Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Rule 167 (1) of the Standing Rules of Parliament stipulates:

The heading to this rule indicates that it is applicable to a money Bill.

It is a well-known rule in the interpretation of a piece of legislation that words are to be interpreted according to their normal meaning. Vote No 3—“Development Planning”—as contained in Schedule 1 on page 4 of the Appropriation Bill and as introduced in Parliament by the hon the Minister of Finance on 15 March, was rejected by the House of Representatives. It concerns an amount of R1 062 935 000, and the result of that is that the schedule, as introduced, was not agreed to by each House.

Any amended approval in terms of which no provision has been made for the allocation of the said amount, is not an approval of the schedule. This Rule is not amenable to any other interpretation.

Standing Rule 143 is not applicable either, as Mr Speaker can only send the message referred to here, to the hon the State President once a House agrees to a version of a Bill which differs from the version passed by the other House or Houses. That can only happen after the Second Reading.

In terms of the stipulations—I think it is section 32—of Act No 110 of 1983, the Bill may not be referred to the President’s Council either as that can only happen after the Second Reading. Therefore it is not possible to place it on the Order Paper for the Second Reading in terms of Rule 167 (1).

The vacuum cannot be filled in terms of Rule 2 (1) either, because Rule 167 (1) makes specific provision for this kind of event. The legislature specifically stipulated that each House—stressing the words “each House”—had to agree to the schedule as a whole. If this does not happen, the next stage of the Bill may not be proceeded with. I therefore ask you, Mr Speaker, to rule that Parliament may not proceed with this debate.

Mr Speaker, in support of the hon Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that the hon Chief Whip of Parliament is on the one hand obliged to place a money Bill on the Order Paper of each House for Second Reading, but on the other hand he may only do so if the schedule to an Appropriation Bill has been agreed to by each House. In this regard I refer to Rule 167 (1) of the Standing Rules of Parliament.

I should subsequently like to draw your attention to the fact that the schedule to an Appropriation Bill consists of votes. I am in this regard referring to May, Parliamentary Practice, page 776 and what follows.

The situation is now that Vote No 3, namely “Development Planning”, to the amount of R1 062 935 000, has not been agreed to by each House as required by Rule 167 (1) of the Standing Rules of Parliament.

The House of Representatives has rejected Vote No 3 and in this instance I refer to the Minutes of Wednesday, 10 May 1989, the seventh session of the eighth Parliament of the RSA. On page F37 of the Minutes the following wording appears: “Vote No 3 put to House of Representatives”. On the next page, page F38, it says: “Vote No 3 rejected”.

I am of the opinion that because this Vote was rejected by the House of Representatives, it cannot be said that each House has approved the Schedule as required by Rule 167 (1) of the Standing Rules of Parliament, since the Schedule consists of a number of Votes.

I would briefly like to refer to an argument which the hon Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly has already advanced. The Bill cannot in terms of the stipulations of section 32 (1) (c) of Act 110 of 1983—the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa—be referred to the President’s Council, as this can only happen after the Second Reading. I am therefore of the opinion that Parliament may not proceed with this debate. I therefore suggest that the Order Paper as printed, namely “Second Reading Debate—Appropriation Bill [W59 and 59A, and 59B-89 (AS)] is not amenable to being debated.

Order! I have not had the benefit of an unhurried study of the objection advanced by the hon Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly, but I did have a brief look at it and I am quite satisfied that I am able to give the correct ruling at this stage.

I have examined the documentation and considered the Rules. The words “as presented” with reference to the schedule do not, in any event, appear anywhere in the Rules. I do not think that that is of primary importance.

What did happen was that the Appropriation Bill was discussed on the basis of Votes, and Vote No 3 was not agreed to by the House of Representatives. The Appropriation Bill 59B-89 (AS)—as amended by the House of Representatives—was thereafter printed and submitted to the House of Representatives. The hon member will note that Item No 3 does not appear in the schedule to this Bill.

The schedule to this Bill, as amended by the House of Representatives, was agreed to by the House of Representatives. All three Houses of Parliament have therefore agreed to the schedule—as amended in one instance—to the Bill. I subsequently rule that this Parliament is entitled to proceed with its work.

Mr Speaker, on a further point of order: I should like to refer to Hansard and to the proceedings of 12 May 1989. The hon member for Witbank made a certain interjection which you as Speaker interpreted in a certain way. The Hansard reports have since become available and have appeared on our desks. You will note, Sir, that the hon member for Witbank said: “You are soft on corruption!”.

You heard a different version of this interjection and you gave a ruling on it. I should now like to ask whether in the circumstances, and because a correct version of Hansard is now available, you could not reconsider your ruling.

Order! In the course of the objection advanced by way of a point of order in the House of Assembly, I invited the hon the Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in that House, if he did not agree with my ruling, to come and see me in my office and to be so friendly as to join me for a cup of coffee. The hon the Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly then came to see me and I also looked at Hansard.

It is correct that according to Hansard the hon member for Witbank said “You are soft on corruption!”. However, I heard the words “You are all corrupt”. I ruled that the words I had heard were the words on which I would give a ruling. I then gave a ruling on the strength of those words.

The hon the Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly then objected and denied that that was what the hon member for Witbank had said. I then extended the invitation to him and by doing so, sought to dispose of the issue in the House of Assembly.

Unfortunately I was then loudly challenged by the hon member for Overvaal who addressed the following remark to hon members on the Government side of the House: “You are soft on corruption.” The Chair can under no circumstances allow an hon member to challenge it to give a ruling. I therefore immediately ruled that it was unparliamentary. With that the matter was settled.

Since I have now had access to Hansard and the hon the Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly has come to see me in my office and we have discussed the matter, I am of course prepared to accept that what the hon member for Witbank said was correct, and not what I heard and ruled on. Under the circumstances I am today prepared to rule that a reference to “You are soft on corruption” is not unparliamentary.

However, I should like to stress once again that the Chair gives rulings to the best of its ability according to what the Chair has itself heard. If it is wrong it can be rectified later, as I am doing in this case.

Secondly, I should like to mention that if the Chair is challenged by any hon member, a ruling will immediately be given—right or wrong. This is what happened in this case.

In the light of these circumstances I therefore rule that the expression “You are soft on corruption” is not unparliamentary.

Mr Speaker, we are nearing the end of this session of Parliament and the end of the lifetime of this Parliament. This debate will most probably be the last one of major importance during this session and we therefore expect a fairly wide-ranging discussion in view of the election which is at hand.

If I may briefly refer to the position of the economy, for which the Government—I hope the hon the Minister of Finance will concede this—is largely responsible, or let me put it little less harshly and say responsible to a lesser extent, I must refer to the state of our balance of payments, which is under pressure. I must refer to the fact that nothing came of the Government’s intention, announced last year, of causing the inflation rate to drop below 10 per cent. The inflation rate is in fact rising at the moment.

Perhaps the most important aspect to which I should like to refer is the crisis adjustment to interest rates which we get from time to time and which is presented as medication—as though it is just the medicine for curbing excesses. What is the result when one looks at what happens to an ordinary, normal, responsible household; what happens to the prudent man who draws up his budget and has made provision for the repayments on his house at a certain rate of interest, and particularly the man who has no subsidised bond but who is personally responsible for paying the interest on it?

We then find that many of these households are currently in great financial difficulties, as a result of these same monetary measures which are now being applied. What this amounts to is that the responsible man who is careful with his money is today being penalised without having been guilty of the excesses of others. That is the factual situation. It is unacceptable.

I also wish to refer to the compulsory loan levy which the hon the Minister recently imposed on companies and which is payable before 31 July. It is all very well the hon the Minister announcing that those loan levy certificates would now be negotiable on the open market, but the information has reached us that there will be many companies experiencing severe cash flow problems when it comes to paying this compulsory loan levy. There is no relief for them. They will be compelled to borrow the money—which they are now forced to lend to the State—from their banks at the current interest rate. The State then borrows the money from them at an interest rate of only 16%.

Moreover, as I understand our Income Tax Act, if one has to borrow money from one’s bank in order to pay tax or, as in this case, to pay a loan levy, one is not allowed to subtract the interest one is paying the bank on that loan from one’s taxable income for tax purposes. In other words, the man who has to go and borrow the money which he has to pay to the State before 31 July, will have to pay interest at a rate of probably more than 20%, and he may not deduct this as expenditure in respect of the taxable income of his company. He is nevertheless compelled to lend that money to the State at only 16%.

It is our opinion that this is unreasonable and that this ad hoc measure is unfair. In the past, loan levies were imposed on the taxpayer’s assessed tax. Now the loan levy is determined according to one’s previous assessment which has already been issued by the Receiver of Revenue, regardless of what one’s financial position may be. That is unacceptable. The rand is under pressure. We saw the low point to which the rand dropped again yesterday. This must necessarily lead to an increase in the price of all imported goods and must have a detrimental effect on our inflation rate in the days which lie ahead.

In this regard the Government certainly does not have much of to be proud of, or to offer the electorate of South Africa. Concerning these aspects we also believe that the electorate of South Africa will give the NP their answer on 6 September.

I see the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning is not present. We have had some interesting times during this session. The hon the State President initially experienced health problems. Then, all of a sudden, we received a report that the NP had to elect a new leader-in-chief, but that after he had been elected as leader-in-chief, he would not get his hands on the real political power. At that stage the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning was still full of enthusiasm and fire and he made himself available for election as the leader-in-chief of the NP.

A little over a week ago the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning made an important speech in this Chamber which in that Sunday’s Rapport was given the following front-page headlines: “So is die NP op die aanval—een Parlement”. He speaks of one Parliament.

What is wrong with that?

I shall come to that, but at the moment I am addressing the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning.

He then sang the praises of the NP’s new policy of one South Africa, one Parliament and one Cabinet in glowing terms. I did not gain the impression, when the hon the Minister made that speech, that he intended abandoning ship. As a matter of fact my impression was—since after all we have over the years come to know the hon the Minister as one of the most hardworking and enthusiastic Ministers of the NP Government—that he was looking forward to making his contribution towards the constitutional development of South Africa in the times which lie ahead. [Interjections.]

What happened then? I should now like to refer to a leading article in Die Transvaler of Monday, 15 May:

I cannot quote the whole passage—

We tend to agree. That credibility crisis does indeed exist.

I should further like to point out a few matters which the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning referred to. He says:

That is the truth!

The hon member says it is the truth. The hon the Minister went on to say:

I also understand from the speech by the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP that they apparently share the same sentiments. I should now like to ask the National Government whether they are going to remove this obstacle. Are they going to tell the electorate of South Africa, including the White voters, before 6 September that they are going to abolish compulsory group classification and group participation?

Yes, yes!

The House of Representatives says yes. I did not hear a yes from the Government benches. We want that answer.

The hon the Minister told us that in terms of the NP’s viewpoint of fairness, reasonableness and honesty everyone must be given participation in a unified state on the highest level. Everyone must be accorded just treatment up to the highest level.

We should now like to pose an old and simple question to the hon the leader of the NP. If all groups in this country are to enjoy participation up to the highest level, then the hon the Minister must tell us frankly what the position of the hon the State President is. Will he once again reserve it, for all practical purposes, for the Whites? Is it possible—no, probable—that one of the other groups will be able to fill that position?

What is wrong with that?

I am asking the NP that. Is it possible? [Interjections.] The NP will not give us an answer before 6 September. When the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs in his impetuosity said on one occasion that it was possible that a Black man could become State President, our outgoing hon State President came down on him in a rather heavy-handed fashion. I should now once again like to ask the new hon leader of the NP—he is now also the leader of the new reform initiatives—whether he is going to spell it out to the White voters of South Africa. They are silent.

In terms of the new policy of the NP they are saying the following: One South Africa, one legislative authority, one executive authority, with certain federal aspects.

That is not all we are saying!

Of course that is not all they are saying.

The hon the Minister says that in a certain respect, according to their plans as I understand them, there will also be a geographical element. However, he says that their plans cannot be realised on a geographical basis alone. I think he will grant me that.

I should also like to refer to the position of the Black man in South Africa. According to the future vision of the hon the leader of the NP, every Black group has not only a group basis, but also a geographical basis, because through the actions of the old NP—that was when they were still true to their ideals—it has been ensured that every Black group has its own geographical basis.

In terms of the NP’s current plans there will be no geographical basis for either the Whites, the Coloureds or the Indians. The Blacks get the best of both worlds. The hon the leader of the NP said the other day that no Black government of a homeland would be willing to abolish its own legislative and executive powers over its self-governing state. I agree with him. One will not find such a Black leader. Each of them jealously clings to the geographically based political power-base he currently has. [Interjections.] We therefore contend that each Black group in this country currently has a geographical powerbase. It is our opinion that that geographical power-base is being built up for all of them.

At the same time we as Whites also claim the right to have our own geographical power-base. The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning and the hon the leader of the NP both told us that if consensus could not be reached in this Utopia they are planning, there must be an arbiter. At the moment the President’s Council is the arbiter.

I do not think one would quite be speaking the truth if one said the President’s Council was the referee or arbiter at the moment, because it is not. It simply implements the will of the majority party in the House of Assembly.

However, the hon the Minister told us that there was an entity in the offing which would make objective and fair decisions. Where in the democratic world are political differences settled by any other arbiter than the majority of the voters in that country? At the end of the day the majority of the voters in that country are the final arbiters as to where that country is going. The NP can make their plans as they like; at the end of the day the numerical majority will decide.

When we debated the Constitution, we warned the NP that if they brought in the Coloured and the Indian, which they were compelled to do in terms of the Constitution and then proceeded to do, they would have no moral right to keep the Black man out. At the time the NP told the voters of South Africa that as far as the Black man was concerned they had already decided—they move in different lanes to those of the White man, the Coloured and the Indian—but today we are in the same lane.

We should like to tell the NP that, as we warned them then, they are simply moving at a slower pace but faster than they themselves realise, in the direction of the DP. Black majority rule in South Africa will eventually not be their lot—it may be our lot—but it will be their fault.

Mr Speaker, it is a great privilege for me to be able to participate in this debate. I gladly follow on the hon member who has just left the podium and also share his concern when he speaks of the inflation rate which is skyrocketing. I feel just as depressed when he speaks of the rand which is under pressure, but our mutual unhappiness ends there, because in our search for solutions our view of the matter differs radically from that of the hon member for Barberton.

South Africa is in the process of political change. According to some parties, this is wrong. The hon member has just spelt out that it is completely wrong that change should take place in South Africa. According to others, the changes that are taking place are inconsequential.

The situation in which we find ourselves at present is reminiscent of a maxim I once saw hanging on a wall. It was: “Everyone is entitled to his own point of view, but not everyone sees something.” I want to quote, for the hon member who has just left the podium and his hon colleagues, the words which the poet Tennyson wrote in the previous century:

I should like to try to explain this afternoon how we see the South African situation. I want to try to indicate how we see the relationship between ourselves, who until now have had the worst of it, and the changes, which many of us regard as insignificant and frustrating.

We in the LP see the future of South Africa in terms of a judicious communality and shared prosperity for the country and all its people. In spite of our frustration and disappointment that people do not listen—I refer specifically to people like the hon member who was here just before me—to the pleas and ideas that we in the LP have submitted in this Parliament in recent years in respect of laws which are hurtful, which are racist, which separate people on the basis of race and colour and which are based or founded on and born out of the thinking of an inhuman political ideology, I am of the opinion that there are indeed right-thinking people who are now hearing the message of reconciliation which we have tried to put across.

Is it necessary for me to say that the CP and the language it speaks are wholly connected with the oppression of our people? When there are still political parties and organisations which, at this late hour of the struggle, are not aware of the unjust dispensation to which our people of colour are subjected, and the tragedy this policy has created in South Africa, and will still create in future, I fear that there is no hope for us on the road ahead.

Have the CP and those who want to maintain and further develop the apartheid ideology or the racial segregation syndrome by applying those hurtful laws even more stringently, ever thought what the policy of apartheid has cost South Africa in terms of social injustice and human suffering? Let me take hon members back today to look at the graves of injustice, pain and suffering which these laws have brought our people. We call to mind migrant labour, the group areas, the mission churches which had to be left behind because of forced removals, the shame of District Six, the denial of love between White and non-White, the grief surrounding the Immorality Act, the withdrawal of full citizenship from Coloureds, the frustrations of urban Blacks and many more, to quote just a few examples.

I ask myself whether it is really all justified in the name of the God-willed organism with its own metaphysical structure and inner life, which must be respected and obeyed at all cost. What also strikes one, and what can in my view be ascribed to the apartheid theology or the policy of racial segregation, as expounded here by the hon member, is the lack of a South African patriotism and loyalty transcending colour lines. Whether we like it or not, this apartheid ideology has affected the loyalty and patriotism of our people.

In my view patriotism implies the following. Firstly, it implies the recognition of everyone’s human dignity. Secondly, it implies that all the people of this country—White, Coloured Indian and Black—must regard South Africa as a common fatherland. Thirdly, conflict situations must be eliminated through communication and the liaison which takes place through the normal contact of the people of South Africa. This requires open organisations and free social intercourse whereby we as South Africans will clearly demonstrate how we are busy dismantling discrimination in South Africa.

Fourthly, the loyalty which we owe our country and each other as fellow South Africans should not only be a matter of attitudes, but also a matter of structure. What we need is the creation of structures in which all in South Africa, regardless of race, colour or group, can feel at home. What we need now is the dismantling of structures which have brought division between individuals. These walls which have brought division between individuals have also been the cause of disloyalty to the country among our people.

The longer the process of joint decision-making is postponed, the further we move away from the possibility of loyalty to our country and our fellow-citizens. Therefore we as South Africans should not be surprised and shocked when certain Black spiritual leaders ask in public why communism must be opposed. They go even further and make the statement that it is not communism which has taken away our citizenship.

Over the past four years and eight months I have listened to what hon CP members, in particular, wanted to convey to us in this House. I have listened to what partition is supposed to mean for me and my people. I have listened and have tried to find an answer in what they have in mind for the future of South Africa with their policy of partition. In the light of the urgent need for critical political reflection I must express my sorrow at the fact that the hon members did not, in their speeches, provide the answers to the questions I have asked myself. This afternoon I want to ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly a few questions. I want to ask him, as a person with a theological background and a man who, I believe, has accepted God as his Lord and master. I want to ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the members of his party if they really believe that the concept of justice, defined as obedience to distinctiveness, is a tenable concept for the South African situation. If God, as they contend, determines political power by determining the borders of countries, how can He be so immoral as to give 80% of the land to only 17% of the South African population.

Lastly I want to ask the hon members of the CP on what grounds they describe us, the so-called Coloured people, as a nation, given the fact that we do not see ourselves as such. I want to ask the hon members whether they really believe that all the injustice that has been caused and perpetuated by the policy of apartheid can be justified by their policy of partition. Do they want to declare to this House and all the people of South Africa, without any hesitation, that their unjust and dangerous refusal to proceed with joint decision-making regarding the common future of this beautiful country of ours can still be defended in terms of the concept of God-willed identity? I believe that the struggle in South Africa is for co-existence and equal opportunities and not for domination of one by the other. The LP believes the future of hope will be conquered when we move out and take calculated risks in a new dispensation.

Allow me, in my concluding message, to say to all here that we must continue fearlessly on the road away from discrimination, towards a future of mutual respect, trust and participation in freedom and prosperity by all the people of South Africa. As long as we cling to the syndrome of racial separation and partition, there is no hope for us. The Tutus of this world will then be successful when they go abroad and call for sanctions to be instituted against us.

As the people who will have the worst of it, we cannot condone these things. As the people who will suffer under sanctions and disinvestment, we can never condone these things, but the answer to South Africa’s problems does not lie in partition. The answer to South Africa’s problems lies in collectivity.

The economic problems which South Africa is experiencing will not be solved by separating people either. The day apartheid is dead and buried the economy of South Africa will be able to revive, we will again be able to trade with foreign countries and the rand will no longer be under pressure.

Partition is not the answer. The answer to South Africa’s problems is collectivity. The answer is that we must stand together, walk together and enjoy each other’s trust. The answer to the problems in South Africa does not lie in our moving away from each other; we must move towards each other and face the world united.

We must say to the world that we in South Africa can become one, regardless of the differences in colour and between the culture of the Black man and that of the White man. We can become one nation and one powerful country in which all can share. All can build together in a country that was baptised and bought with so much blood and tears. We can work and live, and the loyalty of all in South Africa can be harnessed to develop South Africa into the best and the most beautiful land on earth. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, I cannot find much fault with the sentiments of the hon member for Southern Free State regarding a common South Africa. On another occasion we can debate with the hon member regarding the formula which we believe should be employed in this regard.

I just want to respond briefly to a remark made by the hon member for Barberton. While speakers on finance on this side of the House, as well as the hon the Minister himself, will furnish answers regarding the financial aspects, I just want to make one observation, and that is that nowhere in Africa or anywhere else in the world is there a developing country with a 30% First World component and a 70% Third World component, where things are going as well, relatively speaking, as regards socio-economic and financial conditions, as here in South Africa.

It is with high praise and appreciation that we take cognisance of the initiatives and the imaginative manner in which our hon Minister handles finances in South Africa.

The hon member for Barberton also placed a question mark over the viewpoint of the NP regarding group participation. I want to refer the hon member to the speech of our leader-in-chief on Friday last week. I should like to quote two paragraphs which may reassure him:

There is a second paragraph which I just want to quote.

However the hon member placed a further question mark over the credibility of the Government side, and it is the credibility of the CP that I want to discuss. The greatest illusion in currentday South African politics is the illusion of partition. The desperate attempts to dish up fanciful arguments against the Government is just a transparent attempt to cover up the lack of substance of their own illusion of partition. [Interjections.]

Just take the typical CP argument which we again had to hear from the hon member for Barberton this afternoon. According to them, one country, one nation and one central authority must lead to a majority government and, because Blacks are in the majority, to a Black majority government. Simplistically put, this can make quite an impression on the average voter. We on this side of the House, however, want to say to hon members that unique problems, peculiar to a country like South Africa, cannot be solved by means of simplistic approaches.

Allow me to quote two examples where the traditional democratic Westminster/ winner-takes-all formula simply does not apply. I want to say this for the edification of the hon member for Barberton, because he asked where in the world it does not apply. Take the greatest Western civilisation, the USA, with its three-component central authority. We are not even talking about each of the 51 geographical entities with their own governments within the system, but the President, the Senate and the House of Representatives are simply not based on the formula of one man, one vote, and winner-takes-all. [Interjections.]

Let us look at a second situation. Switzerland with its common geographical canton-system combination is definitely not founded on the principle of winner-takes-all, as the Westminster system teaches us. My argument is simply the following. Here are examples of only two disparate modern democratic systems, each with its own particular formula to accommodate the specific needs of the respective countries. Why then can South Africa not also develop its own particular democratic formula within the framework of joint government in South Africa?

The simplistic majority rule approach of the DP and the minority rule approach of the CP are, as the English say, non-starters. I want to ask where there could possibly be White majority occupation, and how, because on the other hand how will the CP, if we cannot speak of White majority occupation in terms of the CP philosophy and approach, ensure minority rule in South Africa? It is an absolute illusion.

The hon member for Barberton argues here about an own geographical power-base—this is what the CP wants. I maintain that if the CP cannot bring about majority occupation through negotiation, their entire point of departure is doomed long before they start.

One sees the conflicting factions in that party. There is the AWB on the one hand and the former Nationalists on the other—each with their own solution. In the end they all vote for the CP. It is a picture of absolute confusion from here to Cairo.

