myself with the reference of the hon member for Newcastle to the CP. He referred to the fact—and the CP eagerly confirmed it—that they intend fighting every measure that will bring about greater integration. What is happening now is that they are looking for something to fight, and consequently, they are fighting every measure that comes before this House. Of course, they cannot simply fight it; they first have to discover integration in it. They analyse every measure to see whether they cannot read greater integration in it. Whether or not that is the case, as long as they can find something to latch on to, they fight it to the death on the basis of the fact that it is bringing about greater integration. Where greater integration is built into this measure, remains a mystery to me.

The hon member for Pietersburg made a great fuss about the fact that the co-ordinating council could possibly even consist of a majority of people of colour. So what? It is an advisory council and has no decision-making powers whatsoever.

For how long?

The Minister need only consult that council. He need not do anything with the advice he obtains from them. They have no decision-making function whatsoever. The hon member for Jeppe wants to know for how long this will be the case. How will we know when the sky is going to fall on our heads? How will we know that?

Mr Speaker, I had not believed it possible that there could be such differing interpretations of this legislation in the official languages of our country as I heard expressed this afternoon. At certain points I thought that totally different subjects were being discussed.

†I should like to start by referring to the remarks made by the hon member for Sea Point. I want to put it to him that the truth is never more true because it is put harshly. It is either true or not true. I resent the spirit in which he addressed himself to the Bill under discussion. I believe his personal remarks were unwarranted, unjustified and not befitting him.

I should further like to suggest that when the hon member participates in discussions of this nature, he must firstly assess the facts if he is to be taken seriously. He has a record of telephone calls to other people before he adopts a point of view. [Interjections.]

Firstly, let us deal with the question of the time involved. The accusation has been made that we are bulldozing legislation through to create a new dispensation. [Interjections.] I will concede immediately that the hon member who made that interjection needs more time than other hon members, but I am not responsible for that. I was not there when brains were allocated to that hon member. [Interjections.]

The Theron Commission that investigated the position of the Coloured people from 1973 to 1976 in fact allocated a whole chapter in its report to the question of local Government. The United Municipal Executive, the co-ordinating body for local Government in this country, has been considering this whole issue since 1979, in other words, for the past five years. In 1980 evidence was heard on local Government by the then Schlebusch Commission. In 1982 the President ’s Council also reported on this issue. In other words, over a period of more than five years various bodies and commissions investigated the issue of the evolution of local government systems in this country and the participation of various groups in those systems. Therefore, to argue that I am bulldozing through legislation on this issue is factually not the truth.

The hon member went further and said that the functions and powers of local government should be determined in the Constitution of the country. If the hon member for Sea Point had taken the least trouble he would have found that the present Constitution does not do what he suggests the position is. He obviously had not referred to the Constitution before he prepared himself to discuss this Bill. What are the facts? In terms of section 80 of the Constitution of 1961 the position is being dealt with in relation to the powers given to provincial administrations. In section 84 of the Constitution provincial councils are given the powers to establish local authorities without determining, as the hon member suggested, what the functions, powers and authorities of those local authorities should be in terms of that provision. Therefore, to argue that provision is being made in the present Constitution that the powers, functions and authorities of local authorities are determined in terms of the Constitution, and that that provision should be retained, is simply not in accordance with the facts. Let me take it even further. The Constitution Act of 1983 does not change the situation in this regard at all. I should therefore like to suggest that when the hon member comes along and discusses these things, he should stick to the facts, although it might be difficult.

He knows these two Constitutions as well as you and I do.

Then he should not use that argument. The hon member made the further point that I had had discussions behind closed doors. Does the hon member not discuss policy matters on a confidential basis within his own party? Or does the public have access to those discussions?

The hon member also said that I did not discuss the Bill with all the political parties. Naturally I did not. Is it, however, suggested that all Bills introduced in the House must first be discussed with all political parties? If so, whose view must prevail in the final analysis?

The hon member said that he concedes that there was some consultation with Coloured and Indian leaders because these were ten of them on the co-ordinating council, but that that was the total sum of the consultation that had taken place. However, he asked whether it should not have been 4:2:1.

That is nonsense.

Those were his words. I am not talking nonsense.

I said that was the representation on the co-ordinating council.

That is correct. The hon member accepts that there are 10 members of the Coloured and Indian communities on the co-ordinating council. There is therefore only one inference to be drawn, and that is that those were the only people to be consulted in this process, because the hon member asked whether it should not have been 4:2:1, or words to that effect. Again, what are the facts? I have indicated that the co-ordinating council referred the subject matter contained in this Bill and other Bills to its sub-committees. I went further, and said that not only members of the co-ordinating council but also other experts in this field served on those sub-committees. I pointed out that 120 people had served on those committees and of the 120, 36 were Coloureds and Indians. Furthermore, the people who served on the various sub-committees were either councillors or officials of local authorities. They would therefore have been exactly the same people who would have been able to give evidence with some knowledge before a select committee.

I submit therefore that the impression created by the hon member for Sea Point in terms of consultation with a limited number of people of other groups, is not in accordance with the facts. I also want to say further that the process of consultation in this regard and the investigation of this issue continued over a long period. I want to say—and this is not my view; it is confirmed by everybody involved—that there has never been more consultation among interested parties on legislation affecting their lives than there has been in terms of the new constitutional dispensation.

Let me deal now with the question of local autonomy, and in this regard I want to refer to the provisions of the present Constitution. What does it say in this particular regard? Dealing with the powers of provincial councils and also the power to make laws in relation to local authorities, section 84(1) of the Constitution—I regret I have only the Afrikaans version with me—provides:

”Therefore the autonomy that is being created in the existing Constitution is surely not an absolute autonomy, and as far as I recall these provisions were taken over from the 1909 Act. Therefore the powers of provinces were subject to parliamentary laws and as far as final promulgation was concerned they were also subject to the executive authority of the country. To argue at this point that by means of this legislation I am introducing a new principle is surely not in accord with the facts, and that also applies to this instance. I shall be coming to the hon member for Pietersburg in a moment but at this stage I want to say that I find it remarkable that is now being expected that before we introduce legislation in this House we have to inform the caucuses of opposing political parties in this regard, as if we had to implement the legislation of Opposition parties. [Interjections.] I make no apology for incorporating neither the PFP’s nor the CP s policy in this legislation. I have no approval for doing so, but I do have approval for implementing the policy of the NP, and I intend to do so. [Interjections.]

That is why you lose elections.

I now want to come back to the hon member for Sea Point, whose party puts itself forward from time to time as the champions of the rights of other people. The fact was that there was no municipal franchise for Coloured people in the Transvaal or in the Free State.

Is that how you seek consensus?

Sir, I want to say to the hon member for Jeppe that I do not seek consensus with him. I am choosy, and I know whose company I want to be in. [Interjections.] I say that there was no franchise for them. In terms of one of the laws we are passing, the franchise at local authority level is being made the same for all people, something which was not possible in spite of efforts of the United Municipal Executive. Instead of recognition being accorded the efforts of the people who tried to achieve this, non-specific accusations are made which do not coincide with the facts.

I now come to the specific legislation we are considering. What is happening here? The purpose of the legislation is that we should at least be able to establish a set of guidelines to be implemented by the controlling authorities, viz the provinces, for the establishment of local authorities, but this is being seized on as an argument to say that we are infringing upon the essence of the authority of the provincial system. Surely that is untrue. In any event, every administrator and every executive committee member …

Not the Bill.

But I have not finished speaking yet … agrees with the principle embodied in the Bill. I do not want to quarrel with the hon member for Umbilo at this point. I am going to accept his amendment, if that will make him happy, because it is clearer. However, the fact is—and I do not say this in a spirit of reproach—that his party’s MEC, too, accepted the principle of this. What kind of remarkable situation do we have here …

I have nothing against the principle; it is the Bill that I am talking about.

I am talking about the other sections of the Act, the ones you are arguing against. I do not suggest for one moment, and I say this in all fairness, that we are all bound by what other people, bodies and committees do. I do not argue in that way. However, when people in executive capacity accept certain principles, surely the people that deal with that must be entitled to act on that?

Let me now deal with the question of the resolutions taken at the congress of the local bodies for Coloureds and Indians. I do not want to discuss in detail what they did and what they did not do, and I would have preferred to avoid a discussion here about the differences that those people have amongst themselves as well. According to the best in formation that I have at my disposal, the following is the position of the facts. This indicates quite clearly that there was no blank rejection of the principles contained in the Bills. Therefore, for the record and in all fairness to the people who participated at the congress, I should like to tell hon members what, according to the facts that I have at my disposal, happened there.

Tell us what the chairman did. Tell us what Mr Curry did.

Why did the hon member not allow Mr Curry to do it?

I did.

No, he read from a newspaper report. He read from a report which contained only a part and not the full statement.

*It was decided, with reference to the Regional Services Councils Bill, that the Bill in its present form is not acceptable. Now we must note why not. The principle of the introduction of regional services councils is supported. The congress expressed its reservations about the fact that a local authority was given the choice of whether to participate in the activities. If I understand this correctly it means that they wanted it to be compulsory participation and not enabling legislation. The hon member does not say that and he does not try to establish that. He merely takes a newspaper report and bases his argument on that.

Secondly, as far as the Local Bodies Franchise Bill is concerned, all he says is that the franchise qualification, which is linked to 18 year olds on the parliamentary voters’ rolls, hampers the achievement of the ideal of direct representatives. That was the basis as far as that principle was concerned. Thirdly, as far as the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Amendment Bill is concerned, the one we are discussing now, the congress supports the principle incorporated in the Bill but is not in favour of an amendment at this stage. Take note why this is so. Because the measures in terms of section 17 of the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Act have not yet been announced.

What is that specific section about? It relates to interim measures to make regulations so that local authorities that do not wish to participate may be compelled by the Administrator to establish some form of co operation among local authorities. The hon member for Sea Point must take cognizance of the facts. One of the city councils that re fused to co-operate with the representatives of the local government bodies for Brown and Asian people is one controlled by the PFP. [Interjections.]

What city council is controlled by the PFP? [Interjections.]

That congress also adopted a resolution in terms of which they request that the Bill be referred to a select committee. There is also this interesting point, and I quote from what I have before me:

This is very important:

Therefore the congress asks that management committees should have the final right of deciding what happens within their areas. Does this, as I have presented it to this House, look like total rejection of the principle? I am now not referring to the form of the legislation and the procedures involved.

I now come to the hon member for Pietersburg. With reference to the conduct of the hon member in the debate when the principal Act that is now being amended was being discussed here, one would have expected him at least to have learnt to stick to the truth, but apparently he has still not learnt that. [Interjections.] He states that in terms of this legislation the power to establish local authorities is being taken away from the provinces, but that is not true, because the power of Administrators to establish local authorities or determine their boundaries is not being withdrawn in any way. Nothing of that kind is being done in this Bill. Why does the hon member for Pietersburg do that? I can think of only one reason, viz that this is merely a wilful and calculated step on his part to enable him to go out and say in public that he is the guardian of the powers of the Administrators. There can be no other explanation for his trifling so recklessly with the truth.

By whom will the directives be issued?

The directives concern the criteria to be implemented when he establishes local authorities, and that has nothing to do with his powers relating to the establishment itself. The only aspects at issue here are the criteria, the guidelines, the standards to be applied in the establishment of local authorities. I want to say here and now that the aim in this regard is simply that the standards and norms should be the same for all local authorities for all population groups, and that there should not be a different standard for different groups. The criteria and standards must be determined by the level of development of the relevant system of local government and not by the participating group. I again want to ask whether we have not identified a need for such criteria. Of course. The hon member for Pietersburg is doing the same as he did last time. I charge him with quoting the oldest and first standpoint adopted by the TMA and with having neglected to say that the TMA supported the Promotion of Local Government Affairs Act, as also the constitution of the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs. He also omitted to say that the MPC for Waterberg endorsed that standpoint. I want to say to him that he must put a stop to this kind of conduct. He told us that he had telephoned Mr Ferreira, but then he should only have accepted Mr Ferreira’s advice, too, and not merely part of the facts in regard to the standpoint of the TMA.

Did you listen in to his discussion?

He said so himself. Like any other hon member, the hon member for Pietersburg is entitled to his standpoint, but at the same time he has a responsibility to this House. If he wants to quote what a specific body is supposed to have said, he must mention the authority he quoted.

He does not tell untruths in this House as the Prime Minister does.

The hon member is the last person to talk about credibility. A higher authority has passed judgment on that hon member’s credibility.

Get lost (“hok toe”), man!

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Mr Speaker ruled that personal remarks about members may not be made, and the hon Whip has now done so once again by repeatedly saying to me “hok toe”, and implying thereby that I am a dog. I request your protection, Mr Speaker.

Order! What did the hon member mean by addressing the words “hok toe” to the hon member?

Mr Speaker, I implied that he was acting like a little boy.

Order! The hon the Minister may proceed.

The hon member for Pietersburg does not only have the right to his standpoint; he also has the right to change that standpoint if he wishes. However, if he does so, he must not attack other people. He also said something else that was untrue. He said that there would be three Parliaments, but that the White Parliament would be sovereign.

The Minister of Internal Affairs said that.

Go and look at the Bill that was published. He says that the most shameful thing of all is that there are now going to be three Houses under one roof.

I said two.

Very well, two Houses under the same roof. What is the implication of that? In terms of their perception White and Brown cannot be under the same roof. I want to ask the hon member whether he has ever asked the Coloured people what their standpoint is in this regard.

Yes, some of them.

And what do they say?

They say they do not want to be under the same roof as you.

I want to say to the hon member for Langlaagte that if I had been a Coloured, I should have had serious reservations about what those hon members say. If the hon member for Pietersburg thinks it is a joke, then let him laugh. However, I want to ask him please to refrain from referring to other inhabitants of our country in these terms. He is making a caricature of the people to which he belongs and he is humiliating his own people by the implication that temperamentally they agree with him. I want to ask him whether the Council of Cabinets would not have sat under the same roof. [Interjections.] They would have. Then, however, that was in order, but now people may not meet under the same roof. Every day there are people of colour under the same roof as that hon member, in his own home. In the work situation people in this country are under the same roof every day. Do you know what, Sir? There are people of colour in this Parliament who perform modest tasks to enable us to perform our work. They are under the same roof. After all, the hon member’s objection is that people are now going to be under the same roof. [Interjections.] Apparently, they are only good enough to do the dirty work for other people, but when they may participate in decisions affecting their lives, they are no longer good enough.

There are Black people under the same roof every day as well. What price your argument now? [Interjections.]

Now he is silent.

Order!

I am not silent.

Tell us about the Blacks now. Why are they not being brought under the same roof as well?

Order!

Do you know, Sir, this is terribly interesting: The hon member for Jeppe thinks that everyone’s thinking is as topsy turvy as his. It is not a question of whether we are under the same roof. It is a matter of the institutions that people participate in in order to exercise their rights.

Now you are not being logical.

My goodness, now I am not being logical! Surely we were discussing Parliament. [Interjections.]

I want to go a little further. I want to say to the hon member for Pietersburg that I shall take cognizance of the arguments he advances. [Interjections.]

We cannot hear you. The slave chorus is making such a noise over there.

Order! The hon member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir. I just wish to point out to you, Sir, that we cannot hear the hon the Minister, because there is such a noise being made over there.

Order! The hon member must be fair. All the hon members in this House are joining in wholeheartedly in the making of interjections, not just the members in a certain part of this House. Therefore I cannot permit an hon member to refer to part of this House as “the slave chorus”.

Sir, at this stage we cannot hear the hon the Minister. The hon member for Vryheid and others are making such a noise that we cannot hear him. I merely say that we cannot hear the hon the Minister. That is all. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I want to ask whether the CP do not also have earphones that they can put in their ears.

Order! The hon the Minister may proceed.

[Inaudible.]

Order! The hon member for Langlaagte must contain himself! The Chair has just called for order and the first person to make another interjection was the hon member for Langlaagte.