What will it be? There seems to be much impatience amongst the partners of those hon members in right-wing politics. Will it in the end be the “volkstaat” of Prof Carel Boshoff of the Stigting Afrikaner-eenheid in the north-west? I see he was here yesterday morning to speak to the people. Will it be the “Boerestaat” of Eugéne Terre’Blanche and the AWB—parts of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal and Northern Natal? Will it be the White homeland of Robert van Tonder’s Boerestaatparty, or will it be Hendrik Verwoerd’s Oranjewerkers with the “Blanke hartland” at Morgenzon? Then there is the AWB component in the CP, as represented by the hon members for Ermelo and Bethal, with their credo of “White man, where is your homeland?”.

Let us take a look at this, because we have never had any reaction from either the hon member for Ermelo or the hon member for Bethal or the CP leadership either rejecting or condoning the viewpoints contained in that credo.

I think the time has come for the hon member for Ermelo to tell us honestly whether he agrees with that credo or whether he agrees with the CP. In other words, the CP must tell us whether they stand by the CP policy or whether they have reached an agreement in the backrooms with the hon member for Ermelo that they will eventually accept his credo.

What does he say in that credo? The Western Cape is designated for the Coloureds. Natal and Durban are designated for the Indians. East London cannot really be part of the White homeland. He speaks of an “insurance policy” where the White man can take refuge when things get too difficult for him here in the Republic of South Africa. [Interjections.] “The White homeland”, the hon member says, “must be smaller, but must be consolidated, and must be occupied primarily by Whites.” That principle and concept of majority occupation comes into play here.

“The rest of South Africa”, the hon member for Ermelo says, “is a grey area which initially will be controlled by the Whites.” He closes that book by saying: “Separate development must therefore be reversed”; in other words, the White man must pack his bags and move to his own homeland.

I want to ask those hon members where the CP stands regarding the credo of those members of the AWB. Then the hon member for Barberton speaks of credibility!

It is clear: Secession, or separation and, as the hon member for Barberton said here this afternoon, “a geographical unit within which the White Afrikaner nation can form its own government”, is the idea. [Interjections.] Where on earth is the hon member going to manage that?

What is interesting, when one listens to these statements, is that they are in line with the thinking of Prof Carel Boshoff, who says “a growing number of Afrikaners are of the opinion that the Afrikaner nation can only survive in a separate Afrikaner ‘volkstaat’, separated from the mixed South Africa.”

The reaction of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly was: “We do not seek people to draw borders, we only seek people to draw crosses”, but CP pronouncements and decisions can clearly be assimilated with those of Mr Eugéne Terre’Blanche and Prof Carel Boshoff, and the hands of the hon members for Ermelo and Bethal are clearly visible. At their 1984 congress there were pronouncements on proposals introduced by the hon member for Ermelo. The hon member for Ermelo said: “Separate development is NP policy. Therefore the CP policy will henceforth be known as emancipation through partition.”

That is untrue.

It is not untrue. The hon member for Brakpan said at that congress that he fully supported this shift in emphasis.

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly pleaded, in an interview with Leadership South Africa, for “partition on a fair basis”, and said: “Presumably a far greater proportion of the country should go to other groups.” On top of that he said: “We are open-minded. There should be an opportunity to negotiate.” Can hon members believe it—“an opportunity to negotiate”! Negotiation is the basis on which those hon members want to sell their policy to South Africa. In Beeld of 19 September 1988 the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly also said: “Eerder ’n klein Suid-Afrika wat net Blank is as ’n groter Suid-Afrika wat van meet af aan onderworpe is aan veelrassige regering.” Once again this is the principle of majority occupation.

What does all this mean? I maintain that majority occupation is implicit in the solution of the CP. If they do not succeed with it, it will be minority rule with power and force—according to Prof Boshoff’s viewpoint “a mixed South Africa or we must secede and go it alone”.

I do not want to sound a warning, because naturally those hon members will not listen to me. I do not even want them to listen to me, but hon members must listen to what the centurion in the ranks of the right wing, Prof Carel Boshoff, says. He says that he has identified the following four philosophical groups, of which the CP is the third group:

This is the CP, three-quarters of which are former Nationalists—

That is what Prof Carel Boshoff says of the CP’s policy. Then he also says that the only choice is the secession of the Afrikaner “volkstaat” from the rest of the RSA, which must be planned to coincide with the internal settlement in the RSA when the Black majority government will take over. Prof Boshoff therefore says, regarding the CP policy, that if secession does not take place, the rest of South Africa will be heading for Black majority rule.

The question is how many of the CPs sitting there are in the fourth Boshoff group, this growing number of Afrikaners who want to secede and move elsewhere in the world. Are they the hon members for Ermelo, Bethal, Ventersdorp, Delmas or perhaps Brits? All the former Nationalists condemn Prof Carel Boshoff s viewpoint, but the AWBs are getting the upper hand in that party.

All we are hearing now from the CP is partition and secession. I say that it is not worth even a cent of the paper on which it is written. If we want honesty from the CP—and they are on the way to moving and seceding—I ask the hon the leader-in-chief of that party when he will lead the second Great Trek. After all, there are many remaining Randall Wycomb trays, to the value of R400 000, which they can sell on that trek in order to try and finance themselves. It may also help them to sell the thousands of tortoise lapel buttons, whereby another poor salesman was led to bankruptcy by the CP. [Interjections.]

This partition is an illusion. I suggest to hon CP members that they erect a banner which reads: “Driesie Partisie se illusie.”

In the last minute left to me I just want to make an observation regarding this story of corruption. I want to say to hon members this afternoon that the time has come for us to assess, on the basis of their own norms, the CP’s complaints about corruption. We have had blatant condemnation, in strong terms from within CP ranks. I say that this side of the House has a clear conscience. We acted without fear or favour, and the price has been paid by every person who created those problems. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, having gathered from the media that the hon member for Houghton is quitting Parliament I want to take this opportunity also to align myself with all the good things that were said about her, namely the comments and complimentary remarks made about her by other hon members in this Chamber. Her long and commendable service rendered to Parliament and her contributions in striving to champion the cause of the under-privileged are a record. This is a record well-deserving of emulation by the women of South Africa and indeed by women of the world.

I agree with much of what the hon member for Turffontein had to say. However, I also agree that he had certain remarks to make about the CP. I agree with him that the CP’s contribution must be something that can be negotiated and that they as the effective opposition party in the House of Assembly should contribute in such a manner that they should be able to help the ruling party.

I do agree with the hon member for Barberton for having said that inflation is going on without being controlled. However, as a member of an effective opposition party, he must be able to assist in helping the Government to control the inflation rate.

As regards the difficulties in my own administration, I want to say financially our country is being driven into dire straits or into a number of variables which are generated either within the country or by forces from outside in the form of ever-widening sanctions.

As the State coffers are slowly but surely being depleted of funds to sustain an improving quality of life for all its citizens, my hon ministerial colleagues and I are finding it extremely difficult to maintain our portfolios in a viable state.

The hon the Minister of Finance has admitted, and I quote from Hansard, Monday, 20 March 1989, col 3306—

Discipline and economic restructuring within the country and an acceleration of the reform initiatives on the part of the Government will most certainly contribute substantially towards the replenishment of the fast emptying State coffers. This in turn will ensure the availability of the much-needed funds to our various Ministries generally and to the Ministry of Education and Culture in the three Houses in particular.

The gloomy economic state of the country is reflected very clearly in my Budget Vote in the House of Delegates for which I have been very severely criticised. During the previous financial year my Vote was cut back by R27 million, and again, during the current financial year, the education budget has been pruned by nearly R83 million—that is by about 300% over the previous year’s cutback. To explain that the current Vote of approximately R590 million represents an amount of 27,8% more than that of the previous year, is to delude ourselves as to the bleak realities confronting education in my administration.

It is extremely disappointing to find that although the funding of education is determined by section 84(a)—the formula administered by the Department of National Education, based on specific inputs of the various administrations—the final figure is invariably subject to adjustment by a mysterious factor which reflects the real financing capacity of the State Exchequer.

I am aware that the formula is not being fully utilised. It has not had the chance to be fully utilised. However, with a cutback in education it makes the Education Minister’s job a very difficult one. Naturally, such enormous cutbacks have compelled my Department of Education—indeed, I think I can speak for the other Ministers as well—to tighten its management and to rearrange its priorities to such an extent that we are barely able to maintain quality education for our pupils at schools and in tertiary education, who number approximately a quarter of a million.

In fact, there are today many facets of education which have been ruthlessly curtailed or even shelved, some regrettably permanently. The R83 million cutback this year has led to adverse effects on the employment of newly qualified educators, particularly in my department. Almost 100 of these educators, trained at great expense over four years, have yet to be employed in my department. We are finding it excruciatingly difficult to provide adequately for preprimary, technical and prevocational education. The supply of essential modern equipment such as computers, television, electronic typewriters and laboratories for technical subjects is being curtailed to such an extent that we are almost approaching Third World norms in our Indian education.

Urgently required primary and secondary schools with adequate sporting facilities, cannot be provided as desired because of the crippling effects of the cut-backs just mentioned. In real physical terms the pruning by R83 million represents a loss of about 20 schools with 30 classrooms each, or the lack of employment for about 200 educators.

We know that the financing of education is determined by the application of a fixed subsidy formula which makes provision for the basic requirements of education in the various departments. Were this to operate without the further application of a second formula enabling the Exchequer to reduce the anticipated Vote, the Department of Education would have had some respite in meeting its obligations.

This scenario is now darkened even further by the announcement of the hon the Minister of National Education that funding of education on the macro level is to be curtailed further, thus extending the hitherto acceptable time-frame of 10 years for achieving parity in the provision of education for all race groups.

I must confess that the hon the Minister of Finance is getting himself into a tight corner with this inverted vision of funding. We realise his predicament but some solution has to be found and the solution is in the reform process of the Government. The sooner the reform process is hastened, the faster will the economic situation of the country improve.

However, there is still hope. Our hope of returning to the track leading to the improvement in the quality of life through quality education for all, lies in the following strategies. They are: The acceleration of the reform initiative within the country; relentless application of financial discipline in all sectors; promotion of efficiency and productivity; in-service training; rationalisation; privatisation; the abolition of wasteful and unnecessary Government created structures for the different race groups; and deregulation.

Needless to say, the savings so accrued could be ploughed back into education, specifically to wipe out the backlog currently prevailing in Black, Coloured and Indian education.

If I still have some time, I would like to say that I find it difficult—I bring my hon counterpart in the House of Assembly into play—to understand that my hon colleague in the House of Assembly should find it difficult in this day and age to open the doors of his schools to other race groups, as I have done on a limited basis. [Interjections.]

We have arrived on the threshold of many changes. I want to appeal to him to do as I have done. I am sure that he will not be swamped.

What have you done?

We are at a stage where we must appreciate the change that is coming. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, I thank the hon the Minister for his kind words towards my colleague. Obviously I do not want to deal with the problems that he has within his own House.

He says that reform of the constitutional position will bring about an improvement in the economy. I believe that an improvement in the economy will in fact make reform in South Africa very much easier.

I must say that I found the beginning of this debate somewhat startling. We are a country that is faced with sanctions, with disinvestment taking place on a fairly regular basis, with endeavours to isolate us and with our country experiencing serious economic difficulties. We are being faced with completely new developments in Europe with the movement towards the new Europe of 1992 and we have to depend to a large extent on what the influence of Great Britain and the Thatcher Government will be in that new market.

We have all these issues at hand and we are busy with the Second Reading debate on the Budget and we have hardly had a word about economics and economic policy.

It is true that in order to be free one needs to have a right to participate politically in the determination of one’s own destiny. In order to be free we need habeas corpus. In order to be free we need to enjoy personal liberties. However, can we be free if there is not an equality of economic opportunity? Can we be free if one is locked into a situation where there is inadequate incentive to work? Can anyone be free if he is not free from poverty and degradation? Freedom is as much an economic concept as it is a political one.

One of the difficulties that one has in this House—as we have had in debating in separate chambers—is to actually get an economic debate going, to try to discuss the conflicting economic policies, to see to it whether in fact one can deal with the situation where there are such high expectations on the part of the people, and to see whether any of those expectations can be fulfilled. There are tens of thousands of people who are looking for jobs. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are looking for higher living standards. However, we find ourselves in a situation where we are limited in our economic growth and Parliament seems to find inadequate time to debate these matters! I find this remarkable because the reality is that if we do not deal with the economic situation of South Africa and if we do not put ourselves on the correct economic path, we are going to find political solutions almost impossible to fulfil.

Let me put a couple of conflicting economic theories which we need to look at. Take the view of Hayek who says that material inequalities and a market system are indispensable to a free society and that the hardships of the cyclical movements are inevitable. Can we in fact accept that in our society the hardships of the cyclical movement must be regarded as inevitable when they have the potential for unrest, and therefore for violence? Can we have a market system which is not socially orientated and where we are not aiming at having less tangible social and economic differences between the people? I choose to believe—and I want to submit—that unless one has less tangible social and economic differences, and there is in fact equality of opportunity, there will not be full citizenship for the people of South Africa and the individual race groups in this country.

I think we need to get our economic debate going. We need to get going the concept of solving these problems. A judge in a commission of enquiry once spoke of looking for a black cat in a dark room. At the present moment one looks at the economy and one actually feels that people are trying to find their way around a pitch black room with the light of flickering matches instead of seeking to switch on the lights, and, when the dawn comes, pulling the curtain and letting the sun come in so that economic prosperity can come back to our country.

We need, at this very time, to look at where we are in the economy. I have asked before and I ask again that we should take the public of South Africa fully into our confidence regarding the problems that face us, ask for their co-operation and ask, on an honest basis, that they co-operate in order to deal with the problems that are so vital to all of us. We make appeals to the public not to spend, but these appeals must be accompanied by a convincing argument that in fact inflation will not make the articles they are asked not to buy more expensive and that they will not have to pay more when they can again buy them. We appeal to people not to consume, but I believe we must appeal to people more and more to consume South African products in order to create jobs, and not to consume imported products in order to jeopardise the balance of payments.

Again, at the time when we are talking now about elections, should we not as a Parliament as a whole appeal to the people of South Africa to buy South African and to let it come unanimously from this House that we once again start to buy South African and in that way help to put South Africa onto the right road? I believe that these are things which we should be talking about instead of arguing endlessly about pointless issues where we do not seem able to agree.

Let us talk for a moment about the Reserve Bank. I think we should accept as a Parliament as a whole that the Reserve Bank should be completely independent. There must certainly be co-ordination of monetary and fiscal policies but we now have to put the Reserve Bank on a basis where it can act without fear of political constraints and political interests, so that when the economy demands it, the Reserve Bank can act independently and put our case correctly.

Let us look at some other things, namely the question of relief that needs to be brought. There are two things which to my mind go together. The one is an incentive to save which is an extremely difficult product to sell in an inflationary age. The second is that one needs to deal with inflation and one needs to satisfy some of the less sophisticated people in our community that they can have savings that are protected against inflation. It is no use telling people to go into the stock-market. They are not sophisticated enough to do it. Stocks go up and down, and even the growth funds go up and down with the movements on the Stock Exchange. One cannot expect people to risk their savings in the latter part of their lives in this. For that reason I want to appeal today to the hon the Minister to consider again the issue of index linked bonds, particularly for the elderly in South Africa.

Those bonds can be limited in amount. They can be linked, as far as the capital is concerned, to the consumer price index. I will say something else about that in a moment. They can bear a low rate of interest, as for example is done in the United Kingdom, of 3% the first year and then gradually work their way up to, say, 6% in the fifth year so that there is an incentive to hold them. They will be limited in amount to, for example, R50 000 per person. In that way one can get people to save; there is a substitute for the Senior Citizen’s Bond; one can deal with fears in regard to inflation and one can actually do something for the elderly of South Africa, who deserve a little more attention than they are receiving at present. I make the appeal that this should be considered by the hon the Minister.

I referred to the consumer price index. This has been a matter of considerable controversy lately. Two questions arise. Firstly, are the prices which are put into the index the correct prices? The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning is smiling. He knows when he goes to the supermarket and he takes the list of prices, there are many that he cannot buy at those prices.

As you are talking, I cannot afford to go to the supermarket!

The hon the Minister cannot even afford to go to the supermarket. He is right. I must tell hon members we need to look at whether those prices that are the input are accurate. Secondly, we need to look at whether the loading of the index is accurate. I am not challenging the index and saying it is absolutely wrong. What I am saying is, let us investigate it, let us review it and let us restore the confidence of the public in the consumer price index, because it is so important to all of us to deal with it.

I would like also, if I may, to deal with a matter of security. To my mind security is relevant to the process of peaceful change, because without there being security and law and order, peaceful change is impossible. The alternative to having law and order is not peaceful change, but revolution.

Secondly, an economy cannot thrive unless there is law and order in a community. I would like to make an appeal to the hon the Minister that there are 2 500 posts that are not being filled in the Police Force. Those posts should be filled as soon as possible.

They are needed in order to protect the community against crime which is becoming a very, very serious problem. Again it is the elderly who suffer most in this regard. Here I make the appeal to the Minister who deals with posts and telegraphs that the elderly should be assisted in regard to having telephones so that they can communicate with the outside world if they are attacked. The ordinary social pensioner cannot afford to have a telephone.

There is one last matter in regard to security that worries me and that I would like to touch on. I see in the run-up to the election the tendency already of escalating violence in regard to political matters. When I read of the tar and feathering of a man who does nothing more than officiate at a function for a multiracial group of handicapped people, then I worry for my fellow South African. If this is what is going to happen in the run-up to the election and if we are going to have political violence introduced here, then we are looking for trouble in South Africa.

Your party is soft on security.

I am trying to deal with a serious matter and that hon member really is being a bit foolish.

I think we are looking for serious trouble. I believe that we cannot have political murders in South Africa. We cannot have any murders. However, when violence suddenly starts turning in this direction, when it becomes politically motivated and when we are at the beginning of an election campaign that is going to be highly charged, then I believe there is a duty upon the politicians to see to it that that violence is cooled. There is a duty on the Police to make sure that it is kept under control. There is, however, a greater duty upon the politicians to see to it that they do not inflame the feelings of the people of South Africa so that we end up in a situation where violence becomes a political instrument in South Africa. We cannot afford that in our country.

Mr Speaker, it is heartening to note that the vast majority of South Africans reject sanctions and disinvestment. Let us hope that message will penetrate through to the Western World so that South Africa may be spared the chaos and disruption that economic collapse would bring if sanctions were to be applied successfully.

The formation of the National Forum comprising Black leaders outside the national states is an extremely welcome development. Hopefully it will soon put an end to the most unsatisfactory state of affairs now existing where other political groups take it upon themselves to speak on behalf of millions of Black South Africans. Indeed, the situation has deteriorated to such an extent that we now find Coloured politicians who once complained about White prescription to Coloureds, prescribing to Blacks without batting an eyelid.

In an LP publication the hon the Deputy Minister of the Budget in the House of Representatives said the following, and I quote:

Do not quote selectively! Read the whole passage!

My own view on the reasons why the hon the Chairman of the Ministers’ Council resigned from the Cabinet is based on his own statements. He said that his family was happier with him outside the hon the State President’s Cabinet than inside it.

Referring to a few Black leaders in South Africa, and especially to Dr Mangosothu Buthelezi’s negative response to an LP letter to him on the subject of whether he was interested in Black participation in the Cabinet, the hon the Deputy Minister of the Budget arrived at the startling conclusion that, and I quote:

In 1983 the LP, representing a community which in terms of numbers is a small minority compared to the Black population, defied all the appeals, criticism, attacks and even threats from some Black leaders when they decided to enter the tricameral system. “Nobody but nobody prescribes to us,” the LP leaders cried, “We make our own decisions.”

With all due respect to homeland leaders, the issue is one directly concerning the millions of Black South Africans in the country’s urban and peri-urban areas. It is the leaders of this part of the population who must speak and not the LP or anyone else on their behalf.

One of the present leaders of the DP uttered these prophetic words to LP leaders in the Cape Town airport buildings just before the 1984 elections. He said:

[Interjections.] His words have truly been verified!

This arrogant attitude extends also to the incorporation of land into the self-governing territories. The LP leadership will not budge on any attempt to add further land to the Black areas because of their so-called ideological opposition to the homeland concept and the belief that consolidation leads to independence. Black leaders who refuse independence have made it abundantly clear that people must not link consolidation and additional land with independence. The chronic land hunger of Black people must be addressed separately, they say, by making available more land as populations grow.

By obstructing and delaying legislation designed to solve the land shortage the LP is guilty of aggravating the growing problem of illegal squatting. Of course there must be land reform. This is a logical consequence of the whole reform policy currently under way. My party believes, however, that one way in which this can best be done is by the orderly and ongoing allocation of additional land to Black territories in order to make them viable regional units. These, in turn, will be the natural building blocks of any federal type, future constitutional set-up in the Republic.

An agrarian revolution is in the making if the land hunger of the rural population is not satisfied in a way which will avoid the problems of uncontrolled squatting and even the forcing out of property owners from their land by sheer numbers.

The significance of the National Forum for us, the Official Opposition in the House of Representatives is that we have here in the making the negotiating instrument of urban Black South Africans. This is the body that is going to be one of the parties to the negotiations for the creation of a new constitution for South Africa. Black South Africans will therefore be very well represented.

The White population is also well served by political formations, particularly the NP, to put the case of Whites at the negotiating table. The Indian community will no doubt send along a negotiating team which meets with their requirements.

Rajbansi.

Tell them, not me.

In this process of group identification and group leadership, whether we like it or not, the Coloured people find themselves in a situation where they will have to come forward with a negotiating team which will effectively also put their case. The LP does not measure up to the requirements of such a negotiating team. [Interjections.]

The reason for that is simple. They are not interested in negotiation with all the existing parties—I am going to prove it in a minute—but rather in the elimination of the NP as a political force representative of the vast majority of Whites. [Interjections.]

This approach is clearly implied in a statement attributed to the hon the leader of the LP in a publication of theirs. I quote:

Therein lies a false perception of what the real demands of the South African situation are at this time in our history. We cannot at all afford a ganging up of opposition forces bent on the removal of the NP from Government, simply because it is an impossible task. It can only lead to the harming of relationships and damage being done to the relatively favourable climate that exists now for successful negotiations.

Listen to the Brown Nationalist!

The leader of the LP completely misreads the political phase of negotiation between groups that we are now entering. This must mean that the groups themselves must decide who will be their best representatives at the negotiation table. [Interjections.] Of course, the only way to settle that matter is by doing what we are doing now, namely going for elections. That all of us are conscious of the group nature of politics today is underscored when the LP leaders warn the DP not to interfere in Coloured elections.

However, to have false dreams of getting rid of the leadership structures of other groups is naive at best and arrogant at worst. If the LP under its present leadership were to represent the Coloured people in the negotiation process it would be a sad day for that community. We shall once again be subjected to the sorry spectacle of head-bumping, conflict and confrontation which is the LP leader’s stock-in-trade, with a few ultimatums thrown in for good measure when it comes to strategy and tactics.

The danger is that if the LP leader persists with his disruptive approach we will not have a negotiating chamber in which the aforementioned leaders negotiate on the basis of give and take and compromise, but a veritable tower of Babel. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, the focal point of this appropriation debate is indeed 6 September 1989. The Government wittingly or unwittingly decided on an exceptionally meaningful date.