Sir, the hon member for Kimberley South said that we should use the earphones, and I merely said that we were not deaf.

Order! The hon member for Brakpan has just complained because other hon members are making such a noise. The Chair thereupon called for order, and the first to make another interjection immediately after that was the hon member for Langlaagte. I now call upon hon members for the last time to give the hon the Minister an opportunity to make his speech.

I want to say that I shall take cognizance of the hon member for Pietersburg, as I would of any hon member, if he sticks to the facts. Until then, however, I shall have serious reservations about reacting to him.

†I come to the hon member for Umbilo. I have indicated that the intention is to have general guidelines to be applied by the Administrator in the determination of the establishment of local authorities and their boundaries. His amendment puts the position beyond doubt, and therefore I am quite prepared to accept it in the same spirit in which, as I have indicated, I am prepared to accept the amendment of the hon member for Sea Point to the other Bill.

In conclusion, I should just like to thank the hon members for Johannesburg West, Welkom, Newcastle and Helderkruin for their positive contributions.

Mr Speaker, I move:

As hon members know, the constitutional system of the Republic of South Africa is at present in a transitional stage, and local authorities are deeply affected by these constitutional changes. The Government has repeatedly made it clear that local government institutions for the respective groups will have to enjoy equal legal status within the various categories of local authorities—such as health committees, village councils, town councils and city councils. A Coloured town council and a White town council must have the same legal status with regard to their functions and powers, therefore. Consequently it is desirable that municipal franchise qualifications should in principle be the same for all.

Just as on the central level, the three Houses of Parliament will have their own voters’ rolls, but uniform voting qualifications, there will now be separate voters’ rolls for the separate local authorities on the local level as well, but with uniform voting qualifications for all the groups on a country-wide basis. In this connection, there are undoubtedly strong feelings and convictions in the various provinces concerning the merits of their respective franchise systems. With a view to uniformity and consenses in this field, the United Municipal Executive of South Africa and the National Ad Hoc Committee of Management, Consultative and Local Affairs Committees were requested to discuss the matter with their members and, if possible, to submit uniform proposals to the Government.

On 30 January 1984, the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs appointed a committee of inquiry to investigate the matter and to report to the co-ordinating council for the formulation of proposals for statutory amendments in this connection. Mainly because of the existence of different systems in the four provinces, the co-ordinating council was unable to reach unanimity on the proposals in connection with voting qualifications. In this connection it is interesting to note, however, that the co-ordinating council was not divided along party political lines, nor on the basis of White against Coloured, but on an historial basis of provincial preferences for controlling systems. This is a perfectly understandable phenomenon, because anyone naturally tends to give preference to that which is familiar to him and has been tried and tested by him. However, the members of the co-ordinating council understood that if agreement could not be reached, the Government would have to take a final decision. In fact, the consensus which existed on the council was that the Government would have to take the decision because they could not reach consensus.

The report of the committee of inquiry concerned, the recommendations of the President’s Council and the comments of several institutions and interest groups were considered by the Government together with the proposals of the UME. The proposed legislation was drafted on the principle of uniformity among the four provinces, as well as uniformity among White, Coloured and Indian local authorities, and contained several of the proposals made by the above mentioned bodies, the four provinces and the compromise proposals of the UME. Basically, the new legislation is a combination of the best from each of the systems applicable in the four provinces at present. Vested rights are retained in the sense that natural persons are not disfranchised, because the Government believes that political participation and representation on the local level should be as democratic as possible. For this reason, natural persons who already comply with the prescribed requirements should not be disfranchised. This view is supported by the following principles:

1. (a) Effective political participation and representation are considered to be of cardinal importance in the process of democratizing in South Africa.
2. (b) Public accountability and popular consent are regarded as the basis of political representation at the local authority level.
3. (c) The granting of the franchise is regarded as an acceptable democratic practice by means of which frustration and dissatisfaction can be defused.

The provisions of clause 2(l)(a) contain the basic compromise proposals of the UME, namely that registration as parliamentary voter in terms of the Electoral Act, 1979—Act 45 of 1979—and residence within the area of jurisdiction of the local authority concerned form the basis of one leg of franchise qualifications on the local government level.

†Clause 2(l)(b) makes provision for the casting of a vote by natural persons and legal persons who are the owners of rateable immovable property in a constituency to a value not less than the amount fixed by the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning in consultation with the co-ordinating council.

The reason for instituting this measure to determine the minimum rateable value of immovable property for purposes of conferring a vote on property owners, is to enable interested parties of the various population groups who are represented on the co-ordinating council to voice their opinions on the matter. Experience has proved that constructive discussion representing all the different viewpoints of a given matter is one of the most successful ways to arrive at an equitable solution to the type of problem envisaged in this regard.

The underlying reason for conferring a vote on natural persons who are property owners and on fictitious persons owning property, is found in the principle that persons owning property have clearly identifiable interests in a local government functioning in their area. Such persons must pay taxes on the property owned by them and also pay fees in respect of municipal services, and in this regard there is no distinction between natural and fictitious owners of property.

Property owners are consequently more directly interested in and affected by the activities of local authorities and they are often more responsible than those who do not possess immovable property. Furthermore, property ownership increases the quality of political participation and representation after drawing the more responsible voter into the politics and management of a local authority.

Stability in a plural society such as South Africa can be strengthened, I believe, in a meaningful way by property ownership. The overall object in extending the franchise at local level should be the establishment of stable communities. Property ownership is essential for community stability.

‘Clause 3 lays down the requirements that must be complied with before a natural person may cast a vote on behalf of a juristic person. Neutral juristic persons will vote wherever they own immovable property, while juristic persons that can be linked to specific population groups may only vote in elections for local government bodies instituted for such a group. “Juristic person” includes companies, partnerships, deceased estates, trusts and statutory bodies or any other body with juristic personality, but does not include the State, regional services councils or other local authorities.

A matter which the provinces and other bodies that have been consulted feel strongly about, and which I have already mentioned, is the fact that no natural person should be disfranchised as a result of this legislation. Consequently, clause 4 provides that persons who are not entitled to be registered as a voter in terms of clause 2 will not be disqualified from registration.

Clause 5 provides for the short title and the possibility of different dates of commencement for the Act in the various provinces.

This, in brief, is the essence of the Bill. I am convinced that if the House accepts the provisions, it will lead to greater uniformity, clarity and more spontaneous participation in the electoral process at the third tier of government.

Mr Speaker, we have come now to a critically important Bill because it deals with what is probably one of the most emotive and central issues of politics namely the vote in regard to who is going to have the right to influence decisions and the circumstances in which that right will be able to be exercised. It is because this matter is so particularly important that I must reinforce in my comments on this Bill the comments I made earlier in regard to the question of the extent of consultation and negotiation on this matter.

I want to tell the hon the Minister that he must accept the validity of Government and Opposition being pretty blunt with one another on the question of the discharge of re sponsibilities as Cabinet Ministers or members. I hope that with that in mind he will think very carefully, perhaps over the weekend, about the comment that he made in regard to the hon member for Johannesburg North, and consider whether that remark falls within the framework to which I have referred or not.

Manipulator?

I am referring to what the hon the Minister said about the hon member for Johannesburg North. Let me say this about a manipulator. One can be a good or bad manipulator. I want to tell the hon the Minister that if he thinks that what I said was said in a derogatory fashion, I shall certainly apologize because it was not my intention to do so. All I want to say is that if I had a job of manipulation to do I would prefer to have the hon the Minister on my side than on the other side. [Interjections.] I hope he will accept that. I was referring here to an element of skill and I did not say it in a derogatory way. However, as I say, I think the hon the Minister should think very carefully over the weekend about what he said to the hon member for Johannesburg North because I do not think it was worthy of a frontbench Cabinet Minister.

We all have our own styles, but in replying to debates and dealing with issues, the hon the Minister repeatedly takes elements of speeches and develops them into Aunt Sallies in order to knock them down easily again. That is his style. In the end one finds that the hon the Minister is repeating one’s speech in a way that makes it easier for him to knock it down. This is what he does time and time again. One of the red herrings that he dragged across the path in relation to this Bill was when he said something about a “Prog -beheerde stadsraad wat nie met be stuurskomitees wil saamwerk nie”. I do not know to which one the hon the Minister was referring but if he was referring to Cape Town, because there has been tension between himself and Cape Town on this issue for a long time …

No, between the committees and Cape Town.

Yes, but the hon the Minister intervened in this matter as well. He knows that as far as this particular city council is concerned it has time after time requested full franchise for all Coloureds living in the Cape Town municipal area. That is its policy and it does not seek to hide it in any way. It has a dilemma in regard to the management committees because it is its perception that the overwhelming majority of Coloureds living in Cape Town municipal area reject the management committee system. This is their problem. They say that the majority of the people whom these bodies purport to represent reject the system and want nothing to do with it. The council is doing this out of its perception of the majority view of the Coloured people in the municipal area. It is not trying to deprive them of representation.

One must also read the report of the President’s Council which states, inter alia:

This fact is admitted. The report continues:

All I am saying is that Cape Town wants the Coloured citizens of this area to be fully fledged municipal voters in the area, but those Coloured people are not to be given an opportunity of doing that but are only allowed to have some advisory say through a system which it would appear the majority of the Coloured people resent, which the report of the Economic Committee of the President’s Council endorses. That is the situation. It is not one of being uncharitable or disregarding the sensitivity of the Coloured people. In fact, it is quite the reverse. It is because the council is particularly sensitive to the views of the majority of the Coloured people that they have acted the way they have.

Let us look at another Aunt Sally. It is the question whether in fact the rights and functions of local government or of provinces are properly written into our Constitution. We do not believe they are. The hon the Minister says that they were written into the Constitution since 1909.

I said they were not written in.

Yes, local government functions are the responsibilities of the provinces. However, the important point is that because provincial rights were a sensitive issue, from 1909 for the first 10 years they were entrenched. This is what we believe should be done. We believe that when other elements of government are being established, when other tiers of government or autonomous or devolved bodies are being established, their rights should be written into the Constitution. They should not be there subject to the arbitrary decision of the majority or of the Minister of the day. This is a fundamental difference of approach. I want to say that he has actually come a long way from the time when he was a younger politician, when he accepted the sovereignty of the majority within this Parliament, to the Constitution that will become effective on 3 September. He has accepted the principle of entrenchment and he has accepted the principle of the minority veto. All we are saying is that that principle which after 30 years he has accepted should be applied to the definitions of the rights, the functions and the powers of the various elements that constitute our total government. I also believe that he is going to move in that direction.

*At the moment, this is something which is lacking in the constitution. As a result, they have no real power. The only authority they have is the authority which is granted either by the majority of this House from time to time or by the Minister himself.

In terms of the 1961 Act?

In terms of the 1961 Act.

†The 1961 Act is now called the Local Government Act of 1983. It is what is left over of the 1961 Republic of South Africa Constitution Act. It is not even the 1961 Republic of South Africa Constitution Act.

I have never suggested that the hon the Minister must have private discussions with Opposition parties. What we have said is that this matter should be referred to a select committee. The select committee is the place where there is interaction between the political parties. I believe that if the hon the Minister wants to be generous across the floor of the House he will concede that if these Bills went to a select committee they would emerge better pieces of legislation than they are at the moment. In the select committee there would be the interaction of political parties and there would be the opportunity to call for evidence. If the hon the Minister would do this when the new Constitution comes into effect, he would have sitting in that decision-making process the Coloureds and the Indians who are going to be affected by this. This is what I mean by dealing with other political parties. They should all be brought into the formal constitutional processes. We should not have a situation where three days before the parties have to make a decision they see a Bill for the first time. In such a case they have no opportunity to consult around the country with local government, provincial councillors and others who may be directly involved.

Our objection to this Bill is to the timing of it.

*The hon member for Helderkruin said in the previous debate that it was a pity that there was so little time. I think the hon member for Johannesburg West went on in the same vein. The hon the Minister also said, in a sense, that it was a pity that there was so little time. It is not only a question of its duration; it is a question of its timing. It is being introduced in this House seven weeks before the Coloureds and the Indians could have been able to have a say in the drafting of the Bill. That is the position. Under these circumstances we must assume, therefore, that one of the reasons why the Bill is being introduced at this juncture is precisely in order to prevent the Coloureds and the Indians from having a rightful share in the drafting of this Bill.

If that is not manipulation, what is?

Let us call it political manipulation. I want to ask the hon the Minister the following question: First of all, why is this Bill not going to a select committee? When I put a question to the hon the Minister the other day in respect of the Constitution Amendment Bill and I asked him whether we could have an assurance that in future constitutional matters would be referred to a select committee—I made reference to the Black Local Government Bill etc—the hon the Minister replied that he would give me that assurance.

Yes, I said that.

Now we are getting the next three constitutional Bills. These Bills are an integral part of the Constitution of South Africa and the hon the Minister is ignoring what he said three days ago across the floor of the House. Therefore I want to ask: Why is this Bill not going to a select committee? We have not received an answer to our first set of questions and we have not received an answer now.

Secondly, why is the hon the Minister not prepared to wait for two months when there will be a committee composed of Coloureds, Indians and Whites so that the legislation can be considered by those three groups together and a solution arrived at? We have not had any answers to those questions and we have put them time and time again. Why is the Bill not being sent to a select committee and why not to a committee consisting of Coloureds, Indians and Whites?

We find that the very fact that a voting system is to be introduced without the full participation of all the people involved in the decision on that voting system will in itself prejudice the voting system and cause it to be a matter of dispute for a long time to come. In respect of this voting system we believe that in particular the procedure which the hon the Minister is following is destructive of the very object of the legislation. One should not deal with this voting system in such a way.

The second point which emerges from the Bill and from the speech of the hon the Minister is that the legislation imposes a uniformity among the four provinces and among the race groups within the four provinces. I leave out the Blacks who operate on a universal franchise. I am fascinated when I hear all the virtues of having the second vote for property ownership, but I did not hear anybody on the side of the Government, including the hon the Minister, suggest that that was a good thing when we dealt with Black local government a year ago.

But there were no property rights at that stage, and you know that.

There was already a 99 year leasehold operating.

It was not valid when we only had Whites on the voters’ roll. [Interjections.] It was not valid universally throughout South Africa that people should have two votes.

But I have explained …

No, the hon the Minister has not explained why. He said that he wanted uniformity, but what the hon the Minister has not explained is why there must be uniformity. He actually said that they had done this as a compromise because he wanted them to produce uniformity. He cannot say that this is their proposal. This is the Government’s response to the fact that they themselves could not reach consensus on uniformity. Therefore the Government is now going to impose uniformity on them.

If the provinces do not want uniformity on this and the hon the Minister has not produced the reason why there should be uniformity, why in heaven’s name are we forcing it onto them? All we ask of the hon the Minister is that he should give us a reason why there should be uniformity and why suddenly in respect of property ownership there should be a second vote. He is wrong in the sense that in the Cape while an owner and an occupier both have a property vote, they do not have two votes each. One either has a vote as an occupier or one has a vote as an owner, but one does not get two votes to the other person’s one vote. Under this system certain people are going to have one vote and other people are going to have two votes.

Both the owner and the occupier are related to the property itself.

In any case all the registered voters are going to be related to property because they have to be at a registered address in a ward. Therefore they all have to be occupants or tenants or owners of the property. In order to be registered as a voter one has to register at one’s home address. So all of them are going to be registered at their home address, and there will be a relationship between them and the property. All I want from the hon the Minister is for him to explain to us this need for uniformity in respect of the new voting qualifications. He should also tell us what is the substantive argument for introducing it at this stage while it was not introduced when we reviewed Black local government and it has not been called for by the provinces. We do not know why the hon the Minister wants to proceed with it. Why only when the Coloureds and the Indians come onto the voters’ rolls is it a desirable objective? He should explain this to us because we are open to conviction provided that the arguments coming from the hon the Minister are good enough.