The day of 6 September 1939, exactly 50 years ago, signalled the end of the Hertzog government. On 5 September the war motion was defeated and on 6 September 1939 General Smuts became Prime Minister of South Africa. On 6 September 1966 Dr Verwoerd was murdered, and unexpectedly and suddenly the end of the Verwoerd era was at hand. This happened exactly 23 years ago on election day. Dr H F Verwoerd, the symbol of our nation’s republican aspirations, signed the Constitution of the new Republic of South Africa in 1961. That Constitution was in force for only 23 years when it was brought to an end by this Government in September 1984.

Now 6 September 1989 dawns, the day and date that is already universally regarded as the end of the Botha Government, and probably the end of the NP Government as well. [Interjections.] Certainly five Cabinet Ministers did not resign without reason, and several NP members of the House of Assembly are no longer available on 6 September. Two provincial leaders, those of the Transvaal and Natal, will try—from outside the political arena—to urge their comrades to do battle. They are not taking part in the battle. This is true.

I am taking part!

This is the image of a losing party, a party that is definitely crumbling.

I can now say that the results of our canvassing point in the opposite direction to that which the market and opinion polls of Rapport indicate. Thousands of voters who voted for the NP in the past have already decided: This far and no further. Why? Let us analyse the reasons for this decision.

There are, in my opinion, four important reasons. Firstly, the abominable process of impoverishment of our voters is probably one of the most important reasons. Direct and indirect taxation increased from R14 million to R50 million during this decade according to the Standard Bank’s Economic Survey. GST increased from 4% to 13%. A rand, which was worth a rand in 1980, is currently worth only 33c. The petrol price increased from 54,1 cents per litre to 114 cents per litre for those of us who live in the rural areas. Price hikes in food and medicine far exceed the inflation rate. The producer price of maize drops, but the consumer price rises. I can continue along these lines. We can make out a long list of commodities affected in this way. [Interjections.] This has simply become too much for our people to endure.

Secondly, the extent of corruption, fraud and abuse of political power that has come to light, and has been proved—what is more, investigations are still being conducted—in Government circles, especially in the Departments of Education and Training and Development Aid, is too much for any government to withstand.

Thirdly, the extent of the crowding-out of our people from their settled living areas, and the further statutory confirmation of this by the Government’s free settlement areas, has now reached a critical stage. The only way our people can protest is by drawing their cross in opposition to the Government on 6 September.

Fourthly, there is the announcement made by the NP through its leader-in-chief and the main architect of the new constitutional dispensation—who has now abdicated—that power-sharing is now to be taken to its logical conclusion with the full participation of Blacks in a democratic central government authority.

I now come to what the hon member for Barberton said about the banner headlines in Rapport, namely “Nou een Parlement”, and I quote from the report:

One should take note that it is now being announced that Blacks will comprise part of the electoral college. When the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP was confronted with this by the interviewer on television, and was asked whether he agreed with the utterances of his benchmate, he spoke for five minutes without saying yes or no. I want to tell the NP that the vast majority of the nation at large, in other words the voters of the House of Assembly, will not sign a blank cheque for the destruction of their freedom and right to self-determination. [Interjections.] Our people relived its whole history of liberation too recently, and for this very reason they will not sign it away. However, last Friday the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP argued, and I quote from his speech:

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

I have no time for a question, Sir. I quote further—

This referred to the 1987 election. [Interjections.] That may be so, but one must remember—and I put this specifically to the hon the leader of the NP—that when he indignantly told students of the University of Pretoria, “dit is nie binne die NP se denkpatroon of vooruitskouing om Swartes in dieselfde staatkundige bedeling te akkommodeer nie”, that was in 1982. In 1984, two years later, they started accommodating Blacks on the third tier of government in regional services councils, and without a mandate. There was no election then! What is the position now? The Government announces that Blacks will have a share in the election of the State President; in other words, they will participate in the electoral college—after all, this is the significance of the words of the hon the Minister sitting here. However, the Government still does not have a mandate to do this. I call the hon the State President as a witness. Last year in his Vote…

[Inaudible.]

The hon Minister should just give me a chance. Last year during the debate on the State President’s Vote I asked him the following question, and I quote from Hansard, 22 April 1988, col 7056—

The hon State President then answered:

And I now repeat it once again.

Accommodating Black people in an electoral college for the appointment of a State President is, in other words, not included in the mandate of the present Government. According to the categorical pronouncement the hon State President made on 22 April last year, the nation will only be asked for this mandate on 6 September. Currently there is no mandate for this. I want to tell the NP that they will have to wait until after 6 September. After this date they can negotiate, if they have been able to convince the majority of the White voters to accept the inevitability of a Black state president for South Africa.

During the interview the leader-in-chief designate of the NP said that he had no problem with the exploratory speech the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning had made. On the other hand, he veered to the right when he said, in his speech last Friday, and I quote—

How will the NP—by means of consensus in one Parliament—achieve this utopia? Even if it wished to get around the question of numbers by sleight of hand, by arguing that numbers will play a role in groups while the different groups would carry equal weight in a possible federal government, does the NP honestly think that it could negotiate this at the great indaba? I believe not. Even if this could have been possible, the NP’s so-called group is still a minority. I want to mention an example. Suppose the NP went to the negotiating table with the current national symbols—the flag, the national anthem, and our public holidays. Our public holidays are those resting places on the road of our national life where we stop to look back on our history in order to draw strength and direction for the future that awaits us. Suppose the NP were to lay this on the table now. Would this be acceptable to the LP? Of course not! The hon leader of the LP opposed this in this House in so many words.

The CP is really afraid of the LP!

Who is now to give the final answer in this regard? The hon leader of the NP said in his television interview that it should be a body of experts able to reach a final decision on a very emotional political subject such as this one on a non-political basis. Can hon members believe that he expects this? That idea of his is an absolute absurdity. It cannot work. It is almost laughable.

In conclusion, let me say this. We have had to listen ad nauseam to hon members of the House of Representatives saying in this House that they would not let themselves be forced into a homeland. Be that as it may—they are fully entitled to say that. The choice is theirs.

Where do you want to give us the homeland?

Let me tell hon members—and I am serious about this—that my people, which we represent here, will not allow itself to be forced into a unitary state in which our right to self-determination and freedom will be handed over to a majority government either. This I can guarantee hon members. Therefore the nation will reject the NP on 6 September because they are no longer being faithful to the highest and most noble ideals of a people which was born on South African soil and which will not allow the NP to destroy that ideal of freedom. The truth will then be as the poet N P Van Wyk Louw put it. I quote:

[Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Pietersburg said that in the election the CP would tell the voters that they had recently become impoverished. I do not know whether the hon member thought that would breathe fear into us or the NP’s information service, but I want to tell him immediately that the accusations about impoverishment that come from that side are the last thing that would bother us and the NP’s information service. All we need do is to fetch a businessman from Boksburg or Carletonville to tell our people what the CP does to communities. We do not need to say another word in our communiqués, because if the CP is capable of bringing Boksburg and Carletonville to their knees financially, and they are well on their way to doing so, hon members can imagine what they would do to South Africa as a whole if given half a chance. [Interjections.]

The hon member spoke about a blank cheque that the voters would not be prepared to give the NP. If that party comes into power, the voters will not even have a bank account, let alone be able to sign a blank cheque.

As a Natalian, however, it was not my intention to say much about the CP. Any party that could attract barely 21 000 votes in Natal really does not justify much comment. The CP does not deserve serious attention from a Natalian, particularly since all the partition plans we have seen so far leave the whole of Natal at the mercy of a non-partitioned state. If, therefore, they think that they are going to attract votes in Natal, they are very late arrivals. They should rather go and look elsewhere.

Perhaps the new DP is of greater importance to the Natalians. After all, the party and its constituent parts were still the so-called Indaba Alliance in 1987. That party won six of the 20 seats in Natal. Five of those six seats have now been taken over by the CP, but after a month, and two weeks after the announcement of a general election, things are still so disordered that the hon member for Springs could justifiably talk about the DP as the Disordered Party.

†An indication of just how mixed up this party is, was given this afternoon by the fact that the very first speaker of that party to speak—after the hon member for Houghton, the most senior hon member of that party had announced her retirement—did not even refer to her! There was not a word of appreciation for 36 years of service to that party and its predecessors. No, Sir!

Let it then be left to the NP to express our best wishes to her in her retirement. We never really did see eye to eye with the hon member for Houghton and our leaders have crossed swords with her over many years. However, times were when NP leaders said that she alone offered a more effective opposition than all the other opposition parties in Parliament together. We have respected her as a worthy fighter and we wish her well in her retirement.

*This DP is absolutely confused. When one merely looks at their candidates, one sees what confusion there is. It seems the hon member for Durban Central has just won the battle against the former mayor, Mr Henry Klotz. I wonder what reward they are going to give the former mayor who has done so much for Dr Worrall’s party.

We hear the hon member for Greytown is looking at constituencies in Pietermaritzburg. If that is true, hon members must imagine a situation in which this party wants to sacrifice a constituency with a majority of 600 simply because that constituency no longer wants it, and is going to seek a home between two NP constituencies of which the one has a majority of 1 100 and the other a majority of 1 500.

This is nothing in comparison with the attempts made by Dr Worrall to obtain a constituency. Let us take a look at the constituencies that have been mentioned as possible seats for Dr Worrall. There was talk of Helderberg, where he told us in 1987 his roots were. I understand that his name is not even mentioned as that of a possible candidate in that constituency.

†In East London City it was said that Dr Worrall would be an ideal candidate because he would be able to exploit the so-called corruption stories about the Government. That constituency quietly dropped his name. Cape Town Gardens was mentioned as a possible seat for him—even that is quiet now. The hon member for Berea had toyed with the idea of retirement until the moment Dr Worrall’s name was mentioned in connection with his seat. Then he decided to return. [Interjections.]

*The constituencies mentioned for Dr Worrall most recently are Umhlanga and Umbilo. Both are safe NP constituencies. [Interjections.]

Is that how they treat a leader of their party? I should like to ask the hon members of the DP, when their next speaker has a turn to speak, to tell us whether they will guarantee Dr Worrall a nominated seat if he is unsuccessful in Umbilo, or in whatever NP constituency they place him in. After all, he is one of their three leaders; but what is even more important, he is not only one of their three leaders, he is the only popular public speaker they have. They must tell us whether they will give him a nominated seat.

When we say we have some fun with their candidates, that is nothing in comparison with the fun we have with their advisers. When they established their party on 1 April, they said in a very roundabout way that they had four advisers. We never hear a single word about two of them, Prof Wiechers and Prof Terreblanche.

We heard that Dr Van Zyl Slabbert had also agreed to be one of their advisers. Since hearing that announcement, however, we have simply never know what advice Dr Van Zyl Slabbert gives the DP. [Interjections.] We do not know whether he advises the DP on the ANC, or whether he advises the ANC on the DP. What we do know is that Dr Van Zyl Slabbert is much more actively involved in his tours of inspection to the ANC headquarters than in the advice he gives the DP.

Then there is the fourth-force leader, Prof Wimpie de Klerk, announced with great fanfare, who was ostensibly to bring these 22% discontented people in the ranks of the NP to the DP. Prof De Klerk has already announced that he is going to withdraw from the DP. [Interjections.] To cap everything, he not only announced himself that he was no longer interested in the DP; he also scaled down that 22% to 6% or 7%. I have news for the hon members of that party. On 6 September that 6% or 7% of dissatisfied Nationalists will also be safely back with us.

There is a much deeper significance in Prof De Klerk’s detaching himself from the DP than appears on the surface, however, because it is linked to the confusion and disorder in that party with regard to the political refuge of the hon member for Claremont. Initially they did not want him, and apparently Prof De Klerk was still satisfied with the DP at that stage. Then the opposition newspapers began to pressurise them, and when we looked again the hon member for Claremont was back in the DP. [Interjections.] That was when Prof De Klerk saw what was happening. He saw that the same old tricks always used by the former PFP were manifesting themselves once again. Is there a more left-wing MP in this whole Chamber than the hon member for Claremont? [Interjections.] The trend to the left is very clear, also in the DP. In fact, they remind one of an old dollied-up car which their three salesmen are trying to sell the voters. That party is just like an old car which has been beautifully polished and rejuvenated. The moment one drives it, all the right-wing weights jump off, and the car swings to the left. That is exactly what is happening. The old PFP tricks are manifesting themselves again.

If we are having fun with their candidates and their advisers, we shall have even more fun with their leaders until 6 September. When we look at the panic that surfaced during the past week with regard to the performance of the new hon leader-in-chief of the NP, when we see the hysteria that broke out among them, we know what is lying ahead for them. All of a sudden the hon the leader-in-chief has become an economic illiterate. All of a sudden we heard this statement from Dr Worrall, who himself is not exactly known as a great economist.

Even more comical was his allegation that the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP had compelled the hon the State President to rewrite his speech before the 1986 congress of the Natal NP. That was really a discovery, because Dr Worrall has never told us that the hon the State President informed him on such sensitive matters when he was in London. His memory must have improved remarkably during the past two years. He went through the whole of the campaign in Helderberg without ever remembering that the hon the State President had consulted him about rewriting his speech before the Natal congress. Two years later, he suddenly remembered it. It must be the influence of that party on his memory that led to this great discovery.

It is no wonder that this uncomfortable partnership is dusted off and reconsidered every now and again. In fact, according to the Press, they have just spent the past weekend reflecting on whether they should proceed with the troika or whether they should elect a single leader. Since we have heard no announcement, we must accept that they are going ahead with the troika. That party has the terrible problem that if they elect Dr Worrall as their leader, the rest of the party will disintegrate. If they do not elect Dr Worrall, he will destroy that party single-handed. Consequently they have no choice but to go ahead with a troika. We, that party and South Africa are now faced by the spectacle of an Official Opposition which presumably is going to present their hon leader to the voters as a possible presidential candidate. We, the governing party, are proudly going to present a newly elected leader-in-chief as our presidential candidate. The DP is acknowledging in advance that they do not have the slightest hope of winning this coming election, and consequently they are not taking the trouble of selecting a candidate for the presidency.

I thought they had a leader!

Unfortunately we do not have room for a presidential troika. That is the problem. If one wants confusion, one must look at this final draft that they have published as a policy document. I do not have time to analyse this document in detail, but I want to refer to one or two points. This document of the DP emphasises, in its preamble, the cultural diversity of our people and the diversity of convictions and expectations that exist among our people. These are fine words, but on the following page they advocate universal suffrage on a common voters’ roll, a programme and formula that run counter to the maintenance of cultural diversity in our community. They do not know what they want. They are trying to present the voters with a programme of action which they know is going to destroy these fine-sounding ideas.

Secondly they want to force the Whites to relinquish their own residential areas, because they want to abolish the Group Areas Act, but at the same time they do not have the courage of their conviction also to end tribal ownership among Blacks, and that is why they say that as far as possible they will adopt the principle of private property as their basis. We are not even mentioning the fact that in this document they are also trying to accommodate the extraparliamentary organisations and are thus subordinating the entire Parliamentary system to the desires of extraparliamentary organisations. Such a party cannot hope to come into power on 6 September, not with the best will in the world. They cannot even hope to become this country’s Official Opposition.

Mr Chairman, it is a pleasure to speak after the hon member for Umlazi.

I should like to associate myself with the sentiments he expressed with regard to the hon member for Houghton. As a young man, I developed a great love and respect for this esteemed woman. I usually could not wait to get hold of a newspaper in order to take cognisance of what she was doing in Parliament. In my eyes she became a champion for human rights over the years and South Africa really has much reason to be very proud of her.

I also want to differ drastically with the hon member for Umlazi, however, in respect of the DP. My standpoint is that this party really has a dynamic part to play in South African politics. [Interjections.] They will not disappoint me, because I know that with them we are ultimately going to establish the Government in South Africa that is truly worthy of this country. [Interjections.]

I also want to address a brief word to the hon member for Southern Cape. I see that unfortunately he is not here now. He referred inter alia to the fact that the LP wanted to speak on behalf of the Blacks of South Africa. [Interjections.] I should like to know whether this hon member has become an honorary White, because in South Africa one is primarily a South African and one has to choose between two poles. One is either White or Black. We travel in the same trains as the Blacks, we stand in the same queues and we have been denied the same facilities as the Blacks have. If I must choose, I see myself as one of the Blacks of South Africa and when I speak, I speak as one of them. [Interjections.]

When an acknowledged Black leader in South Africa addresses a letter to my hon leader, I want to ask whether there is no acknowledgment outside for the service that is rendered by the LP in this House. I should like to quote:

Surely that is frank admission of the attempts we are making to dismantle apartheid in this Parliament or in this country. I want to tell the hon member that I listened to him, and there is a Dutch proverb that reads: “Wiens brood men eet, wiens woord men spreek.”

The hon member for Pietersburg also referred quite dramatically to 6 September, quoted numerous highlights with regard to 6 September and referred to it inter alia as the end of various eras. He said the Afrikaners would ensure that their freedom was not signed away on that day.

I hope that 6 September will really be the end of racism in South Africa. If it is a question of signing away freedom, I believe that the day on which freedom is granted to all South Africans will be the day on which we have a true democracy, and not a semi-democratic system as we have in South Africa at present.

The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning is not here now. The hon member for Pietersburg referred to him jokingly as the person who had abdicated, but I want to tell the hon the Minister that he has made an indelible impression upon my community, that he has commanded our eternal respect and that we are sorry that he was the victim of our attempts to bring this country to its senses.

I want to confine myself to other matters, however. In the next few minutes some of our hon colleagues and I are going to drink a toast, in the Joint Committee on Finance, to the Auditor-General, who has announced his retirement. The Auditor-General is retiring on 31 August this year, but I should like to pay tribute briefly to Dr De Loor.

A wide range of initiatives in the sphere of Government auditing has been established by Dr De Loor since he was appointed Auditor-General in 1985. These initiatives have definitely contributed to the promotion of more effective auditing. According to the Auditor-General’s report, numerous improvements have been introduced by him during the past four years, of which I should like to single out 11 here.

1. 1) The auditing of the accounts of various statutory bodies was given out to private auditing firms.
2. 2) New training opportunities were created for aspiring chartered accountants in the Office of the Auditor-General.
3. 3) With a view to specialisation, internal components for computer auditing and special investigations were established.
4. 4) A wide range of functional and administrative training courses were attended by officials of the Office of the Auditor-General.
5. 5) A trading account was established with effect from 1 April 1987 for the services rendered to all clients by his office.
6. 6) The Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Act was amended so that the Auditor-General or a representative of his office can have full-time sitting in the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board.
7. 7) The implementation of a more comprehensive auditing programme so that more emphasis can be placed on spending effectiveness and better public accounting in future.
8. 8) Components for computer auditing and special investigations have been established.
9. 9) A separate audit Bill was introduced.
10. 10) Auditing standards and guidelines were completely revised and developed.
11. 11) The Southern African Institute of Government Auditors was established on 27 July 1988 with the purpose of elevating members, including inter alia people from the TBVC countries and South West Africa/ Namibia, to a higher level of professionalism. This should lead to greater job satisfaction, as well as increased productivity and professional recognition.

I should like to place on record my thanks and appreciation to Dr De Loor, also with regard to his participation in the House Committee on Public Accounts, House of Representatives, of which I am the chairman. His leadership and expertise deserve special mention, and definitely contributed to the smooth running of the activities of the House Committee, and we thank him for that. I want to address a special word of congratulations to his successor, Mr Wronsley, who is not unknown to us. We believe that with his substantial knowledge of Government finance, he will successfully be able to enhance the series of new initiatives launched in the Office of the Auditor-General during the past year.

The hon member for Southern Cape referred earlier to the domestic reaction with regard to sanctions. This was among the highlights in the newspapers this morning. I want to refer to that today, and also to the throwing open of certain beaches in Port Elizabeth.

I want to place on record that the LP of South Africa believes that sanctions can only damage, and not promote, the expectations South Africans cherish of the future. We are irrevocably committed to employing every applicable method of peaceful persuasion to accelerate the rate of change—change to the benefit of all South Africans. Consequently, just as my hon leader and Chairman of the Ministers’ Council in the House of Representatives did in George last night, I want to condemn people from our community who advocate the complete isolation of South Africa by means of sanctions, first and foremost in the economical and cultural spheres. I know that these people hold the opinion that sanctions are the only hope for a non-violent solution for South Africa. In addition the advocates of sanctions believe that punitive measures will have consequences only for the White population, and that the consequences for the Black people of this country will be minimal. They even maintain that sanctions will give Black people a more hopeful future. What absolute nonsense!

What South Africa needs at this stage is financial assistance and foreign investment to make it possible to meet the needs of our rapidly growing population. I want to tell those of my brothers who are appealing for sanctions that so far the American sanctions have had no meaningful effect either in hastening the process of making racism in South Africa disappear or in punishing the South African Government. No, on the contrary, unemployment and poverty have become an increasing phenomenon among the oppressed people of this country.

I want to invite these exponents of sanctions to become part of our attempts to eradicate apartheid. I want to tell them that this is not an easy struggle, but a struggle that is certainly painfully drawn out and can sometimes become extremely frustrating. I also want to tell the Government that the goodwill of the majority of South Africans has been tested to the limit. This Government will have to start making positive attempts to remove the racial barb from society. It was the implementation of an unjust policy which, to a large extent, gave rise to our sorry economic plight. Collective services were duplicated to a large extent, and of necessity this entailed greater expenditure on the part of the Treasury.

Let us look at a few examples. The first is health services. With regard to Whites there is an oversupply, whereas there is a lack of facilities when it comes to Blacks. With reference to own affairs, there are three departments that take care of health and welfare. In addition there is the Department of National Health and Population Development for general affairs, as well as similar departments for the self-governing territories and the TBVC countries. This means that there are 17 health departments in South Africa.

With regard to education, there is full appreciation of the necessity of each pupil’s being taught in his mother tongue if his parents so wish. If a pupil is prepared to be taught in a different language, however, he must be given that opportunity. I request that instead of building schools to meet the short-term needs, longer term solutions should be considered. For example, at present a school is built in the most convenient spot; viz in a very central spot in a new residential area. As the residents of the residential area in question get older and their children leave school, the schools start emptying, and consequently are under-utilised. That is the phenomenon in the White community. The question, therefore, is whether the schools should not rather be erected on the periphery of new residential areas instead of in the centre.

There simply is not enough money to operate schools that have too few pupils. If such schools cannot get additional pupils, they should be transferred to other education departments, or the parents involved should pay for the convenience of the exclusive use of these schools. I can go on to mention a number of examples, but time is running out.

What I mentioned is the result of a socio-political and economic system which has manifested itself in the context of the apartheid ideology. These are in fact serious and blatant forms of racial discrimination. After all, it was blatant racial discrimination that led to the appeal of the Administrator of the Cape against the court’s decision on the beaches in Port Elizabeth. The decision taken by the city council of Port Elizabeth yesterday also smacks of racism. It looks as though this city council has forgotten the result of the referendums in this city. In addition it does not look as though the report of the Jacobs Committee was taken into account. The first recommendation in this report reads as follows, and I quote:

Consequently one regrets the decision of the city council of Port Elizabeth. The general feeling among people of colour is that some people are granted privileges on the basis of their colour, whereas others are victimised on the basis of their colour. I put the question: Can South Africa afford that? Why does this Government continue to give our enemies ammunition, while they are overseas to appeal for sanctions?

No, Sir, the time has come for us as South Africans to move closer to one another, and I believe that we must begin with the children of this country. We cannot afford to do our children any further injustice by allowing them to be misinformed and sometimes even uninformed about the country they are living in and the people with whom they have to share the country. A country’s children are its hope for the future. South Africa’s wealth lies in its children, and consequently we should be imbued of hope for the future. If there is no hope, there is no reason to live, because hope is fundamentally concerned with the meaning of our lives.