Has this matter been canvassed at provincial council level? After all they make the provincial ordinances. Not the Administrators, but the four provincial councils make the provincial ordinances. Have they been recognized in this matter, have they been consulted? Have the municipalities around the country been consulted on something which is going to have a dramatic effect on the composition of the voters’ rolls and the voting pattern in their own municipalities? Has there been this kind of consultation? We suggest there has not. Yes, there has been the work of the co-ordinating council, but that has been confidential. However, as far as the public of South Africa are concerned, Tuesday this week was the first time that they received formal notice of the Government’s intention to change the voting system and to make it uniform throughout the country.

I want to come now to a final point. When one looks at the clauses which relate to the vote and where it may be exercised, on the face of it this Bill appears to give to every Coloured, Indian and White a municipal franchise. If one reads it casually, it appears as if, after this is passed, every Coloured, Indian and White will have municipal franchise, while some of them will have a second vote in a particular ward because they are property owners. However, when one reads those clauses in conjunction with the definition, this is just not so. The position is that Whites will continue to have a franchise wherever they have it now. Where there is an area exclusively set aside for Coloureds or Indians that is converted into a local authority, the Coloureds or Indians will have a vote in that area. However, in the rest, in the mixed areas or in areas where there are only a few Coloureds or Indians resident, they will have no franchise. The Whites therefore continue with a blanket vote, except in exclusive Coloured or Indian local authorities, but the Coloureds and Indians can only vote in the areas allocated exclusively to them.

I want to give the hon the Minister a practical illustration of the kind of problem which arises from what I call the blatant gerrymandering of the borders of local authorities in order to exclude the Coloureds from having any say in what I call the grey or mixed areas. According to the Delimitation Commission for parliamentary constituencies for the House of Representatives there is a constituency called Tafelberg, which is essentially Cape Town and Sea Point. It covers Sea Point, Green Point, Woodstock, Salt River and Observatory. In Tafelberg there are 16 979 registered Coloured people entitled to vote at parliamentary level. However, in terms of this Bill not one of those 16 979 Coloureds will have a vote at municipal level. They will be totally municipally disenfranchised. They will be so disenfranchised because they do not live in an area which is exclusive to Coloureds that has been turned into an exclusive coloured municipality. When one looks at the whole of South Africa, I would say that there are going to be about 200 000 or more Coloured people who qualify for registration as parliamentary voters who are going to be denied the municipal franchise because of this Bill’s and the hon the Minister’s gerrymandering with the political system.

In the course of my earlier address, I said that this set of Bills was more “verkramp” than the proposals of the President’s council because the President’s Council’s recommendations tried to overcome this problem. They said that where there were exclusive Coloured and Indian areas there should be exclusive Coloured and Indian local authorities. Where there were large areas of Indians and Coloureds living separately but not large enough to be a separate local authority, that area could be declared to be a ward of what would otherwise have been a White local authority. They said that where there were isolated pockets of Coloureds living as they do right throughout South African within the boundaries of White local authorities, they should have separate representation on the parent White local authorities. The hon the Minister just ignored that and said: “I do not care about these pockets. I do not care about these small elements. Unless you can fit into a racially exclusive Coloured or Indian area, you are deprived of your franchise.” At a time when we have select committee looking into the Group Areas Act, and when we know that if there is one thing that makes the Coloured and Indian political parties angry it is the Group Areas Act, this Minister introduces into this House a local government franchise which is totally linked and geared to the Group Areas Act. Those people who do not want to go into the exclusive areas are going to be denied the municipal franchise. We believe that this is a recipe for more and more conflict. How can one possibly say to one Coloured parliamentary voter that he can have a vote and to the other parliamentary voter that he cannot?

We believe it would have been possible, even within the frameweork of Government policy, to follow the pattern set by the President’s Council, perhaps with adjustments. We find it monstrous, however, that as a result of this gerrymandering and restricting the voting pattern to exclusively coloured areas in terms of the Group Areas Act, hundreds of thousands of Coloured people should be deprived of their municipal franchise. For these reasons I have no hesitation in moving as an amendment:

I must say that I am extremely surprised by the speech I have heard from the hon member for Sea Point. You know, Sir, for a very long time we in South Africa were not able to find solutions to our problems. For a very long time it seemed as if elements of our politics had come to a standstill. For a very long time it looked as if the problems of our country were beginning to overtake us. Then came, under this administration, a series of steps—the Schlebusch Commission, the President’s Council and other constitutional steps which had the effect of breaking the logjam and then that consensus which had seemed to elusive before, began to be found, also among hon members in the House, between ourselves and hon members of the NRP.

Today we come with a hallowed document, as the hon member for Sea Point said in his opening remarks, which contains franchise proposals which enfranchise everybody—Whites, Coloureds and Asians—and which contain an element of a qualified franchise for an extra vote. Then the hon member for Sea Point comes along and, firstly, is critical of the fact that we are dealing with the franchise in the first place. He asks: “Why rush it? Why deal with it now?” Secondly, he is also critical of the franchise proposals themselves. As regards the principle involved, I want to say that, if that hon member in his political career has stood for anything, it has been a qualified franchise. That is where he stood until comparatively recently and it is still the case in terms of the present philosophy and ideology of his party. [Interjections.] Yes, Sir. The qualified franchise is a discriminatory franchise. For a long time his party wanted to disenfranchise people who did not own property up to a certain level and who did not have education beyond a certain level.

No.

Oh yes. I refer the hon member to the Molteno Report.

Nobody was going to be taken off.

I can tell the hon member that nobody is being taken off now. [Interjections.]

Order!

There is another thing I find extraordinary about the speech of the hon member for Sea Point. When this Parliament had been sitting for a month or so, there was not a great deal going on. You will remember, Sir, how we had long discussions about things we could have dealt with more briefly. At the time we heard constantly from that side of the House that the Government was wasting the House’s time, that the Government was wasting time bickering with the hon members of the CP. Hon members of the official Opposition said it was an utter waste of time and that South Africa was burning, Rome was burning while we were fiddling and not getting on with the job. The hon member for Sea Point used those words in a previous debate. What was the inference? It was that we should bring reforms before Parliament. Those hon members have asked ad nausea “Why are you wasting time?” Now that we come with important reforms, they say: “Oh, it is too fast! You people must not rush things. You must not be in such a hurry. You must wait a few months.” The hon member knows very well that the next session is going to be a procedural session to set up certain structures and procedures. The hon member also knows that in the session following upon that we are going to be dealing with many other things which will have to enjoy priority over measures of this kind.

What things?

These are measures which we cannot wait for for six to nine months. One of the reasons why this administration has succeeded is because it has approached all the problems including constitutional problems, simultaneously. It has dealt with central Government, regional government and local government problems and challenges simultaneously as well as other interfaces of society.

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

I will take a question later.

The fact of the matter is that we could not deal with imperatives such as regional authorities and other local government issues and leave the franchise hanging in the air. The hon member stated that we should discuss the franchise later when the Coloureds and Indians can participate in the discussions. In the first instance we did consult the Coloureds and Indians over the past five years—although the hon member says we did not—and secondly, if we had dealt with all the other matters and left the franchise, the hon member would have been the first to ask about the franchise because everything rests upon the first step which is the franchise itself. We therefore had to deal with it at the same time as when we were dealing with other measures.

The hon member asked why this Bill cannot be referred to a select committee. How much time would a select committee have had to discuss this problem during this session? Should we have waited until the next session? It is easy to say that we should wait until next year, that there is no rush, that things are hunky-dory in South Africa and that we have no people with aspirations. Does the hon member believe that the Coloured and Indian people will sit back while the hon member satisfies himself that all the “t”s have been crossed properly and all the “i”s have been dotted properly? If problems do occur, they will be remedied by way of amendments.

The hon member knows that the Council for the Co-ordination of Local Government Affairs has spent 10 000 man hours discussing this problem. How long would a select committee spend discussing this problem?

Within what parameters did that council operate?

The hon member knows what pressure Parliament has been under. The fact of the matter is that a select committee would have made no special or substantial contribution in respect of this particular Bill.

Mr Speaker, is the hon member prepared to answer two questions?

No, sit down, my friend.

In a measure which we debated earlier, the hon the Minister referred to the Theron Commission, the Schlebusch Commission, the reports of the President’s Council, the select committee and the plethora of consultations he has had with various groups at various levels. These are all formal discussions. For every set of formal discussions, he also had two or three informal discussions. Informal discussions are sometimes just as important as formal discussions. Therefore, the argument that we are moving too fast with these measures is utter nonsense.

The hon member for Sea Point referred, inter alia, to the franchise, Black property ownership and uniformity. He asked why there should be uniformity. There is a high degree of uniformity as far as Coloureds and Asians are concerned in terms of the franchise at the moment. [Interjections.] Where there is no uniformity, it is among the White voters, and this Bill brings about the necessary uniformity.

There is something else I find difficult to understand when I listen to the hon member for Sea Point. I accept that the hon member has not been very critical in real terms. Those of us who know him, realize that he is criticizing us but saying to himself that we are not doing too badly. However, I must answer the allegations he made. He was critical of the question of property ownership qualifying one for an extra vote. [Interjections.]

I have one or two minor problems of a technical nature with the legislation. The intention of the Bill is that every voter who is a South African national should have one vote. The intention is also that a bona fide property owner should have an additional vote. One of the problems I have relates to the definition of “property”. As I read the definition it would exclude a particular form of property ownership which is acknowledged by the State as a legitimate and accepted form of home ownership. Perhaps the hon member for Umbilo would listen to me for a moment because the point I want to raise affects a great many of his voters. It certainly affects many voters along the Durban beach front where there are many blocks of flats which are sold on a share-block basis. Durban was the pioneer in this field, and many home owners there own their homes in terms of the Share Blocks Control Act.

The fact is that in terms of this Bill such a person would be disqualified from having an additional vote. I should like to suggest to the hon the Minister that perhaps he should consider looking at this. The situation is that the Registrar of Financial Institutions has a register of all share-block schemes and he is able thus to determine who the shareholders are in the same way as the deeds office has a register of the title deeds on individual pieces of property. I have an amendment in this regard if it could serve a purpose. I would, however, be interested to hear the comments of the hon the Minister. That is a category of home ownership that I feel could perhaps be included in the Bill.

There is also a category of home ownership that is included in the Bill which I feel should be excluded. I have had discussions with the deeds office in this regard. When it comes to time sharing—not sectional title because a sectional title owner would be included—the owner of such a unit gets issued with a certificate in respect of that time sharing unit, and as far as the deeds office is concerned that certificate is a certificate of ownership. It would seem to me that there is a chance that this provision could be so interpreted that a person who has ownership by way of a certificate in a time sharing scheme would qualify for an additional vote. If that is so—on the advice I have, that is the case—I think it is wrong and that that type of ownership should specifically be excluded. I say this for a very simple reason. There is a case in Natal where some 14 000 different time sharing units are owned within one building. As an hon colleague of mine pointed out one would need four wards to represent that building alone or, on the other hand, they could dominate that local authority totally. It would not be the intention that people who own time sharing units of one week in, say, Umhlanga Rocks, should dominate the local authority. That is a problem that I have with the legislation.

One could argue, although it is not apposite now, if it were to become apposite at some time in the future, that 99 year leasehold was also ownership should it become available to other groups. I want to tell the hon the Minister that there are Coloured townships here in respect of which many of us who are involved in utility companies are very seriously considering introducing that form of ownership because it is so much easier to bring about rapidly and so much less costly for the individual involved. One may perhaps then just look at this whole question of 99 year leasehold to see whether it does or does not qualify as personal ownership. I would have though that it would be a legitimate home ownership because it is renewable.

I want to conclude by asking: What have we been trying to do over the past few years? We have been trying to bring into a state of equilibrium our political, our economic and our moral cultural systems in this country. I want to say that this trilogy of Bills, and this one in particular, makes in my view a major contribution to that whole scenario. It is also true that because we are in a state of transition it is inevitable that the central Government should feature in these matters. It is wrong for people to say that because the central Government is so dominantly leading the evolution of local and regional government and so forth, its intention is simply to dominate. The fact remains that the Government is initiating many things in our country, and the fact that it is initiating these things is not something that should attract criticism but compliments.

As a final thought I want to quote something that was said in 1981 at the Council of Europe, namely:

This Bill is a further step towards the evolution of the normalization of our society, of bringing about the participation in local government of local authorities. We in this country have so much to be proud of. We have such a wonderful heritage but the fact remains that if we want to maintain the standards we have and if we do not extend them to bring others into the system to share those values and standard, each in his own area and in fine with the evolution of the traditions of our country, in the act of denying them to others we will ultimately deny them to ourselves as well.

I wish to express my compliments and congratulations to the hon the Minister and to his officials, the young men who are so brilliant, so helpful, so energetic and so skillful, and also extend to them my best wishes in respect of the watershed period that lies ahead for us all.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Maitland began his speech by expressing his surprise at the fact that the hon member for Sea Point apparently does not agree with the principle of qualified enfranchisement which the NP has now adopted. I should like also to join in this debate by expressing my surprise that the NP is now accepting the policy of a qualified franchise of the PFP and applying it right through South Africa.

*That, in point of fact, is what is happening. The NP is now accepting the policy of the old United Party and of the PFP, the policy regarding the electoral qualifications relating to local authorites. [Interjections.] I shall be referring to that in more detail.

The hon member went further by saying that it was clear that the legislation could not be referred to a select committee because there was no time left in which to do so, and also because of the fact that the new dispensation would be coming into effect within two months. He was himself a member of the select committee on the constitution, however, and we sat last year in July. Parliament was subsequently convened for a special session, and I just want to take this up with the hon the Minister too. That is also one of the straw-doll arguments he sets up on the basis of an argument used on this side of the House. When we say “Refer the matter to a select committee”, the hon the Minister tries to intimate that we want to take our seats in a select committee of a mixed Parliament to deliberate on this matter. He himself was chairman of a select committee which sat last year in July and reported when Parliament reconvened in August. That is the kind of straw-doll arguments that he sets up and then shoots down himself.

The hon the Minister goes on to say, in connection with a select committee—the hon member for Maitland also used this as the basis of his argument—that they are implementing NP policy, and that is quite correct, because they were elected to implement that policy. We go along with that, because it is their privilege to do so. Why then, in the case of so many Bills, are they published beforehand, for comment, in the Gazette? Why, then, still refer Bills to select committees? Why, then, refer Bills to commissions and even judicial commissions? [Interjections.] The hon the Minister adopts the standpoint that they will implement their policy, that they have the mandate to implement that policy and are going to do so. [Interjections.] In his Second Reading speech the hon the Minister himself acknowledged that there was no uniformity. The question of uniformity—the hon member for Maitland is also implicated in this—is now suddenly a sacred cow. We have said, after all, that we have unity in diversity in South Africa. There is diversity in the provinces and things have always gone well. Why is the Transvaal, the Free State and, I think, Natal also being forced to adopt the Cape’s method of doing things, where proprietary rights give one the right to cast an additional vote?

The hon the Minister will agree that these are serious matters. The question of franchise is a serious matter in the democratic set-up, and particularly now in the new dispensation in which there is going to be a devolution of power, with greater powers apparently being granted to the third tier of Government, the question of franchise is going to be central and basic to the new dispensation. It is therefore a matter on which one would like to hear a wide variety of opinions. What would have been wrong with advertising this in the Gazette and inviting various shades of opinion? Since the hon the Minister adopts the standpoint that when we ask for the Bill to be referred to whatever select committee, we are implying that we thereby want to participate in the new dispensation …

I never said that. [Interjections.]

No, Sir. The hon the Minister said so in reply to the hon member for Jeppe. The hon the Minister argued with him about that yesterday, and on that score I just want to refresh his memory for a moment. It was in response to the hon member for Jeppe’s argument about the Bill being referred to a select committee because there were so few people who knew about it. That was also the PFP’s standpoint.

The hon member for Jeppe never spoke About the legislation.