I mention that because in conclusion I want to say something about education. Education definitely cannot be detached from the needs of the country and its people, and I am referring to all the people. Today, however, education is one of the greatest polarising factors in our community. It is one of the most sensitive points of friction in our country. The reason for this must be sought in a colossal mistake in which education is dominated by a system that emphasises differences. The LP of South Africa rejects an education system which is based on race. People cannot be reconciled by keeping them apart. No one has ever succeeded in loving his neighbour by refusing to associate with him.

It was with great disappointment that we took cognisance of the fact that the hon the Minister of National Education’s ten-year plan had practically fallen flat. I would have liked to quote from the debate on his Vote on 18 April. Unfortunately I do not have it here with me now. In that debate the hon the Minister referred, among other things, to the fact that the funds needed to proceed with this plan were lacking. I accept as a matter of course that the hon the Minister’s objective would be equal educational opportunities, comprising equal educational standards, for every resident of the Republic, irrespective of race, colour, creed or sex. In order to realise this objective, the expenditure for education would have had to grow, in real terms, by 4,1% annually. Unfortunately our economic growth has shown a decreasing trend, and these credible ideas have really come to grief.

We are sorry about this, because it is the depressed communities in particular which are going to suffer, since backlogs will definitely not be eliminated as one would wish them to be. The community we represent refuses to believe that the Government does not have the funds to erect schools, whereas schools in White areas are half or completely empty. The hon the Minister of Education and Culture in the House of Representatives could not have put it better than he did on Thursday, and I quote:

It is the poor communities in particular that are suffering as a result.

We believe that the best investment a country can make resides in its human material. We also believe that under-utilised educational facilities should be made available to other communities, or rather to all South Africans.

The children of South Africa will have to build a future for this country together. It is simply right that they should get to know one another better during their formative years, because they will not only play together, but in due course they will govern this beautiful country together as equal partners. Only when we are equals in South Africa, will there be greater solidarity and the bond of a common destiny. No one else… [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I would like to thank the previous speaker, the hon member Mr Douw, for the compliments he paid to the hon member for Houghton on her retirement.

It is regrettable that the hon member for Umlazi introduced a note of unpleasantness this afternoon regarding this hon member’s retirement. We are indebted to her for many, many years of service to this country. We, the DP, will show our appreciation to her in our own way. Furthermore, his recognition and appreciation was thrown in amidst a host of criticisms of other matters and certainly did not reflect any depth of appreciation from him.

Regarding the nomination of election candidates, to respond to but one issue he raised, we will do this in our own time and in our own way. Whereas I suppose we should be flattered by all the attention he paid to us, I wish to refer to economic matters. However, before doing so, I wish to take issue with the hon the Minister who responded to what I had said in the interpellation last week. I argued that the economic malaise that we are experiencing stems from a lack of confidence which, in turn, stems from the inability of this Government to reform meaningfully.

The hon the Minister’s reply with regard to the economy—and I quote from his uncorrected Hansard—was:

He then stated why I should understand why he was ignoring my speech and that he could not comment on such nonsense.

The hon the Minister may disagree with what I mean by reform, namely the need to recognize the rights of all citizens to participate fully in a non-racial, democratic constitutional dispensation, but I fail to understand why recognition of the effect our political problems have on the economy is nonsense. The hon the Minister himself clearly recognizes the need for political reform and his concerns have been echoed by no less than the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr De Kock, who stated last week that South Africa cannot achieve higher growth and lower inflation without continued political and constitutional reform.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this Government’s policies have directly caused the lack of confidence which in turn is reflected in the decline in our economy. This is an incontrovertible fact. It is not good enough merely to deal with the economic symptoms of what is a political catastrophe perpetuated over 41 years of NP misrule. As a Cabinet Minister, this hon Minister is jointly responsible for those policies.

I wish now to devote some time to the issues of free enterprise and social welfare expenditure and the DP’s approach to these fundamental concepts. Our economic policy states quite clearly that we support an economic system and an economic strategy which is market-orientated and which is based, as far as possible, on the principles of private ownership and free enterprise.

Furthermore we say that the State must undertake the upliftment and the development of all South Africans and that this service will be provided fairly, taking into account the economy’s taxation capacity and the very great need to uplift and develop deprived communities.

These concepts are not mutually exclusive. The one is entirely dependent on the other. One can argue about the extent to which social welfare expenditure is necessary and point to the social consequences of things such as the infamous dole system which applied in Britain, but no-one in this Chamber will argue about the fact that the need to uplift the broader South African community is imperative. Shocking conditions in housing, education and medical care bear testimony to this fact.

In our opinion there are two factors which influence our ability to meet these needs. The first is that present Government upliftment and development expenditure is not enough, primarily because of its basically flawed policy of having to feed the apartheid monster.

The second is that whereas a redistribution of funds is necessary, this cannot be based on a stagnant or shrinking economic cake. The needs are enormous and can only be met from a thriving and growing South African economy. For this reason we support all Government moves towards stimulating such growth. The hon member for Yeoville and others in this party have been at the forefront in proposing and supporting moves towards privatisation, deregulation, inward industrialisation and the stimulation of the informal sector, and we shall continue to do so.

The DP believes that to grow we need a free-enterprise, market-orientated economy. As a corollary to this, we believe that for the reasons I have already stated, the Government’s slice of the total expenditure is far too large.

The equation is a simple one—welfare expenditure is dependent on tax revenues and tax revenues are dependent on the economic growth of the private sector. Taxes are already too high, but growth potential is clearly limited and the net effect is that we are unable to uplift and develop deprived communities. To see examples of how a healthy, growing free-enterprise economy enables a State to meet its welfare obligations one only has to look at places such as, inter alia, Britain, the USA and West Germany.

To conclude this point, we in the DP will support with enthusiasm and vigour all actions which promote economic growth, but at the same time we will continue to expose, oppose and condemn all wasteful and unnecessary Government expenditure, particularly that needed to prop up the politically bankrupt ideology of apartheid.

Finally, yesterday the Central Statistical Services said that the GDP rose by only 1,6% at an annual rate from the fourth quarter of last year, and that this was lower than expected as output growth slowed dramatically from last year.

Last week this hon Minister imposed a monetary and fiscal package designed to cool down the economy. We in the DP supported these measures because of the balance of payment considerations, but what of the long-term growth and the health of our economy? The NP is entering the election race struggling under the albatross of a sick economy. Hon members must remember that basic needs, such as an increase in social pensions, still have to be met.

The question is how the NP and this hon Minister in particular will deal with this issue. The temptation to sacrifice sound economic management for political expediency will be great and we will watch developments with great interest.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Pinelands will pardon me if I do not follow up his speech.

At this stage I would like to say that we also wish to congratulate the hon member for Houghton on the period which she has spent in Parliament, a period during which there was an assault on individual liberties, and for the gallant manner in which she has stood up and defended individual liberties over the years. We wish her a very happy retirement, but knowing her as we do I doubt whether she will really retire. I am sure her influence will still be felt in the political life of this country for some time to come.

I notice that the hon the Minister of Education and Culture in the House of Delegates is not here. However, I see one of his colleagues here and I hope that he will convey our sentiments to him. That hon Minister has said that he is finding it difficult to maintain his portfolio in a viable state as a result of the shortchanging for which the hon the Minister of Finance is responsible. I think that the hon the Minister of Education and Culture can do all South Africans and us in particular a favour if he is prepared to resign his job, because he and his department are costing us a million rand a year.

This is a totally unproductive state of affairs if one takes into account that we have in this country, I am told, no fewer than approximately 14 departments of education, headed of course by 14 Ministries of education. This is one area where one has to agree with the hon member Mr Douw who said that education should fall under a single Ministry and that it should be regionalised by regional directors.

The way things are going at the moment, we are all paying through our noses. The hon the Minister’s department shows us no mercy whatsoever when it comes to the end of the financial year—then we have to pay. We are all paying for the maintenance of an ideology which has proven to be absolutely cumbersome and costly.

Let us compare the state of affairs in our country with fewer than 30 million people with Great Britain where there are close on 100 million people and a parliament with approximately 630 members. Here in our country we have no fewer than 13 Houses of Parliament and a 60-member President’s Council.

We have in this House no fewer that 308 members of Parhament, and we have 501 members of Parliament in the self-governing national states and 401 in the independent states. These parliaments have a total of no fewer than 121 Ministries, and there are 21 Deputy Ministers into the bargain! There are no fewer that 151 Government departments for a small country of fewer than 30 million people. There are 18 departments of health and, as I have already indicated, 14 departments of education. Agriculture is, of course, compartmentalised and I would like to tell the hon the Minister of Finance that if the hon the State President really wants to compartmentalise agriculture he should, because carrots are yellow in colour and as we are a yellowish people, leave the cultivation of carrots exclusively to the so-called Indian Department of Agriculture, otherwise that department will not have a job to do!

Yesterday when we were debating the Local Government and Agriculture Vote in the House of Delegates the hon the Minister of Local Government and Agriculture in the House of Delegates himself intimated that he had no power in that department whatsoever. I would like to recommend that the hon the Minister start helping us to save much needed funds by recommending to the hon the State President that some of these Ministries be phased out as they no longer justify their existence. They should be dispensed with so that we can save money.

A lot has happened over the past few weeks including the shock announcement of the resignation of the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning with effect from 1 July.

At this juncture, I would be failing in my duty if I did not wish the hon the Minister a happy retirement. It is a pity that he has become the victim of circumstances under which, it would appear, he was unable to take his party along with him into the new future that he had mapped out here approximately ten days ago.

*I want to tell him the following, and I quote from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Galations:

That is my message to the hon the Minister.

New questions have cropped up. The new leader-in-chief of the NP—who is not present at the moment—will have to do some explaining, because the voters at large will be expecting certain answers from us during the coming weeks. We should like to know whether he supports the speech the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning made here—I think it was on 3 May. We want to know whether he endorses that speech in which the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning said that in future groups would be formed by way of free association. We should like to know from the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP whether he supports this viewpoint.

Does the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP also support the formation of open groups? Does he also support one Parliament and, of course, a single executive, which the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning referred to? If the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP supports the proposed policy of open groups, we want to know how that corresponds with the recommendations of the Natal Indaba which also supports this idea, and whether the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP supports the recommendations of the Natal Indaba.

Then there is also the matter of the depoliticization of the post of State President. That is something which the hon the leader-in-chief of the NP discussed on television on Sunday. I must be frank and say that I did not hear it personally, but naturally I read about it. We should like some details from the hon the leader on how he sees this depoliticization. What will it look like? I think he owes us these answers. The voters would also very much like to know.

Of course I also want to refer to the hon Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning elect who will take office with effect from 1 June. Although in the past we did not always agree with him, particularly with regard to his decisions on open beaches here in the Cape Province, on King’s Beach in Port Elizabeth etc, there is one matter on which we agree with him entirely and that is the recent statement he made, and I want to quote from The Argus:

†That is a division into own affairs and general affairs—

That is the greatest threat in South Africa today. We—being a mixture of Third World and First World components—do not have the financial back-up and ability to be able to carry this sort of policy to its conclusion. He goes further:

Of course, there too we agree with the hon Administrator of the Cape Province, the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning elect.

We will wait to see how this hon Minister will address these questions because these questions need to be addressed.

I just want to refer to a reply by the hon the Minister of Education and Culture in the House of Assembly to a question tabled in Parliament by the hon member for Cape Town Gardens. He replied that approximately 203 White schools had been closed in the past ten years. It is a shocking indictment that despite the existence of an infrastructure valued at, I understand, approximately R2 billion, we still see fit to build new schools in certain areas.

I want to make an appeal. We, with a Third World component where we need knowledgeable people who are trained in the technical fields, have White technikons in various parts of the country. Perhaps—and I am not in favour of it—one could argue the maintenance of schools along racial lines at primary levels. However, when it comes to technical education to provide the necessary trained manpower to get our economy under way and going, I believe technical institutions ought to be open.

I will give hon members an example to illustrate my point. Where I come from on the East Rand there are no technical institutions for people of colour. The only institutions are White institutions. Of course, they are reserved for Whites and entry is not permitted to people of colour. If we are to get trained people to enable us to make the necessary contribution to the economic development of our country, it is absolutely important and vital that these institutions are opened up to provide tuition for people of colour as well. Otherwise we are going to sit with a mass of untrained people—untrained labour—and we will have to accept the blame in the years to come if our economy does not get off the ground the way it should.

With regard to health services, I believe health is becoming an extremely expensive commodity. In terms of Government policy there has been a tendency to privatise health services in our country. The overwhelming majority of the people in our country are still on the lower rung of the economic ladder. That being the case, I think it is going to be absolutely important for us to look towards a contributory health scheme for the country. Health services of the highest standard will then be available and accessible to every member of the populace. People who can belong to a medical aid society and thereby make use of clinics where a bypass operation can cost as much as five figures, or R20 000 and above, are few and far between. The majority of the people will have to be served by the institutions that have been created with State money. This will have to be made available to people on a far wider scale.

*After five years in this Parliament I regret to say that we, as members of Parliament, have not yet held meetings on a regional basis to discuss the problems of the regions we come from and to try to find solutions for them. South Africa, with its enormous surface area, has problems which vary from one region to another. The problems vary from one region to another and the solutions must be found within the regions where the problems have originated. I hope that when we return after 6 September something will be done to give a measure of permanency to a system according to which the members of Parliament of a particular region can get together. In the region I come from, I know that the hon the Deputy Minister of Education is the chairman of a group of that region’s MPs. They meet and discuss matters pertaining to the region. Sometimes they also discuss us and out problems. However, we are never included in those meetings.

I want to request that all members of Parliament be involved in finding solutions for the problems of a particular region. There should not be an attitude—it is something which should not take root among our people—that the Government always wants to win and that others have no role to play.

I want to point out that many things have been done in our regions in reaction to representations we made, but that we were not consulted when a final decision was made. We look like a lot of “Charlies” in our community when we have to see these things on TV or read about them in the newspapers. If we want to give effect to the system on which we are working at present, and if we want to give credibility to the people of colour who are also here, let us help by doing things together so that all of us can be in a winning situation.

Unfortunately the hon the Minister who is responsible for broadcasting is not here, but I want to tell him only one thing. [Interjections.] Yes, I agree; hardly anybody is here. Even the benches of my own people are empty.

In view of the election, I want to request with great respect that enough time be given to all parties participating in the election. I also want to warn against people in the broadcasting services who may have pals belonging to one of the political parties. I want to say bluntly that we have a member of Parliament whose son works there. I hope that a situation will not arise where we will have to point fingers. I also hope that all participating parties will have an opportunity to put their case and viewpoints, as well as to participate in panel discussions on the coming election. Only if that happens will we be able to respect the impartiality of this institution, the SABC. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member Mr Abram will no doubt pardon me if I do not follow up directly on what he said. Enlightened voters in this country surely cannot be blamed for ridiculing CP members when the latter talk about the economy of this country. I do not think the CP deserves any attention beyond the mere statement of the irrefutable fact that their policy would lead to the immediate destruction of the economy of this country if ever there were an attempt to implement it in this country. [Interjections.]

As far as the DP is concerned I am prepared to concede that their policy may not lead to the immediate destruction of the economy, but in the long run it will without a doubt lead to the destruction of the economy. A policy of total surrender of power to a Black majority government according to their policy of one man, one vote will discourage foreign investors from investing in this country for ever. [Interjections.]

I notice that the hon member for Green Point is now leaving the Chamber. However, in his speech today the hon member for Yeoville discussed security and the maintenance of law and order as a prerequisite for peaceful change and economic growth. I agree with him, but unfortunately it is clear that a considerable number of his hon colleagues in the DP do not share his point of view in this regard. [Interjections.]

Now just say when the investors are returning.

One need only refer to the hon member for Claremont and his sharp attacks on the SA Defence Force and the SA Police, and one need only listen to what the hon member for Green Point says when he talks about “their terrorists” and “our terrorists”. To whom is he referring? I trust that a DP spokesman will spell out what they mean when they talk about “our terrorists”.

The AWB.

Otherwise we will have to accept that they are referring to members of our Defence Force and Police Force.

Since the hon member for Greytown is so verbose this afternoon, we would like to see how many Black Power salutes he is again going to give in the coming election. It remains an irrefutable fact that the DP is extremely soft on security. This is one reason, amongst others, why the electorate will reject them once again on 6 September.

The Government is very aware of the importance of keeping the South African economy sound in the longer term. We cannot, merely, for the sake of short-term gain and a higher current growth rate, wreck the long-term possibilities for economic development of our country. It is probably true that if we freed the economy now, without any restrictions on internal spending, we could temporarily achieve an even higher growth rate in the next few months. However, such a policy could also have posed the threat that the inflation rate would escalate sharply later this year as well as next year. This would have exerted even more pressure on the balance of payments and led to greater depreciation of the rand. In the long term this would all simply have resulted in a lower average growth rate.

Certainly the present restrictive measures are not intended to suppress all growth in the South African economy either. The Government is merely trying to bring about a growth rate which is within the total means of our country, given certain external restrictions to which I shall refer further at a later stage.

According to economic analyses the South African economy can at present be expanded at an annual rate of 3% on a stable basis. In the recent past domestic expenditure has been increasing at a rate of approximately 7% per annum. It is clear that this high rate of expansion in expenditure must be tempered.

The Government deserves praise for the way in which it is prepared to introduce unpopular measures aimed at ensuring healthy economic growth in South Africa in the long term, a few months before an election. This takes pluck and courage which will not go unnoticed by the enlightened voter. They will notice and appreciate this, and this will show on 6 September.

The message conveyed by the Government, by way of this package of measures, is simple. Given the restrictions imposed on our country, we have had a good year. Let us consolidate the position now so as to ensure that we will have a good year again next year. I do not believe this is an unreasonable request. I also believe the majority of the electorate of South Africa understands this message and will understand it even better in the future and that they will strongly support the approach reflected in the Government’s policy in this regard.

I have already referred to the limiting factors which make it difficult, even impossible, to maintain a growth rate higher than 3% a year at present. One of these factors which has forced us to exercise greater caution lately, is the decline in the dollar price of gold.

Last year the average price of gold was still approximately 437 dollars a fine ounce. It is currently fluctuating in the region of approximately 375 dollars a fine ounce. For South Africa a drop of 60 dollars a fine ounce represents a decline of approximately one billion dollars a year in foreign exchange earnings, or, converted into rand, more than R2,5 billion in income derived from the gold mining industry. The Government would be irresponsible not to take this into consideration when determining its economic policy.

A second recent external development which we cannot ignore is the rising trend of interest rates abroad. Most Western industrial countries are currently maintaining interest rates on a level 5% to 6% higher than their inflation rates. Should South Africa not keep in step with this, we would simply be further encouraging the outflow of capital.

Further limiting factors forced on us from abroad are the trade sanctions, disinvestment campaigns and restrictions on new financial loans to South Africa. The absurdity of these actions is once again illustrated in the survey initiated recently by the Chamber of Commerce, from which it appears that more than 89% of all South Africans are opposed to them.

There are indications that greater realism is developing abroad as well as with regard to the disinvestment policy. We can justifiably look forward to this better understanding of the role that economic growth plays in the political reform process in South Africa, which goes hand in hand with this greater realism, soon showing positive results, especially with regard to the availability of foreign loans in South Africa.

The NP will continue to put the interests of South Africa and its people foremost and remain true to its creed “South Africa first”, even if this sometimes requires measures which are unpopular in the short term.

Mr Chairman, I agree with the hon member for Durban-Point as far as the economy is concerned. I agree that we should stop providing the proponents of boycotts with ammunition. It is about time that we start counting our words. The obstacles in the way of a sound economy in this country, about which we heard earlier, are the bigoted thoughts which were raised here today. Naked racism and White “baasskap” must go. The country can do without it.

†We are looking for international acceptance but this kind of thinking is driving us further away from the rest of the modern world, especially in the economic sphere. It is not strange that Chief Minister Buthelezi should be lambasting sanctions and disinvestment at every opportunity. We should all do it because it creates unemployment which we cannot afford. Instead we need jobs and we need work opportunities.

Are hon members aware that South Africa’s high population growth necessitates the creation of 450 000 jobs a year until the end of the century? However, in the formal sector there were 146 000 fewer jobs in 1986 than in 1980, with the situation deteriorating even further in 1987 because of sanctions. Unemployment, in fact, reached crisis proportions in 1988. This crisis is potentially the most devastating that South Africa has faced in its entire history.

Many of the security problems facing South Africa are due to unemployment. It causes frustrations which lead to despair and an animosity towards those in authority. It is then so easy for people to be led astray by the simple shouting of a few slogans against the establishment. The establishment therefore must never be seen as being a direct or even an indirect cause of unemployment, as unemployment is the breeding ground for revolution.

It is a fact that lack of employment leads to poverty and poverty in turn leads to most of the social and political ills in society. Of this the great American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, said:

One wonders whether enough is being done in mobilising and expanding the huge informal sector in order to decrease the large number of unemployed persons in our midst. What are we doing to unleash the untapped entrepreneurial skills which are hidden just below the surface? Are we even aware of the effect which this force could have on the economy of South Africa? I doubt it, otherwise we would not be so restrictive towards this sector.

One only has to look at the harassment experienced by these people who, because they do not want to accept handouts from anyone, strike out on their own.

I want to illustrate this. In Cape Town in February 1987 The Argus reported as follows:

And this happened in Cape Town; a city that boasts about its liberalism! This is the type of action that drives one to despair. Imagine describing the destruction of the goods of your fellow men as being normal! This practice is not confined to Cape Town alone. What are these hawkers really guilty of? They were guilty of trying to earn an honest living. This method of enforcing the bylaws of the city is found all over the Republic of South Africa. It is applied throughout the Republic and it is a contributory factor to the unemployment that is suffered throughout the country.

Given the opportunity, and unfettered by the scores of laws and bylaws which can hinder progress, the unrecorded sector can play an important role in creating new jobs and thus new wealth.

A case in point is the Southern African Black Taxi Association which has given us an indication of what is possible in this sector. This showpiece of informal activity has not as yet reached its full potential. It still has some way to go, but then it must be free from Government intervention. Red tape, with its resultant high cost factor, must go. The person who is forced by restrictions to run a pirate taxi must be given the opportunity to run a legal business.

Let us open the doors to those wanting to operate under certain conditions. Let us allow those who own quality vehicles, have a public driver’s permit regularly obtain a certificate of fitness and register their vehicles as taxis, to run a service. Those should be the only conditions. These people should be given licences. The present system, whereby persons who do not own any vehicle at all are issued with a fistful of permits, must be abolished.

Suitcase taxis.

I hear somebody say “suitcase taxis”. One takes them out of a suitcase. Those in authority are fully aware of these suitcase taxis. They are fully aware of this practice, as well as of the fact that these permits are farmed out at about R300 per week to those who fail to obtain a permit. The practice is rife in Port Elizabeth. I am talking about that place. I am certain that those who are being milked will appreciate an investigation into this practice.

A system which allows this, which is obviously open to corruption and which is unwieldy and time-consuming, must be abolished immediately and be replaced with a system which will allow the enterprise to be free in the true sense of the word. Then the sum of more than R1 billion which Sabta—the Southern African Black Taxi Association—spends per year on cars, petrol, insurance, tyres and spares, will be increased considerably, since at present the pirate taxis in the country outnumber those which run legally.

Unfortunately my time is up, but I want to say that once we free the private sector, I am sure everybody will benefit, from the family to the consumer.