Sir, I am generalizing about the principle of the matter that must be referred to the Select Committee on the Constitution. The hon member for Jeppe argued that matters of a constitutional nature, for example Black town councils or Black community development and the influx of Blacks, were referred to the Select Committee on the Constitution.

May I please ask a question? Does the hon member wish to imply that the determination of a person’s salary is a constitutional matter?

The method in which that salary is determined is part of the new constitutional set-up, and that is merely one of the matters dealt with in these four Bills. These four Bills are related to one another, involving as they do local and constitutional affairs. Since the legislation in connection with Black town councils, community development and influx were submitted to the Select Committee on the Constitution, we cannot understand why this Bill could not be submitted to that select committee too, particularly since the hon the Minister said only the other day, as the hon member for Sea Point stated a short while ago, that matters of a constitutional nature would be referred to that select committee. I repeat, franchise qualifications are a basic element in the democratic set-up. In this Bill, as far as the Transvaal is concerned, drastic amendments are being introduced in relation to franchise qualifications in local government bodies. In fact, enfranchisement on the basis of proprietary rights to land within the area of jurisdiction of a local authority appears to us to be a reversion to a feudal system of government of the previous century. It is, in reality, a step backwards in the democratic process. As far as South Africa is concerned, it smacks of the doubtful methods by which the Coloureds were previously kept off the voters’ roll on the grounds of income and educational qualifications. I want to remind the hon the Minister of the story, in the USA, of Rastus who was repeatedly asked by the sheriff, who had to test his scholastic ability, to read from a Japanese newspaper to see whether he could read, and who then, in desperation, read out aloud: “It states here that no Nigger will get the vote in Alabama this year.”

As far as I am concerned, these proposals also smack of the old United Party idea that the franchise of a federal components is determined according to the contribution of that component to the welfare of the State. That is why I say that it is the old UP policy and PFP policy that is now being embodied in this Bill.

That is not our policy.

What it boils down to is that without much difficulty a person can obtain at least three votes in a ward.

No, that is not true.

His wife too, and likewise each child over the age of 18. A family of four can therefore have 12 votes.

Explain that.

I shall explain. It is very easy to explain. The next NP speaker must see if he can refute my argument. A person over the age of 18 has a vote. If he has fixed property in the ward, he has a second vote. If he controls a company, which has fixed property with a minimum value determined by the Minister, he has a third vote. And this applies to his wife, too. That means they have six votes. His two children, over the age of 18, also have three votes each. [Interjections.] Since it is virtually customary, in city councils and town councils, for candidates to have majorities of less than 100 votes—even majorities of less than 10 votes are frequent occurrences—it is very alarming to note what is happening here. In his personal capacity a person can, in more than one ward, own property with a minimum value and be in control of companies owning property with a minimum value. He could further control the parent company, with the parent company controlling subsidiary companies, each owning separate properties with a minimum value in a ward, thus controlling an unlimited number of votes in that ward. What is more, although the majority interest in a company determines the group controlling the company, it is not imposible for the minority to control that company, thus obtaining franchise in a municipality outside its group.

What we must then ask one another is whether it is a healthy state of affairs for the “fat cats”, who own holiday homes on South Africa’s beaches and have no fundamental interest in the well-being of the permanent inhabitants of the towns, to have a franchise in those holiday resorts. The permanent residents do, in fact realize that the holiday resort in question profits from these up-country visitors, but they are nevertheless fairly relieved when the holiday-makers, who have trampled them underfoot during the holidays, are off again. I know the hon the Minister of Industries, Commerce and Tourism appreciates it, because he can now be enfranchised in various parts of South Africa. It seems to me he does not know it, and that is why I want to tell him that wherever he has a holiday home, he is now enfranchised. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, may I ask the hon member whether, in saying this, he is implying that the owners of holiday homes will all, on polling day, of necessity be in the relevant towns?

But that is not the principle. The principle is that someone can be enfranchised in more than one town as far as local authorities are concerned. Is that the kind of situation that that hon member is now in favour of? Franchise is being extended in terms of one’s purse or pocket; the richer one is, the more votes one has. The richer the companies which the Government is now trying to help, the more votes they have.

Let me also repeat, in this instance, that the UME may be informed and that the coordinating council held consultations about this and devoted so many hours to it. The provincial caucuses of the governing party were informed and also the so-called guardian MPs of the CP seats. The man in the street, however, the one who is really involved, does not know what it is we are deliberating about at this late stage, these late hours of this session. Hon members would do well to read the Hansard of the Transvaal Provincial Council to see what questions have been put to Government members in the Transvaal. Questions have been put about what is going to happen to the proposals of the President’s Council, what is going to happen with second-tier and third-tier government, and the answer has been: You will be getting that information. Here we are now in the dying moments …

Why do you people not convey that information?

The hon the Minister knows, does he not when these Bills were tabled. Surely he knows what happened in this connection. He knows, does he not, what opportunity we have had to prepare ourselves in this connection. That is not how a democracy works. Let my also say that I associate myself with the hon member for Jeppe by also saying that this is part of the process of empire-building. Everything is being centralized around the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning’s kingdom. The further result of this is the fragmentation of the provinces. The hon the Minister may refer to the Constitution and various other authorities on this matter; I am saying that in the process the provinces have increasingly been fragmented. [Interjections.]

Then there is also the matter to which the hon member for Umbilo referred yesterday, ie the question of own affairs. The hon the Minister and the rest of the Government are bent on developing a consensus style, but now they hastily come along here, in the middle of July—by the way, when last did members of the House of Assembly assemble in July?

Last year.

No, the select committee sat in July last year; not the House. The hon the Minister really can take some spectacular chances …

Wait a moment. All I want to say is that last year we sat even later than July.

There is also something else I want to point out to the hon the Minister. The other day the hon the Minister referred to section 102 of the 1983 Constitution, saying there were no proposals aimed at amending it.

As far as I recall.

The hon the Minister must ascertain the facts. Here I have a copy of the relevant amendments that were to have been moved. The hon the Minister takes a chance every so often.

Oh no, come on now.

The hon the Minister has recourse to a technicality as far as our request for a select committee is concerned, out I now want to tell him we are not going to ask for a select committee; we are merely going to vote against the Bill.

Order! I have been asked to interrupt proceedings at this stage in order to give the chairman of the Select committee on the Report of the Advocate-General on Crude Oil Purchases an opportunity to submit the report of the select committee now. I give the hon member for Ermelo the floor.

Mr Speaker, I thank the House for this opportunity, and as Chairman of the Committee I present the following report:

1. 1. Your Committee took note of the recommendation of the Advocate General that the Report be not published in full, regard being had to the provisions of the Petroleum Products Act, 1977 (Act No 120 of 1977), but at the commencement of its proceedings agreed to adopt a modus operandi aimed at maximum disclosure without prejudice to the interests of the security of the State.
2. 2. Your Committee accordingly recommends that the Report be published with certain omissions, as indicated by your Committee, but that the confidentiality of the Report be maintained until the House has agreed to the Committee’s Report relating to such publication.
3. 3. Your Committee wishes to report further that it was not practicable to indicate omissions from the Report without mentioning the very matters which are not to be published, and therefore deemed it fit that two versions of its proceedings be minuted, viz one which indicates the recommended omissions in detail and which will be marked as being confidential and will be laid upon the Table, and another which is a summary without specified omissions from the Report indicated. Your Committee recommends that only this summary of its proceedings be printed with its Report.

H J TEMPEL, Chairman.

Committee Rooms

House of Assembly

6 July 1984.

Report and proceedings to be printed and considered.

Mr Speaker, allow me to refer and react briefly to the speech of the hon member for Brakpan.

I am amazed that a senior member of this House can tell untruths like the hon member for Brakpan did this afternoon. Firstly, the hon member referred to the number of votes a person can have now. He spoke of 12 votes. In the case of the Municipality of Johannesburg there are 42 wards. If I were to own property in each of those wards, I would have the right to go and vote in each of those 42 wards. The hon member also spoke about people who have holiday houses.

Where is the lie?

I am coming to the He, and I shall set it out clearly so that the hon member for De Aar can understand it, too.

If I were to own a holiday house, the local authority concerned would assess me for property rates. On what basis should I now be deprived of the right to participate in a democratic process in electing someone who will take decisions concerning tax and services which affect me?

The hon member for Brakpan reminded me of a stranger in Jerusalem. He should just have taken the trouble to go and look at what the Provincial Ordinance of the Transvaal provides about voting rights. I should like to read that Ordinance to him this afternoon. He accuses the NP of having taken over the policy of old United Party, or of taking over PFP policy. Let met read to him what that Transvaal Ordinance provides. I then want to ask him whether as a senior member of this House he should not reconsider the statement he made here this afternoon. I am not going to refer to the normal qualification of a voter in terms of the voters’ list.

Why not?

I could do so, but time does not permit. The hon member represents a constituency in the Transvaal, and this Ordinance of the Transvaal reads as follows:

The hon member has the right in the Transvaal:

How many votes does he have then? [Interjections.]

This is concerned with the principle. What are we achieving with the measure before this House? Firstly, what we are achieving is that a person will have a vote due to the fact that this name does in fact appear on the parliamentary voters’ list and secondly, that a person whose name appears on a municipal register of registered owners will have a vote.

Two votes.

He will have two votes, but I am concerned with the principle here. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, may I ask the hon member for Witbank whether he has two votes in Witbank because he is a registered voter and the owner of registered property?

I am not concerned with that. The hon member argued that the Government is saying that because a person who owns property in a town can have a vote, he can cast his vote. [Interjections.] So much for the hon member for Brakpan. I just want to tell him to look at the measure before this House once again.

The hon member for Pietersburg referred to the fact that two groups of people are going to sit together under one roof. One does not wish to become personal, but the hon member will know what I am speaking about when I say what I want to say now.

He objects to us sitting under one roof with people of colour. However, when I went to reserve my seat to return to the Transvaal, a member of the CP was standing there—I prefer not to mention his name and he was reserving a seat for his Black servant whom he brought with him from the Transvaal to look after him here in Acacia Park. How is one to understand those people? However, when people of colour are going to sit under one roof with us and are going to decide about their own affairs, they deny those people that. [Interjections.]

Hon members opposite cannot evade that. The hon member for Welkom asked the hon member for Pietersburg whether he has ever been a member of a town council. I want to ask the hon member for Brakpan whether he has ever been a member of a town council. He can reply if he wishes. [Interjections.] I assume he has never been a member of a town council. I shall therefore inform him a little. For more than two decades I was privileged to be a member of a local authority. The hon member made a great fuss about the Blacks this afternoon. For many years I was chairman of the advisory council on locations. Because I was a member of a White local authority, I acted as chairman on an advisory council on locations on which Black people served. I assume the hon member did not know that, since he has not served on a town council. Since the hon member referred to Black people, I want to tell him that it is this Government that led those people to independence. We came forward with community councils. We introduced own fully fledged Black local authorities for those people. The hon member need not be concerned about the Black man in South Africa. We shall assume full responsibility for those people.

This afternoon I want to tell the hon members of the CP, as well as hon members of the PFP that they can go and sleep peacefully on 2 September, since the sun will rise in the same place on the morning of 3 September. They need not stay in bed on 3 September for fear of what will happen. They can get out of bed, since the Government will see to these matters. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Brakpan and the hon member for Jeppe spoke of an empire. Two years ago I pleaded for a fully-fledged ministry of local government in this House, and I do not apologize for that. I want to repeat that plea today, and I want to tell hon members what I base my standpoint on. One can look at the budgets of certain provinces. Time does not permit me to refer to all of them, and I shall therefore only refer to two. The provincial budget of the Orange Free State is R533 million for the forthcoming financial year, and that of Natal is R812 million. Only one city in the Transvaal, viz Johannesburg, has a budget of R585 million. The point I want to make here is that in certain cases local authorities surpass the provinces. That is why, despite the argument of the CP that the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning is building an empire, I am pleading for a fully-fledged ministry of local government in South Africa.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I think the hon member for Mossel Bay is being provocative. He is continually using the words “hok toe” with reference to the hon member for Jeppe. Could you please ask him what he means by that?

Order! The words “hok toe” are not unparliamentary per se, but the hon member for Mossel Bay must please explain what he means.

Mr Speaker, I mean precisely the same as the hon member for Johannesburg West meant by that earlier today, viz that hon members opposite are acting in a childish way, and I would suggest that a “hok” is a suitable place for them to expend their energy. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon members must stop making such personal remarks across the floor.

The measure before the House at present will be known as the Local Government Bodies Franchise Act. In my opinion local government is one of the most important forms of government because it closely affects the daily lives of the citizens of South Africa, irrespective of their race or colour.

I also want to express my particular gratitude and appreciation to all the people who have become involved in local government in our country over the years. I want to appeal to the inhabitants of our cities and towns to take more interest in local government. Local government will play an increasingly greater role in the new dispensation. The most important source of revenue for local authorities is property rates. Every registered land owner within the area of jurisdiction of a local authority is a taxpayer. In terms of this measure people who were deprived of the franchise in the past are being granted voting rights now.

Furthermore, I ask myself what the objective of this measure is. Its objective is uniformity in respect of voting rights in the RS A. This afternoon I wish to express my particular gratitude and appreciation to the hon the Minister who laid this measure upon the Table. If cognisance is taken of the zoning of properties within the area of jurisdiction of a local authority, it will be noted that a person whose property is zoned for business has been deprived of this right. People whose premises were zoned for industrial purposes, agricultural purposes and for unspecified purposes, were also singled out and not afforded the opportunity to vote. This measure aims at granting these people these rights.

I take great pleasure in supporting this measure wholeheartedly this afternoon.

Mr Speaker, as was indicated by the hon member …

Are you supporting me this time?

No. As has been indicated by the hon member for Witbank, this is an extremely important Bill. Superficially of course it looks like something absolutely new.

As regards the primary vote, everything which is stipulated in this Bill, is already law in Natal. If they live in a major local authority area the Whites have a vote and the Coloured and Indian communities also have a vote for their appropriate local affairs committees, which is exactly the same as applies in this case. However, if they happen to live, as quite a substantial number of Indians do, in such local authorities as Verulam, Isipingo etc, they have a vote in exactly the same way as they are going to get it here. I fear therefore that insofar as the basic vote is concerned this makes very little difference to the population of Natal. There are, of course, major differences in this Bill. One is that one has a vote when one is a property owner. One also has a vote if one is the nominee as a juristic person. I believe this is a problem which has to be looked at very carefully. As far as I am aware the concept of juristic or corporate votes only applies in South Africa at the moment in the Cape Province. It certainly does not apply in Natal or in Transvaal. I am not sure about the position of the Free State. However, this is something that has to be looked at extremely carefully. We in these benches have considerable reservations on this matter of the juristic vote, not on principle—I must say that in fairness—but on what is in the Bill. The rationale behind presenting a juristic vote is that the person concerned is a ratepayer and, as such, should have a little more say in what goes on than the lessee of a residential property. One accepts that that is fair reasoning. However, if one is going to accept that as being fair reasoning for residential property, then is it not reasonable also to consider the question of substantial lessees of industrial and commercial property? I also realize the problems that are involved there.

Will you please repeat that point?

I asked whether there was not the same reasonable right to extend the corporate vote also to the industrial and commercial field as opposed only to trusts and the like.

But they have that vote in the area of jurisdiction of the local authority.

They have their personal vote.

They also have the other.

No. Let me explain what I am trying to get at. Let us take the position of a very large engineering firm that perhaps owned its own premises at some time. Whilst it owns its premises under this system it will have a vote, but for economic reasons, to get money into the business, the company sells the property but still keeps the large engineering business running.

Only as occupiers?

Precisely. In every major local authority area one will find a large number of big industrial concerns and commercial operators who have deliberately sold their premises. For example, most of the big supermarkets do not own their own premises. They have sold them because they want the money for turning over in their business. It is a better sort of proposition. This is another aspect that requires considerable thought.