Mr Chairman, yesterday, 16 May 1989, was an historic day in the history of the CP, because the party’s two cultural leaders were here to hold discussions with the hon the leader of the CP. The cultural leaders are Mr Eugéne Terre’Blanche and Prof Carel Boshoff. Mr Terre’Blanche was here with a revolver and Prof Boshoff without a revolver.

Was Jani Allan not here too?

It is very interesting that the armed cultural leader of the CP also had armed bodyguards, whereas the unarmed cultural leader of the CP had no guards. Another interesting point was that the armed cultural leader of the CP had to be disarmed before he was allowed into Parliament, whereas the unarmed cultural leader of the CP did not have to be disarmed because he had no weapon.

Now that was clever!

Another interesting point is that the armed cultural leader of the CP may be interested in standing for the CP in the election, whereas apparently the unarmed cultural leader of the CP is not interested. I struggled to find something these two cultural leaders have in common. The only resemblance between the armed cultural leader of the CP and the unarmed cultural leader of the CP was removed by the unarmed cultural leader of the CP when he recently shaved his beard.

Unfortunately we shall probably never know what happened at those discussions. I believe—and would guess—that a possible seat for the armed cultural leader of the CP was discussed. The NP wants to ask the CP this question today, however: Is this armed cultural leader of the CP acceptable to them as a candidate for the coming election? They must answer that question for us. Hon members can answer me across the floor. Is that armed cultural leader of the CP acceptable to the CP in the coming election? They are not saying a word! They are as silent as the grave. In that case I must deduce that he is unacceptable. I want to tell those hon members that there are AWB members in their party who are acceptable to them as candidates in this coming election, but apparently the leader of those AWB members is unacceptable to them. I think the hon members must tell us frankly whether or not he is acceptable to them. I think the armed cultural leader of the CP must take cognizance of how his kindred spirits here in Parliament react when one asks them a question. He is unacceptable to them.

The NP wants to say the following to Mr Eugène Terre’Blanche: We challenge you to make yourself available as a CP candidate in this coming election. We challenge him to do so, because we want to make the assertion that he is too much of a coward to do so. We make that assertion. [Interjections.]

The CP has another problem. The hon member for Pietersburg spoke here this afternoon about 6 September which would be an historic day. That is true, because very shortly afterwards South Africa is going to have a young, dynamic State President, who is going to build a new South Africa. What the hon member said, therefore, was very true.

The CP has another dilemma. Their hon leader—I do not say this disrespectfully—is no longer a young man, and in fact is close to his seventies. [Interjections.] That is a fact. It is my belief that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition would like to retire now in order to rest. He has a problem, however, because as soon as he leaves, the CP will disintegrate. [Interjections.] That is a reality. Hon members know it is a reality.

Is that what happened to you?

It did not happen to us. There could have been six possible candidates, and there were four. Let us take a look at their candidates who could aspire to take over.

Let us begin with the hon member for Lichtenburg. I want to allege that the NP would welcome his becoming the leader of the Official Opposition, because under his leadership the CP would disintegrate within six months, and I am as sure of that as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow. That hon member has a problem. He has too many characteristics that correspond with characteristics of the armed cultural leader of the CP.

That armed cultural leader of the CP could not even keep the cultural wing of the CP together.

This also applies to the hon member for Lichtenburg. He would not be able to keep them together. If he is not among the candidates, or is unacceptable, let us look at the hon member for Soutpansberg. We are looking at all the senior people in that party. I do not know whether I should say much about the hon member for Soutpansberg. I think he reached his zenith when he became the chairman of the University of Pretoria’s student council. So he is out too.

The hon member for Brakpan, and I want to say this to him with respect today, is the most embittered person I have come across in the 46 years of my existence. An embittered person cannot lead a party. I do not think the hon members for Barberton and Pietersburg would even make themselves available as leaders.

What about Koos van der Merwe?

I shall come to the hon member for Overvaal in a moment. [Interjections.] That leaves him to be considered. I want to tell hon members that anyone in this House can take it from me that he will never be the leader of the CP. He is too liberal. He is an arch liberal. Over and above what he has said with regard to Hillbrow, it is interesting to see what is happening in Boksburg. Let us listen to what this council member, Mrs Greyling, who retired from the CP, said about the arch liberal—with reference not only to this member. She said, and I quote from Beeld of 16 May, this historic day for the CP:

That is interesting. She went on, and I quote:

Just in passing, I think it is terrible that a leader has senior and junior lieutenants in his party whose views are in direct conflict with his. Their views are absolutely diametrically opposed to his, but he does absolutely nothing about it. I cannot understand it. What kind of party is this?

Do you want Benoni Lake to be open to all races?

Benoni Lake is open to all races.

I wonder: Did yesterday’s meeting with these two cultural leaders not possibly concern new blood for leadership in the future? I see that most of the other people who are going to come in from outside to stand in the election are old faithfuls. The person the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition wants to put up in Maraisburg—after intervening and going over the head of the CP leader in Johannesburg—is 72 years old. I do not know whether the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition felt that he did not want to be the oldest person in that party—that he had to ensure that there was someone older than he. The CP knows that that is one of their problems, and consequently the NP says to them: We are looking forward to this election.

The hon member for Pietersburg said very confidently this afternoon that 6 September would be an historic day and that they were going to take over. I want to tell him that his own leader is not all that sure of that, because otherwise he would have done what my leader-in-chief had told him to do—viz not to make himself available for the election in Waterberg, since he knows that in that case he would subsequently become State President. Why waste time and money on fighting an election on 6 September, coming back, becoming State President a week later, and then immediately going back to fight a by-election? Surely that is absurd, but that is the confidence they have in themselves. That is why their hon leader is not prepared to do that. It may be that he feels that he is rather going to stand in case they do not make it, because then he will be running the risk that the CPs who are elected may select a younger man as the party’s indirectly elected member, instead of him. We can give the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition this assurance today, however: They will bring him back, because he is the only factor that can keep them together.

Mr Chairman, I was unable yesterday to pay my respects to the hon member for Houghton in view of the fact that I was ploughing my furrow in the agricultural debate. I would like to take this opportunity to say that one respects very much the contribution the hon member for Houghton has made in this establishment. It must have been a very difficult decision for her not to make herself available for the coming election. I want it recorded that her distinguished political career over three decades has deservedly earned her world-wide acclaim and respect. I wish her well and trust that she will be able to enjoy many happy years of retirement.

I also want to touch on a point that the hon member for Yeoville made in his speech here earlier this afternoon when he referred to the aspect of equal opportunity for all. I must say that he is quite right and I associate myself totally with that concept. What must not be forgotten is that the denial of equal opportunity inevitably places an obligation on those who make restrictive decisions, to ensure that anyone directly disadvantaged by these decisions should be duly compensated.

I wish to deal with two matters of a somewhat parochial nature. The one issue that I wish to raise is the need for the Government to give greater attention and priority to the upgrading of certain basic infrastructures in the rural areas. Here I refer in particular to the rural areas of Natal and KwaZulu. I am aware of the fact that a broad statement of this nature has many implications and ramifications. However, I feel that it is of such importance that attention should be focussed on the matter during the course of this debate.

As one who represents a rural constituency which is geographically intertwined with parts of KwaZulu, I would warn that the ongoing movement of people from rural to urban areas will continue unabated until the living standards in rural areas are upgraded to a degree at which the basic living conditions are more in line with those in urban areas.

In other words, the living standards of the rural communities should be improved so that the temptation to move to the towns is no longer as attractive as it is at present. Let me make it clear, however, that I am not suggesting that a programme of sophisticated development should take place. The difficulties experienced by Black people in some of the remote areas of KwaZulu, however, have to be seen to be believed.

If one may enumerate some of these difficulties, they would be the following. In many areas road systems are totally inadequate, transport services are few and far between, difficulties are experienced on account of a lack of adequate water availability, many areas also suffer as a result of a lack of telecommunication systems and most of these areas have no electrification. These are factors deterring anybody living in those areas from remaining there.

Taking these factors into consideration it is little wonder that the trek to the cities is gaining momentum because the style of life in the towns, in spite of a shortage of housing, offers a very much more attractive option than life in the rural areas.

It is also not surprising that, in spite of the problems experienced by people migrating to the cities, the enormous gap which exists between the lifestyles of rural and urban Blacks continues to be such as to entice people of all ages to move out of the undeveloped country areas.

For this reason alone the need to improve living conditions in country areas must be treated as a matter of urgency, failing which a danger exists that many Black rural areas will become economic vacuums and gradually depopulate. They will suffer the loss of productive manpower, which in itself will compound yet further the economic problems which are being experienced in the rural areas.

I wish to deal with another parochial matter which has plagued me since I have been here in Parliament in the past eight years. I want to refer to the plight of some 15 farmers in East Griqualand which I feel should be recorded in this Parliament. I feel that these landowners have been the victims of pretty shoddy treatment.

The properties of the farmers concerned were identified as long ago as some 10 years back for incorporation into the Drakensberg Catchment Area. An undertaking was given in 1980 that immediate payment would be made for these properties. I want to advise this House that this undertaking has not been honoured to this day. I want to point out too that immediately a property is earmarked for acquisition by the State it loses it saleability value on a willing seller, willing buyer basis.

This is the predicament in which these farmers—or what is left of them—find themselves after a 10-year stint of uncertainty and extreme hardship. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Mooi River will forgive me if I do not react to his speech. What I should like to address here today is the question of what must be said to the electorate.

There is only one thing that can be said to the electorate, and that is the truth. The time has come for us to give the voters across the entire political spectrum the truth once and for all, because history has proven that what we have tried to conceal and put away for later has ultimately emerged as the truth.

I want to give hon members an example. In the early sixties the writer, F A Venter, wrote a book called Die Swart Pelgrim, in which he described the fate of the Blacks who went to the cities, how they were ill-treated by the police and hit with truncheons. We do not have that in South Africa today. What F A Venter wrote in the early sixties had to wait 20 years to become reality. As recently as 20 years ago, it was quite unacceptable to believe that the Mixed Marriages Act in South Africa would be abolished.

Once again someone came from the arts and made the film Katrina which immediately led fathers to look very closely at the young men who came to visit their daughters to make sure that they were not perhaps Coloureds. Today it is a reality that we can marry whom we want to, where we want to and when we want to. This was a serious matter in the early seventies, even in NP circles. At that stage the hon members of the CP were with the NP. There were great leaders who said this would happen over their dead bodies, but it is a reality today, and the sky has not fallen yet.

Then the film Springbok was made. I shall never forget our unpleasant experience when we saw the film for the first time. We were at a drive-in cinema in the platteland with a proverbial, literal and figurative wall between us. When that so-called Coloured man scored the try for his team, the Springboks, they threw bottles and stones at us from the other side. Years later it is a reality to have a Coloured man in the team. In fact, one almost has to beg them to play in the Springbok team these days.

Reality once again emerged in the arts when the film Broer Matie was made. The film expresses the idea that God’s love extends much further than man’s plans here on earth do by means of his own legislation. In that film we saw something else that is acceptable today. It is common practice these days to bury one another as we wish to and to attend funerals as we wish to, except of course in certain places in the country where people will have to open their eyes at some stage or other.

Best of all, however, was the part played by television recently when we saw the series called 1945. At that stage the Afrikaners were experiencing the difficulties we are experiencing today. One sometimes felt sorry for the families in that film when they were bothered at 2 o’clock in the morning by policemen who had come to turn the house and the drawers and everything upside down, simply because those people did not agree with the Government of the day on certain things.

It is good for this kind of thing to be exposed so that the voters can know what is going on. These things still happen in our ranks. I can assure hon members that if some of my people were to have come to this Parliament, accompanied by people bearing arms, all hell would have broken loose. That is why I am appealing to all parties in this Parliament to tell the voters the truth.

As we are sitting here, the big question is why no film has ever been made about these things. I appeal to the producer, Jan Scholtz, to make such a film to show Afrikaners the pain and misery we have had to suffer as a result of the Group Areas Act, for example. All these things that have hurt us can be recorded on film.

What I have tried to illustrate is that the arts have brought these Afrikaners to other perceptions. We can debate here until we are blue in the face. If 6 September 1989 is going to become a watershed date in the history of South Africa, I say, “Thank the Lord the day has come.” Then it must be a date, however, in which we shall be facing the truth in all sincerity. There will be no point in our hiding behind White fears. Reality is with us. Just as the CP want to make it their date, with quotations from history, I have tried to show that history will show all the parties in this Parliament on 6 September 1989 that we must face the truth once and for all.

Do not let the voters make their decision merely on the basis of rumours, gossip-mongering and all the nonsense they hear. Inform the voters of the truth, the reality and what South Africa’s future is really going to be. When we return after 6 September, we shall then be able to look one another in the eye, because we will not have deceived the voters, we will not have deceived South Africa and, above all, we will not have deceived the living Father.

Mr Chairman, I gladly follow on the hon member for Macassar, who, in my opinion, made a very valuable contribution today.

†It is a pleasure to participate in the last major debate in this Parliament. In supporting the Appropriation Bill before us today—this including Vote 3 which the majority party in the House of Representatives in a misguided moment decided not to support—I would like to congratulate the hon the Minister of Finance and the hon the Deputy Minister on their continued vigilance in managing the very difficult finances of South Africa so effectively.

Whilst there may be criticism in some quarters I have no doubt that the Department of Finance and the Commissioner for Inland Revenue, Mr Clive Kingon—who is due to retire soon; I wish him well, as I do his successor in office—have their finger very much on the pulse.

Much was made of so-called corruption in Government but what is really true is that through outstanding financial management, including the expeditious introduction of suitable financial legislation when required, many schemes—some legal and some perhaps not moral and many not legal—designed to deprive the fiscus, are soon acted upon.

There are still some areas, however, giving rise to concern. For instance liquor traders in TBVC countries are trading in South Africa per se and escaping GST, as the sales are purportedly made in these TBVC countries.

This and other underhand schemes must receive constant attention. The young CAs seconded to the Commissioner’s office are proving to be worth their weight in gold and their efforts to root out the rogues are welcomed.

At this stage I would like to pay tribute to the leader of the NP in Natal, the hon the Minister of Home Affairs and of Communications, for the outstanding and dedicated service he has given to South Africa for a period of more than fifteen years in public life. I got to know the hon the Minister while he was the Administrator of Natal and I a provincial councillor. He proved to be a most popular and effective leader and holder of that office. The hon the Minister’s actions in Natal convinced me that the NP were heading in the right direction, and after the provincial councils disbanded in June 1986, having served out my term of office as a member of the NRP, I had no hesitation later that year in joining the NP. I thank him and his wife, Mrs Lucy Botha, for their assistance and friendship to me, my wife and many other old Afrikaans and English-speaking NRP supporters who came across to the only party which can lead this country to a prosperous and peaceful future. I wish them a fruitful and happy retirement.

Opposition spokesmen and media do much to undermine the confidence of the public in the economy of our country. Slogans such as “bankrupt country” and “die Regering verarm die blankes” are commonplace today. However, they are without foundation.

Let us examine the real facts of the South African business performance over the past few years and attempt to make an honest assessment. What does Assocom say in its 1988 report? Since roughly mid-1986 the South African economy has experienced a gradual, but consistent upswing. Both consumer and investment spending have shown positive gains over this period. The economy has not only recovered from the political and economic shocks of 1984-85, but also shown positive economic growth. Business confidence, as measured by the Assocom Business Confidence Index, improved steadily from 1986 to 1988. However, it became clear during the course of 1988 that excessive boom conditions—I repeat, boom conditions—relative to what South Africa could afford, had developed. This opinion from a responsible body representative of a wide cross-section of the business world has for some time unambiguously been explained to opposition parties time and time again; yet they continue with their derogatory bleating. It seems they just do not understand.

The recent measures instituted by the hon the Minister of Finance to cool down the economy while not popular in some circles are also approved by Assocom. What do recently released financial results of quoted companies tell us? Financial and industrial profits of companies quoted on the JSE keep soaring. Recent graphs provided show that the average earnings growth is running at an unprecedented high of 32%. Earnings increases of employees in that sector are almost as high. Particularly investors in industrial shares have had a very satisfying growth in capital. Figures compiled by The Economist magazine show that the South African industrial share market has risen by 74% in the twelve months up to April 1989—the best performance in all the world’s major stock exchanges. Now our country is supposedly bankrupt—what arrant nonsense!

The high growth rate of course indicates that the economy has been overheating and the recent austerity measures are fully justified. The runner-up in growth was France with a gain of 50%—also abnormally high—followed by Sweden with a rise of 36% and Switzerland with 31%. Major markets such as Britain and the USA performed poorly by comparison with both rising just over 16%. The Canadian market managed a gain of 7,6% and Australia 3,3%, endorsed by a flow of emigrants returning to South Africa. Undoubtedly the performance of the South African market can be said to be quite phenomenal, especially when one considers that there has been precious little foreign capital to help fund capital expansion. Foreigners in fact have remained disinvestors in spite of the overwhelming opinion of Black South Africans who are totally against disinvestment. This is most hurtful to those whom this misguided action is supposed to help. It is all very well for the fat cats like Archbishop Tutu and others, who live in the lap of luxury, travel abroad and are fêted at the highest level while the underprivileged suffer growing deprivation due—to a great extent—to their hypocritical preachings. Bishop Tutu has been likened to T S Eliot’s Thomas à Becket “this perfidious priest who seeks the way to martyrdom, to be lowest on earth, to be highest in heaven”.

It is high time that he stopped being so low and that the good archbishop who is at present on a disinformation campaign in the USA—perhaps a more subtle one this time—examined his conscience for the sake of the people suffering as a direct result of his actions.

The disinvestment campaign has been waged for almost seven years, and the archbishop should analyse the words of Eliot’s Thomas à Becket in Murder in the Cathedral:

I hope he will have the humility to admit that his course of action can only bring about revolution, and that is no solution.

It is not clear how one can encourage foreign investors to return to the South African market. One usually assumes that if a market is profitable foreign investors will be there. However, the situation is not helped by anti-South African sentiment which appears to be that if one cannot say anything bad about South Africa—perhaps because one’s Christian conscience will not allow one to do so—then it should be ignored totally.

The recent publication by the International Finance Corporation, a body aimed at encouraging investment in shares in developing countries, practises just these double standards. The IFC, according to The Economist, claims that the world’s most buoyant stock markets last year, measured in US dollars, were Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Taiwan. There is not a word about the JSE, even though its rise in dollar terms in the past year was higher than that achieved by all other major markets.

In the meantime things are not quite as rosy in other parts of the world as some would like us to believe. The debt bomb that is ticking away in the international financial markets includes $700 billion in Third World debt that will never be repaid, and the estimated $8 trillion of domestic debt in the USA. Yet America is not even the worst of the net borrowers. At the end of 1988 its total debt was 41,7% of its GNP. Equivalent figures were 47,1% for Britain, and 52,5% for Japan.

By contrast the total South African debt as a percentage of GNP was 35,1%. Since the beginning of 1985 South Africa has redeemed about R13 million of foreign debt. The ratio of South Africa’s foreign debt obligations to the annual export of goods and services decreased from 171% in 1984 to 85% in 1988, and is only 1,3% of GNP.

This is the case in spite of a low world gold price which is putting excessive pressure on the value of the rand, as are recent floods, droughts and the disinvestment campaign, all of which have been mentioned before.

Contrary to what the opposition parties would like the public to believe, measured against comparable countries, our position is indeed an enviable one. Financial discipline, coupled with a brave programme of reform, is the path being followed by the NP. I have no doubt that we can go forward with confidence and will succeed in making this a country that we can all be proud to live in.

Debate interrupted.

The Joint Meeting adjourned at 18h21.

Mr Chairman, I move:

Agreed to.

Mr Chairman, on 15 September 1984 the hon the State President assigned certain sections of the Universities Act, Act 61 of 1955, as well as the private Acts of the 11 White universities, to the Minister of Education and Culture in the Administration: House of Assembly.

On the basis of this and owing to a request from the State President’s office to ease his work load, all private Acts relating to the universities had to be amended to bring them into line with the current constitutional dispensation. The legislation before the House at present is a consequential amendment of a purely technical nature. The exact alteration is that the words “State President” in the Act are replaced by the words “Minister of Education and Culture (House of Assembly)”.

The amendment affects only two matters; firstly, the appointment of certain council members at all 11 universities and, secondly, the sale and leasing of land at the Universities of Pretoria, Cape Town and Rhodes.

Four universities, that is the University of Pretoria, the University of Port Elizabeth, the Rand Afrikaans University and the University of the OFS, have themselves altered their legislation accordingly. On two separate occasions discussions were held with the other seven universities on the matter and they took note of it. As soon as the draft Bill became available in printed form, it was sent to the seven universities again for their perusal. Subsequently the four English-speaking universities lodged objections on ideological grounds, as contained in their correspondence, namely that they did not wish to fall under a department responsible for own affairs.

I do not consider it necessary for me to present any further argument as to why this legislation should be passed by the House. I have explained the legal situation, which is that the Acts are being transferred to the Minister of Education and Culture at the request of the hon the State President to ease his work load. As this is a purely technical adjustment, I do not think it necessary to continue debating it.

Mr Chairman, we are going to oppose this Bill for two major reasons. Firstly, we are informed that the Committee of University principals unanimously adopted a resolution asking that universities be a general affair and not an own affair. There is no doubt that this Bill entrenches the idea of universities as own affairs. The universities object to this. It is true that three or four of the universities which originally took part in this unanimous resolution, subsequently asked to be placed under the Minister of Education and Culture. However, the other universities object to this and they do not wish to be placed under him.

I want to point out to the hon the Minister that these universities have a goodly proportion of their students who are not White. Therefore there can be no good logical reason for turning them into an own affairs matter. The University of Cape Town has a student body of which 25% is not White. The student body of the University of Natal is about 30% not White. The University of the Witwatersrand has a student body of 20% that is not White. Approximately 20% of the students at Rhodes University are not White. Interestingly enough, Unisa which is by far our largest university will have a majority of Black students by next year. [Interjections.] Well, they will not be White anyway and most of them I may say will be Black.

What is the point then of placing these universities under this hon Minister and making it an own affair? There is no logic in this. The universities object. They would like at least that the definition of “Minister” be not the Minister of Education and Culture but simply be left “a Minister” so that there is some latitude given to the State President as to which Minister he delegates the powers given under this amending Bill.

There is another clause in the Bill which I would like the hon the Minister to explain to us, namely clause 2 which states the following under the title “Alienation of immovable property”:

Now what sort of property is this? Does it include all the property owned by the university. I can understand that where it is property which the State has subsidised or the State has given to a university, it should possibly be allowed. I am not even too sure about this because when property is given, it should be given unconditionally, but there may be a case to be made out where the university has gained at the expense of the State.

No such case, however, can be made out as far as immovable property which has been donated to the university by an outside body or an outside individual is concerned, and that happens frequently as far as these universities are concerned. I want to know if this does not therefore erode some of the autonomy of the universities as far as their property is concerned. That is a second reason why we in the DP are unable to support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, it is my privilege to speak after the hon member for Houghton. [Interjections.] After her long period of service spanning nearly half a century in Parliament, this is the first time that I have heard the hon member make a contribution on Education and Culture. Perhaps—I would not know—this is the last contribution which she will make.

No, no! [Interjections.]

Then is it at least the last contribution which she will make on Education and Culture. [Interjections.] We therefore say to the hon member: “Farewell, it has been good to know you. Take care, old lady.”

Where are you going to? [Interjections.]

If we two oldies have to bid each other farewell in this way, let it be so. [Interjections.]

Order! If the hon member is talking about old people, he must be referring only to himself. [Interjections.]

I can appreciate that the hon member is opposed to this legislation in principle because we are facing each other with conflicting policies.

If it is true that the universities on whose behalf she is speaking do not want to serve under this hon Minister, I still find it strange that they are quite satisfied to accept their annual funds from this House. They even make great demands—perhaps they are justified—to obtain greater contributions from this House. This suits them.

When we come up with a simple submission like this one, however, dealing with the simple matters which the hon the Minister explained here, it does not suit them. They then have recourse to the composition of their universities. If they want to be consistent regarding this matter, they should also refuse the funds which they receive from this House. Then they would at least be consistent in their actions. [Interjections.]

A second argument which that party frequently pesters us with is the duplication of administration in this place, the many affairs which are duplicated concerning own affairs, as well as the separate structures and the ethnic diversity which is included in our policy.

Here the hon the Minister has come up with a very clever way of according the same treatment to the seven universities, which still have to follow the same line as the previous four universities, by consolidating everything into one piece of legislation. In this way endless time is saved which would of necessity have to be spent in this House if separate legislation for each of the other seven universities had to be discussed in the House. That is why we are dealing with the seven as a whole, so as to include all eleven universities which fall under this House in the same legislation.

I thought that the hon the Minister had come up with a very clever way of dealing with this. We support it. I think this is the right way of doing it and we thank him very much for putting it before the House in this way.

Mr Chairman, we can agree with quite a number of the hon the Minister’s introductory remarks but we feel no need to ease the hon the State President’s work load. He brought that burden on himself—the NP brought it on him. We warned against this repeatedly during the referendum campaign and we do not feel compelled to help them out of their mess now. [Interjections.]

As regards the hon member for Houghton’s contribution, the hon the Minister himself had better struggle in an effort to reply to the arguments which she raised because, in the final analysis, he has made his bed and must lie on it. It is the false and artificial distinction between own and general affairs which lands him in arguments such as the one the hon member for Houghton raised this evening. [Interjections.]

As regards the hon member for Brentwood, I shall refer to him again later. I have only one objection to what he has said so far and to which I want to react specifically now. He referred to himself and the hon member for Houghton as “we oldies”. This description suits the hon member for Brentwood very well but we regard the hon member for Houghton, who has lent exceptional colour to this House—an exceptionally left-wing colour—as a dignified and stately lady who, unlike the hon member for Brentwood, does not qualify as an “oldie” at this stage. [Interjections.]

This is not like you!

The main object of the Universities Amendment Bill is to transfer the duties assigned to the State President in the various university legislation to the Minister of Education and Culture. We have no objection to this being done, in fact we voted for the amendments to the University of Pretoria (Private) Act, the University of Port Elizabeth Act, the University of the Orange Free State (Private) Act and the Rand Afrikaans University Act.

All that is happening now is that the obligations and powers which previously referred to the State President are now being transferred to the Minister of Education and Culture: House of Assembly. This applies to all universities under his control and we support the measures which have been taken.

This is also a suitable opportunity to bid farewell to the hon member for Brentwood—the “oldie”, as he called himself—in his capacity as chairman of the House Committee. From the nature of the case the hon member has given us little cause to become excited about him and we have differed sharply with his new politics of the past seven years. In the best tradition of colleagues of this House, we thank him for his work as chairman of the House Committee and we wish him a peaceful retirement. He will also appreciate that we have very good reason to believe that a member of the CP will return to this House to take his place after 6 September. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I would like to support the hon member for Houghton in opposing this measure. Firstly, I would like to respond to the point raised by the hon member for Brentwood in regard to the marvellous manner in which this hon Minister has put seven universities in one amending Bill. This is one of my problems. These are private Acts that are being amended. In terms of normal Parliamentary practice private Bills cannot be brought before this House by a Minister. The usual custom is that such a Bill is brought before Parliament by a private member. The amendments that the hon the Minister cited, such as those in regard to the universities of Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, the Orange Free State and RAU, were all brought before this House by private members. [Interjections.]

I want to put it to this hon Minister that the reason he cannot do that in these cases is because the institutions themselves are not prepared to have this measure brought before this House. This hon Minister must answer that. He must answer to the fact that he is in opposition with the institutions, which have a private Act. He is amending that Act against their strenuous opposition.

We certainly know of cases where the councils of these institutions—for example, the council of the University of Cape Town, comprising also appointees of the hon the State President—voted unanimously that this Bill should not be supported. We have seen the measure which came before a committee of this House on a date no members of this party or its predecessor unfortunately could be present, on 7 April.

I want to quote:

There is nothing about the Constitution in the memorandum. It does not say the Minister has to do it. It says “as a result of the heavy workload of the State President”. I am not sure whether he is talking about the past State President, the future State President, a State President under a changed dispensation or a State President with a Prime Minister. It appears to me to be contradictory. It is not necessary, in terms of the Constitution, to amend the wording, and the hon the Minister is aware of that. For five years, since the Constitution was introduced, it has been the State President and it could remain so.

What I cannot understand is why the hon the Minister has chosen to override the wishes of the councils of the universities themselves. It may be, in the terms of the hon member for Brentwood, merely a symbolic gesture. But what is he doing? He is entering into confrontation again, and it really is not a satisfactory situation.

The hon the Minister will be aware that some of the universities have been in communication with us and have in fact ensured that their views are brought before this House. I want to ask the hon the Minister whether his department brought before the committee of this House the views of those universities. It has not been done, as far as I can see, or hear from the people to whom I have talked who were at that committee meeting. The views of those universities were not carried before that committee. The hon the Minister will be aware of the correspondence he has had. He will be aware of their opposition. Yet he has persisted with this. I want to query why…

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

I regret, Mr Chairman, that I am not taking any questions. I am hoping to keep this short. [Interjections.]

Order! That was not commentary on the hon member’s speech. That was an acclamation for his promised brevity.

I have not responded by saying farewell to the hon member for Brentwood. I did so a little earlier this week and I think it will suffice. I also wish him well.

This hon Minister has a number of questions to answer about the Bill. He has to answer the question about the overriding opposition, particularly, as he has named it, of the four English-language institutions. He has to indicate to us whether the councils of the other three institutions which he did not name or stress, namely Unisa, Potchefstroom and Stellenbosch, accepted this Bill. I want to ask him that directly because we believe that this Bill is unnecessary. It is not called for by the institutions themselves and there is strong opposition to the Bill. We will be opposing it.

Mr Chairman, I do not have the ability, like many other hon members, to say something in many words when there is actually nothing to say about it. [Interjections.] I shall therefore not make a very long speech because, as the hon the Minister said in his speech, this Bill is very technical in nature, and it is purely to effect these technical amendments that this Bill is being piloted through Parliament.

The DP opposes this for political-philosophical reasons. We are therefore unable to argue with them on it. The CP belittles own affairs and we cannot argue on that basis. Consequently it is my pleasure to support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, I intend dealing with the Bill but before I begin with it, I just want to say one or two things to the hon the Minister of Education and Culture. I want to apologise to him again for the fact that I was not in the House yesterday when he replied to my speech which I made on Monday. I apologised to him before I left and I do so again now. I want him to know that I have been true to my word and that I have read his uncorrected speech in Hansard in regard to what he had to say to me. I regret that I was not in the House yesterday when he said the words himself.

I also want to say that I find his somewhat selective quoting of me in a speech unfortunate. If he had read my speeches further than he did, if he had quoted more extensively from them, he would have shown to the House that on every occasion that I spoke on education…

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: With all due respect, I fail to understand what the hon member is now quoting here about yesterday’s discussion has to do with this Bill.

Order! I have, for other reasons, not been able to pay attention. However, I shall now listen carefully. The hon member may proceed.

If he had quoted from my speeches more extensively, he would have found that on every single occasion that I have spoken on education, whether in this House or outside of it, I have always paid a tremendous tribute to the teaching profession. I do so again tonight. I just want to say to him briefly that I find his limited quoting from my various speeches most unfortunate. However, I look forward to another opportunity to reply to him more extensively.

I will move on to the Bill now, Mr Chairman. Most universities in South Africa are totally aware of the need for change in South Africa, positive change encompassing the needs of all South Africans. This applies as much to change in education as it does to change encompassing other aspects of life. Consequently we find that most universities are doing their best to move away from the sectional own affairs approach to education. They want to be free to move more freely into the future, to become universities accommodating the needs of a non-racial democratic South Africa. For them to do so dramatic changes will have to occur in the universities and in education thinking in South Africa in general.

The reality of the situation, however, is that not only will the whole South African society be unitary, non-racial and democratic in the future, but it should be so now and should certainly become so as soon as possible. However, I have a few statistics that are available, which I would like to refer to. The statistics I have refer to the average ratio of students attending universities as 9,1 per 1 000 head of population, but there exists—and this is an interesting point—an enormous difference in the ratios amongst different race groups. These stand at 31,1 per 1 000 in the White sector, while the Black sector stands at only 2,1 per 1 000.

Professor Booysens, the principal of the University of Natal, has indicated that he for one feels that the ratio of 9,1 for all races is probably appropriate if one takes into account the mix of students from developed and under-developed communities. However, the need for future upliftment indicates that this ratio should increase in the future. He points out, however, that if a country does no more than maintain the current ratio of 9,1 students per 1 000 but achieves this same ratio for each of the race groups, then provision must be made at universities for increases in the numbers of African students of 887% and of Coloured students of 170% and at the. same time for decreases in the intake of Indian students of 38% and of White students of 63%.

The situation is obviously critical. South Africa needs universities which are able to serve all sectors of its community and to serve them equally. Professor Booysens points out again, and I quote:

He goes on to say:

This is a vision of the future.

Order! I have difficulty in relating the hon member’s speech to the Bill before the House. Perhaps the hon member could assist me in this.

Mr Chairman, I will move on to that now.

Order! Since the hon member has already been speaking for four minutes, I suggest he moves on to the Bill without delay.

Mr Chairman, we are looking at a vision for the future and the role of universities in this whole vision. This particular Bill before the House today certainly does not take into account the reality of the future of South Africa at all. Instead it emphasises education as an own affair, transferring as it does the powers and duties granted to the hon the State President in terms of the various university laws to the hon the Minister of Education and Culture in the House of Assembly. This further entrenchment of the universities as an own affairs system has met with strong resistance from many universities, as my colleague the hon member for Pinetown has pointed out, especially since the decisions were taken in this regard often without due consultation with the universities themselves.

I want to record again the DP’s opposition to own affairs education and to the universities being included in this system. It is for this reason, amongst others, that we cannot support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, firstly I want to thank the hon members on my side of the House for their support of this matter. May I also thank the hon member for Brentwood for the exceptional manner in which he, so I understand, handled the House Committee. I appreciate it most sincerely.

May I also reply simultaneously to the hon member for Houghton and the hon member for Pinetown in connection with certain matters. With reference to the hon member for Brentwood—but in a different formulation—I want to tell the hon member for Houghton that I really appreciate the fact that she entered into this debate. As far as I know, this is the first time since I became a Minister…

I have been here much longer than you have! [Interjections.]

I appreciate the fact that the hon member participated in the debate! That is all I want to say. I do not want to say anything else. Since I appreciate the fact that the hon member participated in the debate, I shall not be nasty to her. I shall argue with her in a pleasant manner. It is a fact that what is being discussed in this House at present, does not amount to the principle of an Act. I also want to tell the hon member for Pinetown this. It is purely a technical arrangement. Why do I say that?

In my introductory remarks I made it clear to the House—and I repeat what I said—that on 15 December 1984 the hon the State President had assigned certain sections of the Universities act, as well as the private Acts, to the Minister of Education and Culture. [Interjections.] I want to request the hon member for Pinetown to give me an opportunity. He must listen. For the information of the hon member for Pinetown I want to say that a private Act of a university does not mean that the university has to introduce the act.

It has often happened in the past that private Acts were amended by the relevant Minister of this House. Therefore it is an Act of the State. It is not an Act of the university. It is an Act of the State which applies to a specific university. That is the first fact I want to mention.

I also said this technical arrangement was due to the fact that powers in terms of those Acts were assigned by the hon the State President—he has the right, no one can debate that—to the Minister of Education and Culture. A further reason for this arrangement relates to the fact that the State President bears a particular burden.

The hon member can argue furthermore—both hon members—that they, like these four universities, are opposed to the principle of own affairs and also to the university itself being administered under a department of own affairs. I accept that. The hon members have a right to that opinion. The fact of the matter, however, is that this is done in terms of the Constitution, and in accordance with the State President’s rights, he has assigned this particular legislation to the Minister of Education and Culture. It falls within the purview of the State President’s powers and is possibly also in accordance with the Constitution.

I now want to reason with the hon member for Houghton in particular. This hon member told me that as far as she knew, the Committee of University Principals, the CUP, had taken certain unanimous decisions at a certain stage. I now want to tell the hon member for Houghton that I know nothing about that.

That is what I was told by one of the vice-chancellors.

I accept that. That is why I started by saying it was according to her opinion—“she was told that…”

By one of the vice-chancellors.

Yes, I accepted that, but I want to tell the hon member that I do not know of a single unanimous decision by the CUP with regard to the amendment. That is what it at issue. It is…

That is not what I said!

Of course not! I did not say that![Interjections.]

*However, we are not dealing with principles now. We are dealing with the amending Bill and I am of the opinion that the CUP did not make a unanimous decision that they were opposed to the amendment, namely the that powers be assigned to the Minister of Education and Culture.

The hon member for Pinetown also asked me what the three other universities had done. That is the fact. The fact of the matter is that the hon member for Pinetown is correct. We certainly would have done it in 1984, 1985 or 1986, but it was not necessary to do so immediately.

I want to explain to hon members what we tried to do. I discussed it with the rectors of the universities and the chairmen of the various university councils on three occasions and told them that this was the practical problem we were facing and that we would prefer to do it like this. I did not force them and on not one of those occasions did I indicate that I expected it of them or that we were directly opposed to it.

[Inaudible.]

Will the hon member for Houghton please wait a minute? She must please listen to me. [Interjections.]

*After the draft legislation had been tabled, we forwarded it to the universities and subsequently we received letters from the University of Cape Town in which it was indicated that their council had decided unanimously to oppose the amendment. However, that has nothing to do with the principle of the legislation. The University of Cape Town indicated that it was opposed to the legislation because it did not accept the concept of own affairs.

Not one of the three other universities indicated that they were opposed to it. Nor did they write to indicate that they were in favour of the legislation. I therefore accept that the other three universities had no objection to it. However, the four English speaking universities did write.

The fact of the matter is that this particular legislation was assigned to the Minister of Education and Culture. It is a technical amendment. Before I introduced this technical amendment, I cleared it with the legal advisor, as well as with the head of the parliamentary section of Legislation and Procedure to ensure that it was possible. There is nothing preventing us from doing this in one single Act.

Personally I regret that the four English-language universities did not decide on their own to align themselves with the Department of Education and Culture, because I want to say something to the credit of the rectors of all four these universities.

What about Unisa?

I will return to the point of Unisa later.

*To the credit of all four these universities I want to mention that their rectors and chairmen have said on various occasions that they are grateful and have the greatest respect for the work being done by the Department of Education and Culture in the interests of those universities. Their only problem is an objection in principle, but at present that objection in principle is not relevant to the discussion of this legislation. That is what I am trying to convey. [Interjections.] In other words, I am saying that it is a great pity that the universities are not co-operating with us, while they know that they receive good service. I want to take the liberty of saying this because the universities said so themselves. That is why I can say this here this evening.

Unisa had no objection to this. The hon member for Houghton quoted figures relating to the composition, but the ratio of figures is also, with all due respect, not relevant to this matter. What is relevant, is that this is a technical change and that is what is on the Table. [Interjections.]

With regard to clause 2, I want to reply to the hon member for Houghton’s question on the universities’ immovable property that there is no autonomy in this regard. The fact of the matter is that those universities possess the immovable property because they received 85% of the cost in the form of subsidies from the State. In other words, the State is the largest contributor. I am now referring to immovable, and not movable, property. It is justified on those grounds and all the universities accepted that.

Furthermore I want to say, however, that in the past the universities never objected to the State President’s having a decisive role. This, once again, is not a principle. The fact is that it has been accepted for years. It is embodied in the universities’ legislation and it is merely a matter of assigning the State President’s powers to the Minister of Education and Culture. That is all that has been tabled.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister a question? What about property that has been donated and that the State does not subsidise?

That is not immovable property.

Of course it could be!

Such as?

What about land?

A piece of land for a building.

In the case of a piece of land for a building, the State also makes certain contributions in connection with the erection of the buildings on that land. Therefore the State contributed to the development of the university under all circumstances.

In any event, I want to repeat that at present that has nothing to do with this whole matter. It is a matter of principle which deals with the transfer of the State President’s powers to the Minister of Education and Culture. With all due respect, I want to say that that is all that is relevant.

With reference to the hon member for Durban North I want to say in all sincerity—he must not take it amiss, because I say this with all due respect—that I cannot reply to him, because he really did not say anything relevant to the Bill.

Debate concluded.

Question put: That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to (Democratic Party dissenting).

Bill read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I would like to thank the chairman, the hon member for Brentwood, and the members of the House Committee who discussed this legislation in detail.

Hon members are aware of the fact that, in terms of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, culture is dealt with as an own affair and is presently administered in terms of the provisions of the Culture Promotion Act. This Act was assigned by the hon the State President to the Minister of Education and Culture (House of Assembly), with effect from 17 September 1984, for administration in respect of the White population group.

The main objects of the Bill are to provide for the preservation, fostering and extension of culture in the Republic, the provision of certain services and facilities and the establishment of regional councils for cultural affairs. The principles of the Bill are basically the same as those of the Culture Promotion Act, 1983, and have merely been adapted to meet the own affairs requirements of the Department of Education and Culture and the House of Assembly. New provisions have been added to deal with specific facets and shortcomings. The basic point of departure, and this is important, is that the State is not responsible for culture but promotes it by encouraging community organisations in the private sector, and expert and financial assistance continues to be rendered. The same applies to the recognition of the autonomy of cultural organisations. This Bill also provides for a considerable extension of the powers and responsibilities of regional councils in respect of matters pertaining to the control, management, development and maintenance of movable and immovable assets.

†The autonomy which I intend the regional councils to have is in accordance with my department’s stated policy of delegation of authority and the democratisation of the State’s policy for the advancement of culture. It is for this reason that I regard proportional representation, especially with regard to home language, as an important priority. Hon members will concede that for the sake of uniform policy throughout the country and effective control of State funds…

Order! I appeal to the hon members to lower their voices. The hon the Minister may proceed.

… it is necessary for the Minister to determine the broad policy regarding the State’s involvement in the advancement of culture and therefore also to have powers to, amongst other things, nominate a chairman and vice chairman.

*The ultimate object of this Bill is to establish the own identity and independence of White culture and of the House of Assembly as the legislative body.

Mr Chairman, I need to say right from the start that the DP opposes this Bill. I listened with interest to what the hon the Minister has just said and I want him to know that I will take a different line to some of the points he has made. The Cultural Affairs Bill is another piece of unfortunate legislation, classifying as it does culture on the basis of colour.

I am aware of the fact that it is the Constitution of the country that, in fact, insists on culture as an own affair, as it does with education and health services. However, the Bill before this House today entrenches a Constitution to which this party is totally opposed.

My colleague the hon member for Pinetown will have more to say about the classification of culture on the basis of colour. However, it is interesting to note that while there are South Africans in all race groups who are working hard to cross cultural lines and break down cultural barriers, the Government is working hard to ensure that culture remains an own affair based on the colour of one’s skin. Instead of encouraging the crossing of cultural lines and the breaking down of cultural barriers, we find the establishments of culture in this country becoming more and more an own affair in accordance with the Government’s particular attitude.

This Bill is certainly a further step along these particular lines, but in addition to culture in South Africa now being divided on the basis of race, this Bill establishes the mechanisms for the control of culture on a regional basis as well. I want to talk about the regional councils the hon the Minister spoke about. We now have the situation that culture is divided on two fronts, on the one hand into race and on the other into regions. I want to spend some time discussing one or two aspects of these regional councils the Bill proposes.

I note with interest—the hon the Minister himself has referred to this—that these councils will be appointed by the Minister of Education and Culture. He will be the only person appointing members to the council. I note too that he will determine the size of the councils. However, I believe that the first point—which is the appointment of all council members by one person, namely the Minister of Education and Culture himself—is a cause for some concern.

I listened to what the hon the Minister had to say and I know very well what he is going to say when he replies to me later on, but I want to say that the appointment of council members by the Minister himself is a cause for concern. The appointment of people to any committee or any council is always a delicate matter. Councils of the nature proposed by this Bill are also of a sensitive nature. To have the Minister himself as the sole person responsible for appointing members of the council when he himself is a member of a political party, creates the possibility of arousing suspicion with regard to the appointments. Many will claim that the appointments he makes are political and there will be others who may not be prepared to accept nomination because it comes from one source only and that is the NP.

I believe, in all sincerity, that the hon the Minister, in the interest of the smooth running of these councils no matter how unpopular they are, should have been more sensitive to this point. The Bill invites more criticism of a system which is already very heavily criticised and to which we are obviously totally opposed.

That is only one half of the problem that the hon the Minister will find in appointing people to his councils. There are many people who refuse to accept appointments in these councils because they fall under the own affairs Department of Culture. The hon the Minister must understand that there are many people who will refuse to be associated with councils that deal with culture as an own affair.

I think the hon the Minister has had problems in this regard in the past. He has found people unwilling to serve on his own affairs councils whether they be cultural or educational.

He must never turn round and say that there were not any people from any particular group in the White community who were suitable for the council. There are many highly qualified and eminently suitable people in every group to serve on his councils. There are many people who have preferred to remain as members of organisations which see culture as a national heritage and not as a group heritage, who regard the fact that culture, as with education and health, should be national issues not group issues. These are the people the hon the Minister will not able to get to serve on his councils and it is a pity. These are the people the hon the Minister will not get to serve on his councils and his regional councils will be further flawed as a result.

There is just one other point I want to make about the Bill as it stands. I refer to the regulations of the council that will govern the way the council operates. We find again that the hon the Minister has enormous powers in this regard. Not only will he appoint council members, but he has the powers to make regulations regarding the qualifications for appointment, the system of accounting to be used and—I quote from the Bill:

This is very wide-ranging.

Once again these are very far-reaching powers which this hon Minister, or any Minister who follows him, may use as he likes. I want to stress that on an issue as sensitive as culture it would seem that a greater degree of checks and balances on the power of any one individual would be more important, even if he is the Minister. Even then this is a minor consideration, taking into account the DP’s total opposition to culture being declared an own affair, and consequently we cannot support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, right at the outset I expected the hon member for Durban North not to support the Bill before the House because of his party’s attitude towards own affairs. This particular aspect was adequately dealt with by the hon the Minister and I will therefore not dwell on it any further, as I am convinced that would be futile.

*Mr Chairman, in the White community there is a kaleidoscope of cultural communities and activities organised and promoted by the various communities themselves, and these cultural communities are normally formed on an organised and voluntary basis. Most of the clients of the Department of Education and Culture, Administration: House of Assembly are those organisations that were formed from the White community, each of which is involved in a specific aspect or aspects of the broad cultural spectrum.

Some of these organisations themselves decide who their members are, who takes part in their activities, what cultural projects they undertake, the way in which it is done and, more importantly, what the philosophical basis of those organisations will be. Neither the department nor the Government dictates to them.

However, these organisations do not always have the necessary expertise or resources to promote or develop their particular cultural facets properly. This is where the Cultural Affairs Directorate renders assistance, especially by determining needs and presenting and disposing of cultural-educational projects such as series of lectures, exhibitions, productions, performances, hikes and camps.

Mr Chairman, in terms of this Bill the regional councils are established to deal with local regional matters. The main function of these councils is to advise the Minister and the regional offices. Here it is very important to note that in the case of the Natal regional council, which consists of 12 members, six of those members are English-speaking and six are Afrikaans-speaking. This once again indicates that there are willing people who are prepared to serve on these bodies. These members are knowledgeable advisers and dedicated people who are willing to make sacrifices for the promotion of specific or general cultural activities. They are expected to have a good knowledge of and practical experience in the promotion of culture. These members usually come from the ranks of cultural organisations that promote their own culture.

Allow me, Sir, on this occasion this evening to convey our sincere thanks on behalf of this side of the House to the hon member for Brentwood, who was the chairman of the House Committee that dealt with this Bill. Earlier tonight the hon member had his last opportunity to address this House. We wish him a pleasant retirement and we believe that all will be well with him and his farming operation in the Western Transvaal. The challenge now awaiting him is to propound the true NP principles in that part of the world, where they are still virtually unknown.

Mr Chairman, I should like to make only two references to the speech of the hon member for Durban North. In the first place that hon member tried to make the point—which is not a good point—that a discrimination merely on the basis of colour is being made here. I have already said that it is not a good point, and I shall not discuss it any further, but I can see that the hon member for Kimberley South is very unhappy about voting for this Bill—as the hon members of the NP have already indicated that they are going to do—in view of the point made by the hon member for Durban North. The hon member for Kimberley South always insists on saying that colour is not important. According to this hon member the Afrikaners and the Coloureds are one people. [Interjections.] I merely want to say that I can see how aggrieved and unhappy he is, and we shall be interested to see how he is going to vote on this Bill later on. [Interjections.]

†There is a second aspect to the speech of the hon member for Durban North to which I would like to refer. Basically he makes the point that it boils down to discrimination on the basis of colour purely when one refers to a so-called “White culture”. I wish to ask the hon member whether he sympathises with or appreciates the views of the late Steve Biko. It is a simple question. The hon member does not give any indication of what his reply should be.

One appreciates his views.

He says he appreciates the views of the late Steve Biko.

Do you appreciate his views or his culture?

The late Steve Biko’s view, as far as White culture is concerned, was in fact published. He said that basically the White group in South Africa was homogeneous. The hon member can go and do his homework and then reconsider the arguments he advanced in this House.

*The CP supports this Bill. It is an own affairs Bill for the Whites. [Interjections.] It is interesting to note that clause 2 contains a specific definition of Whites. According to the wording of clause 2 it is a Bill, not for Whites, but for—

[Interjections.] There we have the new definition of “Whites”, according to the NP. I shall say more about that in a subsequent speech.

As the hon the Minister correctly indicated, the Bill provides for the preservation, fostering and extension of the cultures of the various cultural groups within the White population group by the provision of certain services and facilities, and for the establishment of regional councils for cultural affairs to implement this.

The task of cultural promotion, as it should be, is not regarded primarily as the duty of the State and has been assigned, inter alia, to these regional councils. Of course there are many other institutions that promote culture, but these regional councils have been established by the State to promote and initiate action. There is, for example, the regional council in Pretoria, with branches in Pietersburg and Nelspruit.

The regional councils may of their own accord or at the request of the Minister make recommendations on how their objectives may best be achieved. The administrative work attached to the activities of the regional councils is done by officials of the Department of Education and Culture: House of Assembly. Unlike in the case of the Cultural Institutions Bill, in terms of which the institutions are more autonomous and are given juristic personality, for example, and on which I shall elaborate in a subsequent speech, these regional councils are more closely attached to the Department of Education and Culture. The House of Assembly may appropriate funds in order to achieve the objectives of the Bill, but the Bill also provides for funds from other sources. The principles of the existing Culture Promotion Act, 1983, are mainly the same as those of this Bill, but the Act of 1983 applies to both own and general affairs.

Certain problems are being encountered with the application and administration of one Act by an own as well as a general affairs Minister. In view of the artificial world of own and general affairs that the NP has created for itself, one is not surprised at these problems. This Bill therefore provides for an adaptation or transfer to this legislation of the own affairs component of the 1983 Act, which will continue to be an own affairs Act.

I would like to make a few more cryptic remarks. We have problems with the inelegant wording of clause 2. I referred to that at the outset. We agree with the amendment in terms of which the Auditor-General shall audit the accounts of regional councils. However, we believe that clause 19 (1) (h) grants too wide a range of powers to the Minister to make regulations. I shall have more to say about that later on when we discuss the Cultural Institutions Bill.

In the sense that Blacks, Coloureds and Indians are not entitled to interfere with our cultural affairs and that we are entitled to make decisions on and exercise control over our cultural affairs by virtue of the right of self-determination, and inasmuch as this Bill gives effect to that principle, though imperfectly, in accordance with the existing imperfect constitutional dispensation, we support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Potgietersrus is exactly like the story of the little Dutch boy. The Government erects a dyke, and the dyke starts springing holes. He is the one sticking fingers in all those holes, because there is no such thing as White culture.

Go and read Steve Biko!

I have read Steve Biko’s quotation. The hon member knows Steve Biko’s position, and he knows what Biko was trying to say. The White cultural group is not homogeneous.

The hon the Minister of Education and Culture in his introduction indicated that the Bill flows from a need to put into legislative practice that which has in fact been the situation since September 1984.

Do you recognise different cultures?

With reference to all three pieces of legislation tonight, the same point will apply. Regarding the one about the universities we have already dealt with, this one and the following one, this hon the Minister is going to say now is not the time to debate the Constitution, and according to the Constitution it says this is what was to happen. However, the hon the Minister knows very well that these points were never debated in this House under the Constitution, that his party brought down the guillotine, and that his party prevented debate on these very issues. Schedule 1, in which these matters are directly referred to, was never debated. So we believe this is the time, with reference to these measures, to debate these practices.

The DP looked at these measures and asked quite basically what culture was. Where do we stand on the question of culture? Let use have a look at the dictionary definition of culture because it is not defined in the Act. The New Oxford Dictionary—I am pleased to say the library has a copy of the 20 volume edition of it and I urge every hon member to look up something as it will educate them at least—definition runs for two pages. Fortunately I am not going to read the whole thing. It says the following about the word “culture”, and I quote:

That is the most appropriate one in this case.

We can also turn to WAT, the Afrikaans dictionary, for the definition of the word “kuituur’, and I quote:

Those are the examples used and we would argue that there is a uniqueness about culture and occasionally culture is unique in a small form where a small number of people have a particular culture and can show it. I am going to give some examples later. However, we also have culture in the very broadest form. We can talk about Western culture or American culture, which means millions of people rather than just a small number.

However, the particular problem the DP has with this measure and with the Constitution from which it stems is that culture and the concept of culture are encapsulated and made shorthand to fit the particular constitutional framework of the NP. That is why we object to this. The hon the Minister and hon members of the NP must be aware that if there was a cultural measure that provided for the diversity of South African culture this party would support it universally. However, we object very strongly when the strait-jacket comes down. Apart from the diversity of cultures—this was mentioned by the hon member—in this country we have a developing South African culture. Which department caters for a South African culture? Does this Minister cater for that, or does it have to be 50% plus one?

I want to talk about the varieties of culture we have in this country. We have—I think nobody would object to this—a Malay culture in its particular and expressive forms. We have a Greek culture from the Greek community. We have a Tsonga culture from the people up in Northern Natal. We have a Gujarati culture from a small language group amongst the socalled Indian South Africans. We have a Scottish culture with their kilts and their dancing. We have an Afrikaans culture and I am not going to go into the question as to whether Afrikaans culture per se is race-bound. I do not think it is and I do not think the hon members on that side of the House think it is.

What has actually been done is that a constitutional mechanism has been created for dividing the Afrikaans culture and not uniting it.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon member whether this new Bill will sort out which is the right “ossewatrek” of the two “ossewatreks”? [Interjections.]

I think the first prize for the question is a “skinkbord”.

However, the hon the Minister should look at the fact that culture is not being united, it is being divided.

I now come to the point which has been made by the hon member for Potgietersrus when he quoted that appalling clause 2. I say appalling because its wording in English is so appalling. It reads:

I want the English-speaking members of that party to listen—

[Interjections.] One cannot say it! It is impossible!

However, I would like to know where this hon Minister puts the Lebanese.

Where does Lebanese culture fit in? Does it fall under this hon Minister? What about Chinese culture? Where do they fit in?

We believe that we need to glory in our diversity. We need to be proud that we are different in so many ways. However, we and this hon Minister’s department together with all the other departments of culture, need to foster South Africa’s own unique culture.

Johnny Clegg and Savuka are travelling around the world. Which culture do they represent except South African culture? Athol Fugard does not represent anything except South African culture in his writings. I would like to ask hon members if André Brink and Breyten Breytenbach are uniquely Afrikaans. Of course they are not. They represent all of us.

What about the progression into township art? Is it Black art? No, it is South African art. We believe that this Government’s problem is that they are forcing culture into their present constitutional model, and when they change their model in a year or two, they are going to come back and they are going to change all these laws again.

It is so much nonsense. Is it not time we got over this kind of pettifogging? Because the Constitution says one has to have “own affairs” culture, they create an “own affairs” culture. That does not exist. There is no reference to each culture’s uniqueness.

There is no equivalent Bill for the House of Representatives or for the House of Delegates or for Black culture. Therefore it seems as if they do not have culture. Is it only this hon Minister’s department which must have culture? Of course it is not! The reason is that those hon Ministers and those Ministers’ Councils accept that they are here to foster South African culture.

Mr Chairman, we opposed every clause of this Bill in the House Committee and we oppose it in this House.

Mr Chairman, this Bill underlines the vast difference between the artificial world of the Official Opposition which contains only Whites and the idealistic world of the DP where there are no differences.

Before reverting to the Bill, I first want to convey my sincere thanks and appreciation on this occasion to our chairman, the hon member for Brentwood. I found it very pleasant to get to know him in these circumstances in cultural and educational circles and to have a small share in his exceptional love for this sphere. As he is not returning, there is a great deal of recognition for what he is leaving us. I almost want to say that it is a particular climax to his work that this Bill should be dealt with here this evening.

At the same time I wish to express our appreciation to the hon the Minister and his department who, in the spirit of the Constitution, fulfils his responsibilities in trying to strike a balance between the material and spiritual values of the population group which we represent. This is something which could easily be lost in this technological century of ours.

This Bill reaffirms the Government’s attitude of regarding cultural affairs very highly. This is underlined in this Bill again because it provides for the preservation, fostering and extension of culture by the provision of certain services and facilities and for the establishment of regional councils for cultural affairs.

It is remarkable that the State justifiably does not become directly involved but that it acts through voluntary cultural organisations. This is the right approach. It furnishes those cultural organisations with advice by means of 14 cultural offices.

To those of us on this side of the House culture is a labour of love. It is a specialised task and is aimed at specific cultures. This Bill deals with our spiritual assets. The success of this Bill is based on the composition of regional councils in which people are brought together who have in-depth knowledge and experience of the practical fostering of cultural affairs. They are usually prominent people who are chosen because of their exceptional knowledge of and interest in fostering culture.

In other words, what we have here are dedicated representatives of a specific community who are put into a position to identify, foster and then institute numerous campaigns to implement the promotion of culture through the devolution of authority. If one takes into account that one’s own values, norms, standards and traditions, habits and customs, everything included in the terms “culture” and which gives every group its particular identity, are man’s most valuable possession, to whatever group he belongs, it is extremely essential that they are cherished and preserved.

In conclusion, in this Bill…

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

Mr Chairman, I have nearly finished. This Bill is not aimed at the preservation of ungenerous self-interest. It provides—the DP should listen to this—for culture also to have a universal dimension. It recognises that there are many points of contact and facets of common interest and therefore provides for cultural interaction. The State’s point of departure is to bring together what belongs together and to provide the necessary stimuli for the further development of the unique own group for the benefit of all. [Interjections.] I think that the hon member has perhaps taken in something which he can think about.

In this spirit we on this side of the House support the Bill fully.

Mr Chairman, I thank all hon members who participated in the debate. I thank the hon members for Port Elizabeth North and Smithfield for their contributions and support. I am also grateful for the kind words and the way in which hon members placed the Bill in perspective. This does not often happen but I also want to thank the hon member for Potgietersrus.

Although the hon member for Potgietersrus made some remarks which had nothing to do with the factual side of the legislation, and with which I do not agree, I want to thank him for the analysis of the factual aspect of the legislation. He is quite right concerning the reason for this Bill as well as the reason for the existing Act and the reason why we are amending it now.

With reference to what the hon member for Potgietersrus said, I can quote what the memorandum states on the objects of the Bill. I shall quote only the portion which states:

This is also what the hon member for Potgietersrus said and it is the crux of the entire matter. The main objects of the Bill are the same as those of the Culture Promotion Act, 1983. I quote:

The Culture Promotion Act, 1983, advocated the development of culture. If hon members read the debate conducted on it in the Hansard of 1983, they will see that the issue was the institution and the promotion of the culture of all the different cultural groups in this country.

Let me also immediately say to the hon member for Pinetown, who argued this point, that it is the right of any other cultural group to institute its own regional councils. If the hon member argues that they do not consider themselves to be a separate culture, it is his right to argue in this vein. It is also the right of that group to argue like this. We are not saying, however, that they have to have regional councils. The fact of the matter is that the hon member will agree with me that he admits that there could well be separate cultural groups. He said so. Then he should also admit that, by means of this legislation, there are Whites who say that they recognise and wish to foster their own culture without denying the right of any other cultural group to recognise and foster its own culture. This is the issue. The hon member for Potgietersrus stated it very clearly too.

May I put a question to the hon the Minister?

No, wait a bit, I first want to finish. The hon member only wants to talk nonsense in any case. [Interjections.] I think that the hon member does not know exactly what his questions are. He had better leave me alone. [Interjections.] I want to associate myself with what the hon member for Pinetown so aptly said. The hon member attempted to give a definition of culture. He quoted from HAT and another dictionary. I want to tell the hon member that I have really been through books in the course of the year in search of definitions of culture. We could keep one another busy throughout the night with definitions of culture.

This is also the reason why we do not give a definition of culture in the Bill, because it is such an incredibly broad concept. This was acknowledged by the PFP spokesman, Prof Nic Olivier in 1983. Every person who knows anything about culture will acknowledge this immediately. This hon member who wants to put so many questions does not know this, of course, but the hon member for Pinetown does.

In the light of this, I want to present a document to hon members which is the basis of cultural promotion and cultural policy of this department as I, my own department and the Government see these aspects. I want to ask hon members to listen to this because they will find answers in it to nearly all the questions which they put to me.

There are many different definitions of culture but I am referring to one definition now. According to this definition, culture is the lifestyle of a person within a specific ethnic or group context—the hon member said so too—as it is regulated by a specific structure of norms and values embedded in that group’s religion or religious views. Nobody could object to that.

May I put a question to the hon the Minister?

No, wait a bit. I do not want to reply to the hon member’s question. He must please stop worrying me. [Interjections.]

†The declaration adopted by the World Conference of Cultural Policies in Mexico City in August 1982 stated that, and I quote:

It continues:

The Conference inter alia solemnly agreed that the following principles should govern cultural policies—and that is exactly what we are trying to achieve in South Africa. I quote:

That is exactly our policy regarding culture, as I have stated it here and elsewhere. I quote further:

That is exactly what we have said—

We accept that—

Furthermore they said that:

The equal dignity of all cultures must be recognised, as must the right of each people and cultural community to affirm and preserve its cultural identity and have it respected by others.

*That is exactly the policy of this department. This is the policy which I spelt out repeatedly in the past and I want to say it again tonight. From the nature of the case we cannot generalise by asserting that a White, Black or Indian culture exists. There are specific peoples within each of these groups with a particular culture of their own and also numerous subcultures. Of course that is true.

In the case of the Whites, we are dealing with the Afrikaans-speaking, the English-speaking, Portuguese, Germans, Dutchmen, Frenchmen—and I could go on like this. I believe that we can collect them all under one umbrella. What umbrella? The umbrella of the heirs and procreators of Western civilisation. Nobody would argue this with me. This does not imply at all that we wish to retain Western norms of civilisation—the values and traditions of this entire cultural heritage or whatever—purely for ourselves. We should like to make it available to our fellow citizens to gain from it whatever they would like, just as we should like to enrich our own lives with aspects which we might gain from their cultures. I said on a previous occasion that it was a mistake if we wanted to argue that we simply wanted to enclose culture between borders. This cannot be because culture can be enriched and grow providing cultural influences are in accordance with a person’s specific view of life and the world. Only then can they be enriching. If they are not in accord, one should ward them off. If such harmful cultural influences have already penetrated our lives, we should be capable of getting rid of them.

This is why we do not make any secret of the fact that the various cultural services of my department may be furnished to groups, which include members of all population groups, in terms of the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.

If we therefore want something which we may be proud to offer others, we should also take care to preserve, foster and extend it continuously. This is exactly what we intend with this Bill. The necessary services and facilities must be provided by the State to ensure that this takes place. These services contribute immeasurably to ensuring that citizens of the country remain informed of the latest developments in cultural and other spheres. I have the greatest appreciation and regard for the Cultural Council for the exceptionally good work which they do throughout the country.

I want to return to the hon member for Durban North. He objected to the fact that the Minister appointed members of that council. It is not regarded as feasible, however, to form a council consisting of representatives of cultural organisations. There are so many cultural organisations and one cannot call them all together and request them to elect a representative. The question is immediately: Which cultural organisations would one omit? That is the problem. That is why the Cultural Council is appointed by individuals.

The next question now is: If one does not draw representatives from organisations, where does one find them? Who does one appoint? There must be someone to appoint them and that person is the Minister. He appoints on the basis of their expertise regarding this matter. He appoints them on the basis of their interests.

The hon member raised a very interesting point. He said that there were people whom the Minister wanted to appoint but who did not wish to accept the appointment. I am very pleased that the hon member mentioned this. He comes from Natal and he referred to problems which we had had. I want to make this public tonight and tell the hon member that there are English-speaking people in Natal whom we should have liked to appoint to this council, but they would not accept the appointments.

Whatever their reason may be—the hon member said it was quite probably because they did not agree with the own affairs concept—so be it. The fact of the matter is, however, that from our side we say that we have to fill that council with experts and we have to involve all the different cultural groups as far as possible. The hon member is correct in saying that, in the composition of that cultural council, there were too few English-speaking people to suit everyone. We tried to rectify this. My point of departure is that we should at least give equal treatment to the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking within these councils.

The hon member for Durban North said that culture was national and did not belong to a specific group. I have already dealt with this. I need not enlarge on this. The hon member also objected to the fact that the Minister had unlimited powers regarding the regulations. He referred to regulation 19 (1) (b) according to which, he said, the Minister had power in any other matter. This is to be found in nearly all legislation. The hon member knows the reason for this therefore I need not elaborate on it.

I do not know the reason.

The reason for this is mainly that one does not want to alter the Act whenever the need arises. That is why one merely institutes a specific regulation to administer the whole affair, the principle of the Act. Then this is done by means of regulations. It is not good legislation to include all this within the Act—as any jurist would tell the hon member. That is the reason for this.

I think the hon member for Pinetown and I have concluded our discussion. I suspect I have replied to all the questions which the hon member put. Let this suffice.

Debate concluded.

Question put: That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to (Democratic Party dissenting).

Bill read a second time.

I should like to convey my sincere thanks to the House Committee again. I refer to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa again which makes provision for culture to be identified as an own affair. I refer to the fact that the Cultural Institutions Act was transferred to the Administration: House of Assembly as from 17 September 1984 and is administered by that administration.

As the Cultural Institutions Act still applies to a number of general affairs institutions for which the Minister of National Education is responsible, certain problems are experienced in the implementation and administration of one Act by both an own affairs and a general affairs Minister.

One of the problem areas of the Act is the fact that the Minister may assign duties to the Committee of Heads of Declared Institutions. The committee consists of the heads of all 22 own and general affairs institutions at present. This means by implication that an own affairs Minister could assign duties to the directors of 15 general affairs institutions or own affairs institutions of other population groups, if there should be any such in the course of time, and that another Minister, who had no power regarding the seven White own affairs institutions, could give instructions to the directors of such institutions. Obviously this situation is not acceptable in practice.

I shall take up no more of the House’s time in explaining and giving reasons. This is why we have introduced this new legislation and I want to leave it at that.

Mr Chairman, it is very nice to get good news. The DP has just beaten the NP two to one in a Port Elizabeth by-election. I just want to tell the hon the Minister that one wins some votes and loses some.

What by-election?

The municipal by-election. [Interjections.] Two to one and it means nothing? We shall remember that.

This Bill, more so than the last Bill, concerns the activities and particular problems of the seven cultural institutions named.

The DP will, in fact, be opposing this Bill as it did on the Joint Committee because we believe that the decision that was made on 17 September 1984 was an arbitrary decision. I have asked this hon Minister, and I have certainly asked the hon the Minister of National Education, to give us the criteria whereby the division was undertaken, whereby he got seven declared institutions, while the hon the Minister of National Education kept the remaining declared institutions. [Interjections.]

As far as I can gather from the Joint Committee of this House and the Joint Committee of National Education, which discussed a similar Bill, there were no criteria by which this hon Minister was allocated various cultural institutions. It appears almost arbitrary, and I would be pleased if the hon the Minister could supply those criteria, because they are going to be equally important in a related question which is under discussion at this very moment, namely the allocation of museums to the Department of Own Affairs.

The hon the Minister said yesterday that he was to take over 39 museums, and I would like to know where these museums are. I may ask questions about this and I will do so, but I had understood for example that there was an agreement between the Natal administrative executive and the hon the Minister that no museums in Natal would be taken over. Since we are looking at criteria, I ask whether that is correct. Are they looking at attendance or at the fact that the museum is overwhelmingly aimed at Western culture, the term which he used just now? Does hon the Minister equate Western with White? Do the so-called Coloured people not live in Western culture? This matter is entirely arbitrary.

The cultural institutions which have been covered by this measure are named in the Bill itself and they are the following: the National Cultural History and Open Air Museum in Pretoria, the South African Cultural History Museum in Cape Town, the Voortrekker Museum in Pietermaritzburg, the War Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein, the Michaelis collection in Cape Town, the William Fehr collection in Cape Town and the Engelenburghuis collection in Pretoria.

I have a problem, however, and it is more than just the arbitrary allocation. In any case, I am sure the hon the Minister will have some very good reasons to give me why it was not an arbitrary decision. The problem is that one is dividing a group of institutions that were previously united into two totally separate institutions. The hon the Minister can say that it happened in 1984—I am saying that if he could do anything about it, he should stop it.

You look like Eugène Terre’Blanche!

I do not carry a gun on my hip! [Interjections.] I can assure the hon member who interjected there that I would never be seen with a swastika on my arm.

The hon the Minister is well aware that there is unhappiness on the independent councils of these declared institutions concerning the control of their affairs. He will be aware that they are concerned about different funding formulas and about different regulations concerning the employment of staff. They are in fact being separated simply to fit in with the hon the Minister’s cultural institutions.

Tell us about the cupboard!

I think you should tell us something about Albany.

Tell us how do you feel inside a cupboard!

I thought you were going to tell us about Port Alfred.

Tell us about the cupboard!

Order! The hon member for Albany must contain himself!

We want to know what is going on in these institutions. I want to use the example of the Cultural History Museum.

The hon the Minister made a very good speech I believe, setting out for the very first time clearly and without ambiguity the policy of his department towards cultural minorities and cultural groups in South Africa. My problem is not the policy that he has enunciated but the requirement that that policy is being carried out by a single race department and that it is not being carried out for the whole of South Africa.

Let me use the Cultural History Museum as an example. I quote from its bulletin of 1987. It contains articles, for example, on “Die Slaweorkeste en Musiekinstrumente aan die Kaap.” In the bulletin of last year there appeared an article concerned with Indonesian ikats in the South African Cultural History Museum and one on the Davis collection of Chinese ceramics in the museum.

The hon the Minister can go there himself—I have made this point previously—and look at the magnificent display of Malay garments in the so-called own affairs museum that he has under his control. He can go there today—I went there today—and look at the pottery display. It is not White pottery, it is not even Western pottery. There is pottery from the African states, there is pottery from the Congo and there are even ceramics from China. There are toys from all over South Africa, including the townships, and there is a display of the jewellery worn by people of the ethnic cultures in this country. My objection is not to cultural institutions; it is to how the hon the Minister and the Government have shorthanded them. We believe there is excellent work being done on the ground and we need to bring together what should be together. The very point being made is that the culture of all South Africans should be together and not just the culture of one group.

We have had a general affairs cultural measure, namely the Cultural Institutions Amendment Bill which came before this House in 1987. It stayed on the Order Paper for two years and we had very many lengthy discussions about it on the joint committee. A few weeks ago that Bill disappeared from the Order Paper and I think it will not be coming back. I find this very unfortunate because that Bill should have brought the institutions together, not, as it was proposing, ensure the separation of the two. We believe that the hon the Minister has to examine not only the overall policy but the practical problems that these institutions have on the ground.

I understand there are some hon members of the NP who wish to sleep and I am keeping them awake. I am sorry but I will just have to do that.

The problem that the hon the Minister has to face, apart from the overall policy—I understand that the hon the Minister is going to say he can do nothing about that until the Constitution is changed—is the practical necessity of ensuring that there is a single linking body that brings the chairmen of all the declared institutions together. He must ensure that there is a common funding policy, otherwise we are going to have competition between the bodies and he must ensure that there is a common staff policy.

I merely want to make one reference to the Bill in detail. I refer the hon the Minister to clause 9. This matter was raised in the committee and a response was gathered. Clause 9 (2) states that:

The question was raised as to whether any restriction could be placed by a council and whether the words “any group of persons” could become racially restrictive. We received the assurance that this could not be so and that it could in fact refer to anything except a racial group of persons. We merely want to get it on record in Hansard that in this clause in the Bill the Minister definitely cannot exclude a group of persons from such an institution on a racial basis.

We oppose this measure on the basis of believing that culture should be everybody’s right. The hon the Minister has quoted from a document. I have many documents here. I have the Declaration of Human Rights, The Freedom Charter and Group and Human Rights, a paper published by the SA Law Commission, all in fact making reference to the access to culture that everybody should be allowed. There we do not disagree with the hon the Minister. However, we believe that his structure, the four-racial-groups structure that this NP has imposed on South Africa, hamstringing culture as a result of it, must be opposed. Therefore, we oppose this Bill.

Mr Chairman, towards the end of his speech the hon member for Pinetown mentioned a discussion which took place in the committee in connection with clause 9 (2). He would like it recorded in Hansard that that clause does not imply that people of a particular race group may be excluded from visits to the institutions concerned.

I should also like to have it on record that it was the representatives of this side of the House in that committee who had the sensitivity to raise the matter there. All of us who were present on the committee were given satisfactory assurances that such a restriction could not, in fact, be imposed.

This Cultural Institutions Bill is a simple organisational measure which does not actually justify a debate. I merely gives further effect to a a situation that already exists, namely that seven national museums and collections of cultural history fall under the Minister of Education and Culture in the House of Assembly in terms of section 26 of this country’s Constitution.

The legislation must therefore be adapted to the particular needs of that department. Consequently those seven museums and collections which at present fall under the Cultural Institutions Act of 1969, will continue to be deemed declared cultural institutions in terms of the measure now under discussion.

The relevant institutions were mentioned by the hon member for Pinetown. I am not going to repeat them. I merely want to say that it has always been accepted that those museums and collections were mainly—please note, mainly—White spiritual assets. This is still the case today. It is therefore right that they should fall under an Act of the House of Assembly.

This in no way means that other population groups and communities are excluded from those cultural assets. The Government is well-aware of the fact that culture also has a universal dimension and that the culture of the various population groups cannot be divided into watertight compartments. It is also true that in a multicultural country, such as ours, cultures come into existence, develop and progress by means of acculturation. However, this Bill deals with the present-day situation.

The DP says there is no such thing as White culture, and there arguments do not surprise me, because politically they want to eliminate politically all the differences which exist between communities. The majority must govern. Consequently whites as a group will be permanently excluded from equal and significant political participation. Now they placate us by giving the impression that they will nevertheless protect our cultural rights. We do not believe them because, inter alia, they want to open our schools, which are culturally and community orientated, to other races.

How can our culture be protected when schools are open to other races? We do not believe them, because the hon member for Durban North said this very evening that we must not overstep cultural boundaries. These are the ones who want to protect our culture. We do not believe them either, because there are those in their circles who look down on our culture. We shall not forget that their newspaper, the Sunday Times of 18 December 1988, described the Voortrekker Monument as a “bleddie monstrosity” and as a “pop-up toaster”. We shall not forget this.

If they expect us to trust them with our legacy… [Interjections]… and there are those amongst them who are in cahoots with radicals in extra-Parliament groups, they expect too much. We trust this Government, and only this Government, with our cultural assets. Therefore we support this legislation, and I wish the hon the Minister everything of the best with its implementation.

Mr Chairman, I would like to refer to the hon member for Pinetown’s rejoicing in the DP, according to his allegations tonight. [Interjections.] I do not know the facts personally; therefore I am calling it an allegation at this stage.

It is not allegation. It is a statement.

They obtained a victory of two-one over the NP in Port Elizabeth.

*In Afrikaans we have a saying: “Gun elke diertjie sy plesiertjie”. We apply this to the DP. After the election in October 1988 the CP obviously won considerably more by-elections at the municipal level in three provinces against the NP, and in each case increased its majorities. However, we let the DP have their fun.

With regard to the hon member for Stellenbosch, I shall again refer to him and the matters he mentioned, as well as some very important matters he did not touch on in the course of his speech. I am actually tempted to refer to his objections to and lack of faith in the DP’s guarantee of cultural rights, because he believes that the DP will throw open the schools, while the NP has already thrown open White private schools and is subsidising those integrated schools with White taxpayers’ money. [Interjections.] These are the facts. I shall come back to that hon member.

The CP supports this Bill. It is an own affairs Bill which provides for the Minister of Education and Culture to declare certain cultural institutions to be declared institutions, which are controlled, managed and headed by councils established for this purpose. We are referring here, for example, to the National Cultural History and Open Air Museum in Pretoria, the South African Cultural History Museum in Cape Town, the Voortrekker Museum in Pietermaritzburg, the War Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein, the Michaelis Collection in Cape Town, the William Fehr Collection in Cape Town and the Engelenburg Art Collection in Pretoria. In terms of this Bill, subsidies can be paid to such institutions. In terms of clause 5, these institutions shall be corporate bodies, because they operate with a large degree of autonomy and are specialised to a large extent.

Clause 13 provides that the Minister may also establish advisory committees to advise him on matters relating to one or more declared institutions. In terms of clause 14 the heads of the various institutions form the Committee of Heads of Declared Institutions, which shall perform such duties as the Minister may assign to it, and consider and make recommendations to the Minister regarding matters referred to it by the Minister or the head of the department. As a result of an amendment by the House Committee, this Committee may now also consider and make recommendations on matters which it considers to be of common interest to the declared institutions.

We also had a few problems with several clauses. Clause 2 contains an inelegant formulation, which is the result of the Government’s constitutional view or hallucination about one nation for the whole of South Africa. Instead of saying Whites, a convoluted and inelegant definition of Whites is given without referring to Whites—we are surely nothing other than Whites after all.

Hon members should get ready to split their sides, because they are really going to laugh. Clause 2 defines Whites, without using the word Whites, as follows:

Can you believe it! [Interjections.] It is priceless that the NP can become so allergic to its identity, its race and its ethnic ties. They are so keen to be individuals of the one hallucination-nation. [Interjections.]

It is also tragic because this is one of the first pieces of legislation—and an own affairs Bill at that—in which effect is given to the Piketberg speech of the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was in that speech, was it not, that he argued that the Population Registration Act must disappear in the new South Africa. It is tragic to see how hard the NP is trying to get away from its own White identity. [Interjections.]

We do not have a problem with clause 9, but it is nevertheless interesting to point out that, basically as in the Cultural Institutions Act of 1969, to which I shall refer again in a moment, the council—in the 1969 Act it was the Minister—

It is difficult to believe that the same people who want to veil their Whiteness in abracadabra language, as in clause 2, want to make so blatant a provision that a council of, for example, the Voortrekker Museum in Pietermaritzburg, can impose conditions and restrictions, both regarding visits and admission fees, on persons of a certain race or ethnic group, and naturally other groups as well. [Interjections.]

Unfortunately the matter is not that simple, because there is no consensus in the NP about this. They disagree with one another. It is, of course, nothing new that they disagree with one another about essential matters.

At least this clause provides that Black people, for example, can visit a museum only at certain times and/or days, and that the Whites are then excluded at those times and on those days. This could be a very sensible, orderly, practical arrangement in certain circumstances.

We find no fault with this. The majority of the hon members of the NP in the House Committee similarly seem to find no fault with this. It is not racist, humiliating or negatively discriminatory. It is simply practical and can be aimed at limiting friction and overcrowding.

However, now we come to those aspects the hon member for Stellenbosch neglected to talk about. The hon member for Stellenbosch, for one, does not agree with these aspects. He feels so strongly about opening everything up at all times to all population groups, without any conditions and restrictions, as the Act prescribes, that he even argued for the amendment of the clause to exclude the imposition of conditions and restrictions in respect of a particular racial or ethnic group. He was prepared to write this into the Act.

Hear, hear!

Who said “Hear, hear!”?

I should like to know who was responsible for that interjection, because I shall talk to that hon member in a moment. [Interjections.] I am sure that there are other hon members in the NP who feel the way the hon member for Jeppe does, as I have just learnt. They were fortunately not in the majority in this House Committee. In this regard, for example, I am thinking of the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the present and future hon Ministers of Constitutional Development and Planning, the hon the Minister for Administration and Privatisation, and quite a few other Ministers I could mention. I am also thinking of the hon members for Parow, Innesdal, Bellville, Benoni, George, Nelspruit, Umhlanga, Umbilo, probably the whole of Club 22, the group which supported the hon the Minister of Finance in the leadership struggle in which no leaders participated, and also the elusive nominated hon member, Dr Golden, who is unfortunately not present this evening, and of whom I am so fond.

Order! The hon member is now deviating very substantially from the Bill under discussion. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, with respect, I am dealing with a particular clause and a difference amongst hon members of the NP who participated in the proceedings of that House Committee, and their representatives, whether they are present here tonight or not. [Interjections.]

Order! No, the hon member may not deal with the House Committee. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I shall come back to the reservation of admission to museums for various population groups in terms of clause 9 of the Bill.

I think the hon the Minister of Education and Culture must tell us this evening what side of the fence he is on.

I shall.

Does he, like the hon member for Stellenbosch, feel that the councils should have no power inter alia, to reserve admission on the basis of population groups? I hope the hon the Minister will reply to this in the course of the debate.

I shall.

Or does he feel the way the hon member for Brentwood does? It is very significant that this hon member, who is the chairman of the House Committee, was not the first NP member to speak. The hon member for Stellenbosch therefore had to speak first, and then he did not even talk about what he should have talked about. This is very significant.

With regard to the hon the Minister of Education and Culture, the voters in Virginia will, of course, want to know before 6 September what his view on this specific point is, or is he first going to try to determine where the majority stands and then adopt that view as he did in February 1982? Might he perhaps not stand at all? Will the hon the Minister tell us whether he is going to stand in Virginia or not? [Interjections.] It is also unclear this evening whether he is going to stand at all.

Order! The hon member must come back to the Bill.

Certainly, Sir. These days one does not know whether an hon Minister is going to stand or not.

Order! The hon member must now come back to the Bill.

I also have a problem with clause 18, which empowers the Minister to make regulations on a wide range of matters that are defined in detail in seven subclauses. It is in order for him to be empowered to make regulations about the specified matters, but clause 18(1)(h) is far-reaching. It reads:

Why then are the preceding paragraphs necessary? This is what one calls Government by regulation. We cannot approve this; it is simply unacceptable to give a Minister such extensive powers.

Clause 19 is very important. Subsection 1 provides that the powers which were with effect from 17 September 1984 assigned under section 26 of the Constitution, to the Minister of Education and Culture: House of Assembly, shall at the commencement of this Act cease to apply.

Subsection (2) provides that the institutions I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, and which were identified in terms of the Constitution as own affairs of the White population group, but which have thus far been administered under the existing Act of 1969, shall at the commencement of this Act be deemed to be declared institutions in terms of this Bill. The remaining subsections have similar provisions.

I said it is an important clause, because the Cultural Institutions Act of 1969 still applies. It is still in operation and it is a general affairs Act. It is a power-sharing and integration Act that cannot be amended without the agreement of the Coloured and Indian Houses. The situation is that in regard to the reasons underlying this Bill, the memorandum to the Bill clearly states that this power-sharing Act applies to certain general affairs, in other words, institutions dealing with matters common to everyone, and at the same time applies to certain so-called own affairs or White institutions. I apologise, because that is not the language of the Act. After all, we must not talk about Whites. It applies to institutions under the control of “persons who are members of the population group members of which comprise the House of Assembly”.

The point is that the Act of 1969 applies to own and general affairs institutions, when in fact it is a general affairs Act. According to the memorandum certain problems are experienced with the implementation and administration of one Act in regard to both own and general affairs. The hon the Minister referred to this.

What I have just said, is true. Of course it is true. However, it is not the only thing that is true. It is also true that the NP wanted to amend that 1969 Act in the Joint Committee on Education, amongst other things to obviate this problem, but up to now they have not been able to get the Coloureds and the Indians to agree to this. Why not? Because the Coloureds and Indians object in principle to the Constitution’s division into own and general affairs and to the identification of certain institutions as White own affairs and others as integrated general affairs.

The fact of the matter is that they do not want only 15 of the 22 institutions that have thus far been identified as general integrated affairs. They also want the seven which have been allocated to the Whites. They want to have all 22. What is interesting is that from the NP’s point of view, not the CP’s point of view, the Brown people have a point. How can the South African Cultural Museum here in Cape Town be identified as a White own affair? The nature of that museum’s research and exhibitions does not relate only to the Whites.

It is interesting that the hon member for Stellenbosch agreed with the Coloured people on this point. [Interjections.] No wonder that the hon member for Stellenbosch recently stated that he was going to phase out that legislation in the joint committee. Nor is it surprising that they had to resort to underhanded political reform tactics with the Coloured people so that they could, in the form of an own affairs Act, smuggle in those amendments to the Bill which the Coloureds had opposed. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I rise merely to support what the hon member for Pinetown had to say. He put our case very well indeed. I will be brief.

Hear, hear!

Maybe I will not be quite as brief as that, Mr Chairman. [Interjections.]

It is quite clear to me that certain hon members of the party on the other side of the House are rather tired. They need their sleep because they had a rough day. [Interjections.] However, I will be brief, unlike the hon member for Potgietersrus who, I think, certainly seemed to enjoy himself very much indeed at the expense of everyone else in this House. [Interjections.] I really thought he was going to oppose the Bill so long did he take to make it clear that he was actually supporting it.

I do wish to refer to one of the statements made by the hon member for Stellenbosch. I am somewhat amazed at his statement that the Sunday Times is our, the DP, newspaper and that we must therefore be responsible for everything they print.

You could have fooled me!

I reject that statement totally and I would like the hon member to know that. I think that he needs to know that we have no link with that newspaper whatsoever. [Interjections.] They print what they want to print and if the hon member feels sensitive about what they print, then I suggest that he takes the matter up with that newspaper and certainly not with the DP. [Interjections.]

This piece of legislation before this House today is another unfortunate piece of legislation following on closely from where the previous Bill left off. Once again criticism of the Constitution of the country is necessary because this is whence the “own affairs” culture and the provision for the declaration of certain institutions to fall under the control of the Department of Education and Culture, actually arises.

It is a tragedy that certain institutions such as the National Cultural History and Open Air Museum in Pretoria, the South African Cultural History Museum in Cape Town and the Voortrekker Museum in Pietermaritzburg, together with the four other institutions mentioned by the hon member for Pinetown as they appear in the Bill, have been declared institutions which now fall under “own affairs” control.

What are we saying by doing this? What are we saying to members of the Black, Coloured and Indian groups in this country when we declare institutions of this nature White “own affairs”—even if only for administrative purposes? However, with regard to the Bill itself I again want to say that I am concerned about the powers the hon the Minister has.

It is clear that each cultural institution which is identified for transfer to this department will have its own council under whose control, management and direction it will fall. I believe it is also clear—and I stress the point despite what the hon the Minister said to me in his reply on the previous Bill—that the hon the Minister has, in terms of the regulations, been given powers which are too far-reaching. I do not want to go into detail as the hon the Minister will know the points I am referring to. They are similar to the ones in the previous Bill.

It is sad—as the hon member for Pinetown has pointed out—that no criteria exist for the transfer of institutions to the “own affairs” departments. I just want to stress that point as well. I believe that this is a serious flaw, but in particular I believe that it is a tragedy that any institutions are transferred to “own affairs” control. Mr Chairman, the DP certainly oppose this Bill.

Mr Chairman, it is clear that the DP has undergone some cultural development—we have been talking about culture the whole evening—in that they have monotonously been sounding the same discordant note. By doing so they are indicating that they have no feeling for the wishes and aspirations of the majority of the voters of this country. This will again be proved" in the coming election. [Interjections.] They again raised the same arguments as during the debate on the previous Bill, and they received the same replies. [Interjections.]

Order! There are some hon members who are egging on other hon members to ask questions out loud. They must stop this. The hon member Mr Aucamp may proceed.

I trust the hon the Minister will react to this.

As far as the hon member for Potgietersrus is concerned, it is very clear that he has been looking forward to this evening for a long time and has practised for the event for an even longer time, namely his one-man show on behalf of the CP. [Interjections.] A great deal of what he said had absolutely nothing to do with the Bill and I could not really tell whether he himself knew what this Bill was all about! In any case, I am in a position to thank him for having expressed his support for this Bill on behalf of his party.

I am also pleased to support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, once again I want to express my thanks to all those who participated in this debate and I shall start with speakers on my side of the House.

The hon member Mr Aucamp has just made his usual sound contribution. The hon member for Stellenbosch gave a very clear analysis of the policy of the Government and of my department on this issue. He also discussed the practical implementation of the matter, something to which I will return later.

Except those issues on which he differs from his party!

I want to thank the hon member for Potgietersrus for his support on behalf of the Official Opposition. I will return to clause 9(2) of the Bill presently. I have already dealt with the regulations and the wide powers of the Minister during the debate on the previous Bill. What I said then also applies to this Bill. I hope the hon member will accept it as such. The other silly questions he asked do not deserve an answer.

I want to refer to the enquiry made by the hon member for Pinetown about criteria in the legislation. The hon member is right of course. No criteria are prescribed in the legislation. With the advent of the new constitutional dispensation in 1984 a Cabinet committee was appointed. This committee eventually made the classification on the basis of certain criteria. If my memory does not deceive me—I want the hon member himself to cast his mind back—I want to tell the hon member that the question was put to me and I gave an answer. [Interjections.] The hon member is nodding his head [Interjections.] Does the hon member want to hear it again?

Yes.

But it is on record in Hansard. The hon member put the question before. [Interjections.] He has just conceded that he did.

Tell me.

Mr Chairman, we get innumerable questions and then we have to refer hon members back to an answer to a question they put two months ago. The hon member for Pinetown admits the answer was perhaps not… [Interjections.] To satisfy the hon member I want to say that the criteria were mainly concerned with the fact that there were certain cultural institutions that had been created primarily for Whites because they dealt only with White cultural assets in mainly White areas. That is the one side; there is no doubt about that.

On the other hand there are also declared cultural institutions which clearly deal with all the various population groups. That is general affairs. In other words, the crucial question is whether the institutions which deal mainly with a certain population group—in this case the White population group—were declared White institutions.

Mr Chairman, let me link up with that in regard to the questions which both opposition parties put. The fact of the matter is that there is no differentiation between White, Coloured or Malay cultural assets as far as exhibitions of these cultural institutions are concerned. It is indeed true that cultural creations, as are found in song and music, transcend the boundaries of culture, race and colour.

That is our standpoint. If one really wants to consider and study the cultural development of Whites, one has to examine the cultural creations of other population groups, and that is exactly what is already happening in these institutions.

Why the divisions then?

I have just told the hon member. [Interjections.] Well, then he must be stupid. I am sorry, but if he cannot understand it I cannot carry on explaining it to him any further. I withdraw the word “stupid”.

I want to continue. It therefore concerns the creation, display and preservation of that which is peculiar to the various cultural groups. With regard to making this cultural heritage available for viewing, it is my standpoint, as well as the standpoint of this side of the House, that cultural heritage exists for the benefit of anybody who wishes to view and appreciate it. In other words, it will be a sad day if any council of any declared cultural institution keeps people of colour from viewing cultural creations. I can appreciate the cultural creations of Blacks. If someone were to prevent me from going to look at them, I would say that he was petty. In other words, it has nothing to do with the concept—as it is stated here in the legislation—of specific groups.

It has more to do with the fact that if there are groups, no matter whether they are White, Coloured, Indian or mixed, that cannot behave themselves, the right of admission can be reserved. That is a perfectly normal concept. However, it has nothing to do with colour. We must also not see it as such.

The hon member for Stellenbosch made it very clear. There are legal judgements indicating that this does not include a population group.

Naturally we shall find differences of opinion in regard to this whole issue, but the crux of the matter is that no person will be prevented from attending any exhibition at any of these cultural institutions on account of his race or colour. Nor do I consider it desirable.

At certain times or certain days?

What does time have to do with the matter? Once again it concerns the reservation of the right of admission. I do not want to discuss the matter with the hon member any further.

Order! In all fairness the hon the Minister must at least be given the opportunity to state his case.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister whether it is in keeping with the constitutional policy of the NP that an own affair may also be mixed, in other words, racially mixed?

In all fairness to the hon member—surely that is a foolish question. The hon member knows it.

Is it racially mixed?

How can it be racially mixed? It depends on what the hon member means by race. We could discuss the matter and if we were to reach finality on a definition of race it would in fact be a constitutional definition. The hon member knows that. If he puts his question clearly we would perhaps answer it, because one would also find different population groups in a race. One would also find different ethnic groups in a population group. It is merely silliness to answer this question by the hon member.

I think I have answered all the questions. I also answered the hon member for Pinetown. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, will the hon the Minister answer a question concerning separate funding formulae, separate regulations on staffing and the linking together of all declared institutions under an umbrella body? I want to know whether there is any suggestion that that cannot occur or that it should occur?

At the moment each of these cultural institution has its own peculiar needs. As far as I am concerned, the recognition of that fact will be a determining factor—in the future as well—in regard to all possible questions which may arise.

Debate concluded.

Question put: That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to (Democratic Party dissenting).

Bill read a second time.